Puppet Masters

Israeli military on 'high alert': Reservists, bomb shelters and defensive systems primed over Iran 'irregular' activity in Syria

RT
Tue, 08 May 2018 10:21 UTC

Israel's military is on high alert after allegedly spotting irregular Iranian military movement in Syria, with reservists called up and bomb shelters in the Golan Heights readied in anticipation of an Iranian attack.

Israel has deployed its defense systems and Israeli forces "are on high alert for an attack," according to a military statement obtained by Reuters. The Israeli government has also reportedly instructed local authorities in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights to "unlock and ready (bomb) shelters."

Comment: The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have been instructed to open their bomb shelters in the occupied Golan Heights after reports of "unusual Iranian activity" in Syria, Ynet News reported tonight.

"In addition, defensive systems are deployed, the IDF forces are on high alert for the attack," the military said.

Iran has yet to comment on this latest claim by the Israeli military.

Comment: See also: Reports indicate no casualties as Israel has struck Syrian army positions again

Large Syrian cargo plane carrying supplies from Iran arrives in Damascus shortly after Israeli attack

Leith Aboufadel
Al Masdar News
Wed, 09 May 2018 10:06 UTC

A large Syrian cargo plane left Iran on Tuesday night for the Damascus International Airport, Yoruk Isik of the Bosphorous Observer reported.

According to Isik, the IL-76-T cargo plane of the Syria Arab Air Force's (SyAAF) 585th Transport Squadron of the 29th Air Brigade left Tehran's Mehrabad Airport on Tuesday night and arrived in Damascus shortly after the alleged Israeli attack.

Comment: See also: Reports indicate no casualties as Israel has struck Syrian army positions again

Senator Ted Cruz gets it right: Demands answers from big banks on their new anti-gun rules

Michael Barnes
Liberty Headlines
Mon, 07 May 2018 00:00 UTC

'The Bill of Rights should not be subject to corporate pressure or financial coercion...'

(Michael Barnes, Liberty Headlines) CitiBank and Bank of America are two of the largest financial institutions in the country.

They recently set off a firestorm of controversy after the banks' corporate management announced policies aimed at restricting legal gun activities.

Now, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, wants answers.

"The Bill of Rights should not be subject to corporate pressure or financial coercion," Cruz said in an official letter to the banks' CEOs on Friday.

Cruz is the chairman of the Subcommittee on the Constitution, which deals with civil rights, including Second Amendment rights.

The Subcommittee falls under the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee.

The financial behemoths are leveraging their respective market power to restrict gun sales and gun purchases beyond what state and federal laws require.

Comment: Cruz is making the right inferences and asking the right questions here, because behind the facade of social conscientiousness (which as we know is impossible for big banks) there would appear to be a larger effort on the part of certain cliques in power to disarm Americans.

See also:

Trump, Nixon, and Deep State machinations

James Rosen
The Washington Examiner
Tue, 13 Mar 2018 21:28 UTC

"Is there a deep state in the United States?" asked George Beebe in a recent essay. Yes, the former chief of Russia analysis at CIA concluded, if the definition of "deep state" holds that elements of the national security apparatus possess "the capability, albeit not the legal authority, to abuse intelligence to alter the outcomes of national elections or distort public-policy debates."

Curbing the power of this shadowy group, Beebe suggested, could be accomplished through robust congressional oversight. Yet, in the minds of most analysts inclined to afford the question any serious thought, the Deep State is usually considered immune to the incursions of oversight committees. The group's members are thought to enjoy the same power over elected officials that blackjack dealers hold over casino visitors: The house always wins.

Does that Deep State exist?

A logical preliminary question, posed with the same zoological dispassion we would reserve for contemplation of any elusive species, such as the Loch Ness Monster, would first inquire whether such a beast has ever been documented to exist. After all, anyone affirming the existence, let alone the primacy, of the Deep State in Trump-era Washington would presumably concede the impossibility of such fearsome power amassing overnight, or in swift reaction to the ascendancy of a specific political actor deemed an intolerable threat. Would it be a creature solely of our time, the age of Big Data, or was there a Deep State before computers were widely used?

Israel seeks Russia's help in Syria but will Moscow oblige?

M K Bhadrakumar
Aletho News
Fri, 04 May 2018 00:00 UTC

After threatening Moscow that if it went ahead with plans to strengthen Syria's missile defence systems, Israel will destroy them on the ground - be it "S-300 or S-700", as Israel's Defence Minister Avigdor Liberman sarcastically put it - Tel Aviv is now seeking Russian help to calm things down. The dramatic turnaround is typical of Israel. Israel thinks it is a smart move, but will it work?

Lieberman now wants Moscow's intervention to tamp down Israel's tensions with Iran. Israel has painted itself into a corner. First it began taunting Iran to step up for a fight by firing missiles at locations in Syria where Iranian military advisers (IRGC personnel) could be present. In a strike on April 8, Israel drew blood, killing 7 Iranian personnel. The IRGC was not amused. Tehran vowed that Iranian retaliation is hundred percent certain but at a time, place and manner of its choice.

Whereupon, Israel began whipping up media frenzy that a war with Iran is imminent. The pro-Israeli think tanks in the US even speculated a missile war across 1,500 kilometers of air space. But then, no one really believes that a war between Iran and Israel is imminent - or is even likely. Iran knows that Israel is not reckless enough to start a war - and, on the other hand, resorting to war to advance its interests (geopolitical, economic or security interests) is just not the Iranian way of doing things.

Comment: See also:

The dizzying number of Israel lobby groups and individuals that influence America's knowledge of - and policies towards - the Middle East

If Americans Knew
Fri, 04 May 2018 00:00 UTC

Hollywood gala on November 2, 2017 to raise funds for “Friends of the IDF”, which supports Israeli soldiers. The event raised $54 million. Since FIDF has been made tax exempt in the U.S, donors were able to write their donations to soldiers for a foreign military off their U.S. taxes.

