Puppet Masters

US: Busted! Two New Fed GPS Trackers Found on SUV

Kim Zetter
Wired
Tue, 08 Nov 2011 04:30 UTC

As the Supreme Court gets ready to hear oral arguments in a case Tuesday that could determine if authorities can track U.S. citizens with GPS vehicle trackers without a warrant, a young man in California has come forward to Wired to reveal that he found not one but two different devices on his vehicle recently.

The 25-year-old resident of San Jose, California, says he found the first one about three weeks ago on his Volvo SUV while visiting his mother in Modesto, about 80 miles northeast of San Jose. After contacting Wired and allowing a photographer to snap pictures of the device, it was swapped out and replaced with a second tracking device. A witness also reported seeing a strange man looking beneath the vehicle of the young man's girlfriend while her car was parked at work, suggesting that a tracking device may have been retrieved from her car.

Then things got really weird when police showed up during a Wired interview with the man.

The young man, who asked to be identified only as Greg, is one among an increasing number of U.S. citizens who are finding themselves tracked with the high-tech devices.

Israeli Intelligence Website Claims Explosions in Iran Caused by Failed Attempt to Affix Nuclear Warhead to Shahab-3 missile

Madison Ruppert
End the Lie
Sun, 13 Nov 2011 11:54 UTC

Today the Israeli intelligence website DEBKAfile claimed that their usual unnamed sources reported that one of the explosions in Iran was actually caused by a failed attempt to affix a nuclear warhead to a Shahab-3 medium-range ballistic missile.

According to the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), an organization listed as a terrorist group by the U.S. State Department which is oddly characterized as an "Iran exile group" by USA Today, the explosion wasn't an accidental incident at an ammunition depot but instead was a missile base run by the Revolutionary Guard.

DEBKAfile is a site which is given a disturbing amount of credence given their less-than-stellar track record in terms of accuracy and their highly questionable links to Israeli intelligence agencies like Mossad.

The nature of most of DEBKAfile's reports is also suspicious, given that they tend to solely cite anonymous, supposedly insider sources.

I could easily claim I have insider sources and publish disinformation based on these "sources" that I have made up, but of course I'm not going to do that because this site is about getting at the truth, not clouding the discussion with even more lies.

Due to the incredibly unreliable nature of all of DEBKAfile's reports, this claim should be taken with a large grain of salt and not accepted as fact.

DEBKAfile consistently presents the hawkish Israeli position, demonizing Iran, Palestine, and any other nation that stands up to Israel's crimes.

Mossad Lies Lame Excuse for Iran Attack

Press TV
Sat, 12 Nov 2011 09:46 UTC

The United States or other countries should not launch a military strike against Iran over its nuclear program based on "Mossad's lies," a US journalist says.

"No one should allow Israel or anyone else to go to war on account of flagrant deception such as the Mossad has offered," Richard Silverstein wrote in an article.

He said the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) made a mistake by relying on evidence provided by the Israeli spy agency in compiling the report on Iran.

Silverstein said that the UN report claims a number of foreign scientists helped Iran in making nuclear weapons.

The report claims, a Ukrainian (not Russian) nuclear scientist, Vyacheslav Danilenko, is one the scientists employed for five years by the Iranians to work on refining their nuclear designs, Silverstein said.

The American journalist says Danilenko is not a nuclear scientist but a leading expert in producing industrial (nano) diamonds using sophisticated explosives technology.

Bailed-out banks paid no income tax in some years, according to study

John Dunbar
iWatch News
Fri, 04 Nov 2011 19:32 UTC

Banks that received TARP money managed to avoid income tax

Five banks that received federal bailout funds during the financial crisis didn't pay income taxes for one or more years between 2008 and 2010, according to an iWatch News analysis of a new study of tax dodgers.

Wells Fargo & Co., Goldman Sachs Group, PNC Financial Services Group, Capital One Financial Inc. and State Street Corp. were among 78 of America's largest and most profitable corporations that managed to avoid paying income tax in at least one of those years.

Researchers looked at 280 corporations that reported total pretax U.S. profits of $1.4 trillion. The federal corporate tax code "ostensibly requires big corporations to pay a 35 percent corporate income tax rate, on average, the 280 corporations in our study paid only about half that amount."

'Israel may strike Iran as soon as next month'

Ynet
Thu, 10 Nov 2011 13:27 UTC

UK's Daily Mail cites 'unnamed London sources' as saying strike on Tehran's nuclear facility closer than ever. Report's validity questionable.

Is a strike on Iran closer than ever? The Daily Mail claimed Wednesday that "Israel will launch military action to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon as soon as Christmas."

The British publication cites unnamed London "intelligence chiefs" as its source. The report has not been corroborated by any Israeli source, and its validity is considered questionable.

According to the report, UK Foreign Secretary William Hague said that the grave findings by the IAEA on Iran's nuclear ambitions have "completely discredited the Islamic Republic's claims of innocence."

US: Regulator - Nothing Wrong With Fannie and Freddie's Multimillion-Dollar Bonuses

Sterling Wong
Minyanville
Fri, 11 Nov 2011 16:08 UTC

Call it sheer hubris or a woeful misreading of public sentiment: After Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives got slammed by Congress over news that they got $12.79 million in bonus pay last year, Edward DeMarco, their chief regulator as acting head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, has come out to defend the bonuses paid out to the loss-making government-owned mortgage firms.

