Puppet MastersS


USA

US House passes $95 billion Ukraine, Israel aid package, sends to Senate

Congress US
© Yasin Ozturk / Gettyimages.ru
WASHINGTON, April 20 (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives on Saturday with broad bipartisan support passed a $95 billion legislative package providing security assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, over bitter objections from Republican hardliners.

The legislation now proceeds to the Democratic-majority Senate, which passed a similar measure more than two months ago. U.S. leaders from Democratic President Joe Biden to top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell had been urging embattled Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson to bring it up for a vote.

The Senate is set to begin considering the House-passed bill on Tuesday, with some preliminary votes that afternoon. Final passage was expected sometime next week, which would clear the way for Biden to sign it into law.

The bills provide $60.84 billion to address the conflict in Ukraine, including $23 billion to replenish U.S. weapons, stocks and facilities; $26 billion for Israel, including $9.1 billion for humanitarian needs, and $8.12 billion for the Indo-Pacific, including Taiwan.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy expressed his thanks, saying U.S. lawmakers moved to keep "history on the right track."

"The vital U.S. aid bill passed today by the House will keep the war from expanding, save thousands and thousands of lives, and help both of our nations to become stronger," Zelenskiy said on X.

Comment:
1) Of the USD 34 trillion in debt, if one adds the numbers, 8 trillion are held by other countries. What this means for each person is that, the total US debt corresponds to more than USD 100,000 per US citizen, with almost a quarter owed to other countries. The new 95 billion amounts to a mere USD 270 per person.
US Debt
2) It appears from the language of the article that if a US politician living in a country with a staggering USD 34 trillion national debt, opposes more aid to Ukraine and the Military Industrial Complex, then some journalists will qualify them as "far right" (1 instance) or "hardline" (5 instances). This is interesting when considering the statement in the article: "Passage of the long-awaited legislation was closely watched by U.S. defense contractors, who could be in line for huge contracts to supply equipment for Ukraine and other U.S. partners."

3) From the same source there was:
Donald Trump says Ukraine's survival is important to US
By Reuters April 18, 2024 08:35 PM GMT Updated 4 days ago
They quote Donald Trump:
[...]
"Why can't Europe equalize or match the money put in by the United States of America in order to help a Country in desperate need?" he wrote on Thursday.

"As everyone agrees, Ukrainian Survival and Strength should be much more important to Europe than to us, but it is also important to us! GET MOVING EUROPE!"

Trump's post came the day after he praised Poland, following a meeting at Trump Tower in New York with Polish President Andzrej Duda. The former president and the Polish leader discussed Duda's proposal that NATO members spend at least 3% of their gross domestic product on defense, a campaign official said. Currently, they are required to spend at least 2% of GDP.
[...]
When Trump writes: "As everyone agrees, Ukrainian Survival and Strength should be much more important to Europe than to us, but it is also important to us! GET MOVING EUROPE!" we know that what is planned by NATO and the Ukrainian nationalists is the entry of Ukraine into NATO. This is an extension of the Englargement of NATO, in German NATO Osterweiterung. It can be interpreted as having a historic parallel in Generalplan Ost, of the 1930ies and early 1940ies.

4) In English there is an expression, to tip one's hat (Wiktionary, Merriam-Webster), with the first source explaining the meaning as: "To briefly remove or tap one's hat as a gesture of greeting, deference, or respect." In this perspective, some noted that not only was April 20, "a rare Saturday session", a Shabbat, it was also the birthday, the 135th to be precise, of a renowned leader of the National Socialist German Workers' Party. To counter such speculations, one could argue, that since life must go on, meaning something of importance happens, or has happened, on every day of the year, and since none of these above coincidences were planned for, the US Congress tipped their hats to nobody, it is independent and act in its own time.

See also: I pledge allegiance . . . to Keeeeeeeeeeeev

5) This article was a group effort, as seen from the list of people involved, though the bio, (see below) reveals a main author, and a main responsible. Is this a new trend, to spread the work load and the risks?


Bad Guys

Poland 'ready' to host nuclear weapons - President Duda

Duda poland
© EPA-EFE/Pawel Supernak POLAND OUT"If there is a decision by our (NATO) allies to deploy nuclear weapons in Poland as part of Nuclear Sharing in order to reinforce the security of NATO eastern flank, we are ready for that," Duda said on Monday (22 April).
Poland is ready to host nuclear weapons on its territory, President Andrzej Duda announced on Monday (22 April), confirming he had been in talks on the matter with the US administration during a recent visit.

​​In an interview with the Polish daily Fakt, Duda admitted that he is discussing the possibility of deploying nuclear weapons in Poland as part of NATO's Nuclear Sharing Programme.

US nuclear-sharing arrangements foresee the deployment and storage of a nuclear arsenal in Europe, allowing non-nuclear-weapon states to place nuclear weapons on their territory and participate in planning and exercises.

