Puppet MastersS


Nuke

Late stage bureaucracy

city destruction
© unknown
Perhaps you've heard of "late stage capitalism." While not coined by Karl Marx himself, the term has gained some popularity as a meme attributing much of the insanity of Western modernity to capitalism. An article from theconversation.com describes the providence of the term thus:
It was coined by Werner Sombart, a controversial German historical economist, almost a century ago in his three-volume magnum opus Der Moderne Kapitalismus (published from 1902 through 1927).

Sombart's main contribution was to define three periods of the capitalist economic system: early or proto capitalism, advanced capitalism and late capitalism. In Sombart's analysis, late capitalism referred specifically to economic, political and social deprivations associated with the aftermath of the first world war.
I don't think this conception is useful. Capitalism doesn't exist in the West, and hasn't for some time. Managerial liberalism does, however, and it has progressed to the same final stage converged upon by distinct ideologies in the U.S.S.R. some decades ago and Rome some centuries before that: Late Stage Bureaucracy (LSB).

Arrow Up

Arrest would deliver Trump 2024 election in 'landslide' - Musk

trump
© Scott Olson/Getty ImagesFormer US President Donald Trump
If former US President Donald Trump is arrested next week, he will win the 2024 election in a "landslide victory," Twitter owner Elon Musk tweeted on Saturday in response to a Fox News clip discussing the possibility of the former president being "handcuffed" and processed through the New York City court system.

"If this happens, Trump will be re-elected in a landslide victory," Musk said in the tweet, a reply to a similar - though less emphatic - prediction from Canadian lawyer @thevivafrei.

The opinion that this scenario might propel the former reality TV star back into the White House is not an uncommon one, and appears to be shared by Trump himself. He alerted his followers to his impending arrest on Truth Social on Saturday, urging them to "protest, take our nation back!" His post highlights that the Manhattan District Attorney's office is discussing security for such an eventuality, perhaps suggesting that the authorities may be wary of the response of Trump's followers.

The predicted indictment of the former president on what are expected to be campaign finance violation charges would be the first of its kind in US history. Even former President Richard Nixon was not prosecuted after he resigned from office following the Watergate scandal.

Comment: Democrats have persistently and manically persecuted Trump as a distraction to cover their tracks. On course to repeat, the stakes are higher and more critical than ever.
Former US President Donald Trump has warned that he will be "arrested on Tuesday," in an all-caps post on his Truth Social platform on Saturday, crediting "illegal leaks from a corrupt & highly political Manhattan district attorney's office" for his advance knowledge.

Trump predicted:
"With no crime able to be proven, & based on an old & fully debunked (by numerous other prosecutors) fairytale, the far & away leading Republican candidate & former president of the United States of America, will be arrested on Tuesday of next week."
When reached for comment by Fox News on Friday, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office would neither confirm nor deny whether he was planning to issue an indictment on campaign finance violations for then-candidate Trump's alleged payment of hush money to porn actress Stormy Daniels in 2016.

Trump was invited to testify before a grand jury earlier this month regarding the Stormy Daniels scandal, a move many interpreted as a prelude to an indictment. If so, he would be the first former US president to be criminally indicted, an eventually for which several law enforcement agencies are reportedly discussing "security preparations."

Trump's attorney, Joe Tacopino, excoriated prosecutors for having "completely weaponized" the legal system, pointing out that the crime as alleged - falsifying records - was a misdemeanor and only becomes a felony if prosecutors can prove it was done intentionally and maliciously.

Tacopino added that Trump cannot be prosecuted in the state of New York for a federal election charge, and since Trump's personal funds were used to pay the porn actress, the payment was not a campaign expense at all.



Pumpkin 2

VP Harris booed at alma mater during March Madness game

kamala harris booed howard basketball march madness
© AP Photo/Morry GashVice President Kamala Harris and husband Douglas Emhoff watch during the second half of a first-round men's basketball game between Howard and Kansas in the NCAA Tournament in Des Moines, Iowa, on Thursday, March 16, 2023.
Vice President Kamala Harris had a tough time in Iowa as Howard went down, faced ridicule for speech to Howard players after loss

Vice President Kamala Harris unfortunately witnessed her alma mater, Howard University, lose to defending NCAA men's basketball national champion Kansas on Thursday, 96-68.

