Puppet MastersS


Brick Wall

Uhh: After shuttering TV stations, Kiev now 'bans' Telegram channels, even though providers can't actually pull it off


RT
Thu, 25 Feb 2021 18:53 UTC
telegram messenger app
© Kirill Kallinikov / SputnikTelegram messenger service on a monitor screen
A Ukrainian judge has ordered four major news channels on the Telegram messaging service to be blocked across the country, just weeks after the government banned a series of opposition-owned broadcasters and online news sites.

On Wednesday, the local Strana outlet reported it had received confirmation from a source in the SBU security agency, Kiev's successor to the Soviet-era KGB, that a district court in Kharkov had ordered the ban on the popular news feeds. Among them are Legitimnyy, Gossip Girl, Resident and Kartel, all operating in the Russian-language, which is reportedly spoken at home by at least one in three Ukrainians and understood by almost everyone in the country.

Comment: One might wonder about the technological proficiency of those advising President Zelensky. Even the Russian are stymied by Telegram.

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Sherlock

Thousands rally behind Armenia's PM after he accuses army of coup attempt

Nvard Hovhannisyan
Reuters
Thu, 25 Feb 2021 18:40 UTC
Pashinyan
© Sputnik/Mikhail Klimentyev/Kremlin viaFILE PHOTO: Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan speaks during a news conference following a meeting with Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev to discuss the implementation of the ceasefire over Nagorno-Karabakh reached on November 9 and measures to solve problems in the region, in Moscow, Russia January 11, 2021.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan condemned what he said was an attempted coup after the army demanded he quit on Thursday, and told a rally of thousands of supporters that only the people could decide his future.

The army's demand, in a written statement, plunged the impoverished former Soviet republic of less than 3 million into a new political crisis, just months after ethnic Armenian forces lost a war and territory to Azerbaijan.

Russia, which is traditionally a close ally and has a military base in Armenia, said it was alarmed by events. Moscow called it a domestic matter that Armenia should resolve peacefully and within the constitution.

Comment: See also:

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Snakes in Suits

Outrage as US admits $1.7 trillion F-35 program a FAILURE


RT
Wed, 24 Feb 2021 23:51 UTC
F-35
© US Air Force/Capt. Kip SumnerA F-35 Lightning II performs at an air show in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, November 22, 2020.
A tacit admission by the US Air Force that the F-35 has failed its main mission has triggered an outpouring of outrage from Americans who think the stealth fighter's gargantuan budget could have been better spent on other things.

Frustration with Lockheed Martin's fifth-generation stealth jet flooded Twitter on Wednesday, after Forbes magazine published a story about how USAF commissioning a study into a new, cheaper and lighter fighter amounts to "a tacit admission that the F-35 has failed."


Comment: Lockheed isn't phased, it just signed a massive defense deal with Saudi Arabia.


"We could have used this cash to cancel student loans for every person in America," lamented the liberal watchdog Public Citizen, pointing to the F-35 program's estimated $1.7 trillion lifetime cost.

Comment: It says a lot about the state of nations when the US wastes trillions of dollars it doesn't have on equipment that doesn't work meanwhile Russia's defense technology is leagues ahead (it also works) and for a fraction of the cost.

See also:

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Sheriff

Texas Sheriff: 'It's absolutely true' Biden is releasing illegals into U.S. without COVID tests

Matt Couch
The DC Patriot
Thu, 18 Feb 2021 07:59 UTC
Tucker Carlson ScreenShot
The Sheriff of Jackson Country in Texas is firing shots at the Biden Administration this week, and he's hammering them for releasing illegals into the state without Covid tests.

Monday night on Tucker Carlson he said that it was "absolutely true" that the Biden Administration was releasing illegals into the state without testing.

It's absolutely true," Louderback said. "It's even, if I can continue, Tucker, the memo, the memo that I received this last week, it's essentially a defund the ICE by memo, by a memorandum that was sent out by David Borkowski on Jan. 20 or 21. So this is a particularly devastating document for Texans and Americans here in the United States. The message really has been sent, when I read it first and looked at it, it's a message to the world, you can come here illegally, you could commit crimes here against Americans and remain here illegally."

Comment: The whole Corona madness has been cruelly used and exaggerated by different powerful interest groups for their own agendas. How long this madness will last probably depends on how much normal people's lives will deteriorate because of all these inhuman, illogical, tyrannical, and harmful measures and policies that are promoted by the PTB.

Like in The Wizard of Oz, we can go back "home" anytime we like. We just have to finish the unpleasant journey, so we can learn that we already have the power to change the tyranny and create a better place to live.

See the full interview of Tucker Carlson with Jackson County Sheriff A.J. Louderback.



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Info

Manchin flexes muscle in 50-50 Senate

Alexander Bolton
The Hill
Wed, 24 Feb 2021 06:00 UTC
sen. joe manchin
Centrist Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is the most pivotal vote in the evenly divided Senate, and his power could spark prolonged intraparty feuds among Democrats.

Concerned about simmering friction, Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday strongly urged his Democratic caucus to unify around a pending $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package.

Manchin appears to have derailed President Biden's nominee to head the White House budget office, Neera Tanden, by announcing last week that he would vote against her because of sharp criticisms she leveled on Twitter against Senate colleagues. In a 50-50 Senate, Tanden now needs the backing of at least one Republican, and perhaps more, which appears unlikely.

