Puppet MastersS


Attention

Obama's Europe doctrine: Too much stupid, not enough serious

POTUS
© Reuters/Kevin LamarqueWith an F-16 fighter in the background, U.S. President Barack Obama makes remarks upon his arrival in Warsaw June 3, 2014.
What to make of the 'new' Obama foreign policy doctrine?

In a previous RT article I called it the "Take it to the Morgue - Quietly" doctrine - as it ostensibly privileges shadow wars instead of "Shock and Awe."

Then, in another article, I showed how much the still exceptionalist doctrine borrows from prime neo-con (and conceptualizer of the war on Iraq) Robert Kagan - husband of the notorious Victoria, Queen of Nulandistan.

But that was definitely too conceptual. In fact, as peddled off the record by the White House, the "doctrine" is nothing but a prosaic "Don't Do Stupid S**t," a denomination fully adopted by The New York Times.

Stupid s**t though, doesn't even begin to describe Obama's first act after announcing the doctrine last week at West Point. For those who don't get the message, one picture is enough to tell the whole story; Obama and the Polish president in front of an F-16 exhibition at a military airport near Warsaw.

Stupid s**t also irretrievably takes a backseat to serious s**t during Obama's current European tour. We just need to examine what's in store at the selected pit stops.

First is Warsaw - whose nervous poodle, US vassal government is absolutely hysterical over an imminent Russian "threat." Then it's the G7 in Brussels - the "ex-G8," from which Russia was expelled by the self-proclaimed "great powers." One of the items in the agenda is the possibility of slapping even more sanctions over Moscow's "threat" to the Ukraine.

Handcuffs

North Carolina GOP pushes unprecedented bill to jail anyone who discloses fracking chemicals

Image
© Chris Carlson/AP
As hydraulic fracturing ramps up around the country, so do concerns about its health impacts. These concerns have led 20 states to require the disclosure of industrial chemicals used in the fracking process.

North Carolina isn't on that list of states yet - and it may be hurtling in the opposite direction.

On Thursday, three Republican state senators introduced a bill that would slap a felony charge on individuals who disclosed confidential information about fracking chemicals. The bill, whose sponsors include a member of Republican party leadership, establishes procedures for fire chiefs and health care providers to obtain chemical information during emergencies. But as the trade publication Energywire noted Friday, individuals who leak information outside of emergency settings could be penalized with fines and several months in prison.

Display

Best of the Web: 'Russian troops in Ukraine? Got any proof?' Full Putin interview with French media (including transcript)

putin

Vladimir Putin faced a barrage of tricky questions from French media ahead of his meeting with world leaders at the 70th anniversary of the Normandy landings. Here are his best replies on key issues: Ukraine, Crimea and relations with the US.

On Ukraine, its sovereignty and Russian troops:

The ongoing crisis in Ukraine has been occupying the center of international attention since the end of last year. While the coup-appointed government in Kiev is carrying out a military crackdown on the southeast of the country, the US said that Russian troops are allegedly involved in the crisis and they have proof of that.

"What about proof? Why don't they show it?" Putin told French media.

"The entire world remembers the US Secretary of State demonstrating the evidence of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, waving around some test tube with washing powder in the UN Security Council. Eventually, the US troops invaded Iraq, Saddam Hussein was hanged and later it turned out there had never been any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. You know - it's one thing to say things and another to actually have evidence."

"After the anti-constitutional coup in Kiev in February, the first thing the new authorities tried to do was to deprive the ethnic minorities of the right to use their native language. This caused great concern among the people living in eastern Ukraine."


Whistle

New Jersey police officer files lawsuit over profiling quotas

Image
© Mendham Township Police Department
A cop who said he refuses to profile young drivers for tickets has filed a lawsuit saying he's been passed over for promotions and overtime because of his actions.

Patrolman Robert Wysokowski, 43, of the Mendham Township Police Department filed suit Wednesday in Superior Court here under New Jersey's Conscientious Employee Protection Act, also known as the Whistleblower Law. He seeks promotion to sergeant, punitive and compensatory damages for "all lost benefits, wages and rights," and damages for emotional distress.

Wysokowski contends that he has consistently met department standards on enforcement of motor vehicle laws but beginning in 2005, under now-former Police Chief Thomas Costanza, he was told he had to "increase his numbers." The suit said that in 2005, Steven Crawford, who was then a sergeant but now is chief, advised Wysokowski to "seek out and target younger drivers for motor vehicle stops."

"Crawford told plaintiff that it was 'good police work,' or words to that effect," the lawsuit said. The complaint said superiors advised Wysokowski that he always could find an infraction when he stopped a vehicle.

Star

Federal Appeals court rules citizens can film police under First Amendment

Image
© AFP/Robyn Beck
The First Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that American citizens have the right to film police officers in public.

The federal appeals court declared that Carla Gericke was exercising her First Amendment right when she attempted to film a late-night traffic stop. Gericke was driving behind Tyler Hanslin, because she did not know the way to his home. When she saw police lights flash behind her, she assumed she was being hailed and pulled over.

Sergeant Joseph Kelley approached her vehicle and told her that he had meant to pull Hanslin over, and she moved her vehicle to a nearby parking lot. Once there, she exited her vehicle and approached Hanslin's with her video camera, informing Sergeant Kelley that she was going to record the encounter. Sergeant Kelley ordered her back to her car, and she complied.

Shortly thereafter, Officer Brandon Montplaisir arrived at the scene, and he approached Gericke and demanded to know where her video camera was. When she refused to tell him, he arrested for her disobeying a police officer. At the station, officers also charged her with unlawful interception of oral communication.

Dollars

Monsanto goes to college - And buys the professor & the student center . . .

