Puppet MastersS

Airplane

Censored article: MH17 and the Australian dimension

evan jones
Left, Associate Professor Evan Jones is a retired political economist, based in Sydney. He taught at the University of Sydney from 1973 until 2006.
This review has been banned from publication in Australia. (Get the book here.)

The MH17 was brought down over six years ago. John Helmer, with others, has compiled a book on the farce that has attended the pursuit of cause and culprits. Australia's involvement is peculiarly both integral and marginal.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was brought down over Eastern Ukraine on 17 July 2014. All 298 people on board lost their lives - including 196 Dutch, 43 Malaysians and 38 Australian.

Overseen by the Dutch, a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) was established in August 2014, formally comprising personnel from the Netherlands, Ukraine, Australia and Belgium. Malaysia itself was not admitted to the JIT until late November, reputedly because of its scepticism towards the Ukrainian version of the cause of the shoot-down and who was responsible.

Before anybody had inspected the site, that line was that Russia and/or pro-Russian rebels against Kiev did it. The weapon was a Buk ground-to-air missile, the launcher brought in from Russia and returned after the dirty deed.

The JIT investigation and Dutch court case is effectively a Dutch-Ukrainian affair. As Helmer et al. (henceforth Helmer) note, Ukraine possesses the 'right as a JIT member to veto what is investigated, what is disclosed, who to convict' (Ch.6). Belgium (4 nationals dead) is out of picture. Australia is both inside and outside the tent.

Site material reclaimed is partial, and evidence is spotty. Ukrainian air traffic control data have not been released. However, two forms of evidence, Australian-linked, appears to be atypically decisive, at least in a negative sense.

Stock Up

Best of the Web: US economy on track to recover from Plandemic: Record-breaking 33% growth in Q3

trump rally
Coming off the worst quarter in history, the U.S. economy grew at its fastest pace ever in the third quarter as a nation battered by an unprecedented pandemic started to put itself back together, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.

Third-quarter gross domestic product, a measure of the total goods and services produced in the July-to-September period, expanded at a 33.1% annualized pace, according to the department's initial estimate for the period.

The gain came after a 31.4% plunge in the second quarter and was better than the 32% estimate from economists surveyed by Dow Jones. The previous post-World War II record was the 16.7% burst in the first quarter of 1950.

Markets reacted positively to the news, with Wall Street erasing a loss at the open and turning mostly positive.

Comment: More evidence of 'the Trump effect'?

Regardless, it's 'a sign from the heavens' for an incumbent seeking re-election.

If the Plandemic was (at least partly) about trashing the US economy in time for election season, it didn't work.

Even his most ardent foes are having to concede 'defeat':




Wreath

SOTT Focus: Always Covid & Never Christmas: Breaking the Spell That Holds us in its Grip

narnia
"Boris Johnson? Who is he?" asked Lucy.
"Why, it is he that has got all Covidia under his thumb," said Mr Tumnus. "It's he that makes it always Covid. Always Covid and never Christmas; think of that!"
- The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis (with a few changes)
Were he around today, I have no doubt that C.S. Lewis, one of the 20th Century's greatest intellects, would be utterly scathing of what the British Government has done to this country over the past 7 months, given that it has been the very epitome of the scientific and technocratic oligarchy he warned us about decades ago. And so I feel somewhat at liberty to take his comment about the White Witch turning Narnia into perpetual winter without joy and without Christmas, and apply it to our own situation in the land of Covidia (which is where you now live) - a place of perpetual fear and misery, where ordinary life is impossible, and where any hints of joy breaking out must be nipped in the bud before they are allowed to grow to challenge the new winter normal that is settling fast around us.

The words may even turn out to be literally true. In Scotland, they are already talking about what they call a digital Christmas, whatever absurdity that is, whilst in England a psychological game of Good Cop/Bad Cop is going on, with Comrade de Pfeffel Johnson apparently desperately hoping that we'll all have a normal Christmas, but with members of the ironically named SAGE committee saying this is wishful thinking. Who will win out? Of course the Bad Cops will win out, but no doubt carefully managed and cleverly messaged to present it as a kind of victory for Good Cop, whereby he wangles some concessions for us, such as a relaxation of the Rule of 6 to the Rule of 6+1 for a day, so that Great Aunt Maud doesn't have to spend the day alone, and with Rishi Sunak perhaps pledging some more of his magic beans to fund subsidised turkeys. Come to think of it, cut-price turkeys would be a fairly apt metaphor for those in charge of this debacle. But lest they try to befuddle us with silly details over the next few weeks, hold this thought front and centre: The idea that anyone should need permission from the likes of de Pfeffel Johnson and his crew to be able to celebrate with their family and relations the coming of the King of Kings into the world is beyond parody.

