Puppet MastersS


Eye 1

Chris Hedges, activists, sue Obama and others over National Defense Authorization Act

Obama
© AP Photo/David Goldman / April 17, 2012Activists have sued the president for signing a military authorization bill which they claim threatens civil liberties.
A coalition of well-known journalists, activists and civil libertarians have sued President Obama, Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr., Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and other members of the U.S. government to push them to remove or rewrite this year's defense appropriations bill, saying it chills speech by threatening constitutionally protected activities such as news reporting, protest and political organizing in defense of controversial causes such as the Wikileaks case.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which was launched by former New York Times foreign correspondent Chris Hedges, claim that the new provisions, which went into effect March 1, not only put them at risk of arrest but also allows indefinite detentions of U.S. citizens on U.S. soil, and that the provisions are too vague.

Megaphone

Mandatory GMO Labeling Bills Introduced by Hawaii and Vermont State Representatives

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© blog.friendseat.comFDA Ignores 1 Million Signatures Supporting GMO Labeling
Two women legislators representing the people of their state by introducing a Mandatory GMO Labeling Bill, now find themselves facing GMO seed maker Monsanto in two different ways. One faces a long-standing physical presence and the other a lawsuit.

Elle Cochran, Maui Council Member and Kate Webb, Representative for the State of Vermont are both facing corporate giant Monsanto head on by filling state bills for mandatory labeling of all their genetically modified products (GMOs) sold in Hawaii and Vermont. Elle and Kate have filed the bills in response to an overwhelming outcry from the people they serve who say they want to know if GMOs are in their food.

Public upset is increasing as more people become aware of the replacement of traditional crops with GMO crops over the past ten years with some as high as 96% of the total crop grown in United States. When you learn 80% of processed foods found on store shelves contain GMOs, consumers feel they are helpless to get away from them. Surveys show that as many as 90% of consumers want GMO information on labels so they can make a choice. Organic is currently the only way of being sure GMOs are not added to products.

When it became clear that the Kate Webb's Mandatory GMO Labeling Bill was probably going to pass because of strong support from other Representatives, Monsanto then publicly came out with a statement saying they would sue the state of Vermont if the bill passed.

Alarm Clock

North Korea Vows to Turn Seoul to Ashes

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© UnknownNorth Korean Army
North Korea vowed today in an alarming announcement to "soon" reduce parts of South Korea's capital to "ashes" for insulting North Korea's leadership.

Regular programming was interrupted on North Korea's state TV today by a special report declaring that "special actions" will be carried out "soon" and aimed at parts of the South Korean capital Seoul.

It said the military attack will use "unprecedented peculiar means and methods of our own style."

"All will be reduced to ashes in three to four minutes," and will involve "form of fire."

"The special actions of our revolutionary armed forces will start soon to meet the reckless challenge of the group of traitors," read the statement.

The targets Pyongyang pinpointed are South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak and "the group of rat-like elements including conservative media destroying the mainstay of the fair public opinion."

Alarm Clock

Pedophilia Coverup? Secret Service "Prostitutes" were children

Columbia prostitution
© Unknown
A not so funny thing happened on the way to the Summit; the emerging scandal involving the U.S. military and the Secret Service presidential advance team's procurement of prostitutes during a night of drinking and carousing preceding the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Columbia will leave a trail of victims as long as the Amazon River.

Despite the Secret Service's denial, the scandalous and irresponsible actions jeopardized the protection of the President and his entourage and brought disagrace on the U.S. government. At the very least, their actions were a gross dereliction of duty, and quite possibly, illegal.

The duties of the 11 Secret Service Agents who arrived in Cartegena in advance of the President's trip to the Summit of the Americas should have kept them busy 24/7. Like every country visit, this Summit had a vast array of critical assignments to ensure the safety of the President. The U.S. Secret Service website clearly delineates the complicated and formidable requirements of a presidential advance team:

Comment: Worse than shameful, it's pathological if true. For more information on child sex rings and pedophilia, see these Sott articles:

Dutroux Cover-up Protected Pedophile Networks

Government officials in Montenegro pimped hundreds of women in major sex trafficking operation

UN Peacekeepers and 42 NGOs Under Investigation for Sexual Abuse of Children at Refugee Camps

Portuguese Pedophile Network: Popular TV host and UN Ambassador among those sentenced for raping children

6,000 children adbucted annually for European pedophile networks


Arrow Down

Dutch Cabinet Resigns After Austerity Talks Fail - Another One Down?

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© Dennis Flaherty / Getty ImagesAmsterdam, the Netherlands
Prime Minister Mark Rutte meet the Dutch queen on Monday afternoon and tendered his government's resignation after talks on austerity collapsed at the weekend.

