Puppet MastersS


Star of David

Based on deaths of civilians alone, Israel is the real terrorist in Gaza

Glenn Greenwald
The Intercept
Tue, 29 Jul 2014 19:21 UTC
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© Said Khatib/AFP/Getty ImagesPalestinian relatives mourn for victims of the Duheir family, near the rubble of their home, after it was destroyed by an Israeli air strike in Rafah on July 29, 2014, in the southern of Gaza strip.
As I've written many times before, "terrorism" is, and from the start was designed to be, almost entirely devoid of discernible meaning. It's a fear-mongering slogan, lacking any consistent application, intended to end rational debate and justify virtually any conduct by those who apply the term. But to the extent it means anything beyond that, it typically refers to the killing of civilians as a means of furthering political or military goals.

Below are two charts reflecting the deaths of civilians, soldiers and "militants" in both Gaza and Israel since the July 8 Israeli attack began. The statistics used are unduly generous toward Israel, since "militants" in Gaza are often nothing more than residents who take up arms to defend their homes against an invading and occupying army. Even with that generous interpretation, these numbers, standing alone, tell a powerful story:
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Eye 1

It's not just about spying and torture at the CIA, there's also lying to the world about it

Dan Froomkin
The Intercept
Thu, 31 Jul 2014 19:12 UTC
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© Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesJohn Brennan at the Council on Foreign Relations on March 11, 2014
I don't want to understate how seriously wrong it is that the CIA searched Senate computers. Our constitutional order is seriously out of whack when the executive branch acts with that kind of impunity - to its overseers, no less.

But given everything else that's been going on lately, the single biggest - and arguably most constructive - thing to focus on is how outrageously CIA Director John Brennan lied to everyone about it.

"As far as the allegations of the CIA hacking into Senate computers, nothing could be further from the truth," Brennan told NBC's Andrea Mitchell in March. "We wouldn't do that. I mean, that's just beyond the, you know, the scope of reason in terms of what we do."

Earlier, he had castigated "some members of the Senate" for making "spurious allegations about CIA actions that are wholly unsupported by the facts." He called for an end to "outbursts that do a disservice to the important relationship that needs to be maintained between intelligence officials and Congressional overseers."
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Black Magic

Netanyahu channeling Goebbels: 'Telegenically dead' comment grotesque but not original

Glenn Greenwald
The Intercept
Mon, 21 Jul 2014 18:54 UTC
Gaza
© Ibrahim Khader/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images2014/07/20: Palestinian medics carry the body of a child killed in Shijaiyah east of Gaza City, after Israel expanded its ground offensive on the Gaza Strip
Benjamin Netanyahu, yesterday, on CNN, addressing worldwide sympathy for the civilian victims of Israeli violence in Gaza:
They want to pile up as many civilian dead as they can. They use telegenically dead Palestinians for their cause. They want the more dead, the better.
Joseph Goebbels, November 16, 1941, essay in Das Reich, addressing Germany sympathy for German Jews forced to wear yellow stars:
The Jews gradually are having to depend more and more on themselves, and have recently found a new trick. They knew the good-natured German Michael in us, always ready to shed sentimental tears for the injustice done to them. One suddenly has the impression that the Berlin Jewish population consists only of little babies whose childish helplessness might move us, or else fragile old ladies. The Jews send out the pitiable. They may confuse some harmless souls for a while, but not us. We know exactly what the situation is.
Rather than lard up the point with numerous defensive caveats about what is and is not being said here (which, in any event, never impede willful media distorters in their tactics), I'll simply note three brief points:

Comment: Psychopaths are all the same.

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Dollar

Popular Russian bloggers who publish unverified information or use obscene language can now be fined by the government


RT
Fri, 01 Aug 2014 18:50 UTC
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© Reuters/Eric Thayer
As of August 1 all blogs having 3,000 daily readers or more will have to follow many of the rules that exist in conventional mass media, such as tougher control on published information or the ban on use of explicit language.

The set of amendments to the Administrative Code, the Law on Information and the Law on Communications , dubbed by reporters as the 'Bill on Bloggers', was signed into force by President Putin in early May this year.

The draft introduced the definition of a popular blogger as someone whose internet page attracts at least 3,000 readers every day (earlier this week the authorities announced that these should be unique visitors, not just page hits). Such authors will now have to register with the state watchdog Roskomnadzor, disclose their real identity and follow the same rules as journalists working in conventional state-registered mass media.

The restrictions include the demand to verify information before publishing it and abstain from releasing reports containing slander, hate speech, extremist calls or other banned information such as, for example, advice on suicide. Also, the law bans popular bloggers from using obscene language, drawing heavy criticism and mockery from the online crowd.
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Vader

Nowhere to turn: Gaza genocide and Arab fratricide

Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich
Veterans News Now
Fri, 01 Aug 2014 15:36 UTC
gaza coverage
© unknown
While many have not been shy about calling these crimes genocide, they have come under attack for using the "G" word. Is genocide an appropriate term to use? Well, it is if one has respect for international law and the rules of the genocide convention.

Lets not mince words. Israelis are committing genocide in Gaza. But the United Nations is loath to use the "G" word and it us using the "C" (condemn) word instead. Why? Money talks. The top financier of the United Nations is America with a whopping 22.00% in direct funds (followed by Japan 10.83%, Germany 7.14%, France 5.59%, and GB 5.18%), if the United Nations called out the genocide in Gaza, its top financier would have to be punished for its complicity.
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Eye 1

Google having a hard time complying with EU privacy law


RT
Fri, 01 Aug 2014 18:35 UTC
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© Reuters/Francois Lenoir
Google says that complying with the EU court ruling is difficult as some requests from users who want to be forgotten contain "false and inaccurate information."

