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Bizarre execution of 2 NYPD cops a godsend to US government reeling from nationwide protests against police brutality

Benjamin Mueller & Al Baker
New York Times
Sat, 20 Dec 2014 02:33 UTC
NYPD killed
© Kevin Hagen/NYT
Tamir Rice did not receive and honored funeral. He was 12 years old when officers shot and killed him this year.
Two police officers sitting in their patrol car in Brooklyn were shot at point-blank range and killed on Saturday afternoon by a man who, officials said, had traveled to the city from Baltimore vowing to kill officers. The suspect then committed suicide with the same gun, the authorities said.

The officers, Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, were in the car near Myrtle and Tompkins Avenues in Bedford-Stuyvesant in the shadow of a tall housing project when the gunman, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, walked up to the passenger-side window and assumed a firing stance, Police Commissioner William J. Bratton said. Mr. Brinsley shot several rounds into the heads and upper bodies of the officers, who never drew their weapons, the authorities said.

Mr. Brinsley, 28, then fled down the street and onto the platform of a nearby subway station, where he killed himself as officers closed in. The police recovered a silver semiautomatic handgun, Mr. Bratton said.

Mr. Brinsley, who had a long rap sheet of crimes that included robbery and carrying a concealed gun, is believed to have shot his former girlfriend near Baltimore before traveling to Brooklyn, the authorities said. He made statements on social media suggesting that he planned to kill police officers and was angered about the Eric Garner and Michael Brown cases.


Comment: What are the odds, eh? Sure, people are angry, but ordinary people don't react to injustice in this way. Was this guy Greenbaumed or something? By his callous act, he sure has handed - wittingly or otherwise - a gift to the brutal police state.


Authorities in Baltimore sent a warning that Mr. Brinsley had made these threats, but it was received in New York at essentially the same time as the killings, officials said.

The shootings, the chase, the suicide of Mr. Brinsley and the desperate but failed bid to save the lives of the officers - their uniforms soaked in blood - turned a busy commercial intersection on the Saturday before Christmas into a scene of pandemonium.

Comment: When officers are killed we can expect their service to be lauded and their killers to be deemed the worst sort of criminal. When #CopsKill, their victims are blamed, smeared and forgotten, only to be replaced by the next person killed under questionable circumstances. The message is clear: normal people's lives do not matter.

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Stock Down

Financial Maidan: Thousands of Ukrainians protest austerity measures


Sputnik
Tue, 23 Dec 2014 21:22 UTC
Image
© Sputnik/ Evgeni Kotenko
Demonstrators gather outside Ukrainian parliament to protest government measures to arrest the country's financial crisis.

A crowd of thousands gathered on Tuesday outside the parliament building in Kiev to show their opposition to cost-cutting measures proposed by the government of Ukraine.

"First of all, they want to pass a budget, with which the majority of people gathered here today are dissatisfied, and they want to extend the powers of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine," Vitaly Yahno, the coordinator of the protest told the Ukrainian UNN news website. "And our task - is to ensure that the laws are passed, which we submitted."

"The 'Financial Maidan' is demanding the passing of legislation which has already been registered, but they [the authorities] don't want to put them on the agenda," Yahno explained.

The protest site on Tuesday stretched from the immediate boundary of the parliament building to the nearby Mariinski Park, and also blocked traffic on the road between the park and parliament building. According to a correspondent from RIA Novosti, on Tuesday afternoon around two and a half thousand protestors were assembled in largely peaceful protest, while the perimeter of the parliament building was guarded by several hundred security officers, including those of the National Guard.

Comment: All is going as planned in Kiev as designed by the West; steal from the poor and give to the rich.

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Bomb

FBI warns Islamic State might be plotting attack on bridge in Tennessee


Sputnik
Tue, 23 Dec 2014 21:12 UTC
Image
© AP Photo/ Nikki Boertman
The FBI division of the US city of Memphis warned on Monday that Islamic State may explode the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge in the United States through an active member operating in Tennessee.

The Islamic State (IS) extremist group may explode the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge in the United States through an active member operating in Tennessee, the FBI division of the US city of Memphis warned on Monday, citing an anonymous informant.

"According to an anonymous complainant, as of December 2014, ISIS [the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, IS] instructed an ISIS [IS] member, a presumed USPER [US person] in Memphis, with a direct order to blow up the Memphis-Arkansas bridge on an unknown date, activating ISIS terror cells in the United States," the FBI warning said.

Comment: Here we go again with yet another IS threat. Must keep the fear level high to push for more surveillance on the population.

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Pistol

Insanely dangerous! Anti-gun public service announcement encourages kids to steal parents' guns and turn them in to teachers

Chuck Ross
The Daily Caller
Mon, 22 Dec 2014 13:47 UTC
kid_gun
© Youtube
A provocative public service announcement released by a San Francisco-based production company encourages children to put themselves at risk and commit a slew of crimes by stealing their parents' guns from home and turning them in at school.

In the anti-gun ad, published Dec. 13 by Sleeper 13 Productions, a boy who appears to be in his early teens is shown walking up the stairs of his home and wandering into his mother's bedroom.

The boy is shown opening the drawer to his mother's dresser, where a handgun is hidden.

The boy takes the gun from the dresser and leaves the room. The ad then flashes to his school. Sitting in a classroom, the boy ventures up to his teacher's desk after the rest of his classmates have left.

The tension building in the scene breaks, and the boy produces the gun from his backpack, slamming it on his startled teacher's desk.

Comment: One call to 911, and a SWAT team will arrive, and the child will be shot.

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Family

US families prepare for 'modern day apocalypse'

Dominic Waghorn
Sky News
Mon, 22 Dec 2014 02:17 UTC
Image

This old nuclear missile facility has been turned into an apocalypse refuge.
From the outside America may seem to be a land of endless optimism and confidence. But could it be in danger of falling apart?

An increasing number of Americans seem to think so, and they're preparing for the end.

They call themselves preppers. Mainstream suburban Americans hoarding supplies and weapons while leading otherwise perfectly normal lives.

Video: Prepping For The End Of The World

Comment: Though we have no way to discern what may happen in the near future, it is best to be prepared.

See also: And do have a listen to the SOTT Talk Radio show that was devoted to this subject:

Surviving the End of the World (as we Know it)

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Better Earth

The Christmas Hope: A to-do list for a better world

John W. Whitehead
The Rutherford Institute
Mon, 22 Dec 2014 19:39 UTC
"The Christmas hope for peace and good will toward all men can no longer be dismissed as a kind of pious dream of some utopian. If we don't have good will toward men in this world, we will destroy ourselves by the misuse of our own instruments and our own power. Wisdom born of experience should tell us that war is obsolete. We must either learn to live together as brothers or we are going to perish together as fools." - Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Christmas Eve sermon, 1967
Better World
© galleryhip.com
As a child, my Christmas wish list came right out of the Sears and Roebuck catalogue - toys, board games, bikes, action figures, etc. My parents, like so many in their day, belonged to the working-class poor, so while I never lacked for the necessities of life, many of the items on my wish list never came to be. Even so, I was no worse off for it.

I wish the same could be said of those still unfulfilled items on my adult Christmas wish list. Each year, I wish for the same things - an end to war, poverty, hunger, violence and disease - and each year, I find the world relatively unchanged. Millions continue to die every year, casualties of a world that places greater value on war machines and profit margins than human life.

I've seen enough of the world in my 68 years to know that wishing is not enough. We need to be doing. It's not possible to solve all of the world's problems right away. For most people, putting an end to world hunger, poverty, disease and the police state may seem too insurmountable a task to even tackle. But as I point out in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, there are practical steps each of us can take to hopefully get things moving in the right direction. Here's what I would suggest for a start:

Tone down the partisan rhetoric, the "us" vs. "them" mentality. Politicians frequently perpetuate a "good" versus "evil," "us" versus "them" rhetoric which pits citizen against citizen and allows the politicians to advance their personal, political agendas. Instead of wasting time and resources on political infighting, which gets us nowhere, it's time Americans learned to work together to solve the problems before us. The best place to start is in your own communities, neighbor to neighbor. After all, at the end of the day, it makes no difference what politician you voted for - Republican, Democrat or otherwise - politics will never be the answer. Politicians have mastered the art of creating dissension, but they're all the same. Grassroots activism is the only kind of change you can count on.

Turn off the TV and tune into what's happening in your family, in your community and your world. Read your local newspaper. Attend a school board or city council meeting. Get involved with a nonprofit that works in your community. Whatever you do, reduce your intake of mindless television and entertainment news. The only reality programming worth taking notice of is the one playing in your home and community
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Gold Bar

Ukraine Central Bank defrauded of $300,000 - buys gold-plated lead bricks


RT
Mon, 22 Dec 2014 18:39 UTC
fake Ukranian gold
© RIA Novosti/Pavel Lisitsyn
Cunning fraudsters have conned the Ukraine Central Bank branch in Odessa into buying $300,000 worth of gold which turned out to be lead daubed with gold paint.

"A criminal case has been opened and we are now carrying out an investigation to identify those involved in the crime," a spokesman for the Odessa police force is quoted by Vesti.

The news was first reported by Odessa's State Ministry of Internal Affairs.

A preliminary investigation suggests the gang had someone working for them inside the bank that forged the necessary paperwork to allow the sale of the fake gold bullion. It's also been discovered that bank staff were not regularly checked when entering or exiting the premises.

Since the discovery, the National Bank no longer buys precious metal over the counter, as it cannot be sure of its authenticity, says the First Deputy Head of the National Bank of Ukraine, Aleksandr Pisaruk.

Comment: Ukraine sure is having a hard time hanging onto its gold reserves. It has already been robbed of the most of it by the US, under the cover of it being collateral for IMF and US financial aid. Now petty criminals are getting into the act.

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Handcuffs

US police on high alert following cop killings


RT
Mon, 22 Dec 2014 16:48 UTC
Image
© Reuters/Carlo Allegri
Police departments across big cities in the US are warning officers to take extra care after a spate of cop killings. Officers are advised to wear bulletproof vests and not make inflammatory posts on social media amid increased fears for their safety.

