Puppet MastersS


Vader

Meet the U.S. allies - Saudi Arabia passes draconian, medieval laws to crush dissent

King Abdullah
© Agence France-PresseKing Abdullah.

One of the most significant geopolitical events of 2013 was the failed push for war in Syria by the Obama Administration. It didn't merely fail as a result of a war weary public (although that played a key role), it also failed due to the fact our clownish "leaders" were attempting to offer military support to rebels with a large al-Qaeda element.

So the pathetic "sell" by the U.S. establishment was to push the nation into a conflict allied with the very terrorist group against which we are fighting the "war on terror," and have given up so many of our civil liberties to wage. Ridiculous, yet they tried anyway. That is how stupid they think the public is.

What that failed attempt at war mongering demonstrated to anyone paying attention is that our foreign policy is a complete joke and total sham. We publicly claim to support "democracy" and "freedom" around the world, yet in reality support some of the most oppressive regimes out there.

No relationship highlights this hypocrisy as clearly as our extremely close alliance with the Saudi regime, one of the last "absolute monarchies" on the planet. Not only that, but increasing evidence points to its direct involvement in the 9/11 attacks. But it gets worse. A lot worse. The regime has just passed a series of Medieval laws to crack down on all dissent. In a nutshell: Dissent = Terrorism.

Books

Convictions of Knox and Sollecito - More than meets the eye?

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© Getty/ReutersRaffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox
More than two years after they were acquitted of the murder of the British exchange student Meredith Kercher, Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito face another Italian court verdict on Thursday that could uphold their original convictions and eventually pave the way for an extradition battle with the United States.

In the latest chapter of legal proceedings resulting from the brutal 2007 killing, the appeals court in Florence is due to rule on whether the former lovers should once again have their murder convictions overturned, or whether those guilty verdicts still stand.

At 10.15am on Thursday, after Knox's defence completed their closing arguments, the court - comprising two judges and a panel of jurors, known as lay judges - retired to begin its deliberations. Knox is in her home town of Seattle, while Sollecito was in court. His father, Francesco Sollecito, said on Wednesday they were "obliged to have faith in our justice system" and so would "see it through" to the end.

Comment: Apparently there is more to the story than the mainstream media is putting forward. You can read about it on our forum here and check out the video below:




Road Cone

The Farm Bill: Three big wins, but one dangerous fluoride Amendment

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© thewhitedsepulchre.blogspot.com
Capitol Hill's most powerful special interests resorted again to underhanded tactics.

Today, the Senate passed the $1 trillion dollar Farm Bill with a vote of 68 to 32 (the House gave its approval last Wednesday). As you may recall, the most recent version of this cumbersome bill had serious ramifications for farmers, GMO labeling, and consumer access to locally sourced foods.

What that earlier version didn't have was an amendment that will expose Americans, and especially children, to dangerous amounts of fluoride residue - yet such an amendment was somehow snuck into the final, 949-page Farm Bill just forty-eight hours before it went to vote.

Section 10015, which was slipped in behind closed doors by Dow AgroScience's lobbyists, overturns an EPA ruling that pesticide residues must be included in calculations of safe levels of fluoride exposure. By removing pesticide residues from the equation, this amendment almost guarantees that Americans will be exposed to higher levels of toxic fluoride, while thinking they're consuming safe levels.

Bad Guys

Benjamin Netanyahu under fire from right wingers for letting his son date a non-Jew

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© Via Dagen.noYair Netanyahu and Sandra Leikanger
Benjamin Netanyahu has been criticised by right-wing politicians in Israel who have accused the country's prime minister of failing to set an example for the Jewish people by not preventing his son from dating a non-Jewish girl.

Yair Netanyahu, a 23-year-old student, is thought to be dating a Norwegian woman after the pair met at the prestigious Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel, which they both attend.

According to a report in the Norwegian newspaper Dagen, when the Israeli leader met Norwegian premier Erna Solberg at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, he mentioned that Yair had a Norwegian girlfriend, 25-year-old Sandra Leikanger, and that the couple had visited Norway last summer.

