Puppet MastersS


Bad Guys

McAuliffe will join coalition pushing for off-shore drilling

Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D-Va.)
© Mike Theiler/Reuters
Governors from Mid-Atlantic and Gulf Coast states, including Virginia's Terry McAuliffe (D), urged Interior Secretary Sally Jewell on Monday to finalize rules that will eventually allow dramatically expanded offshore oil and gas drilling, bringing new industry - and millions in new tax revenue - to some states that have been shut out of the U.S. energy boom.

Jewell and senior Interior Department officials met with McAuliffe, North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R), Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley (R) and Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant (R) on Monday. The Interior Department is expected to release a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement within days that would allow oil and gas companies to begin surveying the outer continental shelf for natural resources.

Once the PEIS is issued, seismic surveys for oil and gas deposits could begin within a matter of months.

"We want to find out exactly what's out there, but we also want to do it in an environmentally sound way," McCrory said in an interview. He called the meeting "very positive."

Syringe

Flashback The Pentagon's vaccine factories

Why is the Pentagon developing and controlling vaccines? Will our troops become human guinea pigs for MIT's emerging vaccine to block stress and fear?

In the aftermath of 9/11 and the 2001 anthrax attacks, the federal government decided not to let that crisis " go to waste." Allegedly to "better protect" civilians and troops against biochemical attacks, germ warfare, or pandemics (including normal, seasonal flu), it put the Pentagon squarely in the vaccine business.

The resulting initiative, embraced by the Bush Administration and then further championed by the Obama Administration:
  • Realized the Pentagon's seemingly obsessive dream of acquiring its own factories in which to manufacture vaccines;
  • Wasted nearly a billion taxpayer dollars - against the advice of government analysts;
  • Richly rewarded Big Pharma and several members of Congress; and
  • Introduced terrifying possibilities of state-mandated and -controlled vaccines, including mind control vaccines.
According to a 2009 analysis commissioned by the second Bush Administration and conducted by the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development, there were two ways the government could ramp up its involvement in protecting against bio-terrorism and epidemics: hire more private contractors, or establish government-managed drug factories.

Comment: Leaked Pentagon video - flu vaccine use to modify human behavior

DARPA's Blue Angel - Pentagon Prepares Millions of Vaccines Against Future Global Flu


Book 2

Russian Foreign Ministry finds decisions of Ukrainian Parliament illegal

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© Sari Gustafsson / Lehtikuva Sergei Lavrov
Russia's Foreign Ministry has published an official statement, in which the most recent actions of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine were found illegitimate.

The statement runs that Ukraine now "stamps" the laws violating the right of national minorities, including Russians. The Rada tries to ban the Russian language, non-loyal parties and media outlets, propagandizing Nazi values. All this is being down with reference to revolutionary reforms.

The ministry reminded that Ukraine threatens Russian-speaking individuals and conducts a struggle against monuments of Russian culture.

Earlier, the foreign ministry has expressed concerns about the desecration of monuments in Ukraine, pointing out the demolition of the monument to Kutuzov in the town of Brody on February 25th and the desecration of memorials to Soviet warriors.

Compass

New bill for plans to give Russian passports to Ukrainians spark debate

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© RIA Novosti
As Russian lawmakers called for passports to be issued to ethnic Russians in Ukraine, a parliamentary committee chair warned Tuesday that the issue was a powder keg that should be handled carefully.

On Monday, Ilya Drozdov, a deputy in the State Duma - the lower house of the Russian parliament - introduced a bill to simplify the procedure for ethnic Russian Ukrainians to obtain Russian citizenship.

Russia has condemned the uprising in Ukraine that culminated in the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych at the weekend, and has expressed concern for ethnic Russians there.

Growing calls for ethnic Russians in Ukraine to be granted passports have drawn suggestions from some that Moscow may seek to claim a larger say in Ukrainian affairs by arguing that it is defending the interests of its own citizens. Russian military intervention in Georgia in 2008 was prompted by claims that the South Caucasus nation had launched a military assault on South Ossetia, a breakaway province occupied almost entirely by Russian passport-holders.

Camcorder

Russian media should increase presence in Crimea including Sevastopol

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© RIA NovostiLeonid Slutsky - Chairman of the State Duma Committee in Russia
Russian media outlets should increase their presence in the Crimea, including Sevastopol, said Leonid Slutsky, Chairman of the Russian State Duma Committee for CIS Affairs, Eurasian Integration and Ties with Compatriots.

"We assumed our mass media were present here [in the Crimea and Sevastopol] on a scale slightly bigger than that of some sporadic landing troops. We are not happy about it," he said at a meeting with members of the Crimean coalition council of Russian compatriots at the Crimean office of the Russian Federal Agency for CIS Affairs, Compatriots Living Abroad and International Humanitarian Cooperation (Rossotrudnichestvo) in Simferopol on Tuesday.

