Puppet MastersS


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Trump nixed harsh response to attacks by Iranian proxies because of coronavirus, officials say

Courtney Kube
Yahoo
Thu, 19 Mar 2020 12:00 UTC
trump
© Reuters / Jonathan Ernst 19
President Donald Trump told his top national security advisers last week that because of the coronavirus pandemic he didn't think an aggressive response to new attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq by Iranian-backed militias was the right move, according to one former and four current senior U.S. officials.

Trump expressed concern that hitting back hard at Iran at this time would make the U.S. look bad given the extent to which Iran and the rest of the world are struggling to contain the spread of COVID-19, the officials said. They said the president made the comments during a meeting at which his advisers briefed him on possible military responses to the attacks.

It was a notable shift for a president who has made a bellicose approach to Iran a cornerstone of his foreign policy agenda and one that showcases how consumed Trump now is with the coronavirus pandemic.

Comment: See also: US hopes sanctions & Covid-19 in Iran will force regime change - but it's a mass murder that will only strengthen Tehran govt

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Heart

Putin offers to send medical personnel & equipment to help Italy contain coronavirus outbreak


RT
Sat, 21 Mar 2020 05:04 UTC
medical worker coronavirus
© Reuters / Flavio Lo Scalzo
Russia is set to send teams of doctors, protective gear and medical equipment to Italy to help fight the Covid-19 pandemic in the country. It follows an appeal by Italian PM Giuseppe Conte during a phone call with Vladimir Putin.

The coronavirus is spreading like wildfire in the southern European country, where nearly 800 people succumbed to the disease on Saturday alone - the largest daily loss since the start of the pandemic.

The overall number of deaths in Italy now stands at 4,825, with 53,578 infected, having long surpassed China, where the virus originated.

Comment: Putin is probably reacting to the reports that the coronavirus death toll in Italy hit 4,825 as 793 died on Saturday. Are they dying from coronavirus or another malady though? In response to the so-called "worst crisis since WWII" Italy has ordered all business and activities that are not vital for providing basic necessities to be closed. In Moscow they have closed gyms, swimming pools, and waterparks. The number of cases reported in New York has reached 10,000, with more than half of the cases in the US located in New York. NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio has even pleaded for Trump to deploy the military to his city. People wishing for martial law is a strange sight. In the UK, the number of deaths is up to 233.

In some positive news for world cooperation, Trump wrote to North Korea to praise their handling of the coronavirus and offered to cooperate with Chairman Kim to contain the virus. In Russia, a leading infectious diseases specialist faces jail for hiding his trip to Spain and potentially exposing her patients since she has test positive for COVID-19. India has not gone so far as to impose a lockdown but instead has asked Indians to "self-curfew." India has only reported 315 cases so far.

Of course what is a crisis without a Hollywood liberal telling people what they should do. Actor Sean Penn wrote an op-ed for The Guardian calling for Trump to declare martial law. He should be careful what he wishes for, it's pretty difficult to put that genie back in its bottle and it seems Trump knows that, since he is clearly very reticent to use that option.

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Bad Guys

FBI magically finds more classified emails transmitted over Hillary Clinton's private server - including discussion about Benghazi


Judicial Watch
Fri, 20 Mar 2020 04:56 UTC
Clinton What difference does it make?
Judicial Watch today released 80 pages of new emails recently found by the FBI that further document how former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used her unsecure, non-government email to transmit classified and other sensitive government information. The documents include 11 new Clinton email documents. The emails include an email sent by Mrs. Clinton a month after the Benghazi terrorist attack referencing a "Benghazi security" issue. The emails also include talking points, which are redacted, for a meeting with President Obama. (This is the second release from the batch of Clinton emails the FBI inexplicably found late last year.)

The State Department previously claimed it had produced all releasable Clinton emails, including emails recovered by the FBI that Hillary Clinton tried to destroy or withhold. The State Department initially claimed all responsive emails had been produced in 2018, but then found more emails, which were produced for the first time early this year.
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Eye 1

Best of the Web: DOJ wants to suspend certain constitutional rights during coronavirus emergency

Betsy Woodruff Swann
Politico
Sat, 21 Mar 2020 04:49 UTC
william barr
© MICHAEL REYNOLDS/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
The Justice Department has quietly asked Congress for the ability to ask chief judges to detain people indefinitely without trial during emergencies — part of a push for new powers that comes as the coronavirus spreads through the United States.

Documents reviewed by POLITICO detail the department's requests to lawmakers on a host of topics, including the statute of limitations, asylum and the way court hearings are conducted. POLITICO also reviewed and previously reported on documents seeking the authority to extend deadlines on merger reviews and prosecutions.

A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment on the documents.
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Stormtrooper

PMCs, the solution to protect US interventionism

Vladimir Platov
New Eastern Outlook
Sat, 21 Mar 2020 00:00 UTC
2 armed guys
© Unknown
If we examine USA's foreign policy, it becomes apparent that the nation has been at war with one nation or another, or even several countries at once, 50% of the time over the past 50 years. If we take into account all the US military interventions, then, even according to American media outlets, over the past 25 years, the United States has carried out air strikes against at least one nation per year. And since its invasion of Panama in 1989, the USA has been, almost constantly, conducting military operations abroad.

Thus, the common man from Iowa or Texas needs to don an army uniform and travel to the distant lands in order to defend "democratic values". Nothing seems to have changed since The White Man's Burden poem was published. Many of these men return home in a casket wrapped in stars and stripes. And politicians who sent them to war need to then explain to American people why they have to sacrifice their sons' and daughters' lives for the sake of little-understood geopolitical games. And with each passing year, it is becoming increasingly harder to do so.