The newspaper also published photos posted on Ms Leikanger's Facebook page appearing to show the pair posing together at various sites in Norway.

"It's a big problem," Nissim Ze'ev, a politician representing the ultra-orthodox Shas party, told the Jerusalem Post. "As the prime minister of Israel and the Jewish people, he must display national responsibility via the values he presents inside his own household.

Comment: Yair Netanyahu is probably a psychopath - just like daddy:

Netanyahu Passed On His Psychopathic Genes? The Racist Facebook Rants of Netanayhu's Son


Megaphone

Mark Levin explodes on GOP establishment - urges House Republicans to pass this Resolution to rein in Obama

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© Blaze
Conservative radio host Mark Levin exploded with fury on Tuesday as he spoke of the "constitutional crisis" in the United States and the "impotent" GOP establishment, which he says won't put up a real fight. He also suggested a way for House Republicans to "get back in the game" and reassert its authority.

"I know it's hard to believe we've come to this point, particularly when we have mainstream media commentators who act like this is no big deal - in fact, think this is justified because Congress is obstructing the president's agenda," Levin said of the federal government's overreach and related scandals.

That's when the radio host lost his composure.

"Congress has the power to obstruct the president's agenda! That's the whole point! Particularly a president like this," he screamed. "That's their job!"

Levin went on to say that the U.S. doesn't hold an election every four years so the country can have a "king."

"And our Constitution is never up for election regardless!" he said.

Comment: More from Mark Levin here:
Mark Levin: 'We Have a Constitutional Crisis'


Green Light

US foreign policy in Latin America leaves an open door for China

Li Keqiang and Nicolas Maduro
© EFEVenezuelan president Nicolas Maduro (right) with Chinese prime minister Li Keqiang last September.
Economist Mark Weisbrot argues that China could provide credit lines to back up Venezuela and Argentina's currencies in order to counteract U.S. designs for the Latin American region.

In the last week or so much of the international business press has been focused on the problems of financial stability in developing countries, some of whom have recently become more vulnerable to capital outflows. The main cause is that investors are trying to get the jump on possible moves by the US Federal Reserve to allow interest rates to rise, which will draw capital from developing countries and cause their borrowing costs to rise.

Argentina has gotten some of this attention, as it allowed the peso to fall by 15% in one day and increased some access for Argentines to dollars on the official market. Venezuela is not as affected by these market developments, but is always negatively portrayed in the international media, and more so since its exchange rate system problems have caused its inflation to rise to an annual rate of 56% over the past year.

Star of David

John Kerry labelled 'anti-Semite' for warning of possible boycott of Israel

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© REUTERS/NICHOLAS KAMM/AFPMinisters in Benjamin Netanyahu's (left) cabinet accused John Kerry of effectively endorsing "anti-Semitic" efforts to impose sanctions on Israel
John Kerry, the US secretary of state, triggered an angry backlash from Israeli leaders on Sunday after warning Israel faces an economic boycott if it failed to reach a peace accord with the Palestinians.

The uproar came as Mr Kerry held cordial talks with his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif in Munich at which the pair vowed to intensify nuclear diplomacy.

Ministers in Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet accused Mr Kerry of effectively endorsing "anti-Semitic" efforts to impose sanctions on Israel by issuing the warning.

"The risks are very high for Israel," Mr Kerry told the conference. "People are talking about boycott. That will intensify in the case of failure.

"Do they want a failure that then begs whatever may come in the form of a response from disappointed Palestinians and the Arab community?"

Megaphone

UK: corrupt Met helped plan serious civil disorder via agents provocateurs

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© Sinead Lynch/EPAProtesters attack a McDonald's in the City of London during the J18 Carnival Against Global Capitalism on 18 June 1999
From the Stephen Lawrence inquiry we learned that the police were institutionally racist. Can it be long before we learn that they are also institutionally corrupt? Almost every month the undercover policing scandal becomes wider and deeper. Today I can reveal a new twist, which in some respects could be the gravest episode yet. It surely makes the case for an independent public inquiry - which is already overwhelming - unarguable.

