Puppet MastersS


Mail

French justice minister supports call to US: freedom for Assange

Dupond-Moretti/Manning/Assange
© UnknownJustice Minister Éric Dupond-Moretti • Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange
Robin Des Lois, a French organization that works for the rights of prison inmates around the world, today sent a letter to President Trump asking him to drop charges against Julian Assange based on his revelations of U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan.

Freedom for Assange is supported by the French Justice Minister, but not by the French President.

The letter, signed by the group's lawyer Emmanuel Ludot, said:
"The Association Robin des Lois believes those charges are quite old and are related to a past of the United States, whose face has radically changed since then. Over the last 4 years, thanks to your administration, acts of war have ceased. It may be time for you and the U.S. authorities to drop the charges against Assange.

"In these electoral times, it would be a political decision hailed by the whole world."
He enclosed the petition in a letter to U.S. Ambassador in Paris, Jamie McCourt.

The American action in the UK to extradite Assange to the U.S. goes to court again Sept. 7th.

Russian Flag

Kremlin rejects Navalny poisoning accusations, sanctions talk

navalny ambulance
© REUTERS/Christian Mang; Global Look Press/Zamir UsmanovAn ambulance that allegedly transported Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is seen at Charite Mitte Hospital Complex where he will receive medical treatment in Berlin, Germany August 22, 2020.
The Kremlin on Thursday rejected accusations that Russia had been responsible for the poisoning of opposition politician Alexei Navalny and said it saw no grounds for sanctions to be imposed against Moscow over the case.

The Kremlin was speaking a day after German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Navalny had been poisoned with a Soviet-style Novichok nerve agent in an attempt to murder him.

Navalny, 44, is an outspoken opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin and has specialised in high-impact investigations into official corruption. He was airlifted to Germany last month after collapsing on a domestic Russian flight after drinking a cup of tea that his allies said was poisoned.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow rejected any suggestion that Russia had been behind the attack on Navalny and warned other countries against jumping to hasty conclusions.

"There are no grounds to accuse the Russian state. And we are not inclined to accept any accusations in this respect," Peskov told reporters.

Peskov said there was therefore no reason to discuss sanctions against Moscow.

Comment: According to the Omsk doctor who treated Navalny (before he was shipped off to Germany, before multiple agencies tested his blood finding nothing, and before one government-associated lab "identified" novichok in his sample), if Navalny was poisoned with the alleged Soviet novichok, others around him would have been affected too. He reiterated that no traces of toxic substances were found in his kidneys, liver, lungs.

But NATO and EU leaders are calling on Russia to conduct a full and transparent investigation into the alleged poisoning. Biden (via whoever writes his tweets) jumped on the idiot train with this:

Yes, hold the Putin regime accountable for whatever we say they did (truth about the matter in question be damned).

That said, once more Russia is backed into a corner and put on the defensive because of western-created narratives brought to you by their intelligence services. Paul Robinson, for example, argues that it is now in Russia's best interest to conduct such an investigation. Regardless of the Russian government's guilt or innocence, those against Putin (both outside and within Russia) will use any continued denials that Navalny wasn't poisoned, and any refusals to investigate, as evidence of guilt. If Navalny was poisoned, and it was either some rogue element of the Russian system, or some private individual or group, Robinson writes:
Either option must be highly disturbing to the authorities. No state wants private individuals to be going around attacking each other with high grade poisons. Again, therefore, this explanation requires a strong government response.

Regardless of which explanation is correct, Russia's leaders have a serious problem. On the one hand, they face the prospect of being blamed for trying to kill a prominent critic. And on the other hand, if they themselves are not responsible, they find themselves having to deal with unknown people poisoning citizens of their country with military grade nerve agents. Either way, only very firm and visible action to get to the bottom of the case can help the Kremlin dig itself out of the hole it now finds itself in.
Or, more likely, as with the Skripals, he was never poisoned with novichok in the first place, and the blood samples were contaminated by military/intelligence agencies who got their hands on the samples for "testing". But in this case, again as with the Skripals, it becomes almost impossible to defend yourself against such accusations because the culprits have "catapulted the propaganda" and already determined the narrative.