Though no official confirmation exists, it is widely known that US nuclear weapons are currently stationed on American and European bases across Europe: Kleine Brogel in Belgium, Büchel in Germany, Aviano and Ghedi-Torre in Italy, Volkel in the Netherlands, and Inçirlik in Turkey.


Comment: Considering Poland's recent globalist pivot, its barely concealed disdain for Russia, and the impressively deranged behaviour by some in its establishment, this is not really a surprise:


Arrow Down

Down with Big Brother: Warrantless surveillance makes a mockery of the Constitution

Big Bro
© 1984
"Whether he wrote DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER, or whether he refrained from writing it, made no difference ... The Thought Police would get him just the same ... the arrests invariably happened at night ... In the vast majority of cases there was no trial, no report of the arrest. People simply disappeared, always during the night. Your name was removed from the registers, every record of everything you had ever done was wiped out, your one-time existence was denied and then forgotten. You were abolished, annihilated: vaporized was the usual word." — George Orwell, 1984
The government long ago sold us out to the highest bidder.

The highest bidder, by the way, has always been the Deep State.

What's playing out now with the highly politicized tug-of-war over whether Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act gets reauthorized by Congress doesn't just sell us out, it makes us slaves of the Deep State.

Footprints

The US is crawling away from Ukraine

launcher
© Christophe Gateau/picture alliance/Getty ImagesA MIM-104 Patriot launcher • Rzeszow Airport, Poland
Talk about victory for Kiev has disappeared as Washington becomes a 'back seat driver'...

The Istanbul agreements - a tentative peace plan agreed between Russia and Ukraine in the spring of 2022 - are being discussed again. However, as they were written at the time they are no longer relevant and are unlikely to be of any use in the future. The realities on the ground and in the hearts and minds of many key people, have changed completely.

Nevertheless, it's no coincidence that talk of negotiations began in Switzerland just as it became clear, to Westerners, that the Ukrainians are unable to make any progress. I am not talking about victory, but about any meaningful success on the battlefield. And thus it has become necessary to somehow limit Russia's potential for success, to prevent it from winning.

This is not coming from Ukraine itself, but rather the enemy with whom we are now really at war. The desire to prevent a Russian victory is behind all these diplomatic machinations.

Comment: Russia is about integrity and commitment. Unlike the US/West, it will stand its ground.


Attention

The Immense Hunger

Goya Saturn Devouring Son
© Off-Guardian
Like all living creatures, people need to eat to live. Some people, eaten from within by a demonic force, try to deny others this basic sustenance. All across the world people are starving because the powerful and wealthy create economic and political conditions that allow their wealth to be built on the backs of the world's poor. It is an old story, constantly updated. It is one form of official terrorism.

From the Irish famine with its terrible aftermath created by the imperialist British government in the nineteenth century that caused the death of between one and two million Irish and the forced emigration of more than a million more between 1846 and 1851 alone, to today's savage Israeli genocide and forced starvation of Palestinians in Gaza, the stories of politically motivated famine are legion.

In their wake, as the historian Woodham-Smith wrote in 1962 of the Irish famine, it "left hatred behind. Between Ireland and England the memory of what was done and endured has lain like a sword." This Irish bitterness toward the English was strong even in my own Irish-American childhood in the northern Bronx more than a century later. Ethnic cleansing has a way of leaving a livid legacy of rage toward the perpetrators, especially in the Irish case when talk of of one's ancestors' perilous forced emigration on the Coffin Ships was ever broached.

Today's Israeli government leaders must be historically ignorant or suicidal, for the Irish rage at the British led to the Easter Rebellion of 1916 and the eventual establishment of the Republic of Ireland, where today in Dublin, its capital, huge throngs march in support of the Palestinian people and their fight against Israel. Do the Israeli leaders think that they can evade the lessons of history, lessons that oppressed people everywhere learned from the irrepressible Irish rebels? Like their arrogant British imperialist counterparts, they have self-anointed themselves a chosen people so they can inflict death and suffering on the unchosen ones, the animal people, those disgusting creatures not deserving of life, land, or liberty.

But starve, torture, and slaughter people enough and the flaming sword of revenge will exact a heavy price. Dark furies will descend.

Dehumanize people enough, take their land, and the day always comes when the wretched of the earth rise up against their racist colonialist settlers.

Deny the bread of life to people long enough so that they watch their emaciated children die in their arms or search for their body parts beneath the bombed rubble and you will find that the terrified have become terrifying.

Blue Planet

Chad is latest African state moving to kick out US military

chad africa   military
© Jerome Delay/AP/FileIn this March 2015 photo, Chadian troops and Nigerian special forces participate in the Flintlock exercises with the US military and its Western partners in Mao, Chad.
Chad has asked US troops to halt activities at an airbase near the capital of N'Djamena, the sole place American military presence in the country, several media outlets reported this week, citing letters sent by the country's armed forces minister, Air Force Chief of Staff Idriss Amine Ahmed.

The letters were reportedly addressed to the US defense attaché. Reports, however, vary as to the contents of the missives. According to Bloomberg, which claimed to have seen one of the letters and verified it with a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Chad has merely alerted the US "to stop their activity at the base." However, earlier in the week CNN, citing intelligence sources, reported that in a separate letter the US military was ordered to clear out of the Adji Kossei Air undefined entirely. Chad also reportedly threatened to cancel the Status of Forces Agreement, the document that governs how the US military can operate in the country.

Comment:




Big Bomb

Why Iran's strike on Israel was much more successful than it seems

iran attack israel retaliation missiles
© AFPTV / AFPScreen grab from AFPTV showing explosions lighting up the sky over Hebron, West Bank, during an Iranian attack on Israel, April 14, 2024.
Tehran's retaliatory attack may not have caused much destruction, but it was far from a failure

On the night of April 14, Iran and its proxy forces launched a series of cruise missile and kamikaze drone strikes on Israeli territory. The attacks did not come as a surprise. Tehran had warned that it would respond to the Israeli airstrike on Iran's consulate in Damascus, Syria, on April 1, which killed several high-ranking officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including two generals. The retaliatory strike was called Operation True Promise.

There is still much debate on whether Iran's retaliatory strike was successful. Most military experts agree that there was nothing unusual about Tehran's actions, except that this was Iran's first direct attack on Israel. From a technical point of view, the strategy was simple and correct: Iran first suppressed the enemy's air defense systems with drones and then launched hypersonic missiles which the Israelis and Americans were not able to intercept. Incidentally, in light of this, Ukraine's statements about shooting down Russian Kinzhal hypersonic missiles sound ridiculous.

Comment: Jimmy Dore has Scott Ritter weigh in:




Oil Well

The US has a new insidious plan for Venezuelan oil

mural
© Miguel Zambrano/AFPA mural at the PDVSA headquarters shows men working at Venezuela's oil refineries, in Caracas
Cancelling sanctions relief and kicking out everyone else looks like a setup for an arranged marriage with Western oil giants...

Six months ago, high oil prices in America amid Western sanctions against Russian oil and gas sent the Biden administration scrambling for more supply that it could control - and ideally profit from.

Washington couldn't influence Russia and Saudi-led OPEC, or relent on the ideologically-driven sanctions idiocy, but it could at least maybe dial up or down the supply to mitigate domestic political fallout of any resulting price increases. So the White House considered the cards it could play, and offered Venezuela a deal to lift the American boot off its neck. It's probably just a coincidence that the country happens to have the largest oil reserves on the planet - largely untapped.

There's also the added bonus of rapprochement to counter China and Russia's advances in Washington's backyard, or mitigating the influx of migrants from Venezuela to the US as a result of people fleeing a country struggling under a seemingly endless embargo.

USA

No Plan B without US - Kiev

Blink/Kuleba
© Gregorio Borgia/AFPUS Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba hold a meeting on the sidelines of the G7 Foreign Ministers meeting on Capri Island, Italy.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba has said this was the message he relayed to American counterpart Antony Blinken...

Ukraine does not have a 'Plan B' for the conflict with Russia if the US Congress refuses to approve more military aid for Kiev, Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba has said.

The diplomat told Ukraine's Rada broadcaster on Thursday that this was the message he had impressed on US Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier the same day, when the pair met on the sidelines of the G7 foreign ministers' summit on the Italian island of Capri.

The administration of US President Joe Biden has been unable to push another $60 billion in assistance for Kiev through Congress since the autumn, amid a bitter standoff between Democrats and Republicans over immigration and border security.

House Speaker Mike Johnson announced earlier this week that he will put a standalone Ukraine aid bill to a vote on Saturday, while Biden has promised to sign the legislation if it passes.

Comment: Einstein's theory of insanity...


Mr. Potato

Dementia Joe asks Americans to 'choose between freedom and democracy'

joe biden choose freedom democracy
© AFP / Andrew Caballero-ReynoldsJoe Biden speaks during a campaign event in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, April 18, 2024
The president's latest blunder comes as a majority of Americans doubt his mental capacity for office

US President Joe Biden has implored his supporters to choose "freedom over democracy," in the latest of a long series of gaffes and verbal blunders. Conservative pundits have viewed the incident as more proof that the 81-year-old is unfit for office.

Speaking at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Thursday, Biden rattled off a string of buzzwords as he asked voters whether they would choose him over former President Donald Trump in November's presidential election.

"Are you ready to choose unity over division? Dignity over demolition? Truth over lies? Are you ready to choose freedom over democracy? Because that's America," he exclaimed.

Comment: