Puppet MastersS


USA

Obama ladies touch down in China for a weeklong feel-good tourist event amid taxpayer uproar over cost

Cheryl K. Chumley
The Washington Times
Thu, 20 Mar 2014 18:39 UTC
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© Alexander F. YuanU.S. First Lady Michelle Obama, front left, her daughters Sasha, front right, Malia, right in the back, and Michelle Obama's mother Marian Robinson, left in the back, arrive at Capital International Airport in Beijing, China, Thursday, March 20, 2014
The Obama ladies are in the house - the house of China, that is.

First lady Michelle Obama, her two daughters, Malia and Sasha, and her mother touched down Thursday in China for what's being touted as a weeklong feel-good tourist event, amid increasing murmurs back home about U.S. taxpayers having to foot the bill.

Mrs. Obama is supposed to use her visit for soft diplomacy only, and shy from the more controversial topics that plague U.S.-China relations, namely human rights and economics. No reporters accompanied the family on the trip.

"The nature of her visit is really quite different," deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters ahead of the trip. "What the first lady really brings is the power of her own story, the power of American values."

The White House also announced that Mrs. Obama wouldn't field any questions from journalists she encountered in Beijing, which rankled some members of the press and the private sector, given her trip - complete with an entourage of about 70 - was still being paid for with tax dollars.

Mrs. Obama is due to meet with her Chinese counterpart, first lady Peng Liyuan, on Friday. Her travel mates will also head with her to the western historic city of Xi'an and the southern community of Chengdu, the latter of which is home to the nation's famed panda bear reserves.
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Bulb

Illinois to follow California's lead with 'Millionaire Tax' referendum

Joel B. Pollak
breitbart.com
Thu, 20 Mar 2014 16:35 UTC
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Illinois Speaker of the House Michael Madigan
Michael Madigan, the all-powerful Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives, announced Thursday that he would direct the Democrat-controlled state legislature to place a referendum on the November ballot that would raise taxes on millionaires by three percent. The measure is similar to a referendum that California Gov. Jerry Brown convinced voters to pass in November 2012, and which helped the state achieve a budget surplus.

Madigan, a Democratic Party boss whom most regard as the true ruler of the state--surpassing Democrat Gov. Pat Quinn--would need to convince three-fifths of both houses to pass the tax hike as a constitutional amendment before it could be put to the voters.

However, as Ray Long, Monique Garcia and Maura Zurich of the Chicago Tribune note, "Madigan holds enough Democratic votes that he could muscle the measure through."

Democrats hold supermajorities in both the House and Senate in Illinois, thanks partly to the fact that Madigan redrew the districts after the 2010 Census--and did so without fear of opposition from the governor after Quinn defeated his Republican challenger.
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Chart Bar

Millions spent by NASA to fly first and business class with little oversight

Mark Greenblatt
ABC Denver 7News
Wed, 12 Mar 2014 19:52 UTC
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© ABCNASA Administrator Charles Bolden
In 2011, NASA booked a flight for Ames Research Center Director Simon "Pete" Worden to fly first class from Washington D.C. to San Francisco. Cost of the one-way ticket: $14,773, versus the $189 average coach fare. Although the trip is reported in NASA's annual travel disclosure, the agency now says the flight never happened.

Worden, meanwhile, says he did take the flight. He explained by email to Scripps News that the trip "included substantial foreign travel," and that he was authorized to fly first class for medical reasons. Yet, NASA's annual report accounting for its first and business class "premium" flights during 2011 includes no reports of foreign travel for Worden that year.

NASA is trying to resolve many of these kinds of disparities as it sorts out what it calls "widespread" errors in travel disclosures to the General Services Administration of its premium travel, according to Elizabeth Robinson, the space agency's chief financial officer. The errors date back to at least 2009, she said.

