Puppet Masters

Meet the most democratically-elected leader, ever: New prime minister elect, Narendra Modi - India's Putin?

Paul R.
Sott.net
Thu, 22 May 2014 02:08 UTC

India's recent astonishing general election - the largest ever where a relatively obscure political party won a landslide victory - has left most of the country brimming with optimism about new prime minister elect, Narendra Modi, leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP, 'Indian People's Party'). A recent Wall Street Journal article's speculation about Modi's character and potential impact is interesting:

To admirers he is a Thatcherite reformer set to jolt India from the economic doldrums, while his opponents liken him to Putin or even Hitler. Indian election frontrunner Narendra Modi divides opinion like few other politicians.

Leave it to the Wall Street Journal to come up with a grossly over-simplified and skewed news-bite.

For starters, the conventional portrayal of Thatcher is as 'the Iron Lady who reformed the UK with an iron fist' - a mask for the fact that she was a brutal and callous psychopath that eviscerated the social welfare state and trade unions in the UK to facilitate the corporate takeover of British society.

As to whether Mr.Modi will turn out to be 'a Putin or Hitler', Western media scurrilously portrays Putin as a ruthless dictator, when in fact he has proven to be knowledgeable, shrewd and incorruptible. The actions match the words: Putin's government has already delivered half of its 2012 election promises. Putin's only 'crime' was to say 'no' to the US Empire builders and their NATO enforcers, and psychopaths really don't like to be told 'no'.

Nevertheless, the 'Hitler' comparison suggests that alarm bells are ringing in Washington and Brussels over fears that Modi will deepen India's commitments to establishing that 'multipolar world' conceived by the Russians. Sites like Eurasia Review and others are producing interesting analysis of the potential tectonic shifts in geopolitics that Modi's landslide election victory portends, but what I want to do here is introduce a Western audience to some general facts about Indian national politics and Modi's rise to power.

Comment: Insightful Interview.

Victims of fracking' demand EPA protection

Lauren McCauley
Commondreams.org
Wed, 14 May 2014 05:47 UTC

The 150 million Americans routinely exposed to toxic air as a result of oil and gas drilling need better protection from their government, demanded a coalition of 64 environmental and community groups, who on Tuesday filed a petition (pdf) asking the Environmental Protection Agency to set limits on the air pollutants emitted from these wells.

The explosion of oil and gas drilling - largely due to the expansion of hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," drilling techniques - is putting more and more people at risk, the petition argues, as fossil fuel extraction is now encroaching on communities across Pennsylvania and western states where shale oil and gas are found.

"EPA needs to do its job and protect frontline victims of fracking by reducing the toxic fallout from the practice," said Jim Schermbeck of the Dallas-Ft. Worth-based clean air group Downwinders at Risk.

U.S calling card? Dozens killed as blasts rock open market in northwestern China

RT.com
Thu, 22 May 2014 03:46 UTC

At least 31 people have been killed and more than 90 injured in a series of a dozen of explosions, which rocked the capital of China's turbulent northwestern region of Xinjiang.

The explosions occurred at around 8am on at an open market in Urumqi, capital of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Xinhua news agency reported.

Witnesses reported that the blasts began when two off-road vehicles plowed into crowds of people, and explosives were thrown from them. They said that one of the vehicles had exploded in the market, while there had been some dozen explosive blasts in total.

Comment: Was this a calling card from the U.S telling the Chinese that it knows where the soft belly of China is and that it can cause mayhem there at will? Is the U.S. trying to tell China to step in line and not to start acting like a superpower?

The real roots of Xinjiang terror

Peter Dale Scott: Launching the U.S. Terror War - The CIA, Parallel Secret Services and the Deep State

New boss at the FBI still focused on making up pretend terrorist threats; May also make up fake criminal plots too

TechDirt
Wed, 21 May 2014 20:33 UTC

from the because-that's-what-the-fbi-is-good-at dept

Earlier this year, we noted that the FBI had quietly changed its own description about how it was primarily focused on "law enforcement" to claiming that it was now primarily focused on "national security." That is, over the past decade, the FBI has shifted from being a law enforcement agency, looking to stop crimes, to an intelligence agency, spying on Americans and searching for "terrorists." Of course, this focus has meant that it has basically ignored tons of criminal activity including things like mortgage fraud, which helped create the economic crisis a few years ago. Instead, the FBI has expended so much effort on creating and busting its own fake terrorist plots.

As we've seen over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, the FBI seems to spend an awful lot of time creating totally fake terrorist plots, luring some gullible individual into the plot (where every other participant is FBI, and where all the "weapons" are fake) and then arresting the individual and scoring big headlines about stopping another "plot" -- despite the fact no plot would have existed without the FBI.