The Dutch government's failure to reach an agreement in talks to achieve tough spending cuts could see ratings agencies cut the country's prized AAA-rating and nervous investors push up the country's borrowing costs, and it will also have wider implications for the euro zone as a whole, analysts said on Monday.

Dutch Finance Minister Jan-Kees de Jager sought to reassure investors on Monday, telling CNBC in The Hague that the Netherlands had always displayed budget discipline and would continue to do so.

"The perception of financial markets is always important...and that's why I also have the message for financial markets that for decades the Netherlands have shown a solid fiscal budgetary policy and this will not change. In any government we have seen in the past we have seen solid policy and this will remain in the future," de Jager said.

Radar

US Border Patrol Beat and Taser Man to Death: Video

A new video shows Anastacio Hernadez-Rojas lying on the ground in the fetal position, circled by at least a dozen federal agents as one repeatedly shocks him with an electric stun gun.

The video was shot by a passer-by and was obtained by the lawyer for the Hernandez-Rojas family as they push on with their wrongful death suit against the US government.

Full Program Below This video


No Entry

Mavi Marmara attack: Turkey blocks the participation of Israel in a NATO summit, demands apology for the murder

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© DHAMinister Davutoğlu conveys Turkey’s veto on Israel to a NATO summit
Turkey has blocked the participation of Israel in a key NATO summit that will take place in Chicago on May 20 and 21, despite calls from influential allies including the United States, Western diplomatic sources have told the Hürriyet Daily News. The veto was conveyed to the NATO bodies by Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu during the Alliance's meeting last week in Brussels.

"There will be no Israeli presence at the NATO meeting unless they issue a formal apology and pay compensation for the Turkish citizens their commandos killed in international waters" a senior Turkish official told the Daily News.

"There are demands from us for the removal of our veto, but this is out of question."

"Those countries who wish to see normalization in ties between Turkey and Israel should advise Israel to apologize and to compensate the killing of Turks in international waters," the official said.

Turkey has vetoed a number of Israeli attempts to deepen its partnership with the alliance - such as opening an office at the NATO headquarters and participating in the activities of the Mediterranean Dialogue group - on the grounds that it should first bear the consequences of its unlawful action against Turkish citizens. This reflects the two-year old strife between Turkey and Israel, which is a result of the Mavi Marmara incident that claimed the lives of eight Turkish and one Turkish-American citizen. The level of diplomatic relations between the two has been reduced to the level of "second secretary" since then.

Brick Wall

Oppressive Sanctions! EU Fascism Condemned in Defense of Syria

Russia on Friday condemned as unacceptable a fresh round of sanctions being prepared by the European Union against the Syrian regime.
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© unknown
"Our position concerning such sanctions is well known," said foreign affairs ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich. "We judge them unacceptable from the point of view of international law.

Diplomats in Brussels had said earlier that the new sanctions would ban exports of luxury items and goods which can be used for internal repression.

"The sanctions are ready," said an EU diplomat who asked not to be named. The timing for their adoption however "will depend on the situation on the ground."

A decision could be made at talks in Luxembourg on Monday between foreign ministers from the 27 EU nations.

Eye 1

Monitoring the Internet: DHS Deception Exposed

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© unknown
One of the nation's leading electronic privacy groups claimed this week that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) misled members of Congress during a recent hearing on whether the Department is paying a defense contractor $11.4 million to keep tabs on protected free speech and dissent against government policies on the Internet.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), which triggered the hearing by publishing a trove of secret government documents in January, told Raw Story on Thursday that a second round of documents they've obtained directly contradicts testimony given on Feb. 16, showing that the DHS instructed their analysts to do exactly what the Department denied.

"There were several exchanges that they had with members of Congress in which they sort of distanced themselves from the idea - that they weren't engaging in this monitoring of public reaction to government proposals," McCall told Raw Story. "But that's... Well, it's not true, according to the documents we obtained."

Bad Guys

Mitt Romney, American Parasite

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© Illustration: Christoph Hitz
It was the early 1990s, and the 750 men and women at Georgetown Steel were pumping out wire rods at peak performance. They had an abiding trust in management's ability to run a smart company. That allegiance was rewarded with fat profit-sharing checks. In the basement-wage economy of Georgetown, South Carolina, Sanderson and his co-workers were blue-collar aristocracy.

"We were doing very good," says Sanderson, president of Steelworkers Local 7898. "The plant was making money, and we had good profit-sharing checks, and everything was going well."

What he didn't know was that it was about to end. Hundreds of miles to the north, in Boston, a future presidential candidate was sizing up Georgetown's books.

At the time, Mitt Romney had been running Bain Capital since 1984, minting a reputation as a prince of private investment. A future prospectus by Deutsche Bank would reveal that by the time he left in 1999, Bain had averaged a shimmering 88 percent annual return on investment. Romney would use that success to launch his political career.