Puppet MastersS


Stormtrooper

Cannon fodder - US vassal France trains Ukrainians to fight Russia

Macron greets Ukrainian troops
The average age, judged on the photo, appears to be 50+.
President Emmanuel Macron has shared footage showing French military instructors preparing Ukrainian soldiers for the conflict with Russia.

A 2,300-strong Ukrainian brigade will be equipped by the French military, the president said on Wednesday. The personnel are currently based in the Grand Est region of northeast France.

The program was first announced in June. Some 1,500 French military personnel are involved, according to the government. Macron visited the facility on Wednesday, accompanied by Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu and his Ukrainian counterpart, Rustem Umerov.

After the training is complete, the brigade will be armed with 128 armored vehicles, 18 Caesar artillery guns, 8 AMX-10 RC armored fighting vehicles, 10 trucks and 20 Milan anti-tank guided missile systems.


Comment: Much ado about nothing. The French weapons so far provided to Ukraine has not caused any problems for the Russian armed forces.


Comment: Another desperate and impotent action from Macron, which however sends a signal to Russia that France is happy to continue the conflict despite the blowback which will inevitably follow. It is not exactly a peace offer and fits in with France continuing to be a vassal of the US.


Microphone

Donald Trump passes on presidential debate 'rematch' with Kamala Harris

trump harris
© AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File
Republican former President Donald Trump declared Wednesday there will be no debate "rematch" with his Democratic opponent Kamala Harris as the 2024 race for the White House enters the final stretch.

He spoke hours after Fox News invited the two presidential contenders to join a possible second debate on either Oct. 24 or Oct. 27, saying early voting had already begun and there was "nothing to debate."

The pair faced off for the first time on Sept. 10. and Trump rejected rejected a subsequent invitation from CNN for an Oct. 23 debate, accepted by Harris.

Star of David

UN inquiry accuses Israel of crime of 'extermination' in destruction of Gaza health system

Al Shifa Hospital israel idf bombs
© REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas/File PhotoA destroyed part of a building stands at Al Shifa Hospital after Israeli forces withdrew from the hospital and the area around it following a two-week operation, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City April 1, 2024
A United Nations inquiry said on Thursday it found that Israel carried out a concerted policy of destroying Gaza's healthcare system in the Gaza war, actions amounting to both war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination.

A statement by former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay that accompanied the report accused Israel of "relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities" in the war, triggered by Hamas militants' deadly cross-border attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

"Children in particular have borne the brunt of these attacks, suffering both directly and indirectly from the collapse of the health system," said Pillay, whose 24-page report covering the first 10 months of the war will be presented to the U.N. General Assembly on Oct. 30.

Israel's prime minister's office and its foreign ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Comment:




Snakes in Suits

Ron Paul: American neocons get their Iran war as congress sleeps

Ron Paul
© APFormer US Representative. author, activist and physician, Libertarian Ron Paul
Over the weekend, the Commander of the US Central Command (CENTCOM), General Michael Kurilla, arrived in Israel to "coordinate" with the Israeli military and plan a military strike against Iran. Think about that for a moment: one of the highest-ranking officers in the US military is planning a war in a foreign country against another foreign country which will be fueled by American weapons, American intelligence, and American tax dollars.

Did that foreign country - Iran - attack the United States or threaten Americans? No, it did not. What did Iran do to warrant a CENTCOM commander bringing the weight of the US military into play to plan a war - possibly WWIII? It retaliated against Israeli airstrikes including the assignation of a Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran.

It was the Israeli missile attack on Tehran - an unprecedented event - that set off this chain of escalation, but few would know if from media coverage. This war fever between Israel and Iran not only has nothing to do with us, but our increasing involvement actually hurts our national interests in the region.

X

Trump is making a mistake that could cost him the presidency

trump
© Kevin Dietsch/Getty ImagesRepublican presidential nominee former U.S. President Donald Trump
The Republican is supposed to be anti-war and anti-interventionist, but keeps making a glaring exception for Israel.

When Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky recently stood next to Donald Trump in search of support against Russia, looking like a kid being chewed out by the school principal, the former US president reminded him that "it takes two to tango." But, when it comes to Israel, Trump only sees a soloist, minding its own business and inexplicably eliciting the wrath of its neighbors. And he just can't seem to shut up about it.

That isn't what his base signed up for.

On the anniversary of the events of October 7, 2023, when Hamas fighters from Gaza attacked Israeli civilians at an adjacent music festival following years of anti-Palestinian oppression, Trump had a variety of options. His base expects him mainly just to butt out and focus on problems that affect the daily lives of Americans - not all of whom live in Israel, contrary to perception.

Trump fancies himself such a peacemaker on Ukraine that he's said he could resolve that conflict in a jiffy. He has no such ambition for the Middle East, apparently. Instead, he threw on a yarmulke and stood beside some giant tablets with Hebrew inscriptions, and riffed about how he would "remove the Jew haters" if elected in November, and how the "bond between the United States and Israel is strong and enduring" and that he would ensure that it was "closer than it ever was before."