Before I explain it, here's a summary of what we know already. Thanks to the remarkable investigations pursued first by the victims of police spies and then by the Guardian journalists Rob Evans and Paul Lewis (whose book Undercover is as gripping as any thriller), we know that British police have been inserting undercover officers into protest movements since 1968. Their purpose was to counter what they called subversion or domestic extremism, which they define as seeking to "prevent something from happening or to change legislation or domestic policy ... outside the normal democratic process". Which is a good description of how almost all progressive change happens.

Comment: SOTT.net has repeatedly warned of the role played by COINTELPRO (CounterIntelligence Program) in the 9/11 Truth Movement. COINTELPRO's origins infiltrating political movements in the Civil Rights era are reasonably well known. But when we look at the history of COINTELPRO, it is clear that while groups have been infiltrated on a wide scale, the more successful operations have been those which are created from scratch by agents of the PTB. They know that people will begin to see through the wall of lies surrounding events sooner or later, so alternative groups are formed, fed resources and armed with a certain amount of information. They have vectored whole movements of people and in this way effectively neutralised any real opposition. Only by networking together what we can see of our reality can we learn to stalk the deception that is coming at us from every direction.




Arrow Up

Decades of U.S. terrorism come to nothing as socialist takes lead in El Salvador presidential election

salvador sanchez ceren
© Roberto Escobar/EPASalvadorean presidential favourite Salvador Sanchez Ceren after casting his vote accompanied in Sunday's election with his wife Margarita Villalta.
Salvador Sanchez Ceren was rebel leader in bloody civil war but with nearly half votes counted he is favourite to win March run off

A former leftwing guerrilla leader took a strong early lead in El Salvador's presidential election on Sunday but he could still face a run-off against a conservative rival who wants to deploy the army to fight powerful street gangs, early results showed.

Salvador Sanchez Ceren, a rebel commander who rose to the top of the now-ruling leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) during El Salvador's civil war, had 49.2% support with votes in from about 45.4% of polling booths.

His rightwing opponent, former San Salvador mayor Norman Quijano, had 38.9%. If no one wins more than half of the vote, the two leading candidates will go to a run-off on March 9.

Two foreign election officials said they expected the vote to go to a run-off given a closer race in El Salvador's two most populated districts.

The FMLN took power at the last election in 2009 and Sanchez Ceren's campaign was helped by its popular welfare policies, including pensions and free school supplies.

Comment: For more background on U.S. involvement in El Salvador read:
Terrorism with a "human face": The history of America's death squads
Romney's Death Squad Ties: Bain Launched With Millions From Oligarchs Behind Salvadoran Atrocities


Dollar

Peso panic and rocketing prices shake Argentina

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© Victor R. Caivano/APSocial welfare activists wait for the start of a protest march for higher pay as riot police stand guard behind them in Buenos Aires last week.
Argentina's president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, and her ministers blame foreign 'vultures' for an economic meltdown as power cuts hit Buenos Aires and goods vanish from supermarket shelves

Even in normal years, the summer heat in Buenos Aires is overwhelming. Among a population of nearly 13 million packed into the long shore of the wide River Plate, the phrase most often heard from the lips of porteños is: "It's the humidity that kills you."

For those who can't afford to escape to the exclusive summer resort of Punta del Este, across the river in Uruguay, or make the longer trip to the golden beaches of Brazil, there is only one solution: air conditioning. But a combination of global warming and an abrupt economic collapse scuppered even that consolation for shopper Graciela Fernández last week. When the temperature insisted on staying at around 40C and humidity levels rose to a drenching 90%, Fernández rushed to buy an air-conditioning unit she had seen on sale a week before.

"When I went to buy it, the price had gone up 25% since when I checked prices last week," she complained outside the Alto Palermo shopping mall. "The same thing just happened to me at the pharmacy where I went to buy the medicine my husband takes: the price was up 20%."

The economic panic leading to price mark-ups of this kind began in mid-January, when Argentina's central bank reserves dipped below $30bn, forcing the government of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner to drop its policy of injecting large quantities of dollars into the exchange market to shore up the overvalued peso.