See also:


Eye 1

Pelosi used shuttered San Francisco hair salon for blow-out, owner calls it 'slap in the face'

pelosi hair salon
© Reuters / Erin Scott; FOX
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited a San Francisco hair salon on Monday afternoon for a wash and blow-out, despite local ordinances keeping salons closed amid the coronavirus pandemic, Fox News had learned.

In security footage obtained by Fox News, and timestamped Monday at 3:08 p.m. Pacific Time, the California powerhouse is seen walking through eSalon in San Francisco with wet hair, and without a mask over her mouth or nose.

The stylist doing her hair can be seen following her wearing a black face mask.

Comment: The inevitable Twitter response:



Rules for thee, but not for me. This comes at the same time as the mayor of Philadelphia was seen dining indoors while city's restaurants can only serve outside. They know there's no danger, they just want to make everyone else suffer while they enjoy their special privileges. Hypocrites, the lot of them.


UPDATES: More Trump Twitter from yesterday:


Of course, Nancy didn't take responsibility; she blamed the salon owner for "setting her up". She even had the gall to demand an apology.


The salon owner's response, on Tucker:

Though her stylist says Kious has been operating 'illegally' since April:
In a statement released by his lawyers, DeNardo claimed that Kious "made several vitriolic and incendiary comments about Speaker Pelosi," before authorizing the appointment.

After the session, DeNardo said that Kious released the footage to Fox News to "set up" Pelosi, as she blamed the speaker for the closure of her business. "It appears Ms. Kious is furthering a set-up of Speaker Pelosi for her own vain aspirations," the statement read.
Unsurprisingly, network evening news (ABC, NBC, CBS) didn't cover the controversy until Pelosi claimed she was set up.

Here's Sara Carter on Pelosi's behavior:
Pelosi is the kind of person that gets what she wants. She doesn't care if other people suffer because of her rules. Look at how little she cares about her own state of California and her beautiful historic city of San Francisco. It's a city that is now mired in poverty, feces and homelessness.

Look at how she fights against a border wall but has an enormous wall surrounding her palatial estate in the city. Look at her hypocrisy and then the answer is pretty clear: she is Marxist light (meaning she talks a big we should all be equal game) but doesn't believe it one bit. She's a limousine liberal and our country is full of them.
See also:


Arrow Down

If Navalny was poisoned, unlikely it was by Putin: Italian professor dismisses 'state-sponsored assassination theory UPDATES

Navalny/Putin
© Reuters/Shamil Zhumatov/Kremlin/Aleksey NikolskyAlexey Navalny • Russian President Vladimir Putin
Western media wasted no time in accusing the Russian government of attempting to kill Moscow protest leader Alexey Navalny with poison, but basic common sense points against the conspiracy theory, an Italian expert has argued.

Navalny fell ill last week during a commercial flight and was rushed to a hospital after his plane made an emergency landing in the Siberian city of Omsk. Two days later, he was flown to Germany to be treated at the Charité University Hospital in Berlin. Doctors there said his symptoms indicate poisoning with a cholinesterase inhibitor - a type of chemical encountered in certain medicines, insecticides, and nerve agents.

Since the start of Navalny's ordeal, his inner circle has been accusing President Vladimir Putin and the Russian government of trying to assassinate the activist and of running a cover-up operation after the attempt failed. This narrative was swiftly adopted by mainstream media in the West. Some Western governments have threatened to impose a new round of sanctions against Russia over the case.

Yet even if criminal intent is proven in the case, basic common sense undermines the ever-popular formula of 'poisoning + Russia = Putin', according to an article published by the Italian magazine Formiche on Saturday. The piece was penned by Igor Pellicciari, Professor of History of International Relations at the University of Urbino, who also teaches at MGIMO University, Moscow's top school for career diplomats.

Comment: In this ever-changing saga to determine the cause(s) of Navalny's medical issues, there are more than enough bogus theories to go around - including revisiting already debunked explanations:

Update, 2/9/2020 The Novichok theory:
If Alexey Navalny was poisoned with Novichok, he'd be dead already. That's according to the creators of the lethal chemical, who say the Russian opposition figure's symptoms suggest German assertions on Wednesday are inaccurate.

Berlin insists its Bundeswehr [military] laboratory found traces of poison from the Novichok family in the anti-corruption campaigner's system.

