Puppet MastersS


Heart - Black

John McCain caught playing poker on his iPhone during Senate hearing on whether to take military action in Syria

Image
Gambling with people's lives. John McCain plays poker at the Congress hearing on Syria.
The elected members of the U.S. Congress will soon vote on whether the country should send missiles into Syria, intervening in a war that has already claimed the lives of over 100,000.

One would think that the matter before the Congress would at least command their attention. But, as the Senate conducted a hearing today to discuss the details of the strike, and the arguments for and against it, Sen. John McCain took out his iPhone and played poker to pass the time.

An image of McCain's phone was captured by Washington Post photographer Melina Mara, and posted to the Post's live blog of the hearing. The photo is blurry, but clearly depicts a game in progress.

When he learned of the picture, McCain posted a flippant response to Twitter.
"Scandal!" he wrote. "Caught playing iPhone game at 3+ hour Senate hearing - worst of all I lost!"

- John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) September 3, 2013
While he may have made up his mind on the strike (he said yesterday he is confident in the direction the White House is moving), McCain's game playing projected a certain lack of seriousness about a major strategic military decision. And, when some on Twitter saw his tweet, they lashed out in response:

"Haha, you're right!" wrote Digg's David Weiner. "It's absurd to expect someone who pushed us into two, now maybe three wars to give his full attention!"

"OUR LEADERS ARE SHAPING THE COURSE OF HISTORY," wrote Carlo Johnson of Brooklyn, New York.

"Yes, we shouldn't expect our Senators to pay attention for 3 whole hours. It's just bombing another country, after all!," added astronomer and author Phil Plait.

Heart - Black

Western-backed 'Rebels' kill Shia drivers execution-style in Syria: Video

A new video has been posted on YouTube showing the extent of brutality exercised by the foreign-backed Takfiri militants operating inside Syria.

Warning: Graphic Content


Comment: A 'Takfiri' is a Muslim who accuses another Muslim of apostasy, of being 'impure'. Basically, they believe Allah has given them the divine right to kill, rape and plunder at will.

But it's not 'god', of course. It's the CIA, the Mossad, MI6 and the DGSE.


Evil Rays

Fukushima leaks won't be threat to Tokyo Olympics - bid leader

Members of the IAEA Division of Nuclear Fuel Cycle
© AFP Photo / IAEAMembers of the IAEA Division of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology inspecting the control room of the unit one and two reactor buildings of the crippled TEPCO Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Okuma, Fukushima prefecture.
The leader of Tokyo's bid for the 2020 Olympics has reassured the IOC that the Japanese capital is totally "safe" and "unaffected" by the leak of radioactive water from the tsunami-crippled Fukushima nuclear plant.

On September 7, International Olympic Committee (IOC) members will gather in Buenos Aires, Argentina to choose between Tokyo, Istanbul and Madrid to host the 2020 Summer Olympic Games.

Ahead of the vote, Tsunekazu Takeda, the president of the Japanese Olympic Committee addressed the IOC with a letter, saying that "Life [in Tokyo], for all 35 million residents, is completely normal and safe and we do not foresee any change to that."

"The city's air and water are monitored daily and there remains no evidence at all of any issue, as confirmed by the Japanese government," the text reads, as cited by Associated Press.

This comes as Japan is striving to overcome the aftermath of the accident in the Fukushima nuclear plant caused by a deadly earthquake and tsunami in 2011. The disaster damaged cooling systems to the plant's reactors, as a result of which three of them melted down, leading to a contamination of air and sea.

On Tuesday, the Japanese government announced it is going to spend almost US$ 500 million to contain leaks of radioactive water from the nuclear station. Some $US 320,000 million will be spent on the construction of a massive underground frozen wall around damaged reactors to prevent the groundwater from mixing with water being used to cool the melted fuel rods.

Announced less than a week before the IOC's decision, the move is seen as the government's attempt to show that the nuclear crisis will not be a safety concern at the time of the Olympic Games.

Attention

Found at last! After searching for 10 years, the Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction have finally been found - in Syria!

Apple Pie
© Global Research
Secretary of State John Kerry: "There is no doubt that Saddam al-Assad has crossed the red line. ... Sorry, did I just say 'Saddam'?"

A US drone has just taken a photo of Mullah Omar riding on a motorcycle through the streets of Damascus. 1

So what do we have as the United States refuses to rule out an attack on Syria and keeps five warships loaded with missiles in the eastern Mediterranean?
  • Only 9 percent of Americans support a US military intervention in Syria. 2
  • Only 11% of the British supported a UK military intervention; this increased to 25% after the announcement of the alleged chemical attack. 3
  • British Prime Minister David Cameron lost a parliamentary vote August 29 endorsing military action against Syria 285-272
  • 64% of the French people oppose an intervention by the French Army. 4 "Before acting we need proof," said a French government spokesperson. 5
  • Former and current high-ranking US military officers question the use of military force as a punitive measure and suggest that the White House lacks a coherent strategy. "If the administration is ambivalent about the wisdom of defeating or crippling the Syrian leader, possibly setting the stage for Damascus to fall to Islamic fundamentalist rebels, they say, the military objective of strikes on Assad's military targets is at best ambiguous." 6
  • President Obama has no United Nations approval for intervention. (In February a massive bombing attack in Damascus left 100 dead and 250 wounded; in all likelihood the work of Islamic terrorists. The United States blocked a Russian resolution condemning the attack from moving through the UN Security Council)

Cult

Ron Paul: Syria chemical attack, a 'False Flag'


Stormtrooper

First Syria rebels armed and trained by CIA 'on way to battlefield'

The first cell of Syrian rebels trained and armed by the CIA is making its way to the battlefield, President Barack Obama has reportedly told senators.