Comment: Marsden hands Trump a deserved comeuppance...a direct hit on his blind spot.


Eye 1

DeSantis, Dark Brandon, and CNN hit Kamala with laser eyes over hurricane 'phone call' stunt

HarrisMilton
© Palm Beach Post/KJNVP Harris and Hurricane Milton
After completely biffing her 60 Minutes interview (after which the network edited out her word salad), Vice President Kamala Harris has come under fire for accusing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis of "political gamesmanship" after reports emerged that he didn't take her calls ahead of Hurricane Milton.

When asked about the alleged snub, Harris said DeSantis was being selfish and "utterly responsible" for not taking her call.

Beaker

Ukraine is receiving chemical weapons from the West

gasbomb
© abile/Getty ImagesToxic gas bomb
Russia possesses "irrefutable evidence" of the supply of toxic chemicals to Kiev. The collective West has been facilitating the supply of banned toxic chemicals to Kiev to be used as chemical weaponry on the frontlines, the Russian Embassy in the UK has said.

The mission made the remarks on Tuesday, responding to a new round of sanctions imposed by London. The restrictions target Russia's Radiological Chemical and Biological Defense Forces (RChBZ) and its head, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, with the British government accusing Moscow of "flagrant violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC)."

The mission strongly rejected the accusations, pointing out that Moscow destroyed its chemical arsenal years ago, with the process overseen by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). The mission said:
"Russia strictly adheres to the norms of international law, including the provisions of the Geneva Conventions and the Chemical Weapons Convention. There are no chemical weapons in the arsenals of our Armed Forces, which has been confirmed by international inspections."
In reality, London's accusations were intended to divert attention from the numerous instances of use of chemical weapons by Kiev's forces during the conflict against Moscow, the embassy suggested.

Bizarro Earth

America's homeless population has reached record highs under Biden-Harris admin

Homeless  California tent
© X/ @pawyai1Homeless people in California, U.S.
According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's latest report on homelessness in the United States, 653,104 Americans were homeless in 2023.

Last year, levels of homelessness climbed for the sixth year.

While in 2017 and 2018, growth was slow, Statista's Katharina Buchholz reports that homelessness increased more in 2019 and 2020 and finally skyrocketed in 2023 by growing 12 percent compared to the year prior and even climbing 10 percent above the 2007-2022 average.

Comment: The Biden-Harris admin has made their priorities clear: The motivation:


Gavel

New York appeals court appears skeptical over Letitia James' 'creative use of law' in Trump real estate valuation case

trump civil trial new york city
© Seth Wenig/Pool/APFormer President Donald Trump, right, sits with his lawyer Chris Kise, left, in the courtroom at New York Supreme Court on Monday, October 2, 2023 in New York.
In February, a Manhattan judge found former president Donald Trump guilty of exaggerating his net worth and that of his real estate holdings to allegedly get favorable rates from banks and insurers. Despite there being precisely zero victims, with everyone being made whole, Judge Arthur Engoron decided Trump had violated something and ordered him to pay a judgment of nearly half a billion dollars.

That fine amount is wholly absurd, and all but the most ardent sufferers of Trump Derangement Syndrome realized it. Now, a New York court may either significantly reduce or vacate the fine.

The trial against Trump was part of a crusade by New York Attorney General Letitia James to "get Trump," a promise she made when she ran for the statewide post. What James did was criminalize something that is common practice in what some consider to be the "cutthroat" real estate market in the Big Apple, where aggressive tactics and inflated valuations are often used to gain a competitive edge.

Comment: The vox populi:




Attention

Viktor Orban's exchange of pleasantries with Ursula van der Leyen in Strasbourg yesterday

Liar and Orban
© euronews.com
Yesterday morning as I took my cup of coffee over breakfast, I switched on Euronews and came upon a live broadcast from Strasbourg, where Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban was addressing the European Parliament in his capacity as President of the European Council under its six-month rotation principle which runs until 31 December.

The European Council, let us remember, is a key policy-making European institution consisting of the heads of government of the member states of the EU. Its members, as prime ministers, have been elected by their respective peoples, whereas the President of the European Commission, the Executive institution. is 'elected' by the Parliament. He or she has traditionally been chosen by the party with greatest number of MEPs.

Now that I have stated who is who and what is what in the European Institutions, I take you back to yesterday morning's Euronews broadcast on their English language channel. The remarkable thing was that there was no simultaneous translation either in voice-over or in text stream at the bottom of the screen as is the customary practice of this channel. I then switched to the French channel of Euronews and found the same thing: no translation from Hungarian.

There you have it, ladies and gentlemen, a perfect example of censorship in action. The Commission did not want what Orban was saying to be heard by the 450 million citizens of the Union, and we did not hear it on Euronews, the captive broadcaster.