Puppet MastersS


Red Flag

Benghazi witness: State Department tried to bar meeting with congressional investigators

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Deputy chief of mission for the U.S. in Libya Gregory Hicks testified Wednesday that he was told not to meet with a congressman sent to investigate the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi. Hicks said a State Department lawyer accompanied the delegation and attempted to be in every single meeting he was involved in.

Bad Guys

Benghazi witness gagged by security clearance red tape

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Obama administration officials are finally letting the attorney for a Benghazi whistle-blower get a security clearance - but the clearance is at such a low level that it will probably slow the congressional probe of how the administration handled last year's terrorist attack on the embassy in Benghazi, Libya.

Victoria Toensing represents an unnamed government official who can help explain the reaction of top government officials to the jihadi attack on the U.S diplomatic site in Benghazi and killed four Americans last Sept. 11.

The official may also be able to explain if officials rewrote intelligence reports and took other actions to minimize media coverage of the administration's errors and the perceived role of Al Qaeda jihadis.

Heart - Black

Inhuman: Israeli abuse of Palestinian children in prison 'systematic' says UN report

Palestinian child arrest
© MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP/Getty Images
The ill-treatment of Palestinian minors held within the Israeli military detention system is "widespread, systematic and institutionalised," a report Wednesday by the UN children's fund found.

UNICEF in the 22-page report that examined the Israeli military court system for holding Palestinian children found evidence of practices it said were "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment."

"Ill-treatment of Palestinian children in the Israeli military detention system appears to be widespread, systematic and institutionalised," it concluded, outlining 38 recommendations to improve the protection of children in custody.

Over the past decade, Israeli forces have arrested, interrogated and prosecuted around 7,000 Palestinian children aged between between 12 and 17, most of them boys, the report said, noting the rate was equivalent to "an average of two children each day."

Vader

How did Barack Obama become Monsanto's man in Washington?

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© secretsofthefed.com
And when are anti-GMO activist groups going to stop saying they're "shocked and disappointed" by the president?

Shocked and disappointed is polite-speak and politically correct reaction. It's baloney.

Don't you get it? Obama has never been on your side. He never deserved your trust.

Disappointment implies he was your buddy and then unaccountably walked away.

The man is a politician. He's a liar. Different pols have different styles of lying. Some pretend they're your friend before they screw you over and leave you in the dust.

I've previously published Obama's track record as Monsanto's number-one political supporter in America.

Pistol

Best of the Web: Reality Check: Congress and GAO now investigating DHS ammo stockpiling

For months now, the Internet has been buzzing with rumors of massive ammo buys by the U.S. government.

Now, some members of Congress have taken notice and have begun holding hearings about just how much ammo is being bought and for what purpose.

Ben has the Reality Check you won't see anywhere else.


Sources

Attention

Air Force sidelines 17 nuclear missile officers; commander cites 'rot' in system

Launch Facility
© Associated PressThis file photo provided by the National Park Service shows the inside of the deactivated Delta Nine Launch Facility near Wall, S.D., that is now open to the public. The Air Force stripped an unprecedented 17 officers of their authority to control — and if necessary launch — nuclear missiles after a string of unpublicized and unacceptable failings, including a potential compromise of missile launch codes.
Washington - Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel demanded more information Wednesday after the Air Force disciplined 17 launch officers at a nuclear missile base in North Dakota over what a commander called "rot" in the force. The Air Force struggled to explain, acknowledging concern about an "attitude problem" but telling Congress the weapons were secure.

Hagel reacted strongly after The Associated Press reported the unprecedented sidelining of the officers at Minot Air Force Base, N.D., where one of their commanders complained of "such rot" that even the willful violation of safety rules - including a possible compromise of launch codes - was tolerated.

The AP quoted from an internal email written by Lt. Col. Jay Folds, deputy commander of the 91st Operations Group, which is responsible for all Minuteman 3 missile launch crews at Minot. He lamented the remarkably poor reviews they received in a March inspection. Their missile launch skills were rated "marginal," which the Air Force told the AP was the equivalent of a "D'' grade.

"We are, in fact, in a crisis right now," Folds wrote in the email to his subordinates.

Bad Guys

Putin slams ISAF for turning blind eye to stop growing Afghanistan drug production

Putin
© RIA Novosti / Alexei DruzhininPresident Vladimir Putin, center, chairs a Security Council meeting on May 8, 2013.
The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) does almost nothing to eradicate drug production in Afghanistan, and this drug-trafficking problem will likely worsen in the near future, Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated.

The NATO security mission - which will pull out of Afghanistan in 2014 - has failed to bring stability to the region, Putin said at a meeting of the Russian Security Council on Wednesday.

"There are all grounds to believe that we may face an escalation of the situation in Afghanistan in the short term," the president said.

"The foreign military contingent, whose backbone is American forces, has not achieved a breakthrough in the fight against terrorist and radical groups as yet. On the contrary, their activity has been particularly increasing lately," Putin explained.

There has also been "a drastic increase in drug production in the territory of Afghanistan and the creation of stable drug-trafficking routes to other countries, including - unfortunately - to Russia," he said. Putin also noted that the ISAF does little to address the problem, while Russia's proposals on the matter have so far been ignored.

Bad Guys

Unsung heroin: How MI6, CIA spend tax money on propping up Afghan drug trade

opiumm poppy
© AFP PhotoAn Afghan farmer collects raw opium as he works in a poppy field in Khogyani District of Nangarhar province on April 29, 2013.
With both the CIA and MI6 secretly providing 'ghost money' bribes to the Afghan political establishment, it's likely that Afghans will increasingly support a resurgent Taliban and the drug trade will be further propped up.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, has recently been criticized for taking 'ghost money' from the CIA and MI6. The sums are unknown - for the usual reasons of 'national security' - but are estimated to have been in the tens of millions of dollars. While this is nowhere near the eye-bleeding $12 billion shipped over to Iraq on pallets in the wake of the invasion a decade ago, it is still a significant amount.

And how has this money been spent? Certainly not on social projects or rebuilding initiatives. Rather, the reporting indicates, the money has been funneled to Karzai's cronies as bribes in a corrupt attempt to buy influence in the country.

Coffee

Robert Fisk: 'The Syrian Government is winning - Americans are living in a fantasy world'

Robert Fisk discusses his reaction to what he calls President Obama's "pitiful" backing of the recent Israeli missile strikes.


As the United States moves toward increased intervention in Syria, we're joined by Robert Fisk, the longtime Middle East correspondent of the British newspaper The Independent. Just back from two weeks in Syria reporting around the capital Damascus, Fisk discusses what he calls the "theater of chemical weapons," the latest in Syria's civil war - a battle he says the Syrian government is winning - as well as his reaction to what he calls President Obama's "pitiful" backing of the recent Israeli missile strikes. "Don't ask me if they have used chemical weapons," Fisk says. "It's conceivable. There really isn't any proof. What you have got to realize is that this is a propaganda war just as much as it is a savage war, killing many thousands of human beings."

Laptop

#OpUSA threatens U.S. banks, government: Attacks expected from May 7th

OpUSA
© Unknown
Security experts say that OperationUSA, a coordinated online attack against banking and government websites slated for May 7, is a serious threat. As a result, organizations should be upping their distributed-denial-of-service attack mitigation strategies to guard against the attacks, which are being coordinated by the hacktivist group Anonymous.

Experts advise that call-center staff should be educated about DDoS attacks, in case customers call in about online outages or experience difficulty accessing accounts. And network and security teams should actively monitor Internet traffic on May 7 and take steps to block specific IP addresses.

Anonymous has said the attacks are being waged because of perceived social and political injustices. In an April 21 Pastebin post, it states: "Anonymous will make sure that this May 7th will be a day to remember. On that day Anonymous will start phase one of operation USA. America, you have committed multiple war crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and recently you have committed war crimes in your own country."