Pumpkin 2

Trump-Russia dossier whoppers traced to 'drunk', disgruntled Russian, who was a childhood friend of UK spy Steele's primary source

Steele Isikoff steele dossier leak Yahoo
© Victoria Jones/AP; Gordon Donovan/Yahoo NewsChristopher Steele and Michael Isikoff
At least three major claims in the infamous 'Russiagate' dossier reportedly originated with a Russian PR executive angry with her company in Cyprus, a childhood friend of the primary sub-source for British spy Christopher Steele.

The 'Steele Dossier' played a key role in allegations that President Donald Trump somehow "colluded" with Russia in 2016, ostensibly because the Kremlin had a sex tape of him at the Moscow Ritz-Carlton. It was used as a pretext by the FBI to spy on Trump campaign aide Carter Page for a year, starting in October 2016. It was also eventually revealed that Fusion GPS, which paid Steele for the dossier, was itself paid by Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign via the DNC.

Yet some of its most "bombshell" claims - that Trump's personal lawyer Michael Cohen met with "Russians" in Prague, that a Russian company called Webzilla was behind the DNC email hack, and that its boss Alexey Gubarev was a hacker working for Russian intelligence - apparently originated with Olga Galkina, a friend of Steele's primary Russian informant.

Mr. Potato

Russian embassy mocks Spanish media claim that Moscow offered 10,000 troops to aid Catalan independence movement

spain russia
© REUTERS/Nacho Doce ; RIA/Alexei Fillipov
Russia's diplomatic mission in Madrid has scoffed at allegations that Russia was willing to send troops to aid Catalonia if it would become independent. Locals have mocked the alleged conspiracy with some jokes of their own.

The bizarre accusation of plans for Kremlin military assistance emerged after a Barcelona judge, Joaquin Aguirre, claimed that there was a plot in 2017 involving an unnamed Russian group, which approached Catalonia's independence supporters with an offer to mobilize 10,000 soldiers to back its potential secession from Spain.


Comment: The judge is either seriously gullible and uninformed or deliberately pushing fake news, either way, neither are preferable traits for someone in such an influential and respected position.


Aguirre alleged that the aid was part of a Russian plan of "support" to former Catalan regional President Carles Puigdemont, and that the Kremlin even agreed to pay off Catalonia's debts if the region declared independence. It is said that Puigdemont rejected the offer.

Comment: See also:


Attention

Senate committee says documents reviewed so far from Hunter biz partner Tony Bobulinski are legit

Joe and Hunter Biden Bobulinski
Joe and Hunter Biden (L) Tony Bobulinski (R)
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has been successful in verifying all materials reviewed so far from Hunter Biden's ex-business partner Tony Bobulinski, the Daily Caller has learned.

Committee Chairman Sen. Ron Johnson will not call Bobulinski to testify before the November 3 elections, as the committee is working to review all the information provided to the committee by Bobulinski. The information has to be verified, as it is subject to the same false information to Congress laws that verbal or written testimony does. However, a Johnson spokesperson told the Caller that all the material provided by Bobulinski that has been reviewed so far has turned out to be legitimate. The committee has "also" not come across any "signs" or evidence to suggest the content is false, the spokesperson added.

Comment: Tucker Carlson has a few comments:


Ground News' media sweep shows the Leftwing media completely ignoring the story:
ground news media bias Bobulinski biden
© Ground News
And another swamp creature slithers out to comment. For some unfathomable reason, MSNBC decided interviewing John Podesta was a good idea:





Eye 1

Kamala Harris lies 4 times about Trump and racism on '60 Minutes'

Kamala Harris
© UPIKamala Harris
CLAIM: President Donald Trump is a racist, as shown by Birtherism; Charlottesville; "Mexicans"; and the "Muslim ban."