"We generally have to rely on the requester for information, without assurance beyond the requester's own assertions as to its accuracy. Some requests turn out to have been made with false and inaccurate information," Google said in a letter to the European Court of Justice (ECJ).

The letter, written by Peter Fleischer, Google's Global Privacy Counsel, contains responses to the questionnaire that the ECJ sent to Google. It also listed some challenges that the Internet giant faced while complying the rule.

Google also added that in some cases the requests lack "the larger factual context... without which it is difficult to balance the competing interests."
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Megaphone

Russia slams Kiev satellite images of MH17 that carry altered time stamps


RT
Fri, 01 Aug 2014 18:17 UTC
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© Image from mil.ruThe satellite image on the left was provided by the Russian Defense Ministry on 14 July, 2014. On the right is the image that Kiev claims were taken by its satellites on July 16, 2014.
Satellite images Kiev published as 'proof' it didn't deploy anti-aircraft batteries around the MH17 crash site carry altered time-stamps and are from days after the MH17 tragedy, the Russian Defense Ministry has revealed.

The images, which Kiev claims were taken by its satellites at the same time as those taken by Russian satellites, are neither Ukrainian nor authentic, according to Moscow's statement.

The Defense Ministry said the images were apparently made by an American KeyHole reconnaissance satellite, because the two Ukrainian satellites currently in orbit, Sich-1 and Sich-2, were not positioned over the part of Ukraine's Donetsk Region shown in the pictures.

Moscow claims weather and lighting conditions in the images were not possible at the dates and times Ukraine claims they were made, the Russian ministry said.
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USA

Obama: After 911 "we tortured some folks"


The Sacramento Bee
Fri, 01 Aug 2014 15:03 UTC
torture bush obama
© Unknown
President Barack Obama says in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the United States did things that were wrong and crossed the line. He says, quote, "we tortured some folks."

Obama is commenting on a Senate investigation into the CIA's interrogation techniques. A report on that investigation's results is expected to be released in the coming weeks.

Obama says it's important to remember how horrified Americans were after 9/11. But he says it's important to remember the U.S. must live up to its values.

Obama also says he has full confidence in CIA Director John Brennan. The CIA director has apologized to senators after the CIA's inspector general found agency employees improperly searched the computers of Senate staffers conducting the investigation into post-9/11 interrogation and detention practices.
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Life Preserver

Best of the Web: Ukraine: Can the US save face from a fact-free zone of its own creation?

Dmitry Orlov
Club Orlov
Tue, 29 Jul 2014 14:37 UTC
US and fact-free zone
© Unknown
The Americans are finding out the hard way that a fact-free zone is not a comfortable place to inhabit. The initial knee-jerk allegations, voiced by Obama, by the screechy UN representative Samantha Power, by John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and any number of talking heads, were that the downing of flight MH17 was all Putin's fault. These were swiftly followed by a complete and utter lack of official evidence of any Russian involvement but lots of strange, unexplained coincidences pointing to Ukrainian and American involvement. These were, in turn, followed by an uncharacteristically frank admission from US intelligence that there is no proof of Russian involvement. The newly installed Ukrainian oligarch-turned-president Poroshenko (code-name "Piglet") switched from claiming that he had proof of Russian complicity to being very very quiet.

Incompetently concocted fake "evidence" of this and that continues to appear on social media sites, only to be swiftly disproved. Once disproved, the fake evidence vanishes, only to be replaced by more of the same. The latest fake is of Russian artillery bombardment from across the border. All of this has added up to quite an awkward situation for the Americans. Barefaced lying may be fun and profitable, but it does not provide a solid foundation for foreign policy. Nobody wants to go down in history for blowing up the world over some fake Youtube videos.
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Brick Wall

Another BRICS member stands up!: India slams US global hegemony by scuttling global trade deal putting future of WTO in doubt

Tyler Durden
Zerohedge.com
Fri, 01 Aug 2014 14:03 UTC
BRICS members
© UnknownThe information and economic wars being waged against Russia are just the beginning. From now on, every BRICS nation should expect similar treatment.
Yesterday we reported that with the Russia-China axis firmly secured, the scramble was on to assure the alliance of that last, and critical, Eurasian powerhouse: India. It was here that Russia had taken the first symbolic step when earlier in the week its central bank announced it had started negotiations to use national currencies in settlements,a process which would culminate with the elimination of the US currency from bilateral settlements.

Russia was not the first nation to assess the key significance of India in concluding perhaps the most important geopolitical axis of the 21st century - we reported that Japan, scrambling to find a natural counterbalance to China with which its relations have regressed back to World War II levels, was also hot and heavy in courting India. "The Japanese are facing huge political problems in China," said Kondapalli in a phone interview. "So Japanese companies are now looking to shift to other countries. They're looking at India."

Of course, for India the problem with a Japanese alliance is that it would also by implication involve the US, the country which has become insolvent and demographically imploding Japan's backer of last and only resort, and thus burn its bridges with both Russia and China. A question emerged: would India embrace the US/Japan axis while foregoing its natural Developing Market, and BRICS, allies, Russia and China.

We now have a clear answer and it is a resounding no, because in what was the latest slap on the face of now crashing on all sides US global hegemony, earlier today India refused to sign a critical global trade dea. Specifically, India's unresolved demands led to the collapse of the first major global trade reform pact in two decades. WTO ministers had already agreed the global reform of customs procedures known as "trade facilitation" in Bali, Indonesia, last December, but were unable to overcome last minute Indian objections and get it into the WTO rule book by a July 31 deadline.
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