Puppet MastersS


Yoda

Enough is enough: Fraud-ridden banks are not L.A.'s only option

Ellen Brown
Ellen Brown.com
Wed, 29 Jan 2014 00:00 UTC
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© Captiolhilloutsider.com
"Epic in scale, unprecedented in world history."

That is how William K. Black, professor of law and economics and former bank fraud investigator, describes the frauds in which JPMorgan Chase (JPM) has now been implicated. They involve more than a dozen felonies, including bid-rigging on municipal bond debt; colluding to rig interest rates on hundreds of trillions of dollars in mortgages, derivatives and other contracts; exposing investors to excessive risk; failing to disclose known risks, including those in the Bernie Madoff scandal; and engaging in multiple forms of mortgage fraud.

So why, asks Chicago Alderwoman Leslie Hairston, are we still doing business with them? She plans to introduce a city council ordinance deleting JPM from the city's list of designated municipal depositories. As quoted in the January 14th Chicago Sun-Times:
The bank has violated the city code by making admissions of dishonesty and deceit in the way they dealt with their investors in the mortgage securities and Bernie Madoff Ponzi scandals. . . . We use this code against city contractors and all the small companies, why wouldn't we use this against one of the largest banks in the world?
A similar move has been recommended for the City of Los Angeles by L.A. City Councilman Gil Cedillo. But in a January 19th editorial titled "There's No Profit in L A. Bashing JPMorgan Chase," the L.A. Times editorial board warned against pulling the city's money out of JPM and other mega-banks - even though the city attorney is suing them for allegedly causing an epidemic of foreclosures in minority neighborhoods.

"L.A. relies on these banks," says the Times, "for long-term financing to build bridges and restore lakes, and for short-term financing to pay the bills." The editorial noted that a similar proposal brought in the fall of 2011 by then-Councilman Richard Alarcon, backed by Occupy L.A., was abandoned because it would have resulted in termination fees and higher interest payments by the city.

Comment: North Dakota is not the only one abandoning the corrupt banking model:
Public banking in Costa Rica: A remarkable little-known model

Ellen Brown elaborates further on public banking here:
Public banks are key to capitalism
Cooperative Banking, Wave of the Future for a Sustainable Form of Banking

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Magnify

What's going on in Ukraine?

orwellwasright
Beyond Mainstream
Sun, 26 Jan 2014 00:01 UTC
protesters in Ukraine clash with police
© Unknown
You'd be forgiven for knowing very little about the unrest in Ukraine - the violence, the rioting on the streets, the armed protesters storming government buildings amidst plumes of thick black smoke rising from makeshift barricades. Most of the public have once again been Beibered by the mainstream media - the arrest of this precocious, spoilt physical embodiment of crass corporate culture proving newsworthy enough for an MSNBC host to interrupt an interview with a member of Congress discussing the true scale of NSA spying.

In this climate of superficial distractions and media inanity, you'd be equally forgiven for not really knowing why there is political unrest in Ukraine. Most of the explanations for the violence offered by the mainstream media present the information in simplistic soundbytes - talking points without the relevant wider political and historical context which renders current events coherent.
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Piggy Bank

Russian bank halts all cash withdrawals

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Tue, 28 Jan 2014 09:53 UTC
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© Coins-world.info
It would appear the fears of a global bank run are spreading. From HSBC's limiting large cash withdrawals (for your own good) to Lloyds ATMs going down, Bloomberg reports that 'My Bank' - one of Russia's top 200 lenders by assets - has introduced a complete ban on cash withdrawals until next week. While the Ruble has been losing ground rapidly recently, we suspect few have been expecting bank runs in Russia. Russia sovereign CDS had recently weakned to 4-month wides at 192bps.
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Red Flag

TSA gives me PreCheck Access... without asking

Jonathan Corbett
TSA Out of Our Pants!
Sun, 26 Jan 2014 16:24 UTC
You can imagine my surprise when I received this boarding pass yesterday...

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That's right - the guy who sues, publicly humiliates, and fights before Congress the TSA now has TSA PreCheck, meaning that I'll personally almost never encounter a body scanner or pat-down again.

I never asked for it, never opted-in, and had no notice that I was included. I intentionally avoided it because I don't think it's fair that one should have to do anything to avoid being abused by their government. Their inclusion of me in this program is further ironic since in 2010, when I filed a motion for a preliminary injunction that would require the TSA not to scan or molest me, the TSA argued that such an "ad hoc" exclusion would devistate the TSA's inpenetrable fortress. But here we are in 2014, and the TSA has done just that.
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Network

UK Spy chief exposed by Snowden leaks will step down at year end‏

Andrew Osborn
Yahoo News
Tue, 28 Jan 2014 17:00 UTC
Iain Lobban
© PAIain Lobban, director of GCHQ
The British spy chief whose agency was accused in documents leaked by former U.S. intelligence operative Edward Snowden of playing a principal role in mass Anglo-U.S. surveillance will step down at year end, Foreign Office said on Tuesday.

The leaks detailed the close cooperation of Britain's GCHQ eavesdropping agency with the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), and embarrassed and angered the British government and its spy chiefs.

Iain Lobban, 53, has served as GCHQ's director for six years.

