Puppet MastersS


USA

Venezuelan Interior Minister explains U.S. 'regime change' happening in his country

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Two Army Battalions are being deployed to Combat "Grave" Opposition Disorder in Tachira State near the Colombian Border

Ewan Robertson (VA) : The Venezuelan government is to send two army battalions to Táchira state, which borders Colombia, to combat a "grave" case of opposition-promoted disorder in the area.

According to press reports and an eyewitness testimony provided to Venezuelanalysis.com, the capital city of Táchira state, San Cristóbal, has been almost brought to a standstill in recent days by street barricades set up by hard-line opposition activists.

According to such reports, in recent days, almost no transport has been able to circulate, while the great majority of shops and businesses have been closed. Authorities warn that the street blockades are impeding the delivery of food and gasoline, and claim that transport workers have been threatened.

The government also suspects that "paramilitaries and criminal gangs" are involved in the actions, with the complicity of the local opposition mayor, Daniel Ceballos.

Bad Guys

US losing game to Russia in Ukraine: Paul Craig Roberts

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© UnknownUkraine has been gripped by unrest since late November 2013.
The United States is losing the game to Russia in Ukraine due to its miscalculated attempts at ousting the government in Kiev, an analyst writes in a column for the Press TV website.

"The problem with Washington's plot to overthrow the elected government of Ukraine and install its minions is twofold," Paul Craig Roberts wrote in a column on Sunday.

That "the chosen US puppets" have lost control of the protests to Nazism-linked armed radical elements is one of the problems, he said, adding that the other is the fact that "Russia regards an EU/NATO takeover of Ukraine as a strategic threat to Russian independence."

Bomb

Ukraine beaten and fragmented: uprising political groups once on the fringes are in the ascendancy

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© UnknownAnti-government protesters stand on a barricade at the entrance of Kiev's Independence square
Independence Square was a victorious arena; the hated enemy had been overthrown, his security forces driven from the streets; the capital and half the country belonged to the revolution.

The other half, however, remains loyal to Viktor Yanukovych and the reckoning which will unfold in the coming days is likely to show the alarming rise in the power of paramilitaries.

On Saturday night the prime attraction on the stage in the Maidan, as the square is known, was Yulia Tymoshenko, freed from prison and flown to Kiev to address the crowd of more than 50,000. There was heckling: it had not been forgotten that her seven-year sentence was for abusing her position as Prime Minister. There were also reminders that there had been a shift in the balance of power.

Comment: It seems that Ukraine is now a free battleground for competing extreme ideologies, all as ignorant as each other. The US/EU goal of destabilizing Ukraine is coming along nicely.


Gear

Dozens of Democrats quietly distancing from Obamacare - change tune to woo voters

Obamacare
© Eric Reed/MCT
California Assemblyman Brian Nestande (R-CA-42) with volunteer staff during the Color in Motion 5K charity run in Indio, Calif., Saturday, Feb., 15, 2014. "I would not have thought it would still be an issue. But now I think there will be an issue through the campaign."
Mark Kentley is the kind of voter who will help decide the short-term political verdict on the new health care law known as Obamacare.

A 27-year-old who studies business administration while working at the College of the Desert, he's swung back and forth between the Democrats and the Republicans in the last two presidential elections. Now, he sits right in the middle of one of the most contested seats for the House of Representatives, and his dislike of the law will be a major factor in deciding who gets his vote this fall.

He resents that the government is forcing him to buy health insurance he doesn't want. "They're trying to reinvent the wheel," he complained during a break at the student union.

What he and others like him decide will determine whether the Democrats ride out the storm of mistakes and protests over the new Affordable Care Act or whether the Republicans ride that to another wave of gains in the House, as they did in 2010 when they seized control.

The House district around Palm Springs is one of three in California that the Democrats could lose this fall. And the trend reaches to all corners of the country. For Democrats running for Congress in dozens of districts, the Affordable Care Act they once boasted about is one of the largest obstacles to their re-election bids in November.

In 2010, Democrats ignored the slew of attacks on the health care law only to lose more than 60 seats - and their majority - in the House and six seats in the Senate. Now they're switching strategies, casting themselves as crusaders out to repair a broken law.

They call the law "imperfect" and "flawed." They air television ads that highlight the need to "fix Obamacare." They criticize President Barack Obama for the "disastrous" rollout of the website, healthcare.gov, and for breaking a promise to Americans that they could keep their health insurance if they liked it. Many defy the White House and support Republican proposals to change the law.

Cowboy Hat

Snowden warns of the dangers of state secrecy privileges

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© AFPA frame grab made from AFPTV shows US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden at an unidentified location, reportedly taken on October 9, 2013.
Former US security contractor Edward Snowden on Wednesday spoke out about the use of state secrecy privileges as he presented an Oxford University award to fellow intelligence leaker Chelsea Manning.

Snowden, who is in hiding in Russia, presented the prestigious British university's Sam Adams awards for integrity and intelligence to the jailed former US Army intelligence analyst via YouTube.

Snowden recorded a four-minute message, in which he warned of the dangers of "overclassification".

He said the term described governments' use of state secrecy privileges "to withhold information from the public that's not related to national security", adding it had become a "serious problem".

"The White House told us that 95 million records have been created and classified in the year 2012, more than any year on record," he continued. "Many other western governments are on the same trajectory."

Top Secret

NSA lawyers say lawsuits require the agency to keep phone records!