Brick Wall

Former aides to New Jersey Governor Christie again reject subpoena

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© Mel Evans/AP
Setting up a likely court battle, two former aides to Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey refused again on Tuesday to provide materials subpoenaed by the legislative panel investigating the politically charged lane closings leading to the George Washington Bridge last September.

The special investigative committee had sought information and devices, like cellphones from Bill Stepien, Mr. Christie's two-time campaign manager, and Bridget Anne Kelly, a former deputy chief of staff to the governor. Ms. Kelly sent an email in August calling for "some traffic problems in Fort Lee," the town at one end of the bridge whose mayor did not endorse Mr. Christie for re-election.

After lawyers for the two refused to turn over information earlier this month, citing privacy as well as the constitutional right against self-incrimination, the legislative panel voted to allow its special counsel to take whatever measures he believed necessary to compel them to comply.

The counsel, Reid Schar, tried to open a discussion about conditions under which the lawyers might turn over at least some information, offering a new deadline to meet the demands of the subpoena, and to view the materials privately.

Eye 1

Snowden documents reveal covert surveillance and pressure tactics aimed at Wikileaks and its supporters

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© Unknown
Top-secret documents from the National Security Agency and its British counterpart reveal for the first time how the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom targeted WikiLeaks and other activist groups with tactics ranging from covert surveillance to prosecution.

The efforts - detailed in documents provided previously by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden - included a broad campaign of international pressure aimed not only at WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, but at what the U.S. government calls "the human network that supports WikiLeaks." The documents also contain internal discussions about targeting the file-sharing site Pirate Bay and hacktivist collectives such as Anonymous.

One classified document from Government Communications Headquarters, Britain's top spy agency, shows that GCHQ used its surveillance system to secretly monitor visitors to a WikiLeaks site. By exploiting its ability to tap into the fiber-optic cables that make up the backbone of the Internet, the agency confided to allies in 2012, it was able to collect the IP addresses of visitors in real time, as well as the search terms that visitors used to reach the site from search engines like Google.

Another classified document from the U.S. intelligence community, dated August 2010, recounts how the Obama administration urged foreign allies to file criminal charges against Assange over the group's publication of the Afghanistan war logs.

Attention

Russian ships arrive on Ukraine's Crimean coast

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© Ukraine Photos Russian ships have allegedly landed in the Crimea ahead of what many experts are calling a military build up to a coup in the Crimea
According to Russian news site flot.com, Russian military ships carrying soldiers have arrived on Ukraine's Crimean coast in what some are claiming could be the early signs of a Russian coup in the hotly disputed autonomous region of the Crimea.

Russia's large landing ship Nikolai Filchenkov has arrived near the Russia Black Sea Fleet's base at Sevastopol, which Russia has leased from Ukraine since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The ship is reported to be carrying as many as 200 soldiers and has joined four additional ship carrying an unknown amount of Special Forces troops. Flot.com also reported over the weekend that personnel from the 45th Airborne Special Forces unit and additional divisions had been airlifted into Anapa, a city on Russia's Black Sea coastline. In addition, it is believed that Russia's Sevastopol base contains as many as 26,000 troops already, according to the German Institute for International And Security Affairs.

Bad Guys

Empire: Superclass

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A new breed has emerged; they set the global agenda, ride on Gulfstreams and manage the credit crunch in their spare time.

They are anything but elected; they are entrepreneurs and entertainers, media moguls and former politicians - the self-made super rich who are using their money to lay down a new set of global rules.


Eye 1

Don't be fooled by her angelic looks, she's as ruthless as she's corrupt: A withering portrait of Ukraine's 'saviour' Yulia Tymoshenko by a Russia expert who knows her well

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© Getty ImagesMagnetism: The freed Yulia Tymoshenko addresses the crowds in Kiev on Saturday just hours after she was released from prison following a vote in the Ukrainian parliament
Nobody who meets Yulia Tymoshenko forgets the moment. The billionaire Ukrainian politician's charm is formidable. In a political landscape studded with novices and thugs, she stands out.

Her angelic beauty and two-year detention in jail has attracted worldwide sympathy.

On Saturday, she was released following the overthrow of Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych in a dramatic coup.

Later that night, Tymoshenko, who has been suffering severe back pain, appeared in a wheelchair in Kiev's Independence Square, where she made a passionate speech to the 50,000-strong crowd. She called them 'heroes' who had removed a 'cancer' from the country. She also indicated she would run for president in elections in May.

But the prospect of her political comeback makes me fear for the future of the increasingly unstable and volatile Ukraine.

Mrs Tymoshenko's immaculate blonde tresses and sometimes kittenish ways have led many macho politicians in the Ukraine - and abroad - to underestimate her. The truth is that her determination is terrifying. Nobody and nothing gets in her way.

When she needs to, she is prepared to use her undeniable sexual magnetism.