Comment: See also:

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Bomb

The Ukraine's many ticking time bombs

The Saker
Unz Review
Tue, 23 Feb 2021 00:00 UTC
Ukraine delusions reality
While the Ukraine has mostly been out of the news, there were bigger stories out there, things have gone disastrously wrong under "Ze" (Zelenskii) and the Ukraine is now looking at several time bombs which could explode at any minute. Here is a partial list of problems which the Ze administration will have to deal with in 2021: (in no particular order)
  1. The strengthening of the internal opposition to Ze's rule
  2. The COVID pandemic, the vaccine scandal and the crumbling Ukrainian infrastructure
  3. The crackdown on free speech
  4. The persecution of opponents inside and even outside the Ukraine
  5. The (limited) rise of (putatively pro-Russian) OPZZh party
  6. The sharp rise in European rhetoric against Russia which the Ze admin will want to match and cater to
  7. The hardening of the positions of the LDNR
  8. A further increase in US/NATO saber rattling and provocations
  9. The regime in Kiev openly planning for a war against Russia

Comment: And to think that Ukraine would probably have never reached this level of dysfunction if the US hadn't helped implement the Maidan color revolution of 2014.

'Ukraine on Fire': How US, Not Russia, Destroyed Ukraine - Oliver Stone Documentary Finally Available (VIDEO)

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Eye 2

Boris Johnson's cautious Covid plan is not a roadmap to freedom, but a never-ending path to permanent restrictions on our liberty

Joanna Williams
RT
Tue, 23 Feb 2021 13:23 UTC
Prime Minister Boris Johnson
© REUTERS / Leon Neal/PoolBritain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson holds a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic media briefing at 10 Downing Street in London, Britain February 22, 2021
Covid's in retreat and millions of people have been vaccinated, so why not move out of lockdown more quickly? Worryingly, the damaging restrictions are fast becoming an end in themselves - and look like they're here to stay.

A 'one way road to freedom'. That is how Boris Johnson described his much-anticipated plan to lift lockdown. But yesterday's big reveal turned out not to be about freedom at all. The painfully slow pace of change proposed, as well as all the talk of masks and social distancing continuing into the autumn, suggests this is less a roadmap to freedom and more a never-ending path to permanent restrictions on our liberty.

We know that the rate of people testing positive for Covid-19, the numbers being admitted to hospital and the daily death toll are all, thankfully, plummeting. It's not much talked about, but coronavirus is on the decline all around the world. Globally, cases fell by 16 percent last week and have been in retreat for over a month. As a result, more and more countries are beginning to open up and let people get on with their lives. Italians can go out to restaurants. Germans can get a haircut next week. French children have been back at school since the start of the year. But here in the UK, we cannot do any of these things.
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Target

House Dems, targeting right-wing cable outlets, are assaulting core press freedoms

Glen Greenwald
greenwald.substack.com
Tue, 23 Feb 2021 00:00 UTC
Pelosi and group
© Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesSpeaker of the House Nancy Pelosi with other House Democrats • January 15, 2020
Democrats' justification for silencing their adversaries online and in media -- "they are spreading fake news and inciting extremism" -- is what despots everywhere say.

Not even two months into their reign as the majority party that controls the White House and both houses of Congress, key Democrats have made clear that one of their top priorities is censorship of divergent voices. On Saturday, I detailed how their escalating official campaign to coerce and threaten social media companies into more aggressively censoring views that they dislike — including by summoning social media CEOs to appear before them for the third time in less than five months — is implicating, if not already violating, core First Amendment rights of free speech.

Now they are going further — much further. The same Democratic House Committee that is demanding greater online censorship from social media companies now has its sights set on the removal of conservative cable outlets, including Fox News, from the airwaves.
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Stop

Judge bans enforcement of Biden's 100-day deportation pause

Nomaan Merchant
Washington Times
Wed, 24 Feb 2021 00:00 UTC
Biden
© Evan Vucci/APUS President Joe Biden
A federal judge late Tuesday indefinitely banned President Joe Biden's administration from enforcing a 100-day moratorium on most deportations.

U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton issued a preliminary injunction sought by Texas, which argued the moratorium violated federal law and risked imposing additional costs on the state.

Biden proposed the 100-day pause on deportations during his campaign as part of a larger review of immigration enforcement and an attempt to reverse the priorities of former President Donald Trump. Biden has proposed a sweeping immigration bill that would allow the legalization of an estimated 11 million people living in the U.S. illegally. He has also instituted other guidelines on whom immigration and border agents should target for enforcement.

Tipton, a Trump appointee, initially ruled on Jan. 26 that the moratorium violated federal law on administrative procedure and that the U.S. failed to show why a deportation pause was justified. A temporary restraining order the judge issued was set to expire Tuesday.

Comment: See also:

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Attention

Twitter's discrediting of leaked docs that show UK's covert activities against Russia is a shocking case of media manipulation

Tom Fowdy
RT
Wed, 24 Feb 2021 13:45 UTC
Map and entities
© Grayzone screenshot/Twitter
On some platforms, whistleblowing is only considered an acceptable form of journalism when it exposes enemies of the West. Twitter's labelling of a Grayzone story that reflected badly on Britain shows the double standards at play.

Earlier this week, journalist Max Blumenthal published a series of leaked documents from the British Foreign Office on his news website the Grayzone, revealing that the BBC and the Reuters Foundation had participated in a covert programme targeting Russia and its neighbours, seeking to push political change within the country.

Former Labour MP Chris Williamson commented on the findings, noting:
"These revelations show that when MPs were railing about Russia, British agents were using the BBC and Reuters to deploy precisely the same tactics that politicians and media commentators were accusing Russia of using."
For those familiar with the BBC and its history as an extension for British foreign policy goals, the leaks are not a surprise. However, that does not mean the news was met with a warm welcome.

Shunned by the mainstream media, the Grayzone report was subsequently targeted by Twitter, with each link being tagged with a warning stating: "These materials may have been obtained through hacking."
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