Howard and Kansas played at the Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines, Iowa, and when Harris appeared on the video board, she received an icy reception. According to multiple reports, the boos outweighed the cheers from those in attendance.

Comment: YouTube channel Geeks&Gamers didn't hold back in their assessment:

Harris has zero social awareness, but then that's been apparent since she became a national figure. Why is this walking disaster being propped up as Creepy Joe's successor?


Attention

ChatGPT knows U.S. War Criminals

Henry Kissinger, Bill Clinton, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Barrack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden. No arrest warrants have been issued by the ICC in The Hague, Netherlands for any of them. Why?
ICC in the Hague
© The Good Citizen
As the Empire of Lies celebrates the International Criminal Court issuing an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin, let's revisit who the ICC really works for.

Watch war criminal John Bolton threaten to arrest ICC judges and go after their finances if they or any organization or company assist the ICC in taking any action against American war criminals:

I asked ChatGPT about the war crimes of American leaders and the following is what it returned...

Arrow Down

'This is a flawed case': Legal expert pours cold water on NY DA's rumored plan to indict Trump as he explains why prosecution would likely fail

Jonathan Turley Alvin Bragg
The case against Donald Trump over hush payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels in the build up to the 2016 presidential election is 'flawed', a legal scholar has said.

Jonathan Turley, a criminal defense attorney and Shapiro Chair of Public Interest Law at George Washington University, said the case by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is unlikely to succeed.

Turley was responding to Trump's claim on Saturday that he'll be arrested on Tuesday next week following a long-running probe by Bragg's office into the $130,000 paid to Daniels.

But Turley also said Trump must 'tap down any inflammatory rhetoric' after the former president issued a call for protests amid the imminent charges. Trump had announced he'd be arrested within days and added 'PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!'

Trump could be charged with falsifying business records in relation to payments to his former attorney, Michael Cohen, who served jail time after pleading guilty to using campaign finances in relation to Daniels. The former president could also face charges linked to violations of election law.

Eye 1

US gov't-linked entity urged Twitter to censor 'true stories' about Covid vaccine side effects - Matt Taibbi

Canadian police
© Scott Olson/Getty Images/AFP SCOTT OLSON / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFPPolice begin to break up a protest organized by truck drivers opposing vaccine mandates on February 18, 2022 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
A US government-linked entity recommended an "Orwellian" crackdown on "vaccine disinformation," the journalist reported

A government-linked academic group pushed Twitter to censor factually correct stories about Covid-19 if they risked "fueling hesitancy" about vaccines, according to the latest batch of internal documents released by the platform's new owner, Elon Musk.

Published by journalist Matt Taibbi on Friday, the documents show that from February 2021 onwards, senior Twitter management - including former trust and safety chief Yoel Roth - signed up to a Stanford University initiative that would alert them to the latest "vaccine-related disinformation narratives" spreading on the platform.

Snakes in Suits

Australia has 'absolutely not' committed to join US in war against China in Taiwan - Defence minister

Richard Seif
© AAPDefence minister, Richard Marles, with Rear Admiral Richard Seif of the US Navy during a tour of HMAS Stirling in Perth on Thursday.
Australia has "absolutely not" given the US any commitment as part of the Aukus negotiations that it would join its top security ally in a potential future war over the status of Taiwan, the deputy prime minister has said.

Richard Marles made the comment as he continued to defend Australia's multi-decade plan to acquire nuclear-powered submarines, with help from the US and the UK, at a total cost of up to $368bn between now and the mid-2050s.

Marles, who is also the defence minister, said on Sunday that China's rapid military buildup "shapes the strategic landscape in which we live".


Comment: The build up which was China's response to the increased and relentless provocations across the planet, from the Nord Stream terror attack, to their proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, and especially with US belligerence in Taiwan.


Comment: See also: Australia has been selling China 'doped' gold for years, could be forced to return up to $9 billion, Perth Mint also faces separate fraud investigations


Cowboy Hat

Iran to become full member of SCO at India summit - Ambassador

Iraj Elahi
© WIONIran ambassador Iraj Elahi. The SCO is a major global grouping comprised of China, Russia, India, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Iran has been an observer in the SCO for years and has expressed interest in becoming a full member for several years
Iran's ambassador to India Iraj Elahi has announced that the process of Iran's membership in the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO) will be completed at the upcoming summit in India as the West Asian country attends the summit as a full member.

