Puppet Masters

Putin to the rescue: Bilateral agreements with Russia give Greece a strategic spot in the EU's 'energy landscape' - is more to come?

Oliver Tickell
The Ecologist
Sun, 22 Feb 2015 23:04 UTC

While mainstream media promulgate a fictitious message of Russian threats in the Baltic, Vladimir Putin's next big play lies far to the south, writes Oliver Tickell. The gross intransigence of the EU, the IMF, the European Central Bank and Germany are forcing Greece into a powerful new economic and energy alliance with Russia that will reshape Europe - and for the better.

We could see Greece simply renouncing its manifestly unpayable and unjust €320 billion national debt, and quitting the Eurozone straitjacket - while receiving an emergency liquidity package from Russia to support the launch of the New Drachma.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will "launch a campaign of undercover attacks to destabilise the Baltic states on Nato's eastern flank", the Telegraph reports today - along with all other mainstream news media.

Comment: What can come of this situation, with Greece turning to Putin, NATO's enemy #1? It seems it isn't too late for wisdom to prevail in Eurasian statecraft, but it won't be without a fight. Check out:

The war on personal liberty ramps up: California bill seeks to end vaccine exemptions

Joshua Krause
The Daily Sheeple
Sat, 21 Feb 2015 12:44 UTC

Despite its notoriety for being one of the least free states in America, California does still have some lingering freedoms in certain regards. Ever since California mandated that all teachers and students be vaccinated against polio in 1961, the state made sure to allow certain exemptions. In fact, California has some of the best vaccine exemption laws. Residents living there are allowed to keep their children vaccine free, for either religious or personal reasons; a status which it shares with 19 other states.

But unfortunately, in California, no individual right can remain untouched forever. After the measles outbreak in Disneyland, the busybody freak show is out in full force, and they want to cull as many vaccination exemptions as they can.

Comment: Thanks to the well-orchestrated Disneyland measles hysteria, not just California but Oregon is proposing a bill banning personal exemptions for vaccines and Senator Barbara Boxer has proposed mandatory vaccines for all children enrolled in Head Start. Are mandatory vaccines for everyone right around the corner?

Not enough fear: Mall of America terrorist threat

Kathleen Miller
Bloomberg
Sun, 22 Feb 2015 22:54 UTC

Visitors to the Mall of America must be "particularly careful" after a terror group threatened the Minneapolis-area tourist attraction, the U.S. Homeland Security secretary said.

Jeh Johnson's comments during an interview Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union" program followed the release of a video Saturday by the terror group al-Shabaab that called for attacks in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K., according to the news network.

"If anyone is planning to go to the Mall of America today, they've got to be particularly careful," Johnson said. He said later on NBC's "Meet the Press" that he wasn't telling people to steer clear of the mall.

Gunmen from al-Shabaab, based in Somalia, attacked a shopping mall in Kenya in September 2013. At least 67 people died during the attack, which lasted for days. Minneapolis is home to one of the largest Somali populations in the U.S., and federal officials have said al-Shabaab lured recruits from the region.

The world is dealing with a "new phase" of global terrorism, Johnson said on NBC. Previously, terror groups would train recruits to commit acts of violence and then send them into other countries to carry out plans. Now, such groups are using the Internet and social media to push people to carry out attacks on their own, he said.

Comment: Ah yes, the old 'warning' before a funding vote for Homeland Security.

The rebellion in Ukraine is reversing the Maidan revolution - der Spiegel tells Poroshenko he must 'cave in, in order to win'

Deep Resource
Sun, 22 Feb 2015 22:35 UTC

© Reuters / Baz Ratner
Rebels walk near a building damaged during fighting in the village of Nikishine, south east of Debaltsevo February 17, 2015.

Most western media are 'soft-controlled' by the government and in end effect by Washington. For starters, the editors and journalists hired can be trusted to follow the cultural-Marxist party line, no need to 'control' them explicitly.

So if for instance der Spiegel writes something, you can expect it to be in line with what Washington thinks. Yesterday der Spiegel came with the surprising advice to Kiev to 'cave in, in order to win': spiegel.de - Kiew muss aufgeben, um zu siegen

The author of the article Benjamin Bidder says that Kiev's plan A, regain control over the entire area of the former Ukraine, is unrealistic (which it is). Kiev forces have low morale and are up against an enemy backed by Russia, with virtually endless military resources. Even if Washington would send in heavy weapons, it would not make a difference.