When new FBI boss James Comey took the job, he had suggested that he might move the FBI back towards a law enforcement agency, but according to the NY Times, he's been convinced to stick with focusing on terrorism plots. He insists that the risk is much bigger than he thought before he was in the job, though all of the examples he gives are of terrorism happening overseas, not in the US. Given that it must be a lot easier to concoct bogus terrorist plots and ensnare gullible individuals, than it is to track down actual criminals, it's not hard to see why many in the Bureau might have pushed Comey to continue these current efforts.

By Mr. Comey's own account, he also brought to the job a belief, based on news media reports, that the threat from Al Qaeda was diminished. But nine months into his tenure as director, Mr. Comey acknowledges that he underestimated the threat the United States still faces from terrorism.

"I didn't have anywhere near the appreciation I got after I came into this job just how virulent those affiliates had become," Mr. Comey said, referring to offshoots of Al Qaeda in Africa and in the Middle East during an interview in his sprawling office on the seventh floor of the J. Edgar Hoover Building. "There are both many more than I appreciated, and they are stronger than I appreciated."

Who is the new secret buyer of U.S. debt? And what is their intention?

Brandon Smith
Alt-Market.com
Wed, 21 May 2014 02:41 UTC

On the surface, the economic atmosphere of the U.S. has appeared rather calm and uneventful. Stocks are up, employment isn't great but jobs aren't collapsing into the void (at least not openly), and the U.S. dollar seems to be going strong. Peel away the thin veneer, however, and a different financial horror show is revealed.

U.S. stocks have enjoyed unprecedented crash protection due to a steady infusion of fiat money from the Federal Reserve known as quantitative easing. With the advent of the "taper", QE is now swiftly coming to a close (as is evident in the overall reduction in treasury market purchases), and is slated to end by this fall, if not sooner.

Employment has been boosted only in statistical presentation, and not in reality. The Labor Department's creative accounting of job numbers omits numerous factors, the most important being the issue of long term unemployed. Millions of people who have been jobless for so long they no longer qualify for benefits are being removed from the rolls. This quiet catastrophe has the side bonus of making it appear as though unemployment is going down.

U.S. Treasury bonds, and by extension the dollar, have also stayed afloat due to the river of stimulus being introduced by the Federal Reserve. That same river, through QE, is now drying up.

The CIA still doesn't want to talk about the Bay of Pigs

Matt Taylor
Vice
Wed, 21 May 2014 18:43 UTC

In the annals of America's foreign policy blunders, the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion ranks near the top. Sure, the CIA's half-baked suspicion that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction ended up being disastrously wrong, thus rendering the premise for the Iraq War null and void. But that error revealed itself in a slow drip of embarrassing revelations about the failure of the intelligence community and the outrageous actions committed during the war - the Bay of Pigs, on the other hand, was a clusterfuck right from the get-go.

There hasn't been a basic cable series about the Bay of Pigs, so I suppose I'll need to provide some background: In 1959, Fidel Castro and his Marxist foot soldiers had seized power in Cuba, ousting crony-capitalist dictator Fulgencio Batista and threatening to inculcate a hotbed of radical (read: Soviet) sentiment right in America's backyard. By the time John F. Kennedy won the presidency in November 1960, the CIA was putting the finishing touches on a scheme cooked up under the direction of his predecessor, Dwight Eisenhower, to land 1,400 or so armed Cuban exiles at an inlet along the swampy southern coast known as the Bay of Pigs. If all went according to plan, the capitalist majority on the island would suddenly find its courage and overwhelm Castro's massive militia - who would be taken completely by surprise, of course - while the US Navy provided support. Instead, the landing party, a.k.a. Brigade 2506, came under furious assault from forces loyal to the Castro regime right away, and didn't last more than a couple days before being rounded up and imprisoned.

Russia's relationship with China at highest level in history - Putin

RT
Sun, 18 May 2014 14:56 UTC

Russia-China cooperation has reached its highest level ever, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said in an interview with Chinese media on the eve of his visit to Shanghai, where a record package of documents is expected to be signed by the two nations.

Below is the full transcript of the Russian president's interview with Chinese Central Television, Xinhua news agency, China News Service, The People's Daily, China Radio International, and Phoenix Television.

Question: What are your expectations concerning the upcoming visit to China? What results do you expect from the Summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia in Shanghai?

Vladimir Putin: I am always happy to visit hospitable China. It is a pleasure to see how our neighbour is transforming right before our eyes. Shanghai is a vivid illustration of this.

Establishing closer ties with the People's Republic of China - our trusted friend - is Russia's unconditional foreign policy priority.

Is billionaire George Soros engineering another Black Wednesday?

Chris Carrington
The Daily Sheeple
Wed, 21 May 2014 10:44 UTC

September 16th 1992 became known as Black Wednesday after George Soros, the Hungarian born banker, short sold sterling, which forced the UK government to withdraw the pound from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. He became known as 'the man who broke the bank of England'. It is said he made more than a billion dollars overnight. You can read more about that here.

Soros is not beyond positioning himself where he will profit by stock market crashes. A short time ago he was in the news because he made a billion dollar bet against the S&P 500, a move that some claimed signalled trouble ahead for the stock markets. This week his name is once again being bandied about in financial circles.