Elahi stated, "India as a member of SCO has supported the membership of Iran. According to the calendar of SCO, the next summit of SCO will be held in India. Iran will be a full member of SCO in India."

The SCO is a major global grouping comprised of China, Russia, India, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Iran has been an observer in the SCO for years and has expressed interest in becoming a full member for several years.

Comment: India's minister responsible for oil procurement has stated quite clearly that they will buy oil based on what's best for India, and more recently they announced that they are not obliged nor committed to adhering to the West's dictatorial 'price cap'.




Newspaper

Pakistan police storm Imran Khan's home, arrest 30 as ex-PM travels to court

Imran Khan
© APSecurity personnel make way for former Prime Minister Imran Khan, centre, as he arrives to appear in court in Lahore, Pakistan.
Police in Pakistan stormed former Prime Minister Imran Khan's residence in the eastern city of Lahore on Saturday and arrested 30 people amid tear gas shelling after someone opened fire from the roof of the building, officials said.

Senior police officer Suhail Sukhera, who is leading the operation in an upscale Lahore neighbourhood, said police moved to remove encroachments and a blockade erected by Khan's Tehreek-e-Insaf party and his defiant supporters.

He said baton-wielding Khan supporters attempted to resist police by throwing stones and petrol bombs, but the officers moved on until a man on the roof of Khan's residence opened fire. No one was hurt.

Comment: See also:


Dollars

Fed panics: Signature Bank closed by regulators; Fed, TSY, FDIC announce another banking system bailout

JPOW
© Kent Nishimura/LA Times/Getty images/KJNFed Chair Jerome Powell
6:20 PM ET Update: Panic is finally here.

On Friday, we said that the Fed will have to make an announcement before the Monday open, and we didn't have to wait that long: in fact, the Fed waited just 15 minutes after futures opened for trading to announce the new bailout, alongside even more shocking news: the Treasury announced that New York State regulators are shuttering Signature Bank - a major New York bank - adding that all depositors both at Signature Bank, and also the now insolvent Silicon Valley Bank, will have access to their money on Monday.

And as we process the shock of yet another small bank failure (which makes JPMorgan even bigger), the Fed just issued a statement saying that
"to support American businesses and households, the Federal Reserve Board on Sunday announced it will make available additional funding to eligible depository institutions to help assure banks have the ability to meet the needs of all their depositors. This action will bolster the capacity of the banking system to safeguard deposits and ensure the ongoing provision of money and credit to the economy."
The Fed also said that it is prepared to address any liquidity pressures that may arise, which in turn has just unveiled the first bailout acronym of the new crisis: the Bank Term Funding Program, or BTFP.

Comment: Additional Michael Snyder comments:
Did you think that the Federal Reserve was just going to stand by and watch the U.S. banking system completely collapse? In response to the stunning failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, the Federal Reserve announced a rescue plan on Sunday evening that is going to radically change banking in America forever. All deposits at Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank will be fully guaranteed and will be available on Monday.

Of course the Federal Reserve can't just make an exception for these two banks. If they are going to do this for them, that means that they are going to have to do it for everyone else too. So what this means is that from this point forward the Federal Reserve is essentially promising to guarantee every bank account in America. Considering the fact that more than 19 trillion dollars is deposited with U.S. banks, that is quite a promise to make.

Our fundamentally flawed system simply cannot survive without artificial support.

If the Fed had just stood by and done nothing we would have been facing a nightmare scenario as early as next week...

---
Over the past several days, we really did come to the brink of the abyss. But now the Federal Reserve has come charging to the rescue and so everything is okay, right?

I wish that was actually true.

As a result of the Fed's reckless rate hiking strategy, U.S. banks are now sitting on 620 billion dollars of unrealized losses. That is "billion" with a "b", and that is a ticking time bomb that is not going to go away any time soon.

Meanwhile, the housing bubble is imploding, we are heading into the worst commercial real estate crisis in all of U.S. history, and now faith in the U.S. banking system has been greatly shaken.

This crisis is not even close to over.

And every time there is a new eruption somewhere, the Fed will try to put the flames out with generous injections of fresh liquidity.

Virtually everyone applauds when the Fed starts spraying money around, but by now all of us should realize that this story is not going to have a happy ending.
This is a long but fascinating compilation of updates spelling out the means and maneuvers of the Fed that have occurred over the past few hours.