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UFO

Best of the Web: Former US defense official: 'We know UFOs exist, the issue is why are they here?'

Anna Hopkins
Fox News
Thu, 30 May 2019 00:00 UTC
Christopher Mellon UFO's
Christopher Mellon during his top-level clearance days, an Area 51 sign and CGI
After a bombshell report detailing near-daily interactions with unidentified flying objects by Navy pilots in 2014 and 2015, Christopher Mellon has argued that this information is nothing new, and the government needs to do something about it.

Mellon, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, is involved with a new History Channel series, 'Unidentified,' which will expand on topics discussed in a recent New York Times article. In numerous interviews, Navy pilots revealed that they saw UFOs moving at hypersonic speeds, performing acts "beyond the physical limits of a human crew," and emitting "no visible engine or infrared exhaust plumes."

In a Wednesday morning interview with "Fox & Friends," Mellon, who has written extensively on the topic before, outlined the reasons the Navy is concerned about these sightings.

"We know that UFOs exist. This is no longer an issue," he said. "The issue is why are they here? Where are they coming from and what is the technology behind these devices that we are observing?"


Comment: This interview continues a recent push by "authority figures" in government and media discussing UFOs. There is clearly a push by those in power to begin the acceptance of other life forms in the universe by the general public. The question is, why?

What The Hell Is Going On With UFOs And The Department Of Defense?
On the other hand, putting a possible goal of disclosure aside, there is also a very real reason why the Pentagon would want the idea of UFOs injected back into the public's consciousness and even to add validity to it. Doing so is in itself a very old chapter in Uncle Sam's information warfare playbook.[...]

As I have said over and over again, the sky, and the things we are accustomed to seeing inhabiting it, is going to look increasingly different in the very near term. Hypersonics, drone swarms, directed energy weapons, and a full-on emerging arms race in space are just some of the very real activities and technologies that will dominate the near future of American weapons development. The products of all of these initiatives, once manifested, could appear positively alien to curious bystanders.

The military will be able to explain some of this, but some of it they won't. So, reinvigorating the presence of UFOs in the American psyche by adding heaps of validity to the topic on an official level and possibly also on a less than official level (To The Stars Academy for instance) can help keep secret programs that grace the skies just that, secret. And who knows, that list of programs and technologies could include the very Tic Tac and other bizarrely shaped craft that can defy imagination with their aerial feats that have been spotted and even recorded in recent years. In fact, if the U.S. military has such a capability, the UFO cover story would be imperative to keeping the nature of its existence under wraps.
See also:

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Control Panel

Best of the Web: Why Half The Western World is Disinformed And How Global News Agencies And Establishment Media Report on Geopolitics

Swiss Propaganda Research
True Publica
Tue, 14 May 2019 00:00 UTC
propaganda
By Swiss Propaganda Research: It is one of the most important aspects of our media system, and yet hardly known to the public: most of the international news coverage in Western media is provided by only three global news agencies based in New York, London and Paris.

The key role played by these agencies means Western media often report on the same topics, even using the same wording. In addition, governments, military and intelligence services use these global news agencies as multipliers to spread their messages around the world.

A study of the Syria war coverage by nine leading European newspapers clearly illustrates these issues: 78% of all articles were based in whole or in part on agency reports, yet 0% on investigative research. Moreover, 82% of all opinion pieces and interviews were in favour of the US and NATO intervention, while propaganda was attributed exclusively to the opposite side.

"Something strange"

"How does the newspaper know what it knows?" The answer to this question is likely to surprise some newspaper readers: "The main source of information is stories from news agencies. The almost anonymously operating news agencies are in a way the key to world events. So what are the names of these agencies, how do they work and who finances them? To judge how well one is informed about events in East and West, one should know the answers to these questions." (Höhne 1977, p. 11)

A Swiss media researcher points out: "The news agencies are the most important suppliers of material to mass media. No daily media outlet can manage without them. () So the news agencies influence our image of the world; above all, we get to know what they have selected." (Blum 1995, p. 9)
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Cross

Best of the Web: Orthodox crescent of instability


South Front
Thu, 30 May 2019 12:00 UTC
arc of instability orthodox
© South Front
The US continues its practice of creating zones and lines of chaos in key regions of the world. In the 2000s, it started a campaign to create an arc of instability stretching from Northern Africa to the east of the Central Asia. Now, more and more signals appear showing that there is a new project - to create a crescent of instability in Eastern and Southeastern Europe.