Comment: The West and its puppets got it handed to them in Ukraine. But the corporate elite have still made out with Ukraine's valuable resources. Also see:

Defending Ukraine from Russian imperialism?

Jason Hirthler
Counterpunch
Sun, 22 Feb 2015 20:06 UTC

How the Russian Bear Emerged From Hibernation.

In Bertrand Russell's A History of Western Philosophy, the philosopher delivered his summarization of the writings of Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas thusly, "Before he begins to philosophize, he already knows the truth; it is declared in the Catholic faith. If he can find apparently rational arguments for some parts of the faith, so much the better; if he cannot, he need only fall back on revelation. The finding of arguments for a conclusion given in advance is not philosophy, but special pleading."

American foreign policy is determined in much the same fashion. Valuable objects are desired. Noble justifications are manufactured. Trusting populations are deceived. War is made. Empires do their special pleading on a global scale. For instance, the U.S. and its allies know precisely how they want to portray the Ukrainian conflict to their deluded Western populations. They need only apply the false flags and fashion the nefarious motives - like so many brush strokes - to the canvas of geopolitics.

Both the government and their corporate media vassals know their conclusions in advance. They are simple: Russia is the aggressor; America is the defender of freedom; and NATO is gallant security force that must counter Moscow's bellicosity. As the chief pleader in the construction of this fable, the Obama administration has compiled a litany of lies about the conflict that it disseminates almost daily to its press flacks.

Comment: This article is very sobering on where this world is headed and it doesn't look good. Washington is hell bent on war.

The "too big to fail" have stopped being banks. They have become huge criminal enterprises involved in market manipulation

Washington Blog
Fri, 20 Feb 2015 19:55 UTC

No Longer Focused On Deposits Or Loans

Bloomberg reported last month:

"Banks don't have a need for deposits, and the demand for loans by households and firms is weak," Niels Storm Stenbaek, chief economist at the Danish Bankers Association, said in a phone interview.

Wait ... what?

Banks don't need deposits? They're not giving many loans? Isn't that what banks do?

If they're not collecting deposits and making loans, what are they doing?

In reality, big banks aren't really acting like banks anymore. Big banks do very little traditional banking, since most of their business is from financial speculation. For example, we noted in 2010 that less than 10% of Bank of America's assets come from traditional banking deposits.

The big banks are manipulating every market. They're also taking over important aspects of the physical economy, including uranium mining, petroleum products, aluminum, ownership and operation of airports, toll roads, ports, and electricity. And they are using these physical assets to massively manipulate commodities prices ... scalping consumers of many billions of dollars each year (more here and more).

The evidence demonstrates that the big banks have essentially become huge criminal enterprises ... waging warfare against the people of the world.

Heavy weapons withdrawal initiated in Donbass, to be followed by prisoner exchange

RT
Sun, 22 Feb 2015 19:10 UTC

Kiev's military and self-defense forces in eastern Ukraine have announced they will withdraw heavy weapons from the frontline following Saturday's exchange of 191 prisoners. This comes as OSCE monitors have visited the devastated city of Debaltsevo.

Ukrainian Army and Donbass forces have agreed to remove heavy weapons from the conflict zone, Eduard Basurin, deputy commander of the DPR's Defense Ministry's corps, said on Sunday.

"Today we've done preparatory work. Tomorrow is a holiday [Defender of the Fatherland Day], and starting from [February] 24 the process of heavy weapons pullout will begin," Basurin said, as cited by the Donetsk news agency.

Ukrainian General Aleksandr Rozmaznin told AFP: "The papers have been signed to begin withdrawing heavy weapons all along the frontline."

Comment: Ukraine's security service negotiator is reporting 1,500 Ukrainian soldiers "missing in action", which no doubt means the number is much higher.

Tandit acknowledged that Donetsk rebels had provided wounded Ukrainian POWs with medical assistance, although they said those imprisoned by "field commanders" weren't properly treated.

Rebel forces commented on the issue, saying dead Ukrainian soldiers scattered in Debaltsevo could not be collected because Ukrainian troops and National Guards have been coached to rig corpses with explosives, so the bodies need to be "twitched off" to avoid mine traps. And nobody wants to be tasked with that.