But the scientists behind its development - Leonid Rink and Vladimir Uglev - have dismissed the German claims. They say Novichok is supposed to be an extremely deadly nerve agent and there's no way Navalny could have survived its application. Furthermore, Uglev has pointed out that others who interacted with the Moscow protest leader after he fell ill - fellow plane passengers, ambulance crews, etc. - would also have been contaminated.

Rink told media outlet RIA Novosti. According to him, if Novichok was used:
"The symptoms are absolutely not similar, Navalny would have had seizures, and he would have already died, instead of falling into a coma. "He'd be resting at the cemetery for a long time (already), that's all.

"I believe that the use of chemical warfare substances: sarin, soman and Novichok (A-234) can be excluded from the list of possibilities. Apart from Navalny himself, the people around him would be also stricken in one form or another."
According to media reports, Uglev and Rink are among the founders of the Soviet Novichok chemical weapons programme. Until 1991, both of them worked at the Volsk branch of the State Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology in Shikhany, part of the Saratov Region.
Update, 2/9/2020 The 'someone wanted to silence Navalny' theory:
German Chancellor Angela Merkel called on Moscow to "answer questions that only the Russian government can answer." Describing Navalny as "the leading opposition politician in Russia," an assertion not borne out by Russian polling, she said somebody wanted to "silence" him.

She said she had already held a phone conversation with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and before that - a joint meeting with the ministers of finance, justice, defense and the interior.

[Russian] Foreign Ministry said it was still waiting for Germany to reply to an official request from the office of Russia's Prosecutor General regarding the opposition figure's condition.
Update, 2/9/2020 Another flimsy reason to blame Russia without evidence or facts:
The Russian Ministry of Foreign affairs has published a statement in which it lashed out at Berlin after the German government claimed that Navalny was "poisoned" by "Novichok class nerve agent." Germany has been neglecting bilateral cooperation mechanisms that would allow Russia to investigate the situation, Moscow says.
"It seems that somebody restricts [the] German Justice Ministry, as well as [German] medical workers, from speaking to their Russian colleagues."
Despite the fact that Russian doctors, who managed to save his life in those crucial hours, were also willing to share all their information with their German colleagues, both of the requests have remained unanswered, Moscow says.
"If the goal is to justify certain pre-planned 'response measures' announced earlier, it becomes clear why mouthpiece diplomacy, substitution of proper cooperation with an information campaign, public addresses to EU and NATO and mentioning of the OPCW are being used."
See also:


Hammer

Trump orders review to defund NYC, Portland,and other 'anarchist' cities

trump plane air force one
© AFP via Getty ImagesDonald Trump
President Trump is ordering the federal government to begin the process of defunding New York City and three other cities where officials allowed "lawless" protests and cut police budgets amid rising violent crime, The Post can exclusively reveal.

Trump on Wednesday signed a five-page memo ordering all federal agencies to send reports to the White House Office of Management and Budget that detail funds that can be redirected.

New York City, Washington, DC, Seattle and Portland are initial targets as Trump makes "law and order" a centerpiece of his re-election campaign after months of unrest and violence following the May killing of George Floyd by Minnesota police.

Cult

'A perpetual motion machine of killing': Alleged cover-up of civilians murdered by UK special forces in Iraq and Afghanistan

MOD statement
On August 1, a rare in-depth investigative piece appeared on the BBC News website based on credible and serious allegations that UK Special Forces had executed unarmed civilians in Afghanistan. The BBC article was produced in tandem with a report, '"Rogue SAS Afghanistan execution squad" exposed by email trail', published by the Sunday Times.

Special Forces are the UK's elite specialist troops, encompassing both the SAS (Special Air Service) and the SBS (Special Boat Service). The allegation, by two senior officers, is that there was a 'deliberate policy' of British Special Forces illegally killing unarmed men in Afghanistan under the pretext of assassinating Taliban leaders.

The new revelations were based on documents recently released to solicitors Leigh Day as part of an ongoing case at the High Court brought by an Afghan man, Saifullah Ghareb Yar. He says that four members of his family were shot dead in rural Helmand in a 'night raid' in the early hours of 16 February 2011.

Megaphone

Gov. Cuomo says: Trump 'better have an army' to protect him if he comes to NYC

new york gov. andrew cuomo
© James MesserschmidtNew York Gov. Andrew Cuomo
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday all but threatened President Trump's safety if he returns to New York City in a rant responding to an exclusive story by The Post that Trump is looking to pull federal funds from "lawless" cities including New York.