According to CBS News, DeMarco sent out a letter to lawmakers in Washington on November 10 justifying big compensation packages for executives by saying they were needed to attract and retain top talent. Wrote DeMarco:

I need to ensure that the companies have people with the skills needed to manage the credit and interest rate risks of $5 trillion worth of mortgage assets and $1 trillion of annual new business that the American taxpayer is supporting. I have concluded that it would be irresponsible of me to risk this enormous contingent taxpayer liability with a rapid turnover of management and staff, replaced with people lacking the institutional, technical, operational, and risk management knowledge requisite to the running of corporations with thousands of employees and more than $2 trillion in financial obligations each.

Yes, the big bonuses are necessary to attract the best management, like the kind that lost $5.1 billion in the third quarter for Fannie Mae and requested for $7.8 billion in bailout money, or the kind that lost $4.4 billion in the same quarter for Freddie Mac and asked for $6 billion in taxpayer money. The nearly $14 billion combined is on top of the two firms' request for $6.6 billion in bailout cash in the second quarter and, lest we forget, the $170 billion from their 2009 bailout. Yes, that kind of talent.

Chinese drug exec given suspended death sentence

Associated Press
Sat, 12 Nov 2011 10:46 UTC

A Shanghai court handed the former chief executive of a large state-owned pharmaceutical company a suspended death sentence for corruption that enabled him to amass more than 50 million yuan ($8 million), an official said Wednesday.

Wu Jianwen, the former head of Shanghai Pharmaceutical Group Ltd., was convicted of accepting bribes, embezzling public funds and other graft charges by the Shanghai Intermediate People's Court, according to a court official surnamed Wang.

Wang said the court handed down a suspended death sentence with a two-year reprieve. Such sentences usually are commuted to life in prison with good behavior.

The punishment comes as China wrestles with food and product safety concerns and appears aimed at showing that authorities are cracking down on rampant corruption.

US Moves to Overturn Ban on Cluster Bombs

John Glaser
Antiwar.com
Thu, 10 Nov 2011 18:23 UTC

Ahmed Kamel, 12-year old Iraqi, victim of US cluster bomb

US Moves to Overturn Ban on Cluster Bombs Cluster bombs are widely deemed inherently indiscriminate weapons, but the US aims to torpedo international ban

The U.S. is leading an effort to water down an international ban on cluster bombs, weapons that are widely considered to be inherently indiscriminate.

The Convention on Cluster Munitions prohibits cluster munitions, requires the destruction of stockpiles within eight years, and has been signed by 111 countries, while the U.S. has steadfastly refused to sign it. In a proposal that meant to neuter the convention, Washington now is pushing to permit the use of cluster bombs as long as they were manufactured after 1980 and had a failure rate of less than one per cent.

The Convention began to take effect in June 2010, just after a U.S.cluster bomb killed 35 women and children in Yemen, with the Pentagon stubbornly refusing to admit to the wrongdoing despite damning evidence compiled by Amnesty International, which was later corroborated by classified diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks.

Cluster bombs are highly imprecise weapons that work by dispersing hundreds of smaller submunitions, often referred to as bomblets or grenades. Often, the bomblets do not initially explode, only to explode later with civilians about.

Currency wars are underway: Max Keiser predicts Italy will use its gold reserves to broker a bilateral deal with China

The Keiser Report
Russia Today
Wed, 09 Nov 2011 15:37 UTC

This week Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, discuss European gold wars and the brokers at the Chicago Board of Trade telling others to get a job while they can't even do the one job they have. In the second half of the show, Max Keiser interviews James G. Rickards about his new book - Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crisis.

The future of British policing is here: Government thugs in plain clothes arrest young protester during #Nov9 protest

uuuooobbb
YouTube
Wed, 09 Nov 2011 15:27 UTC

I witnessed this arrest while outside of the kettle in Moorgate around 4pm. This was a large and planned operation. Before he was dragged out of the protest a line of police horses was formed to prevent protesters from following the cops. Undercover officers were intimidating people who tried to photograph the incident.

He was dragged to a small alley and police blocked it to prevent any witnesses from coming in. The second part of the clip is when I run to the other end of the alley. There was around 10 coppers involved.

You are late with this article, the counter-offensive has already taken place and has even been repelled. Estimates vary, but the losses are...

KRNABRNY

I'm seeing a replay of the whole Watergate drama that was a slow, years-long process.

balboa schwartz

They're not witches, they're Liberal voters. Witches have more class!

Pierre Viking

Alot of companies and government etc, are sure interested in peoples personal fetishes that they're proud of. I believe just a few percent of the...

Ethan

Anything that needs a whole month to celebrate each year strikes me as self-obsessed vanity

HashAttack2

Puppet Masters

US: Busted! Two New Fed GPS Trackers Found on SUV

Israeli Intelligence Website Claims Explosions in Iran Caused by Failed Attempt to Affix Nuclear Warhead to Shahab-3 missile

Mossad Lies Lame Excuse for Iran Attack

Bailed-out banks paid no income tax in some years, according to study

'Israel may strike Iran as soon as next month'

US: Regulator - Nothing Wrong With Fannie and Freddie's Multimillion-Dollar Bonuses

Chinese drug exec given suspended death sentence

US Moves to Overturn Ban on Cluster Bombs

Currency wars are underway: Max Keiser predicts Italy will use its gold reserves to broker a bilateral deal with China

The future of British policing is here: Government thugs in plain clothes arrest young protester during #Nov9 protest

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