Comment: Hiring second-hand responsibility does not negate it. It merely kicks the can of public outcry down the road. See also:

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Top Secret

Best of the Web: Why was a US military lab handling high-level disease shut down in July 2019?

Leng Shumei
Global Times
Sun, 15 Mar 2020 22:03 UTC
Fort Detrick Maryland
Fort Detrick, Maryland, actual source of the 'Wuhan' Flu?
Netizens and experts are calling for the US government to release information on the suspension of an infectious disease research lab under the US Army, as a petition on the White House website listed coincident events between the closure and the outbreak of COVID-19, urging the US government to clarify whether the lab was related to the deadly virus.

While the origin of the novel coronavirus is still unknown and conspiracy theories have caused widespread panic, experts said that timely information disclosure to the public would benefit global unity and cooperation against the pandemic, which had infected more than 150,000 people and killed 5,400 around the world as of Saturday.

The Fort Detrick laboratory that handles high-level disease-causing material, such as Ebola, in Fredrick, Maryland was shut after the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a cease and desist order to the organization in July, 2019 according to local media.

The suspension was due to multiple causes, including failure to follow local procedures and a lack of periodic recertification training for workers in the biocontainment laboratories. The wastewater decontamination system of the lab also failed to meet standards set by the Federal Select Agent Program, media reported.

Comment: Mandated to cease biological weapon research, labs such as the one at Fort Detrick merely change their official name, re-describe their purpose and continue the same research under a new cover identity. Who makes these decisions? Who do these labs answer to?

If it transpires that bioweapons scientists at Fort Detrick were messing around with viruses in vaccines that mutated and 'went wild', should we call this outbreak 'the American Flu'?

See also:

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No Entry

Trump: All immigrants arrested for illegally crossing any US border shall be returned to their home countries

Anna Giaritelli
Washington Examiner
Fri, 20 Mar 2020 01:10 UTC
Chad Wolf
© KVIA/ABCActing Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf
The Trump administration will begin returning all immigrants arrested at the border for illegal entry to block people without documentation from entering the country during the coronavirus pandemic.

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf, during a White House press briefing Friday said:
"The CDC order directs the department to suspend the introduction of all individuals seeking to enter the U.S. without proper travel documentation. That's for both the northern and southern border. The CDC director has determined that the introduction and spread of the coronavirus in the department's Border Patrol stations and detention facilities presents a serious danger to migrants, our front-line agents, our officers, and the American people."
Wolf said citizens of more than 120 countries were arrested illegally entering the United States.
"Many of these individuals arrive with little or no identity travel or medical documentation, making public health risk determinations all but impossible. It's also important to note the outbreak on our southern border would likely increase the strain on our border communities, taking away important and life-saving resources from American citizens."
The Trump administration will ban all nonessential travel between the U.S. and Mexico and between the U.S. and Canada at midnight.

Comment: See also:

US southern border apprehends nearly 151,000 attempting to cross since October 2019

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Bizarro Earth

Alarmist report warns liberalism is sliding into autocracy - and not just 'because Putin'

Nebojsa Malic
RT
Sat, 21 Mar 2020 08:09 UTC
Demo/Autocracy
© 731
More than half the world is autocratic now, claims an alarming new report about the state of liberal democracy, touting a 'state of the art' methodology. A closer look suggests it's pushing a political narrative instead.

Announced Friday afternoon, and nearly lost in the deluge of news about the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic, the report by the V-Dem institute claims that 92 countries - accounting for 54 percent of the world's population - now qualify as "autocracies."
How did the Gothenburg, Sweden-based institute come to this shocking conclusion?
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Heart - Black

Amid Covid-19 crisis, Zarif slams US for new sanctions calling them an 'utter contempt for human life'


RT
Fri, 20 Mar 2020 19:07 UTC
Iranians masks
© Reuters/Ali Khara
Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif accused the US of taking its policy of "maximum pressure" on Tehran to a "new level of inhumanity" by imposing new sanctions on Iran as it struggles to cope with a huge surge of Covid-19 cases.

Zarif tweeted on Friday that The Trump administration was "gleefully" taking pride in "killing Iranian citizens" on Nowruz, the Persian New Year, celebrated on March 20 this year. He said US policy betrayed an "utter contempt for human life."


Comment: See also:

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Brain

SOTT Focus: Coronavirus: Language as a Weapon of Mass Destruction

Juliana Barembuem
Sott.net
Sat, 21 Mar 2020 14:36 UTC
coronavirus quarantine
Contrary to what most people have been led to believe, the coronavirus may be less virulent and less deadly than the influenza virus. Australian scientists have reportedly discovered that people recover from coronavirus in much the same way they recover from the flu. Despite this, coronavirus has transformed the entire world in just a matter of days.

People in ostensibly democratic Western societies are accepting draconian measures "for their own good", and a precedent is being set for unjustified quarantines, lock downs, travel bans and much more. Right this minute a great portion of the global population are 'self-isolating' on the basis of vague science and dubious speculation based on unreliable data.

So while the coronavirus itself is likely much less dangerous than we are being told, the seemingly normal yet nefarious language being utilized to describe, and thereby exacerbate, this 'crisis' is posing a real threat to our societies. When people stop questioning the why and how of a situation, and limit themselves to blindly accepting state orders, they are asking for trouble. Words take on new meanings, and influence the way we all view reality. When a certain view become a consensus reality, it can lead to dramatic changes in reality itself.

Language is so natural to us that we don't often stop to think how it can be used as a 'weapon of mass destruction', or at least a weapon of mass hysteria. I explain how in the video below.

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