These campaigns actively exploited the religious factor in an attempt to undermine and discredit traditional religious systems. In the case of the Middle East, the target is Sunni Islam. It is being targeted by instigating various Islamic sects. In Eastern and Southeastern Europe, various artificial schismatic groups are used to combat the canonical Orthodox Church. In both cases, foreign powers have also been exploiting and supporting exotic sects, new-age-style beliefs and other "neo-liberal" constructs.

On May 24, U.S. Ambassador to Greece Geoffrey Pyatt met with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople to discuss the upcoming visit of the patriarch to Washington and the role of Constantinople in Ukraine and "across the wider Orthodox world".

Comment: Ideally the dark players would like to usurp religion, but they'll settle for outright chaos and the rupture of over a millenia of tradition: Also check out SOTT radio's: The Truth Perspective: The Stoic Roots of Christianity: Self-Transcendence Through Meaning and Responsibility

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Newspaper

Best of the Web: Far from quiet on the US vs Russia-China front

Pepe Escobar
Asia Times
Fri, 31 May 2019 19:46 UTC
us versus world
States in central Asia fear the impact of a new Cold War on integration plans.

Kazakhs fear impacts of new 'cold war', but Putin is adamant Eurasian integration will go ahead
Let's start in mid-May, when Nur-Sultan, formerly Astana, hosted the third Russia-Kazakhstan Expert Forum, jointly organized by premier think tank Valdai Club and the Kazakhstan Council on International Relations.

The ongoing, laborious and crucial interconnection of the New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative and the Eurasia Economic Union was at the center of the debates. Kazakhstan is a pivotal member of both the BRI and EAEU.

As Valdai Club top analyst Yaroslav Lissovolik told me, there was much discussion "on the state of play in emerging markets in light of the developments associated with the US-China trade stand-off." What emerged was the necessity of embracing "open regionalism" as a factor to neutralize "the negative protectionist trends in the global economy."

Comment: See also:

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Brick Wall

Best of the Web: Trump announces progressive tariff - up to 25% - on ALL Mexican imports 'until illegal migration solved'


RT
Fri, 31 May 2019 14:00 UTC
Mexican imports US
© Reuters / Jose Luis GonzalezTrucks in a long queue for border customs control to cross into the US at the Zaragoza-Ysleta border.
A five percent tariff on all goods coming from Mexico will go into effect on June 10, and will gradually increase up to 25 percent until the illegal immigration problem is resolved, US President Donald Trump has announced.

This appears to be the "big league" announcement on the border Trump had teased earlier in the day, prior to delivering a commencement speech to the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.

Invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, Trump said the US will start at five percent, but keep ratcheting up by another five percent every month, culminating with 25 percent beginning in October.

Comment: That's one way to get around the Democrats' block on his wall!

Mexico's President Obrador has said his country will respond with 'great prudence' and charged Mexicans to unite to deal with the challenge:
"I tell all Mexicans to have faith, we will overcome this attitude of the US government, they will make rectifications because the Mexican people do not deserve to be treated in the way being attempted", Lopez Obrador noted.

The US tariffs "won't stop" the ratification of the North American trade deal, the Mexican president stated.

"This does not stop the process that began in order to ratify the treaty. We are going to move forward", Lopez Obrador said.

The president insisted that Mexico is working to stem the flow, saying "we are doing our job, without violating human rights".

