Puppet MastersS


Piggy Bank

America's wars and the US debt crisis

Jeffrey D. Sachs
Common Dreams
Sat, 20 May 2023 00:00 UTC
soldiers
© US Military
To surmount the debt crisis, America needs to stop feeding the Military-Industrial Complex, the most powerful lobby in Washington.

In the year 2000, the U.S. government debt was $3.5 trillion, equal to 35% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). By 2022, the debt was $24 trillion, equal to 95% of GDP. The U.S. debt is soaring, hence America's current debt crisis. Yet both Republicans and Democrats are missing the solution: stopping America's wars of choice and slashing military outlays.

Suppose the government's debt had remained at a modest 35% of GDP, as in 2000. Today's debt would be $9 trillion, as opposed to $24 trillion. Why did the U.S. government incur the excess $15 trillion in debt?

The single biggest answer is the U.S. government's addiction to war and military spending. According to the Watson Institute at Brown University, the cost of U.S. wars from fiscal year 2001 to fiscal year 2022 amounted to a whopping $8 trillion, more than half of the extra $15 trillion in debt. The other $7 trillion arose roughly equally from budget deficits caused by the 2008 financial crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Whistle

Second IRS whistleblower comes forward after purge of investigative team from Hunter Biden probe

Cullen McCue
Trending Politics
Mon, 22 May 2023 00:00 UTC
Whistle
© PopularResistance.org
The existence of a second IRS whistleblower in the criminal investigation of Hunter Biden was revealed Monday in a series of documents sent to Congress, according to a report from the Washington Examiner. The existence of a second whistleblower comes just over a week after the IRS removed the entire investigative team from its years-long probe into the president's troubled son.

A 13-year veteran for the agency, the new whistleblower is a special agent in the IRS's international tax and financial crimes group. He had worked on the Hunter Biden probe since it was opened in 2018 until his unexpected dismissal last week.

In an email Thursday to seven senior IRS officials, including Commissioner Daniel Werfel, the new whistleblower stated his belief that he was removed for doing the "right thing." The new whistleblower wrote:
"As I'm sure you were aware, I was removed this week from a highly sensitive case ... after nearly 5 years of work. I was not afforded the opportunity of a phone call directly from my [Special Agent in Charge] or [Assistant Special Agent in Charge], even though this had been my investigation since the start.

"I ... have spent thousands of hours on the case, worked to complete 95% of the investigation, have sacrificed sleep/vacations/gray hairs etc., my husband and I (identifying me as the case agent) were publicly outed and ridiculed on social media due to our sexual orientation, and to ultimately be removed for always trying to do the right thing, is unacceptable in my opinion."
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Attention

Russia issues dire warning after US approves Ukrainian strikes on Crimea

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Mon, 22 May 2023 07:20 UTC
smoke rising
© ReutersAlleged drone attack in Sevastopol, Crimea • late April 2023
Russia has issued another stern warning related to further potential Ukrainian attacks on Crimea. Moscow's ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, warned Sunday:
"Strikes on this territory are considered by us as an attack on any other region of the Russian Federation. It is important that the United States is fully aware of the Russian response."
This was in response to an earlier weekend statement by US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan to CNN. He said while speaking from the G7 summit in Japan over the weekend:
"We have not placed limitations on Ukraine being able to strike on its territory... What we've said is that we won't enable Ukraine with US-systems to attack Russia. And we believe Crimea is Ukraine."
However, the US has consistently denied that it has OK'd Ukraine using US-supplied advanced weaponry to mount such attacks.

Comment: First casualty of war is 'the promise'.

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Airplane

Ukraine is losing 10,000 drones a month to Russian electronic-warfare systems that send fake signals and screw with their navigation, researchers say

Mia Jankowicz
Business Insider
Mon, 22 May 2023 07:33 UTC
drone
© APUkrainian soldiers launch a drone near Bakhmut
A new assessment of Russia's military capabilities on the front line estimated that its forces were taking down about 10,000 Ukrainian drones every month.

Electronic warfare is a "critical component" of Russia's tactics and contributing to the staggering losses of Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly known as drones, a report released Friday by the UK's Royal United Services Institute found.

The figures — which amount to more than 300 drones a day — were attributed to three unnamed Ukrainian officers interviewed in April and May.

The report did not specify which models comprised the claimed losses or in what proportion, but James Patton Rogers, a University of Southern Denmark war-studies professor and drone expert, told Insider the majority of those being lost were relatively cheap, small commercial drones used for surveillance.

The estimations indicate the unprecedented scale at which UAVs are being used in Ukraine, he said, adding that this was "one of the world's first drone vs. drone conflicts."
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Network

Fair multipolar world will be achieved - Putin


RT
Wed, 24 May 2023 16:41 UTC
Putin
© Sputnik / Vyacheslav ProkofyevRussian President Vladimir Putin delivers a speech at the Kremlin.
Russia and its international partners will build a fair multipolar world together, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said.

Moscow is ready to cooperate with all interested nations to tackle joint threats and challenges, Putin stated in his video address to participants of the 11th International Meeting of High Representatives for Security Issues on Wednesday.

"I am confident that together we'll achieve the formation of a more just, multipolar world, and that the ideology of exclusivity, as well as the neo-colonial system, which made it possible to exploit the resources of the whole world, will inevitably become a thing of the past," the Russian leader told the foreign security officials.