Cuomo called an emergency press briefing within a half hour on Wednesday night to tear into Trump for the order, which cites New York's rising murder rate and defunding of the NYPD.

"He better have an army if he thinks he's gonna walk down the street in New York. New Yorkers don't want to have anything to do with him," the Democrat said, all but threatening the commander in chief.

Comment: See also:


People 2

Stop kissing, wear a mask while having sex to prevent coronavirus, Chief Public Health Officer of Canada says

Dr. Theresa Tam
© THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin TangChief Public Health Officer of Canada Dr. Theresa Tam speaks at a news conference on the COVID-19 pandemic on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, on July 28, 2020.
Skip kissing and consider wearing a mask when having sex to protect yourself from catching the coronavirus, Canada's chief medical officer said on Wednesday, adding that going solo remains the lowest risk sexual option in a pandemic.

Dr. Theresa Tam said in a statement there is little chance of catching COVID-19 from semen or vaginal fluid, but sexual activity with new partners does increase the risk of contracting the virus, particularly if there is close contact like kissing.

"Like other activities during COVID-19 that involve physical closeness, there are some things you can do to minimize the risk of getting infected and spreading the virus," she said.

Comment: Sex without kissing while masked sounds like the least intimate, dehumanizing sexual experience anyone could ever have. You might as well be using a sex doll or glory hole. If they keep on this tack, they'll have no compliant citizens left in the country before long.

See also:


Fire

Triumph of the Oligarchs

Big Tech
The coronavirus has trammeled the prospects of most Americans, particularly low-income workers. But for one small group, the pandemic has proved something like manna from heaven. Already ascendant beforehand, the tech oligarchy — a relatively small number of companies, venture, and private equity funds — are riding the current crisis to unprecedented dominion over our ever-weakening Republic.

To be sure, some tech firms, including Google, have taken a hit from the weakened advertising market. But tech stock prices generally have soared as most others have lagged. Undeterred by the downturn, tech moguls continue to increase their research spending in order to tighten their already rapidly constricting stranglehold on the economy. The shift to remote work has boosted firms that facilitate video conferencing and digital collaboration like Slack — the fastest growing business application on record — as well Google Hangouts, Zoom and Microsoft Teams.

No surprise then that the tech rich are simply getting richer: seven of the ten richest Americans come from the tech sector. Apple, by some calculations, is now worth more than the entire oil and gas industry. The already obscenely rich have become richer still; Jeff Bezos alone has seen his net worth jump by an estimated 34.6 billion in the first two months of the pandemic.

Comment: See also:


Red Flag

Bolsonaro's son proposes banning communist hammer and sickle, equating it with Nazi swastika

hammer sickle ussr
The Brazilian president's son serves as a lawmaker in the chamber of representatives for the Social Liberal Party, an economically liberal, rabidly anti-communist party. The politician caused a minor diplomatic spat between Brasilia and Beijing in March after accusing China's communist "dictatorship" of unleashing the global coronavirus pandemic.

Brazilian lawmaker Eduardo Bolsonaro has introduced a bill to outlaw the creation of, sale, distribution or display of items containing the hammer and sickle or five-pointed star "for the purposes of propaganda of communism," equating the symbol with the Nazi Swastika, and proposing from 9 and 15 years in prison for violators.


Comment: By all means, associate communist symbols with their true history. But total bans like this - including the swastika - kind of go against the value of liberty, do they not?


In a series of tweets about the bill, the lawmaker explained that he was inspired by a 2015 Ukrainian law by the country's post-Maidan coup government which "prohibits communism and Nazism with a focus on freedom."

Bolsonaro stressed that his bill "aims to prevent genocides, which are the result of Nazism and Communism, just as the penal code criminalizes the murder of an individual."

The bill also proposes renaming any streets, squares, public buildings or institutions named after any communism or Nazism-related persons, events or ideas.

"In justifying the project, I use factual examples of these misfortunes: the Holodomor in Ukraine (1st image) perpetrated by the Soviet communists, and the Holocaust carried out by the German Nazis (2nd image)," Bolsonaro added. However, his Twitter followers immediately pointed out to him that the image he posted of the Holodomor actually appears to be from the Bengal famine of 1943 in India, which was a British colony at the time.