Comment: If you've ever wondered why the US's approach towards the Israel/Palestine conflict is so heavily biased in Israel's favor, or why the US government is so pathologically driven to create chaos in the Middle East, the following information forms part of the answer.

The pro-Israel special interest group is one of the most significant and pervasive special interest groups in the United States. It consists of numerous institutions and individuals that work to influence Congress, the president, academia, the media, religious institutions, and American public opinion on behalf of Israel. It has been active in the U.S. for many decades. Below is a partial list, in no particular order, of groups and individuals that publicly support Israel. Some of these are official lobbying groups whose primary purpose is to lobby governmental officials for pro-Israel policies. Others are groups or individuals that work to influence the media, academia and/or others in a pro-Israel direction. Some do this full-time; others as one portion of a diverse array of activities. While they span the political spectrum and range from hardcore supporters of the Israeli right to liberal critics of some Israeli policies, all support Israel.

We will continue to update and add entities to this very incomplete list as staffing and time allow.

We have been creating this roster for a number of years, so some links below may now be broken, and some information may need to be updated; we are working to fix these.

Below this list are some recommended books and additional resources on the Israel lobby.

Another Maxine Waters anti-Trump meltdown

Kyle Olson
The American Mirror
Mon, 07 May 2018 00:00 UTC

California Congresswoman Maxine Waters had another meltdown this weekend as she bloviated about what she thinks President Trump is doing to the country.

"We're in a difficult time in this country," Waters said during an appearance before the Teamsters union Local 630 in Los Angeles.

Israel launches more airstrikes against Syrian army positions - No casualties

RT
Tue, 08 May 2018 00:00 UTC

A Syrian army position in the south of Damascus was under Israeli air strike, SANA state news agency reported. Syrian air defences fired at and destroyed two Israeli missiles in the Kisweh area.

An army commander told the agency that there were no casualties. Israel has not commented yet on the news.

A source in Beirut airport told RIA-Novosti that Israeli warplanes were spotted in Lebanese airspace at the time of the Kisweh attack.

Comment:

'Creating Wealth' Through Debt: How Parasitic Finance Capitalism Hijacked Productive Industrial Capitalism

Michael Hudson
counterpunch
Tue, 08 May 2018 20:16 UTC

This is the text of a speech Michael Hudson presented at Peking University's School of Marxist Studies, May 5-6, 2018.

Volumes II and III of Marx's Capital describe how debt grows exponentially, burdening the economy with carrying charges. This overhead is subjecting today's Western finance-capitalist economies to austerity, shrinking living standards and capital investment while increasing their cost of living and doing business. That is the main reason why they are losing their export markets and becoming de-industrialized.

What policies are best suited for China to avoid this neo-rentier disease while raising living standards in a fair and efficient low-cost economy? The most pressing policy challenge is to keep down the cost of housing. Rising housing prices mean larger and larger debts extracting interest out of the economy. The strongest way to prevent this is to tax away the rise in land prices, collecting the rental value for the government instead of letting it be pledged to the banks as mortgage interest.

The same logic applies to public collection of natural resource and monopoly rents. Failure to tax them away will enable banks to create debt against these rents, building financial and other rentier charges into the pricing of basic needs.

U.S. and European business schools are part of the problem, not part of the solution. They teach the tactics of asset stripping and how to replace industrial engineering with financial engineering, as if financialization creates wealth faster than the debt burden. Having rapidly pulled ahead over the past three decades, China must remain free of rentier ideology that imagines wealth to be created by debt-leveraged inflation of real-estate and financial asset prices.

Comment: Lots of food for thought here. The left-right socialism vs capitalism debaters would do well to look up and observe the parasitic 'ultra-liberals' devouring everything.

And we're certainly in dire need of new indices of economic health: Western leaders would have everyone believe all's hunky-dory when in fact all's in dire straits.

Malaysia election: PM Najib Razak in fight for political survival

Hannah Ellis-Petersen
The Guardian
Tue, 08 May 2018 15:50 UTC

Tide turns against PM who has been mired in scandal as support surges for country's former leader Dr Mahathir Mohamad

The Malaysian prime minister, Najib Razak, is facing a fight for his political survival when the country goes to the polls this week, after his strong lead over rival Dr Mahathir Mohamad narrowed sharply.

Najib, who has been in power since 2009, was initially thought to be guaranteed an easy win in Wednesday's elections. But in the past few weeks the tide has turned against him, even in the rural Malay heartlands that have long been strongholds for the ruling coalition, Barisan Nasional (BN).

Many are now predicting that the government will once again lose the popular vote, though thanks to recent gerrymandering and the redrawing of electoral boundaries it will still be able to hold on to power.

Comment: More on Malaysia:

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Puppet Masters

Israeli military on 'high alert': Reservists, bomb shelters and defensive systems primed over Iran 'irregular' activity in Syria

Large Syrian cargo plane carrying supplies from Iran arrives in Damascus shortly after Israeli attack

Senator Ted Cruz gets it right: Demands answers from big banks on their new anti-gun rules

Trump, Nixon, and Deep State machinations

Israel seeks Russia's help in Syria but will Moscow oblige?

The dizzying number of Israel lobby groups and individuals that influence America's knowledge of - and policies towards - the Middle East

Another Maxine Waters anti-Trump meltdown

Israel launches more airstrikes against Syrian army positions - No casualties

'Creating Wealth' Through Debt: How Parasitic Finance Capitalism Hijacked Productive Industrial Capitalism

Malaysia election: PM Najib Razak in fight for political survival

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