Image
© aaronfreiwald.com
If you need a science expert to support your cause and you have unlimited cash, what better way to find an expert you can trust than to buy the university where the scientist works?

When it comes to food and agricultural policy, it is hard to know which raging debate burns hotter. Ballot initiatives and grass-roots campaigns in several states, including California, would require labeling on food products containing genetically modified components. Food products falsely claiming to be "natural" or to have health benefits face challenges in court. Policymakers receive more intense scrutiny over the way millions and millions of dollars are spent in subsidies and tax breaks for industrial agribusinesses.

When the media or litigators or regulators tackle one of these issues, they will look for experts in the agricultural "field" of interest, so to speak. That is where the rights and interests of consumers are vulnerable.

Recently, Food & Water Watch, a nonprofit group advocating safe and sustainable food, water and fish, published a devastating report on the prominent role private industry now enjoys in agricultural programs at universities around the country. You can find the report, entitled, "Public Research, Private Gain: Corporate Influence Over University Agricultural Research".

Light Saber

Best of the Web: President Bashar al-Assad defies NeoCon democrazis with landslide Syria election victory

Image
Bashar Assad has won a landslide victory in the Syrian presidential poll with 88.7 percent of the vote. This will secure him a third seven-year term in office amidst a bloody civil war, which stemmed from protests against his rule.

"I declare the victory of Dr Bashar Hafez Assad as president of the Syrian Arab Republic with an absolute majority of the votes cast in the election," parliament speaker Mohammad Laham said in a televised address from his office in the Syrian parliament.

A total of 10.2 million people voted for Assad. The voter turnout stood at 73.42 percent. No violations have been reported, Syria's Higher Judicial Committee for Elections said as quoted by SANA news agency.

Syrian officials said the result was a vindication of Assad's three-year campaign against those fighting to get rid of him.

Comment: 120,000 dead people later, it has all come to nought.

Assad is more popular than ever and the U.S. empire is one step closer to its grave.

Stupid, bloody psychopaths.


Gold Bar

Flashback $1 Trillion motherlode discovered in Afghanistan

Image
© Daily Mail, UK
A recently unearthed 2007 United States Geological Service survey appears to have discovered nearly $1 trillion in mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself.

Lorimer Wilson, editor of www.FinancialArticleSummariesToday.com, provides below further reformatted and edited [..] excerpts from articles by James Risen* (www.nytimes.com) and Una Galani** (www.breakingviews.com) for the sake of clarity and brevity to ensure a fast and easy read. Smith goes on to say:

The previously unknown deposits - including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium - are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world. An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the "Saudi Arabia of lithium," a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and BlackBerrys.

Comment: Where are those weapons of mass destruction?
Secret memos expose link between oil firms and invasion of Iraq
BP 'Has Gained Stranglehold Over Iraq' After Oilfield Deal is Rewritten
The War On Terror is a Fraud


Boat

Money talks! France responds to US BNP fine, will train hundreds of Russian seamen to operate French-made warship

French Mistral warship
© UnknownThe French Mistral is built to launch amphibious attacks
In the aftermath of the Russian sanctions, which French president Francois Hollande vehemently approved after constantly slamming Russia's involvement in the Ukraine conflict, and even went so far to threaten the cancellation of a delivery of a powerful French-made amphibious assault warship, the Mistral, to be delivered to Russia something happened: in the latest demonstration of its impotence to punish domestic bankers, the US decided to slap a French bank, BNP Paribas with a $10 billion fine for money laundering.

As a result, France has suddenly found itself battling two populist fronts: on one hand it had to continue its foreign policy track of siding with NATO and the US when it comes to Russian developments; on the other it had to responds to howls of protest from the population bashing the US for having the temerity to punish its flagship bank (recall "France Furious At US $10 Billion BNP "Masterful Slap", "Racketeering" Fine").

Today, it was revealed that in weighing the two evils, it picked what it thought was the lesser one, and as the WSJ reports "a group of 400 Russian sailors are scheduled to arrive on June 22 in the French Atlantic port of Saint-Nazaire to undergo months of instruction before some of them pilot the first of two Mistral-class carriers back to Russia in the fall, said one of these people."

As the WSJ explains, the training is a pivotal step that deepens France's commitment to fulfilling the €1.2 billion ($1.6 billion) contract to supply Russia with the carriers, which are built to launch amphibious attacks with landing craft, helicopters and tanks.

Cow

Best of the Web: Making sense of Obama's billion dollar hammer: Throwing a piece of meat to placate the dogs

Obama
© AFPUS President Barack Obama addresses US and Polish airmen in front of a F-16 fighter jet in a hangar at Warsaw Chopin Airport, Poland, on June 3, 2014. Obama arrived for a two-day Polish visit, the first stop on a European trip, and will discuss the Ukraine crisis with his central and eastern European counterparts.
You probably heard it by now: Obama has pledged a billion dollars to what my "beloved" BBC called "European security". The official name for this initiative is the "European Reassurance Initiative". You see, Obama and the BBC apparently believe that Europeans are really terrified and that they believe that Russian tanks might roll into Warsaw, Athens, Rome or Lisbon any moment now. The good news is that Uncle Sam is here to reassure them that he will let no such thing happen and that this additional 1 billion dollars will deter the Russian Bear.

Have you ever read something more ridiculous?

So what is really going on here?

There is a wonderful American expression which says that "to a man with a hammer everything looks like a nail". Well, to Obama, the EU and the Ukraine sure does look like nails because the only instrument the USA has used in its foreign policy for many decades now is a "hammer" composed of money and guns. But let's backtrack for a second.

Comment: See also: