Best of the Web:


Quenelle - Golden

Best of the Web: Russian envoy to UN accuses US of causing Venezuela's dire economic situation


RT
Thu, 11 Apr 2019 14:07 UTC
venezuela inflation
Is the US government/deep state responsible for causing this?
Russia's ambassador to the UN Vassily Nebenzia has accused the US of causing "billions of dollars" of damage to Venezuela ​since 2013 and said Washington "artificially provoked" a crisis to overthrow the legitimate government.

Speaking at a UN Security Council meeting on Venezuela on Wednesday, Nebenzia said the Trump administration was "picking the pockets" of the country while at the same time calling "for urgent assistance to the Venezuelan people."

The comments come as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) suspended Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's access to nearly €400 million ($451mn) in cash, citing the chaos which has unfolded since opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself rightful president in January.

It is not clear whether the IMF will formally recognize Guaido, but an economic advisor for the opposition leader told Bloomberg that the IMF was safeguarding the funds and they would be available again when Maduro's "usurpation" ends.


Comment: Well now, this is interesting.

The Russians are saying that the US government, not 'socialist dictator' Maduro, is substantially responsible for Venezuela's dire economic situation.

US/Western credibility is finished if the Russians can a.) prove this to be so, and b.) communicate it to the Global South/East.

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Gold Seal

Best of the Web: Post-Mueller Putin Derangement Sydrome

Patrick Armstrong
Strategic Culture Foundation
Tue, 09 Apr 2019 17:14 UTC
putin time magazine cover
© Time Magazine
The West - its governments and its governments' scribes - are obsessed with Russian President Vladimir Putin. "Obsessed" is probably too weak a word to describe the years of impassioned coverage, airy speculation and downright nonsense. He is the world's leading cover boy: military hats, Lenin poses, imperial crowns, scary red eyes, strait-jackets, clown hats; anything and everything. He's the avatar of Stalin, he's the avatar of the Tsars, he's the Joker, he's Cthulhu, he's Voldemort, he's Satan. He's the palimpsest for the New World Order's nightmares. Putin is always messing with our minds. He weaponises information, misinformation and sexual assault accusations. Childrens' cartoons, fishsticks, Pokemon and Yellow Vests, "Putin's warships" are lurking when they aren't stalking; "Putin's warplanes" penetrate European airspace; "Putin's tanks", massing in 2016, massing in 2018, still massing. His empire of rogue states grows. All Putin, all the time.

In an especially imbecile display in 2015, Western reporters (unable to find his website) thinking he hadn't been seen for several days started a contest of speculation about coups, death, wars, plastic surgery, secret births and other nonsense; when he "re-appeared", the story went down the Memory Hole.

For some reason, Americans personalise everything. In meetings with US intelligence agencies I was always fascinated how they would reduce every complicated reality to a single individual. But it isn't Saddam, or Assad, or Qaddafi, or Osama, or Aidid, or Milosevic, or Maduro, or Castro or any of the other villains-of-the-day, it's a whole country: these people got to the top for good reasons. Removing the boss makes some difference but never all the difference. They go but they never leave a Washington-friendly country behind and Washington does it all over again somewhere else. This peculiar blindness drives Putin Derangement Syndrome and has infected everybody else.
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Gingerbread

Best of the Web: Western intelligence network threatens Austria with Christchurch massacre unless it 'unfriends Russia'


RT
Wed, 10 Apr 2019 10:53 UTC

Comment: Now and then a story is planted in the media which pretty much - between the lines, and lies - spells it all out...


tarrant kurz austria
Citing the "Russian ties" of Austrian politicians in charge of intelligence, several European countries kept Austrian spies out of the intel-sharing loop. This led Vienna to miss a visit by the NZ mosque shooter.


Comment: Everyone missed it until after the fact. Except, perhaps, Turkey, which had terror alerts while Tarrant was in that country. Turkey, you'll notice, is not in this prestigious 'club'...


Europe's informal intelligence-sharing forum, Club de Berne, has withheld information from Austria's BVT (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz und Terrorismusbekämpfung) for the better part of a year now, BVT Director Peter Gridling revealed during a court appearance on Monday.


Comment: You don't hear about it much because the 'Club de Berne' is a para-legal deep state network that leans on European govts from the shadows and is thus not required to record its meetings. But it's emerging from the Swamp here and now to 'let the govt of Austria know' that it's too friendly with Russia...