A message from the New York Police Department (NYPD) union told cops that they should respond to every radio call with two cars, "no matter what the opinion of the patrol supervisor," while they should not make arrests "unless absolutely necessary," AP reported.

Meanwhile, President of the Detectives Union Michael Palladino also warned of the dangers facing officers, stating, "Detectives assigned to Precinct Detective Squads and similarly-sized units should operate in teams of three when possible until we better assess the threat that exists against us," in an email sent to officers.

Comment: The police forces across the US are increasing their vigilance as the reality of their brutal tactics to "protect and serve" have been steadily increasing. The police no longer protect and serve the public but rather the people in power. It feels like the militarized police force have now declared war on the public.

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Eye 2

Mother who murdered 8 children in Cairns, Australia, "had found God"


9news.com.au
Mon, 22 Dec 2014 12:57 UTC
Cairns memorial
© Tom Steinfort
Family members arrive at the Manoora shrine in Cairns
The 37-year-old Cairns mother accused of murdering eight children had recently turned to religion and banned technology from her home.

Raina Mersane Ina Thaiday, who remains under police guard in hospital, had taken to giving fiery sermons in the street and had cut the power to her home and threw away the television, neighbours told News Corp.

She warned locals not to use their mobile phones because they were the "work of the Devil" and posted a handwritten sign on a front window of her public housing home that read: "No alcohol, cigarette, and drunken people allowed in this area".

Others said the house, where she is accused of killing seven of her own children and a niece in a frenzied knife attack last Friday, was often the scene of wild all-night parties.

Meanwhile, preliminary autopsy reports are detailing the horrific injuries sustained by some of the eight children in the knife attack.

It is alleged some suffered multiple stab wounds, with one child sustained at least 12 knife wounds to the front and 10 more on the back, according to pathology results.

Comment: It is not the first time we have seen mothers torturing or murdering their children, it seems to be a Sign of our Times. This one however, certainly goes high up on the list of the shocking, horrific, terribly sad and totally insane.

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Cult

We're the bloodthirsty warmongers, not 'evil' Putin

Peter Hitchens
Daily Mail on Sunday
Sun, 21 Dec 2014 17:33 UTC
Vladimir putin
© RIA Novosti Alexey Druzhinin
This is a time of year for memories, and the ones that keep bothering me are from my childhood, which seemed at the time to be wholly happy and untroubled.

Yet all the adults in my life still dwelt in the shadow of recent war. This was not the glamorous, exciting side of war, but the miserable, fearful and hungry aspect.

My mother, even in middle-class suburban prosperity, couldn't throw away an eggshell without running her finger round it to get out the last of the white. No butcher dared twice to try to cheat her on the weights.

Haunted all her life by rationing, she would habitually break a chocolate bar into its smallest pieces. She had also been bombed from the air in Liverpool, and had developed a fatalism to cope with the nightly danger of being blown to pieces, shocking to me then and since.

I am now beset by these ingrained memories of shortage and danger because I seem surrounded by people who think that war might be fun. This seems to happen when wartime generations are pushed aside by their children, who need to learn the truth all over again.


Comment: A perfect definition of the hysteroidal cycle. From Political Ponerology:
The most characteristic feature of such a period is widespread hysteria, like that of the quarter century in Europe preceding WWI. "Happy" times of peace are necessarily dependent on social injustice, and children of the privileged class learn early to repress ideas that they and their families are benefiting from the injustice of others. Such unconscious defense mechanisms cause these individuals to disparage the values of those whose work they exploit. These processes lead to an hysterical state of inhibited logic and reasoning. This rigidity of thought then gets passed on to the next generation to an even greater degree.
[...]
During good times, people progressively lose sight of the need for profound reflection, introspection, knowledge of others, and an understanding of life's complicated laws. Is it worth pondering the properties of human nature and man's flawed personality, whether one's own or someone else's? Can we understand the creative meaning of suffering we have not undergone ourselves, instead of taking the easy way out and blaming the victim? Any excess mental effort seems like pointless labor if life's joys appear to be available for the taking. A clever, liberal, and merry individual is a good sport; a more farsighted person predicting dire results becomes a wet-blanket killjoy.

Perception of the truth about the real environment, especially an understanding of the human personality and its values, ceases to be a virtue during the so-called "happy" times; thoughtful doubters are decried as meddlers who cannot leave well enough alone. This, in turn, leads to an impoverishment of psychological knowledge, the capacity of differentiating the properties of human nature and personality, and the ability to mold minds creatively. The cult of power thus supplants those mental values so essential for maintaining law and order by peaceful means. A nation's enrichment or involution regarding its psychological world view could be considered an indicator of whether its future will be good or bad.

During "good" times, the search for truth becomes uncomfortable because it reveals inconvenient facts.

Comment: Hitchins neatly points up the absurdity of the West's actions towards Russia. The virus truly doesn't understand that when the host dies it will die too.

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