Obama
© JIM WATSON/AFPThe US announced in June that it would send light arms to the rebels but refused to provide anti-aircraft missiles and other heavy weapons
During a meeting at the White House, the president assured Senator John McCain that after months of delay the US was meeting its commitment to back moderate elements of the opposition.

Mr Obama said that a 50-man cell, believed to have been trained by US special forces in Jordan, was making its way across the border into Syria, according to the New York Times.

The deployment of the rebel unit seems to be the first tangible measure of support since Mr Obama announced in June that the US would begin providing the opposition with small arms.

Congressional opposition delayed the plan for several weeks and rebel commanders publicly complained the US was still doing nothing to match the Russian-made firepower of the Assad regime.

Mr McCain has been a chief critic of the White House's reluctance to become involved in Syria and has long demanded that Mr Obama provide the rebels with arms needed to overthrow the regime.

Star of David

Obama administration confirms intercept of Syrian leadership communication giving order to launch CW attack came from Israeli intelligence

Elliot Engel
Elliot Engel
The US Defence Minister Chuck Hagel, the Secretary of State John Kerry, the National Security counsellor Susan Rice and the National Intelligence director James Clapper, held a closed meeting regarding Syria with leaders of Congres, on Thursday August 2013.

According to representative Elliot Engel, who is the Democratic minority leader on the Foreign Affairs Commission, the Obama administration confirmed the interception of a Syrian government communication attesting to it's responsibility in the chemical attack of August 21st, as revealed by Foreign Policy.

Yet, these ''interceptions'' are in fact of Israeli origin1.

Elliot Engel is a militant Zionist. Member of the US Committee for a Free Lebanon, which organized the ''Cedar Revolution''2, he drafted, in 2002, the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act, authorizing the US president to go to war against Syria without having to pass before Congress. This text, adopted by the Congress itself and signed by George W. Bush, is still in force.

Arrow Down

Vietnam bans free speech online with Decree 72

I've been watching the progressive erosion of civil liberties in Vietnam with a watchful eye for some time now. The country first appeared on my radar due to its particularly aggressive measures against the citizenry's gold buying.

As the progression usually goes, first a country will lash out against its own people for buying protection against the leadership's mismanagement of the economy by blaming gold. Once that fails, a country will usually then start cracking down on civil liberties.

Shortly after that we usually see the cracking of heads. It appears Vietnam has taken a frightening and dangerous step forward in the progression with Decree 72.

From the BBC:
A controversial law banning Vietnamese online users from discussing current affairs has come into effect. The decree, known as Decree 72, says blogs and social websites should not be used to share news articles, but only personal information.

Dozens of activists, including bloggers, have been convicted for anti-state activity in the country this year.

The new law specifies that social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook should only be used "to provide and exchange personal information".

It also prohibits the online publication of material that "opposes" the Vietnamese government or "harms national security."

Last month the US embassy in Hanoi said it was "deeply concerned by the decree's provisions", arguing that "fundamental freedoms apply online just as they do offline".
Oh please. The rogue leadership in the USA is one financial crisis away from trying to do the exact same thing.

Full article here.

In Liberty,
Mike

Bad Guys

Noam Chomsky: U.S. attack on Syria would be a 'war crime'

Noam Chomsky
© Unknown
MIT professor Noam Chomsky has warned that an attack on Syria without United Nations support would be a war crime.

"As international support for Obama's decision to attack Syria has collapsed, along with the credibility of government claims, the administration has fallen back on a standard pretext for war crimes when all else fails: the credibility of the threats of the self-designated policeman of the world," Chomsky told The Huffington Post in an article published Monday.

He added that a U.S. strike against Syria without approval from the United Nations would be a "very serious" war crime.

Bad Guys

Propaganda Alert!: UK Government 'let British company export nerve gas chemicals to Syria'

damascus
© Unknown
UK accused of 'breath-taking laxity' over export licence for potassium fluoride and sodium fluoride

The Government was accused of "breathtaking laxity" in its arms controls last night after it emerged that officials authorised the export to Syria of two chemicals capable of being used to make a nerve agent such as sarin a year ago.

The Business Secretary, Vince Cable, will today be asked by MPs to explain why a British company was granted export licences for the dual-use substances for six months in 2012 while Syria's civil war was raging and concern was rife that the regime could use chemical weapons on its own people. The disclosure of the licences for potassium fluoride and sodium fluoride, which can both be used as precursor chemicals in the manufacture of nerve gas, came as the US Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States had evidence that sarin gas was used in last month's atrocity in Damascus.


Comment: A misleading story aimed at firmly fixing in the reader's mind the notion the Syria is actively seeking to manufacture and use chemical weapons, while the largely ignoring the fact that no chemicals were actually exported. But, never mind that nothing happened and that such 'dual-use chemicals' are used the world over (for treating water, or in this case for finishing aluminium shower enclosures and window frames as we read below), this non-event can still be used to ramp up the war propaganda.