To get an idea of the difference between the way DPR and LPR treat their POWs, and the way Kiev 'treats' them, just watch this (and this):

Behind the Headlines: Weekly Broadcast - 22 February 2015

Sott.net
Sun, 22 Feb 2015 19:00 UTC

Welcome to the radio network of SOTT.net, your media source for independent, unbiased, alternative news and commentary on world events. The Behind the Headlines talkshow takes place each Sunday on the SOTT Radio Network. Analyzing global impact events that shape our world and future, and connecting the dots to reveal the bigger picture obscured by mainstream programming, Behind the Headlines is current affairs for people who think.

From the crisis in Ukraine to the ISIS in Iraq, from increasingly extreme weather to surviving in a world ruled by psychopaths, your hosts, their colleagues (and occasional guests) explore the deeper truths driving world events by exposing the manipulations behind what passes for 'news'.

One year on from the dramatic events that ushered in an extremist government in Ukraine, and with a delicate ceasefire in place between East and West, we'll be looking at where things might go from here.

Behind the Headlines airs live this Sunday, 22 February 2015, from 2-4pm EST / 11am-1pm PST / 7-9pm UTC / 8-10pm CET.

Running Time: 01:46:00

Download: MP3

Here's the transcript of the show:

Fox News: Latest ISIS video "faked"

Malia Zimmerman
Fox News
Sat, 21 Feb 2015 16:37 UTC

Breaking news! ISIS recruits army of giants!

Video of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians being marched along a Libyan beach before being beheaded by black-clad members of ISIS is hard for any civilized person to watch, but experts who made it through the sickening, five-minute clip told FoxNews.com Friday they came to the same conclusion: The footage was faked.

No one holds out hope the victims, mostly poor fishermen who had gone to Libya to scratch out a living, are still alive. But several anomalies in the video, which was posted online Feb. 15, indicated to trained eyes that at least some of the production was done on "green screen" with background added later, perhaps to disguise the real location of the atrocity. A day after the clip went viral, Egyptian warplanes struck hard at an eastern port city near Tripoli, where the video appeared to have been shot.

Experts who examined the sickening footage of ISIS militants killing Christians in Libya say the tape was doctored with. In the above still, the killers appear to be more than 7 feet tall.

Comment: It is not in the interests of the U.S. national security state to bring videos like this into question. What is Fox thinking?

50 Shades of Greece

Raúl Ilargi Meijer
The Automatic Earth
Sun, 22 Feb 2015 18:06 UTC

When it comes to the ongoing Greek question, I see a lot of people eagerly jump to conclusions, after the 'debt deal', that I don't think are justified; certainly not yet. The overall conviction in the press seems to be that Syriza has given in on just about all fronts, and Germany and Dijsselbloem are the big winners.

But since that may well be the exact position Syriza wants 'the other side' to be in, where they think they have prevailed, one will have to try and think a few steps ahead before judging the situation. There's far more grey area here than many pundits seem to assume, easily 50 shades of it.

If Greece wouldn't have given Germany the idea that it was winning, Athens would have already come very close to an exit from the eurozone. The problem with that is that it is not part of the mandate Syriza has been given by Greek voters. Who have spoken out for an end to austerity, but within the existing euro framework.

Comment: This Grexit will be interesting to watch in the coming weeks.

Winternights3 There's probs a good connection! Just think about it.

sbc

Moving the goalposts. and people are too shit stupid to notice or care

sbc

Hang em... All the jab pushers. At this point they are trying very hard to continue blatant bullshit lies in a bid for total societal control

sbc

It was interesting when the brothers (their family owns the dealerships/service center that were vandalized - something of like 130+ cars burned...

Scoot Over

I ain't going to watch any more than I didn't watch the OJ trial, which ended exactly as I predicted. The thing is that the state should have...

Rowan Cocoan

Puppet Masters

Putin to the rescue: Bilateral agreements with Russia give Greece a strategic spot in the EU's 'energy landscape' - is more to come?

The war on personal liberty ramps up: California bill seeks to end vaccine exemptions

Not enough fear: Mall of America terrorist threat

The rebellion in Ukraine is reversing the Maidan revolution - der Spiegel tells Poroshenko he must 'cave in, in order to win'

Defending Ukraine from Russian imperialism?

The "too big to fail" have stopped being banks. They have become huge criminal enterprises involved in market manipulation

Heavy weapons withdrawal initiated in Donbass, to be followed by prisoner exchange

Behind the Headlines: Weekly Broadcast - 22 February 2015

Fox News: Latest ISIS video "faked"

50 Shades of Greece

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