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The government is considering enlarging the National Security Agency's controversial collection of Americans' phone records - an unintended consequence of lawsuits seeking to stop the surveillance program, according to officials.

A number of government lawyers involved in lawsuits over the NSA phone-records program believe federal-court rules on preserving evidence related to lawsuits require the agency to stop routinely destroying older phone records, according to people familiar with the discussions. As a result, the government would expand the database beyond its original intent, at least while the lawsuits are active.

No final decision has been made to preserve the data, officials said, and one official said that even if a decision is made to retain the information, it would be held only for the purpose of litigation and not be subject to searches. The government currently collects phone records on millions of Americans in a vast database that it can mine for links to terror suspects. The database includes records of who called whom, when they called and for how long.

Telephone

Tony Blair advised Rebekah Brooks launch a "Hutton-style" inquiry into the News of the World six days before her arrest

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© Fiona Hanson/PATony Blair’s advice to Rebekah Brooks shortly before her arrest in the phone-hacking scandal included taking sleeping pills. The former prime minister also told her to ‘keep strong’ and ‘tough up’.
Tony Blair secretly advised Rebekah Brooks to launch a "Hutton-style" inquiry into the News of the World six days before her arrest as a suspect in the phone-hacking scandal, it has been revealed in evidence disclosed at the Old Bailey.

According to an email written by Brooks, following an hour-long phone call in July 2011, the former prime minister had also offered to act as an "unofficial adviser" to her, Rupert and James Murdoch on a "between us" basis.

The note from Brooks - sent to James Murdoch - was read out in the phone-hacking trial. In it, she said that Blair had suggested that News International set up an inquiry which would "publish a Hutton-style report" that would "clear you and accept short comings [sic]".

She also wrote that Blair told her the crisis would pass and she should "tough up" and not make any rash decisions. The former prime minister also told News International's then chief executive to "keep strong" and appeared to suggest she should take sleeping pills to keep a clear head.

The email was sent at 4.20pm on Monday 11 July, the day after the News of the World closed and seven days after the Guardian disclosed that the tabloid had hacked the voicemail messages of the missing Surrey schoolgirl Milly Dowler, triggering a chain reaction of further revelations and political outcry.

Comment:
The Mysterious Death of Dr David Kelly: Damning New Evidence Points to a Cover-up by Tony Blair's Government


Post-It Note

Department of Homeland Security cancels national license-plate tracking plan

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© Gizmodo
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson on Wednesday ordered the cancellation of a plan by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to develop a national license-plate tracking system after privacy advocates raised concern about the initiative.

The order came just days after ICE solicited proposals from companies to compile a database of license-plate information from commercial and law enforcement tag readers. Officials said the database was intended to help apprehend fugitive illegal immigrants, but the plan raised concerns that the movements of ordinary citizens under no criminal suspicion could be scrutinized.

The data would have been drawn from readers that scan the tags of every vehicle crossing their paths, and would have been accessed only for "ongoing criminal investigations or to locate wanted individuals," officials told The Washington Post this week.

"The solicitation, which was posted without the awareness of ICE leadership, has been cancelled," ICE spokeswoman Gillian Christensen said in a statement. "While we continue to support a range of technologies to help meet our law enforcement mission, this solicitation will be reviewed to ensure the path forward appropriately meets our operational needs."

Alarm Clock

Planned food safety rules rile organic farmers

food safety regulations
© Evan Halper/Los Angeles Times
Jim Crawford, left, of New Morning Farm, says new food safety regulations would be an added expense that would hurt growers operating on the margins.
Planned food safety rules rile organic farmers Local growers are discovering that proposed FDA regulations would curtail many common techniques, such as using house-made fertilizers and irrigating from creeks.

Hustontown, Pa. - Jim Crawford was rushing to load crates of freshly picked organic tomatoes onto trucks heading for an urban farmers market when he noticed the federal agent.

A tense conversation followed as the visitor to his farm - an inspector from the Food and Drug Administration - warned him that some organic-growing techniques he had honed over four decades could soon be outlawed.

"This is my badge. These are the fines. This is what is hanging over your head, and we want you to know that," Crawford says the official told him.

Crawford's popular farm may seem a curious place for the FDA to move ahead with a long-planned federal assault on deadly food poisoning. To Crawford's knowledge, none of the kohlrabi, fennel, sugar snap peas or other crops from his New Morning Farm have ever sickened anyone. But he is not the only organic grower to suddenly discover federal inspectors on his land.

Snakes in Suits

Ukraine's acting president warns economy is in dire state‏

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© Bulent Kilic/AFP via Getty ImagesPeople wave a giant Ukrainian flag at Kiev's Independence Square on February 23, 2014.
Ukrainian lawmakers gave presidential powers to parliament Speaker Oleksandr Turchynov, who urged political parties to agree on a new government and warned of the "catastrophic" state of the nation's economy.

The U.S., Europe and the U.K. said they would help with financial aid when a new cabinet is formed, a day after the assembly ousted Viktor Yanukovych from the presidency for his role in violence that killed at least 82 people last week. Border officials stopped him and members of his cabinet from fleeing Ukraine at an airport in the country's eastern city of Donetsk yesterday. They were not detained.

Comment: Dire economic state? You ain't seen nothin' yet Turchynov...
In case you missed it, make sure to download today's SOTT Talk Radio show for some real discussion, and much needed truth on the situation:
Revolution in Ukraine and Venezuela