VERDICT: FALSE. None of these examples is valid. All of them involve outright lies or significant omissions of context.

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), the Democratic Party nominee for vice president, told 60 Minutes on Sunday evening that she believed that President Trump is a racist, and cited the four reasons above.


Black Magic

Creepy Joe ducks questions on creepy son Hunter's foreign dealings amid low-key campaign trail

joe biden voting in delaware
© Getty ImagesJoe Biden with his wife, Jill, in Wilmington, Delaware, October 28, 2020
Democratic nominee Joe Biden dodged any questions relating to revelations about his involvement in his son Hunter Biden's overseas business dealings Wednesday, as he continued his low-profile presidential campaign in Delaware.

The former veep delivered remarks on the coronavirus pandemic in Wilmington after being briefed by a panel of doctors, and in characteristic style, did not take any questions from reporters before he walked off stage.

Biden, 77, and his wife, Jill Biden, then cast their votes in their hometown before heading to a fundraiser as President Trump and Biden's running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, held rallies in the battleground state of Arizona.

Comment: Biden received help, of course, in avoiding the touchy subject of the Bobulinski interview, with reporters continuing to lob softball questions instead. Indeed the entire MSM has come to QuidProJoe's aid.
Biden briefly faced reporters after voting in Wilmington, Del. less than 24 hours after Bobulinski, a retired lieutenant in the U.S. Navy, raised concerns in 2017 to the former vice president's brother Jim Biden, about Joe Biden's alleged ties to a possible joint venture with a Chinese energy firm.

Reporters ignored the bombshell allegations, instead asking the Democratic presidential nominee about ongoing looting and unrest in Philadelphia and the Affordable Care Act before he hurried off into a waiting black SUV.

"What we saw there was another failure by the news media to ask Joe Biden about Hunter Biden and whether or not he will admit that he lied to the American people about his son's foreign business dealings," Trump 2020 campaign spokesperson Erin Perrine said on Outnumbered Overtime.

"This is a story the media refuses to cover, even when they have the candidate there, taking questions, which he so rarely does,? Perrine added.

"'Would you answer the question?' They didn't ask that... and that should worry the American people."

There has been a near blackout of coverage of Bobulinski's shocking claims.

Bobulinski's comments to Carlson were completely ignored by CNN and MSNBC through noon ET, roughly 16 hours after the start of the damning interview.

The New York Times and Washington Post didn't cover the allegations in Wednesday's paper, either.

Reporters were also criticized on Monday for their choice of questions when Biden was available. President Trump has repeatedly mocked the media for asking the former vice president what flavor he got during a recent visit to an ice cream parlor instead of asking any questions about the growing Hunter Biden controversy.


Last month, reporters were similarly blasted for questions that they asked at a lengthier press conference, which offered very little grilling of Biden.



Russian Flag

Endangering European security: Joe Biden's assertion that Russia is number one 'threat' to US flies in face of all facts & reason

american russian flag
© Getty Images / MicroStockHub
Joe Biden's belief that Russia is the greatest danger to the US is based on emotion and outdated ideology. It should alarm Europeans as they could find themselves on the frontline of a 'struggle' that makes little or no sense.

US presidential challenger Joe Biden recently referred to Russia as the main threat to the US. The statement perplexed some observers given how his former boss Barack Obama dismissed Russia as a weak regional power in 2014, while in 2012 Obama himself had mocked Mitt Romney for arguing that Russia was America's number one "geopolitical foe."

Biden, the erstwhile vice president of Obama, has now seemingly made a complete reversal.

Bell

Dorsey admits to mob-driven censorship on Twitter during heated section 230 hearing

senator rick scott

Update (1412 ET):
It's clear that Twitter's Jack Dorsey has perhaps unintentionally acknowledged that Twitter's unofficial moderating system is based simply on whoever shows the most outrage.

In response to questioning from Sen. Rick Scott, Dorsey replied:
"We don't have a general policy around misleading information and misinformation... We rely upon people calling that speech out."
See the discussion below...

Comment: See also: Ted Cruz rips Jack Dorsey over censorship of New York Post's Hunter Biden bombshell