Russia has partners in many different regions and continents, and the country's authorities "highly appreciate" those relationships, he said.
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Cult

Musk, Soros and the end of the media

Tom Luongo
Gold, Goats 'n Guns
Thu, 18 May 2023 00:00 UTC
Soros
So, Elon Musk sure shook things up the other day with his interview on CNBC where he dared to break the Fourth Wall of media when he took a shot at George Soros comparing him to Magneto from Marvel's X-Men.

It's a brutally funny exchange as Musk carefully measures his response, takes his time and then goes into full pop culture legend mode invoking Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride.


Comment: ... which is why the elites will do anything and everything they can to stifle free speech on the internet. Take the following story for but one example:

Glenn Greenwald: 'The regime of censorship being imposed on the internet is dangerously intensifying in ways I believe are not adequately understood'

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Bizarro Earth

The Club of Rome: How climate hysteria is being used to create global governance

Brandon Smith
Alt-Market.us
Fri, 19 May 2023 00:00 UTC
club of Rome
In the early 1970s the US and much of the western world was shifting into a stagflationary economic crisis. Nixon removed the dollar completely from the gold standard in 1971 with the aid of the Federal Reserve (or perhaps under the direction of the Fed) which ultimately escalated inflation pressures. Europe's post war boom came to an abrupt end, while prices on goods (and oil/gasoline) in the US skyrocketed up until 1981-1982, when the Federal Reserve jacked interest rates up to around 20% and created a deliberate recessionary crash.

Interestingly, the IMF had created the SDR system in 1969 just before the gold standard was cut (the same SDR which the IMF is poised to use as the foundation of a global digital currency mechanism). And, the World Economic Forum was founded in 1971.

The time period is often depicted in films as a happy-go-lucky era of disco, drugs, hippies and rock n' roll, but the reality is that the early 1970s was the beginning of the end for the west - it was the moment that our economic foundations were sabotaged and the affluence of the middle class was slowly but surely stolen by inflation.
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Eye 1

FBI refuses to provide subpoenaed document on alleged Biden 'criminal scheme'

Patrick Hauf
Fox News
Tue, 23 May 2023 10:13 UTC
fbi seal
© AP Photo/Jose Luis MaganaThe FBI seal is displayed on a podium before a news conference at the agency's headquarters in Washington, D.C.
The agency refused to provide the document Monday in a private meeting with the House Oversight Committee.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation failed to turn over a document subpoenaed by House Republicans that allegedly details a bribery scheme from then-Vice President Joe Biden.

The agency refused to provide the document Monday in a private meeting with the House Oversight and Accountability Committee. The unclassified FD-1023 document details criminal allegations of a pay-to-play scheme related to the Biden family's business dealings, according to a whistleblower at the agency who spoke with Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.

Comment: See also:

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Arrow Up

The inside story of Russia-Iran-India connectivity

Pepe Escobar
The Cradle
Tue, 23 May 2023 19:13 UTC
The G7 is stupefied by the dynamic progress of the multipolar order embodied by the Russian-led INSTC and the Chinese-led BRI, with Iran's strategic port of Chabahar now poised to play a transformative role.
Putin and Raisi
© The Cradle
Make no mistake about what the G7's Hiroshima Communique is all about.

The setting: a city in neo-colony Japan nuclear-bombed 78 years ago by the United States, for which it made no excuses.

The message: the G7, actually G9 (augmented by two unelected Eurocrats) declares war - hybrid and otherwise - against BRICS+, which has 25 nations on its waiting list and counting.

The G7's key strategic objective is the defeat of Russia, followed by the subjugation of China. For the G7/G9, these - real - powers are the main "global threats" to "freedom and democracy."

The corollary is that the Global South must toe the line - or else. Call it a remix of the early 2000s "you're either with us or against us."

Meanwhile, in the real world - that of productive economies - the dogs of war bark while the New Silk Road caravans keep marching on.

The key New Silk Roads of emerging multipolarity are China's ambitious, multi-trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the Russia-Iran-India International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC). They have evolved in parallel and may sometimes overlap. What is clear is the G7/G9 will go to the ends of the earth to undermine them.
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Black Cat

Evidence shows Jack Teixeira was under investigation and surveillance for six months prior to Pentagon documents 'leak'

John Helmer
Dances with Bears
Fri, 19 May 2023 18:31 UTC
Jack Teixeira hearing pentagon leak
Evidence from the US Air Force (USAF) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released in federal court this week ahead of a bail hearing for Jack Teixeira, the junior airman accused of leaking top secret Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) briefing papers, reveals that Teixeira was under close surveillance and official investigation from September 2022 through February 2023. That is six months before he allegedly printed out the JCS documents, and then published photographs of the papers on a social media site.

The new USAF and FBI evidence records Teixeira pocketing handwritten notes of what he had been reading; there is no evidence of his being able to print out copies of the documents.

The court hearing, held on Friday afternoon May 19 in US federal district court in Worcester, Massachusetts, ended in a ruling by Judge David Hennessy to deny bail for Teixeira and keep him in prison while his state trial is prepared. "The danger he poses to the community is a grave one," Hennessy said during the 45-minute hearing. "Court states the relative law with respective to this matter," the court clerk has recorded in the case docket. "Court grants the Government's motion for detention, ordering the Defendant detained, and states reasons therefore."

Comment: This bears out many analysts' theory that 'reality-based' members of the military wanted to get the truth of the Ukraine war and the lunacy of taking on China, out in any way they could. The MSM certainly wasn't going to report it. The young serviceman is, unfortunately, collateral damage.

The leaks exposed many more nuggets of information citizens were entitled to have:

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