"We've identified some cases where there are inaccuracies and we are being very forthright about that and we are addressing those inconsistencies," said NASA communications director David Weaver.
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Treasure Chest

Obamacare is definitely not 'as cheap as your cellphone bill' - Obama's nose keeps growing

Giuseppe Macri
The Daily Caller
Wed, 12 Mar 2014 22:07 UTC
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© Unknown
One of President Barack Obama's favorite new Obamacare sign-up pitches is that young enrollees, which the law banks on for sustainability, can get health insurance for the price of a monthly cellphone bill. But in reality, premiums are more than a little pricier.

"HealthCare.gov works great now," Obama told Zack Galifianakis Tuesday in a Funny or Die "Between Two Ferns" video. "And millions of Americans have already gotten health insurance plans, and what we want is for people to know that you can get affordable health care - and most young Americans right now, they're not covered."

"And the truth is that they can get coverage all for what it costs you to pay your cell phone bill," Obama said.

As competition heats up in the wireless war between the nation's biggest carriers, prices and options for cellphone plans are spread across a wide range, depending on phone type, data limits, upgrade terms, etc. For comparison's sake, we'll define an average middle-of-the-road plan as consisting of a smartphone, two-year upgrade, unlimited calls, unlimited texts and an average of two gigs of downloadable Internet data per month.

Comment: Psychopathic insurance companies - feeding the insatiable greed:

Insurance companies profit from Obamacare
Average healthcare premiums have soared 39%-56% post Obamacare
Obamacare sticker shock: premiums for young healthy people will jump in 45 states
Health insurance premiums rising faster after Obamacare than in the previous eight years
Obamacare becomes nightmare of higher premiums and deductibles

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Coffee

Zuckerberg calls Obama to express 'frustration' over NSA surveillance

Andy Greenberg
Forbes
Thu, 13 Mar 2014 15:50 UTC
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© Unknown
Mark Zuckerberg isn't the first name that comes to mind as a champion of privacy. But the seemingly endless revelations of NSA surveillance programs has inspired Facebook's founder to call up no less than President Obama himself to defend his users from government intrusion.

On Thursday Zuckerberg posted a statement on Facebook calling on the U.S. government to take more measures to respect users' privacy and security. "The US government should be the champion for the internet, not a threat," reads his statement. "I've called President Obama to express my frustration over the damage the government is creating for all of our future. Unfortunately, it seems like it will take a very long time for true full reform."

Though Zuckerberg never explicitly names the NSA in his statement, his comments follow news of NSA programs that have potentially allowed spying on Facebook users for years - particularly the majority of those users outside the United States. The initial stories on the NSA's PRISM program last July cited NSA slides that made Facebook appear to have given direct backdoor access to its servers, a notion Zuckerberg and others have vehemently denied. In October, more revelations pointed to NSA efforts to decrypt or surveil data as it traveled between the data centers of companies like Yahoo! and Google. Yet another program siphoned users' entire contact lists from services like Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail and Facebook - NSA documents cited a single day when 82,857 contact lists were taken from Facebook users.
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Che Guevara

Putin's quiet, smart Latin America play

Kristina Wong
The Hill
Fri, 21 Mar 2014 16:05 UTC
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Away from the conflict in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin is quietly seeking a foothold in Latin America, military officials warn.

To the alarm of lawmakers and Pentagon officials, Putin has begun sending navy ships and long-range bombers to the region for the first time in years.

Russia's defense minister says the country is planning bases in Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, and just last week, Putin's national security team met to discuss increasing military ties in the region.

"They're on the march," Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) said at a Senate hearing earlier this month. "They're working the scenes where we can't work. And they're doing a pretty good job."

Gen. James Kelly, commander of U.S. Southern Command said there has been a "noticeable uptick in Russian power projection and security force personnel" in Latin America.

"It has been over three decades since we last saw this type of high-profile Russian military presence," Kelly said at the March 13 hearing.
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Snakes in Suits

Did the U.S. deploy snipers against peaceful Occupy protesters?