North Carolina Senate committees pass bill that would lift fracking moratorium

John Murawski
News Observer
Wed, 21 May 2014 17:33 UTC

$fracking$

© David McNew/Getty Images
The sun rises over an oil field over the Monterey Shale formation where gas and oil extraction using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is on the verge of a boom on March 24, 2014 near Lost Hills, California.

Raleigh - Two state Senate committees on Tuesday unanimously passed legislation that would lift the state's fracking moratorium next summer, with a key legislator expressing confidence that the measure would come before the full Senate this week.

The bill would lift the moratorium on shale gas drilling on July 1, 2015, allowing the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources to start issuing permits to energy companies for hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling.

Fracking supporters say the day has been a long time coming and predicted domestic energy exploration would generate thousands of jobs and millions of dollars of revenue for the state's economy.

"North Carolina has been working on shale gas exploration for four years," said Sen. E.S. "Buck" Newton, a Republican from Wilson. "North Carolina has missed out on a lot of opportunity."

Environmental groups complain the bill breaks a pledge that lawmakers had made twice before not to lift the state's fracking moratorium until all safety rules were in place and approved by the legislature. A previous attempt to lift the moratorium fell apart in the N.C. House last year when lawmakers upheld the drilling ban as a necessary public protection and environmental safeguard.

On Tuesday, the bill passed the Senate Commerce Committee and the Senate Finance Committee, with some Democratic members asking for assurances that the public and the environment will be protected from chemical spills and other accidents.

Republican Sen. Tom Apodaca of Hendersonville, chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, said the Energy Modernization Act would be heard by the full Senate on Wednesday and Thursday, then forwarded to the House for debate.

"It'll be a little welcome-back present after Memorial Day," Apodaca said.

Poor me! Washington plays victim of espionage

Global Time
Wed, 21 May 2014 17:28 UTC

The US Justice Department on Monday filed criminal charges against five Chinese army officers, claiming that they helped Chinese firms steal business information on US companies and that all of them came from Unit 61398 of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. Since February last year, the US government has been accusing the same unit of theft of US trade secrets.

The Department of Justice issued "wanted" posters for the officers with their photos. The Wall Street Journal stated in an article "the indictment may act instead as a public effort to name and shame the suspects."

The 48-page indictment providing details of the officers looks "real." Nevertheless, the specific country that made the allegations is the one that spies both home and abroad with the PRISM program of the National Security Agency (NSA), revealed by Edward Snowden, former NSA contractor. Washington was condemned by international public opinion and therefore its pretentious accusation against Chinese army officers is ridiculous.

The US government's claims that Chinese army officers have gathered US business intelligence in an organized way are beyond our imagination. It's fresh to us that Chinese military and civil companies have such a close relationship.

Perhaps all countries believe the US is the No.1 intelligence power. It has been taking bold steps in cyber espionage, as was shown by Snowden. Washington has also helped the rest of the world comprehend the meaning of "intelligence superpower" by not only collecting overseas information but also playing the victim role.

Comment: All this hoopla about Chinese spying, with nary a whisper about the decades of intelligence theft committed by Israel against the US. Curious, isn't it? A small sample:

Extent of Israeli spying 'shocking'- senior US intelligence officials
CIA considers Israel one of its biggest spy threats, but the U.S. continues to fund their military adventures
U.S. accuses Israel of 'alarming, even terrifying' levels of spying
The History of Israeli Spying: The Mother of all Scandals
Safe heaven: Israeli spy hid in US vice president's bathroom

Slappy looks old...I guess selling your soul to the devil has consequences...

Bezel Bub

Walensky was born Rochelle Paula Bersoff in Peabody, Massachusetts, to Edward Bersoff and Carol Bersoff-Bernstein. Walensky is married to Loren D....

HashAttack2

I would call her a moron but then idiots and imbeciles may feel left out

Michael L

Whoa folks! I just was wondering who this lady was and I came across this. Who is Melle Stewart? Is She Dead or Alive? Actress Melle Stewart...

Rowan Cocoan

go out kiss your neighbor, take the bus/train/face your fears, both vaxed an unwaxed. it is time for living with your convictions and to stop...

rakarb

Puppet Masters

Meet the most democratically-elected leader, ever: New prime minister elect, Narendra Modi - India's Putin?

Victims of fracking' demand EPA protection

U.S calling card? Dozens killed as blasts rock open market in northwestern China

New boss at the FBI still focused on making up pretend terrorist threats; May also make up fake criminal plots too

Who is the new secret buyer of U.S. debt? And what is their intention?

The CIA still doesn't want to talk about the Bay of Pigs

Russia's relationship with China at highest level in history - Putin

Is billionaire George Soros engineering another Black Wednesday?

North Carolina Senate committees pass bill that would lift fracking moratorium

Poor me! Washington plays victim of espionage

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