While the BVT initially withdrew from the information-sharing club following a February 2018 police raid on its offices, other members of Club de Berne continued to withhold information from Vienna even after relations were restored.


Comment: Interesting. So this 'informal club' is powerful enough to reach into Austria and get the Austrian police to raid Austrian intelligence in order to pressure the Austrian PM to 'play ball' over prospective trade deals with Russia.


Comment: Neutral Switzerland!

As working men in London say, yore 'avin' a larf!

It's not called 'Club de BERNE' (which is a city in SWITZERLAND) for no reason.

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Bullseye

Best of the Web: The political lessons Donald Trump needs to learn from William Shakespeare

Martin Sieff
Strategic Culture Foundation
Sun, 07 Apr 2019 18:52 UTC
shakespeare
Now that President Donald Trump has finally been exonerated from the always farcical Big Lie of Collusion with Russia in the 2016 election, the US leader had better watch out: The Deep State will really go after him now that it's supposed Soft Coup plot has failed.

Trump needs to recognize he is a modern version of Shakespeare's King Henry IV, a monarch who can never afford to rest.

The forces opposed to Trump and his decent, sensible 2016 campaign vision of defusing tensions with Russia worked viciously, relentlessly and long to discredit the 45th President of the United States before he could even get going. The idea that they are now going to sit back like good losers because their entire pyramid of lies on Collusion with Russia has been exposed is ludicrous.

The two years of hysteria in fact were far from unsuccessful. They failed to topple Trump from office or separate and discredit him with his potent domestic political base. But they certainly prevented him from working openly and constructively with Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the ongoing bloodbaths in Syria and Yemen that Trump inherited and to reduce global nuclear tensions.
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Bullseye

Best of the Web: Alastair Crooke: The looking glass splinters

Alastair Crooke
Strategic Culture
Mon, 08 Apr 2019 12:00 UTC
european flag
Wherever one looks, it is evident that the post-war Establishment élites are on the backfoot. They maintain a studied panglossian hauteur. But whether it is in Britain, where a PM seems ready to sacrifice her own party's future on the altar of maintaining the cosy nexus between big business and Brussels' smug ambitions to be a global economic player, rivalling the US or China. Or, whether it is Trump's readiness to put America's financial system into fiscal and debt jeopardy, in order to keep the cogs and wheels of the Military Industrial Complex whirring and spinning comfortably - at a time when US government over-spending already threatens to break dollar 'trust'.

Or, whether it is Europe, where the abrupt ECB reversal marks a huge conceptual failure... [i.e. the destruction and transfer of wealth from Eurozone savers, to rescue debtors; and from the general public to the banks, government and large corporations to rescue their balance sheets]. This has contributed materially to having turned the Eurozone into an economic zombie, and having radicalised a large and hostile constituency.

Or, whether it is manifest with the EU's evident befuddlement upon China's tectonic 'landing' at Rome last month, heralding the shift of the global trade 'plates'. Maybe the EU leaders do 'get it' - that the EU is already on the slipway, gliding down towards 'new waters', slipping towards its sibling separation from the erstwhile 'parental home' of the trans-Atlantic relationship, to a new life in which a Chinese partner features. But if so, strategic thinking is not evident.

Comment: It's nigh on impossible for the entrenched establishment to acknowledge because a significant proportion of them subsist on delusions and wishful thinking: Also check out SOTT radio's:

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Gold Bar

Best of the Web: "It Belongs to The People, Not The Bankers" - Italy Moves to Seize Gold From Central Bank

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Thu, 04 Apr 2019 13:20 UTC
salvini italy
Two weeks ago, somewhat out of the blue, ECB President Mario Draghi issued an odd statement confirming that the European Central Bank needs to approve any operation in the foreign reserves of euro zone countries, including gold and large foreign currency holdings.
"The ECB shall approve both the operations in foreign reserve assets remaining with the NCBs (national central banks)... and Member States' transactions with their foreign exchange working balances above a certain threshold."

"The purpose of this competence is to ensure consistency with the exchange rate and monetary policy of the Union."
Specifically, Draghi made this statement to two Italian members of the European Parliament.

At the time it did not seem notable for any particular reason, but now things are starting to make more sense as The Wall Street Journal reports that Italy's ruling populists pushed ahead this week with efforts to seize control of the central bank and its gold reserves.


Comment: There's gonna be war.

Incidentally, the WSJ includes this image in its sidebar, showing countries with the top ten gold reserves:
gold reserves
© WSJ
The actual holdings of the US is probably just a quarter of its 'official' holdings, while China's is likely twice what it's listed at, putting it second behind Germany's (much of which is 'being kept safe' in Wall Street)...

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Megaphone

Best of the Web: Veteran US Intelligence analysts urge Trump to avoid war in Venezuela


Consortium News
Thu, 04 Apr 2019 12:00 UTC
venezuela blackout
© ReutersThe interruption of the electricity system brought down telecommunications and banking platforms
VIPS warn that Trump's policies regarding Venezuela appear to be on a slippery slope that could take us toward war in Venezuela and military confrontation with Russia.

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

SUBJECT: Avoiding War with Russia over Venezuela

Mr. President:

Your Administration's policies regarding Venezuela appear to be on a slippery slope that could take us toward war in Venezuela and military confrontation with Russia. As former intelligence officers and other national security practitioners with many decades of experience, we urge you not to let yourself be egged on into taking potentially catastrophic military action in response to civil unrest in Venezuela or Russian activities in the Western Hemisphere. With the recent arrival of two transport aircraft and enduring political support for the government of Venezuela, the Russians are far from crossing any "red line" emanating from the 1823 Monroe Doctrine.

Comment: See also: And check out SOTT radio's: NewsReal: US Regime Change Operation in Venezuela - This Time It's Legit?

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NPC

Best of the Web: Tucker Carlson: Are you living in a free society?

Tucker Carlson
Fox News
Sat, 06 Apr 2019 13:56 UTC
tucker carlson woke
Tucker Carlson with another great monologue about the encroaching totalitarianism...

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Hardhat

Best of the Web: Huge turnouts across France for 21st straight weekend of Yellow Vest protests


RT
Sat, 06 Apr 2019 17:29 UTC

Comment: And once again, RT France is pretty much the only network in France accurately reporting on it...


yellow vest protest acte XXI
Acte XXI, 6 April 2019. Month 6...
More than a dozen people have been arrested as Yellow Vest protesters flood the streets of French cities, marking the 21st consecutive week of mass demonstrations against President Emmanuel Macron and his government.

Some 21 protesters were arrested in Paris on Saturday morning, local media reported, citing police. Eric Drouet, one of the leaders of the Yellow Vests, was fined 135 euro ($150) for violating public protest laws. The ruling was slammed by his lawyer who said that "if Drouet wants to have a cup of coffee at the Champs-Elysees, he has an absolute right to do so."

Nevertheless, the rallies in the French capital and elsewhere remain largely peaceful. The Yellow Vests are singing songs and holding placards as they march to denounce the policies of Emmanuel Macron and demand his resignation.


Comment: The French police officers' union estimates there were 110,000 protesters this time (throughout France, or just in Paris? We're unsure).

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Family

Best of the Web: Tens of Thousands Join Pro-Family March at World Congress of Families Conference in Verona, Italy


The Local, Italy
Sat, 06 Apr 2019 14:08 UTC
world congress families
End-of-conference pro-life march at the World Congress of Families event in Verona, Italy, at the end of March 2019
Several tens of thousands of people have marched in support of the ultra-conservative World Congress of Families on Sunday, on the final day of their conference in northern Italy.


Comment: Not ultra-conservative, just conservative - predominantly Christian, though not exclusively.

Which, relative to the actual ultras on the liberal-left, is still fairly liberal.


Participants in the city of Verona carried pink and blue balloons and placards with slogans such as "Yes to life, not to abortion", an AFP correspondent saw.

Supporters travelled by train and coach from all over Italy to attend the march, which came a day after protesters staged their own demonstration denouncing the organisation's anti-abortion, anti-gay stance.

Before the march started at around midday, those gathered listened to a message from the organisers of the Congress. "The family, fundamental pillar of our society, must be at the centre of government policies," they said in their closing statement.

Comment: A US-founded, Russian-friendly, normal conference addressing concerns of the silent majority, the naturally conservative populations ruled by secular elites. This is the best of the West.

CNN's report on it called it a "conference of hate" and reminded its ultra-liberal audience that it took place in a city that was "home to one of the headquarters of German Intelligence during the Nazi occupation and in the 1970s, a far-right [NATO] terrorist network."

The UK's Independent focused on the negatives by labeling it an "anti-LGBT+ and anti-abortion conference," and suggesting that its real crime was providing a venue for discussing positive solutions to reversing the West's declining birth rates.

Here's a more objective report on the event, from American participant Dr Steve Turley:


And Turley's speech at the conference:




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