Comment: See also:

GCHQ and European spy agencies worked together on mass surveillance
NSA/GCHQ - The New Praetorians and the New Cold War
Somebody's listening: How the NSA, GCHQ, Germany and China have spent decades working together to spy on the whole world

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USA

The State of Our Nation: The greatest threat to our freedoms is the government

John W. Whitehead
The Rutherford Institute
Wed, 29 Jan 2014 14:48 UTC
"Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which." ― George Orwell, Animal Farm
6 percent
© SOTT.net
What was striking about this year's State of the Union address was not the sheer arrogance of the president's remarks, the staged nature of the proceedings and interactions, or the predictable posturing of the rebuttals, but the extent to which the members of the various branches of government - President Obama, Congress, the Supreme Court, and the assorted government agencies - are just one big, brawling, noisy, semi-incestuous clan.

Watching these bureaucrats, both elected and appointed, interact in the unguarded moments before the event, with their hugging and kissing and nudging and joking and hobnobbing and general high spirits, I was reminded anew that these people - Republicans and Democrats alike - are united in a common goal, and it is not to protect and defend the Constitution.

No, as Orwell recognized in Animal Farm, their common goal is to maintain the status quo, a goal that is helped along by an unquestioning, easily mollified, corporate media. In this way, the carefully crafted spectacle that is the State of the Union address is just that: an exaggerated farce of political theater intended to dazzle, distract and divide us, all the while the police state marches steadily forward.

No matter what the president and his cohorts say or how convincingly they say it, the reality Americans must contend with is that the world is no better the day after President Obama's State of the Union address than it was the day before. Indeed, if the following rundown on the actual state of our freedoms is anything to go by, the world is a far more dangerous place.
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Star of David

"We need to get rid of the Palestinians" - Israeli minister Lapid


Redress Online
Fri, 17 Jan 2014 14:32 UTC
yair lapid
© Joe CummingsIsraeli finance minister Yair Lapid
We're beginning to get an idea of what the outcome of the latest series of US-sponsored Israeli-Palestinian talks might look like.

The talks began in July 2013 and are due to conclude with a final status agreement in April this year.

In a nutshell, the outcome is likely to be a double whammy of ethnic cleansing of some of Israel's Arab citizens and the annexation of large chunks of the illegally occupied Palestinian West Bank.

According to the Times of Israel, this diabolical plan - the brainchild of Israel's Moldovan foreign minister and former nightclub bouncer, Avigdor Lieberman, calls for towns in "The Triangle" region southeast of Haifa - including heavily populated Arab cities - to become part of a Palestinian state in any peace agreement, in exchange for the Jewish colonies of the West Bank. It would mean the ethnic cleansing of about 300,000 Israeli Arabs.
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Take 2

Coup in western Ukraine: The Arab Spring unleashed in Europe

Andrew Korybko
Eurasia Review
Sat, 25 Jan 2014 14:31 UTC
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Rioters have seized the administration building in Lvov and forced the governor to resign. It is not known who is currently in power in this region, but a puppet government formed by 'opposition forces' may soon be set up. Demands for 'autonomy', or quite possibly, explicit separatist flirtations, may give Klitschko and his thugs added bargaining power to use against the democratically elected government during 'negotiations'. It is likely that even more extremist activity will occur, led by Klischko, as he proclaimed on 22 January that, "If I have to go (on to the streets) under bullets, I shall go there under bullets." Batkivshchyna Party leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk seconded this provocative threat to delve Ukraine into de-facto civil warfare, as he similarly stated on 22 January that "Tomorrow [23 January] we will go forward together. And if it's a bullet in the forehead, then it's a bullet in the forehead, but in an honest, fair and brave way."

It is evident now that both men kept their threats in encouraging their respective militias to unleash carnage within the country. As with the Arab Spring events, these provocateurs are fiending for 'some of their own' to be killed by government forces seeking to re-establish control over anarchic areas. A full-fledged military or Berkut response by Yanukovich is exactly what Klitschko and Yatsenyuk want. For them, the more dead 'protesters', the better. It should be kept in mind that 1980s Poland was placed under martial law for much less violent disturbances than what we are witnessing in Ukraine at the moment.
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Star of David

White House reportedly losing patience with Israel's stooges in Congress


Redress Online
Thu, 23 Jan 2014 13:53 UTC
White House
© Unknown
For decades successive United States administrations have tolerated the fact that Congress is riddled with traitors who routinely put Israel's interests above those of their own country. However, ominous clouds are hovering over the heads of Israel's settlers on Capitol Hill.

According to an unnamed American official quoted by Israel Radio on 23 January, the White House, in particular President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry, are losing patience with "Jewish activity" on behalf of Israel in Congress.

Obama and Kerry, the official said, have had enough of the Israel stooges' constant criticism of the US government and their attempts at enabling Israel to set US policy.
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Eye 1

Gates Foundation to fund surveillance program, tracking students from pre-school to graduation


AlterNet
Wed, 29 Jan 2014 00:00 UTC
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© Konstantin Yolshin/Shutterstock

The education sector, long frustrated by transient fads that have failed to uplift decades of sub-par student achievement, thinks it has finally found its knight in shining armor: an omnipresent data archive that will track students from pre-school to graduation, noting every teacher and test score. Then it will tack that trail of data onto a person well after they leave school.

Enthusiasts say they hope the constant tracking will help policy-makers identify the precise factors that make a successful student, and foster the creation of well-informed education policy, while opponents worry that growing intrusiveness will normalize the mass surveillance and obsessive record-keeping of humans foretold in dystopian literature.
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