​The statement comes after Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said that an official Mexican delegation, headed by Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, had left for the United States to settle the issue of the planned US trade tariffs.
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Bad Guys

Best of the Web: UN Expert: Assange deliberately subjected to prolonged cruel and inhuman psychological torture

Nick Miller
Brisbane Times
Fri, 31 May 2019 14:00 UTC
Julian assange, assange press freedom
© Frank Augstein / APNearly every government on our third rock from the sun despises the man for bringing transparency to the process of ruling the unwashed masses.
Julian Assange has been subjected to intense psychological torture comparable to some of the gravest cases from "interrogation prisons" around the world, a United Nations expert says.

He accuses the UK, US and Sweden of a "consistent failure" to protect Assange's human rights - and Australia of a "glaring absence" where it should be helping one of its citizens.

But the Australian government has emphatically rejected any suggestion Australia is complicit in any torture of Assange, saying it is confident he is being treated appropriately in London's Belmarsh Prison, and is giving him "active and high level" consular assistance - including making representations on his behalf to prison authorities to make sure he gets medical treatment.

Nils Melzer, a Geneva-based former Red Cross lawyer and human rights expert who is now the UN special rapporteur on torture, spent four hours with Assange in Belmarsh in early May, assessing his psychological and mental state along with two medical specialists.

In a currently confidential report submitted to the British government on Monday, along with letters to the US, Swedish and Ecuadorian governments, Melzer concluded Assange "shows all the symptoms of someone exposed to prolonged psychological ill-treatment".

"The evidence is overwhelming and clear," Melzer said. "Mr Assange has been deliberately exposed, for a period of several years, to progressively severe forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, the cumulative effects of which can only be described as psychological torture.

Comment: Ron Paul has basically accused the US of attempting to kill Assange:
Jailed Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange is reportedly "too ill" to even speak at a scheduled extradition hearing today. He is said to be "gravely ill" and even near death. If Assange is worth more dead than alive to the governments he has embarrassed by publishing the truth about their crimes, are they trying to make his death happen? Or will he be slowly killed by a 170 year prison sentence?


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USA

Best of the Web: NOT satire: US Energy Department rebrands LNG 'Freedom Gas', looks forward to 'exporting molecules of US freedom around the world'


RT
Thu, 30 May 2019 09:59 UTC
lng tanker us flag
"Here we are world! It's more expensive, but that's because it's imbued with FREEDOM!"
The US Energy Department has renamed liquefied natural gas (LNG) "freedom gas" in a last-ditch effort to convince European and Asian markets its product is superior to cheaper supplies piped in from Russia.

The energy agency trumpeted the expansion of its Freeport, Texas LNG Terminal, boasting of a new facility constructed specifically to supply so-called "freedom gas" to those countries that don't have a free trade agreement with the US - huge markets like China and the EU that are, coincidentally, about to increase their purchases of cheaper Russian gas through nearly-completed pipelines due to open by the end of the year.

"Increasing export capacity from the Freeport LNG project is critical to spreading freedom gas throughout the world by giving America's allies a diverse and affordable source of clean energy," US Undersecretary of Energy Mark Menezes proclaimed at the Clean Energy Ministerial meeting in Vancouver, Canada.


Comment: Even the port it departs from is composed of freedom!


Comment: Remember 'Freedom Fries'?

fries chips
Now you too can taste real freedom by cooking freedom fries with molecules of freedom gas!

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Bullseye

Best of the Web: Mossad behind video leak that collapsed Austrian government - German ex-spy chief


Sputnik
Tue, 28 May 2019 12:04 UTC
mossad
© CC0
Austrian politics has been rocked by "Ibiza-gate" allegations that the country's vice chancellor was discussing the possibility of a foreign citizen investing into a local newspaper in exchange for favourable media coverage.

Rudolf Adam, a former diplomat and deputy head of Germany's Federal Intelligence Service, claims that the scandal that turned Austria's politics upside down was orchestrated by Israeli secret services.

Writing for the political magazine Cicero, Adam argues that the plan to bring down Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache with an explosive video leak was unlikely to have been hatched by the United States, which is currently "fully occupied with Korea, Iran and China".