Washington's Blog
Fri, 21 Mar 2014 15:58 UTC
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Snipers are commonly used as "false flag" terrorists to disrupt peaceful protests. And see this.

The FBI treated the peaceful protesters at the Occupy protests as terrorists. More here and here.

Was the U.S. government prepared to deploy snipers to disrupt the Occupy protests ... "if necessary"?

TruthDig reported last year:
"Did the FBI ignore, or even abet, a plot to assassinate Occupy Houston leaders?" asks investigative reporter Dave Lindorff at WhoWhatWhy. "What did the Feds know? Whom did they warn? And what did the Houston Police know?"

A Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Washington, D.C.-based Partnership for Civil Justice Fund yielded an FBI document containing knowledge of a plot by an unnamed group or individual to kill "leaders" of the Houston chapter of the nonviolent Occupy Wall Street movement.
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Eye 2

Senate report on illegal torture by CIA being suppressed

Conor Friedersdorf
The Atlantic
Thu, 20 Mar 2014 15:51 UTC
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© Reuters
Senate staffers say the agency tortured prisoners in ways that went beyond what the Bush-era DOJ approved, according to an Al-Jazeera America report.

The Senate report on CIA torture is still being suppressed. But details are leaking out, according to a report by Jason Leopold. Citing Intelligence Committee staffers, he writes that "at least one high-value detainee was subjected to torture techniques that went beyond those authorized by George W. Bush's Justice Department." In addition, "harsh measures authorized by the Department of Justice had been applied to at least one detainee before such legal authorization was received."

The notion that Bush-era interrogations were lawful has always been highly dubious. This latest news plucks away even the fig leaf afforded by Bush Administration attorneys. Some say it would be unfair to prosecute anyone told that a tactic was permitted.

Will they call for a criminal investigation of these incidents?
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Dollars

Fortune 100 companies have received a whopping $1.2 trillion in corporate welfare recently

Aaron Cantú
Alternet
Wed, 19 Mar 2014 13:36 UTC
Corporate Welfare
© Shutterstock/TijanaM
Most of us are aware that the government gives mountains of cash to powerful corporations in the form of tax breaks, grants, loans and subsidies--what some have called "corporate welfare."

However, little has been revealed about exactly how much money Washington is forking over to mega businesses.

Until now.

A new venture called Open the Books, based in Illinois, was founded with a mission to bring transparency to how the federal budget is spent. And what they found is shocking: between 2000 and 2012, the top Fortune 100 companies received $1.2 trillion from the government.

That doesn't include all the billions of dollars doled out to housing, auto and banking enterprises in 2008-2009, nor does it include ethanol subsidies to agribusiness or tax breaks for wind turbine makers.

What Open the Book's forthcoming report does reveal is that the most valuable contracts between the government and private firms were for military procrument deals, including Lockheed Martin ($392 billion), General Dynamics ($170 billion), and United Technologies ($73 billion).
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Light Saber

Michael Parenti: U.S. Empire successful in stopping the betterment of the world's people

John Robles
The Voice of Russia
Sat, 21 Dec 2013 17:00 UTC
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© Youtube
In destroying country after country, the US Empire is doing well. One devastated country after the other has made it clear that any country which pursues independent sovereign policies and attempts to better its own position and the state of its people becomes a target for the US Empire.

According to Dr. Michael Parenti, in an interview with the Voice of Russia; "... any leader who uses the resources, and labor, and substance of his country for the well-being and self-development in that country is seen as someone who is evil, has a hidden agenda, hostile toward America and is hostile toward the West." A term which he says really means the western plutocracy. Ukraine is a perfect example after having chosen a path of economic betterment which does not include US/EU/NATO, US backed "color-revolution" assets which have been left in place are being activated to cause another color revolution and more upheaval in that country. According to Dr. Parenti these people are: "... still so rabidly anti-communist, that even the residue of a shadow of a former Communist country is a little too much."
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