Comment: For more, check out SOTT's analysis: NATO 'Deep State' And Israeli Interests Served by Ousting of Austrian Government

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Popcorn

Best of the Web: George Galloway: My encounter with a Quiet American (and a not so quiet American)

George Galloway
RT
Wed, 29 May 2019 19:45 UTC
woolsey bannon
James Woolsey, swamp creature, and Steve Bannon, 'economic nationalist'
In the wee small hours of the morning, last week in Kazakhstan, my wife and I encountered every hotel guest's worst nightmare.

Asleep in our night clothes we both woke to the sound of someone trying to enter our room. First, a gentle then ever-more forceful turning of the handle. Then, the unmistakable noise of a shoulder repeatedly thumping against our door - the strength of which we had no way of knowing.

With estimable alacrity Mrs. Galloway was out of bed like a shot and hurling anything and everything with wheels in front of the door. The barricade built, she was then on the phone to the front desk calling for help, not the easiest thing to communicate in the middle of the night in Almaty, as you can imagine.

Being 'the man of the house' I could really only offer brute force, with my two hands applying countervailing pressure on the door (which was beginning to literally bend) and my brute Scottish accent demanding the interloper cease and desist (or Scottish street words to that effect). Of course I looked through the spyhole in the door and could see enough to be sure that this was no nightmare, this was a clear and present human danger.

Comment: That's some tale!

Besides the specifically bizarre encounter, it's also generally bizarre that Americans even attend these events.

And not just 'dissidents' like Bannon, but establishment cronies like Woolsey. Yes, he was a guest speaker at one of the panels on 'Media in the Digital Age'!

james woolsey
Truly a sign of the times.

Here's the Eurasian Media Forum website. The line-up of speakers included a lot of Russian journalists working for Russian news agencies and media outlets, as well as journalists from former Soviet states. As in, The Enemy that 'meddled in our democracy'.

So, while bashing Russian media to American audiences, American experts are participating with them at international forums, discussing world affairs with their peers in a civilized manner. Who knew?!

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Stock Up

Best of the Web: 'Nuclear' option? Xi sends Trump a message - Rare-earth export ban is coming - UPDATE

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Tue, 21 May 2019 09:10 UTC
Trump and Xi Jinping
Back in April of 2018, when the trade war with China was still in its early stages, we explained that among the five "nuclear" options Beijing has to retaliate against the US, one was the block of rare-earth exports to the US, potentially crippling countless US supply chains that rely on these rare commodities, and forcing painful and costly delays in US production as alternative supply pathways had to be implemented.

As a result, for many months China watchers expected Beijing to respond to Trump's tariff hikes by blocking the exports of one or more rare-earths, although fast forwarding one year later this still hasn't happened. But that doesn't mean it won't happen, and overnight President Xi Jinping's visit to a rare earths facility fueled speculation that the strategic materials will soon be weaponized in China's tit-for-tat war the US.

As Bloomberg reported overnight, shares in JL MAG Rare-Earth surged by the daily limit on Monday after Xinhua said the Chinese president had stopped by the company in Jiangxi, a scripted move designed to telegraph what China could do next.
JL MAG Rare-Earth stock prices May 2019

Comment: Just one of the ways China has the US by the proverbial sack. UPDATE May 29: RT reports that stocks of rare-earth miners have surged upon speculation that China may ban exports:
Hong Kong-listed shares of China Rare Earth Holdings Ltd skyrocketed around 40 percent after the opening bell before slightly falling back later in the day. At the same time JL Mag Rare-Earth Co, the plant Chinese President Xi Jinping visited last week, jumped more than 10 percent. The miner's stock has been rising for several consecutive trading sessions and hit a record high on Wednesday.

Other rare earth-related companies also enjoyed gains, with China Northern Rare Earth Group High-Tech Co. soaring around 9 percent Xiamen Tungsten Co. climbing nearly 5 percent.

Not only Chinese miners enjoyed gains on Wednesday, as shares of Australian rare earths producer Lynas reached a historic peak after they gained more than 15 percent in one day. Australia is one of the top global rare-earths producing countries, with annual output of 20,000 tons, but it is far behind Chinese yearly production of 120,000 tons.
Signalling the mood in China, People's Daily, China tweeted a response from a National Development and Reform Commission spokesman:


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