Puppet MastersS


USA

What might Trump 2.0 mean for America and the world?

trump campaign 2024
© Getty Images / Win McNameeFormer President Donald Trump
Vengeance on Biden, curbing illegal migration, ending support for Kiev - The Donald will have a busy schedule should he win the presidency, but how much can he accomplish?

In the event of another Trump presidency, will the Orange Man restrain the desire to seek vengeance on his political enemies, or will he succumb to the temptation to play 'dictator for a day', unleashing mayhem in the process?

Perhaps it would be the understatement of the century to say that Donald Trump has a grudge to bear. Not only was his first term as president overshadowed by the dual hoaxes known as Russiagate and Ukrainegate, but the legal entanglements continue to follow him out of office as well. This has made Orange Man the first former president in American history to be hounded with state and federal lawsuits. And should he get elected to another four years in the Oval Office, nobody should be surprised if the reprisals against his arch-nemesis begin in earnest.

Comment: Along with better staffing picks, Trump will have to rely on his base to deliver congressmen and women who will be on board with his goals. Were not the specter of vote rigging up and down the ballot hanging over the election, this would not be a problem


Question

A start? FM Joly says Canada to stop arms sales to Israel

Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly,
Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly
The parliament has passed a resolution calling for an end to weapons deliveries as the war in Gaza continues

Canada will halt future arms sales to Israel, Foreign Minister Melanie Joly told the Toronto Star on Tuesday.

The statement came after the parliament passed a resolution on the matter amid a growing push among MPs to condemn Israel's military operation against the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza, which has entered its sixth month.

Despite the non-binding nature of the document, Joly confirmed that the government will cease the transfer of weapons to Israel. "It is a real thing," she said, answering a reporter's question.

Tank

Ukrainian attacks in Belgorod reveal the terrorist nature of the Kiev regime

Belgorad, Russia
Entering Belgorad, Russia
Trying to disrupt the Russian elections, Ukraine launched a series of terrorist attacks on the Belgorod border, leaving many dead and injured.

The presidential elections are definitely the most important event for the Russian Federation in 2024. Across the country, millions of people left their homes to vote at the polls and choose the best candidate for the next six years in the presidential office. However, on the country's southwestern borders, the exercise of political rights by Russian citizens has been affected by Ukrainian terrorism. In the Belgorod region, several attacks have occurred in recent days, leaving people dead or injured, as well as destroying the city's civilian facilities.

On March 14, the day before the start of the election period, I was in Belgorod on a special expedition by the BRICS Journalists Association, with the aim of covering Ukrainian shelling on the ground and collecting information about the local situation. It was a day marked by intense bombing, with missiles and drones constantly hitting civilian targets. On that occasion, we followed the attacks one by one, visiting almost all the affected locations and talking to the victims who had their properties destroyed and relatives injured.

Pirates

Moscow: EU poised to destroy international law

Euroclear bank russian assets
Eurosclear Bank has repeatedly warned of catastrophic financial fallout if Russian funds are seized.
Spokesman Dmitry Peskov has warned the bloc against diverting earnings from Russia's frozen assets to Ukraine

A proposal by the EU's top diplomat, Josep Borrell, to use the profits from Russia's frozen central bank assets to fund Ukraine will erode international law and irrevocably tarnish the bloc's image globally, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.

Borrell said on Wednesday that he had proposed to the EU using 90% of the revenues generated by the Russian assets to procure arms for Ukraine, which has repeatedly complained about shortages of ammunition and weapons. According to the diplomat's plan, the remaining 10% would be transferred to the EU budget to be used to support Kiev's defense industry.

Comment: The EU's growing panic over Russia prevailing in Ukraine is clearer every day, especially with the U.S. signalling it's ready to walk away from the fiasco and leave them to sort it out.


Big Bomb

Erdogan considering military operations in Iraq and Syria

Turkish tank
© AFP / Bakr ALkasemA Turkish tank in northern Syria.
Türkiye's military is set to carry out operations to achieve full security along the country's borders, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said.

In January, Türkiye carried out a series of airstrikes and ground operations in northern Iraq and northern Syria, targeting members and facilities of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which Ankara views as a terrorist organization. The escalation followed the death of nine Turkish troops in clashes with the PKK fighters.

The goal of the government in Ankara is to make sure that Türkiye is free from "the dark shadow of terrorism," Erdogan said during a speech on Monday.

Putin

Moscow slams OSCE for ignoring killing of Russian civilians

Ukraine attack
The obvious lack of a reaction to Ukrainian attacks on Russian cities demonstrated by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has encouraged Kiev to keep killing civilians, Moscow's representative at the organization Alexander Lukashevich stated on Monday.

The comments came as Ukraine intensified its attacks on Russia's border regions last week ahead of the country's presidential election, which took place Friday through Sunday. The attacks involved drone raids, artillery strikes and attempted ground incursions. The assaults on Russia's Belgorod Region alone have claimed the lives of 11 civilians, including children; 82 more were injured, according to the local health authorities.

"The OSCE leadership is once again demonstrating biased approaches, continuing to divide people into categories and sorts and blatantly 'not noticing' the victims of attacks carried out by the armed formations of the Kiev regime against peaceful residents of the Russian regions," Lukashevich said in a statement posted on the official Telegram channel of the Russian mission.

Attention

Ukraine could need dictatorship to survive - Zelensky party MP

Zelensky
© Paula Bronstein / Getty ImagesUkrainian President Vladimir Zelensky.
Ukraine may need to become a dictatorship in order to prevail in the conflict with Russia, an MP from President Vladimir Zelensky's party has suggested.

Zelensky has already concentrated a great deal of power in his hands and "makes most of the decisions" on behalf of the government, Sergey Demchenko told Novyny.Live news on Monday. The situation is "reasonable" and does not mean that Ukraine is a dictatorship, though the country may need to become one, he argued.

"That is possible. During war, people sometimes say that the only way for a nation to emerge victorious is a state of dictatorship," the lawmaker said. "For the country, for the people, dictatorship always plays negatively, but this tool may help beat the enemy."

At present, Ukraine can be described as a "democratorship," the host suggested, to which Demchenko replied that the term for the political system is not important.

Snakes in Suits

Incurable affliction of the nervous system? France all dressed up and nowhere to go

Macron
© Ludovic Marin / AFP
Ever since its ignominious defeat in the Napoleonic wars, France is entrapped in the predicament of countries that get sandwiched between great powers. Following World War II, France addressed this predicament by forging an axis with Germany in Europe.

Caught up in a similar predicament, Britain adapted itself to a subaltern role tapping into the American power globally but France never gave up its quest to regain glory as a global power. And it continues to be a work in progress.

The angst in the French mind is understandable as the five centuries of western dominance of the world order is drawing to a close. This predicament condemns France to a diplomacy that is constantly in a state of suspended animation interspersed with sudden bouts of activism.

But, for activism to be result-oriented, there are prerequisites needed such as the profiling of like-minded activist groups, leadership and associates and supporters and sympathisers — and, most important, sustainment and logistics. Or else, activism comes to resemble epileptic fits, an incurable affliction of the nervous system.

Comment: The French leader has not backed down since this article was written a little over a week ago and the author might well be correct that this type of activism from the French leader comes to resemble epileptic fits, an incurable affliction of the nervous system.

See also:


No Entry

Best of the Web: In blow to Biden, Supreme Court allows Texas to start arresting and deporting illegal aliens

national guard texas border illegal migrants immigrants
© Brandon Bell/Getty ImagesNational Guard soldiers stand guard on the banks of the Rio Grande river at Shelby Park on 12 January in El Paso, Texas.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday dealt a blow to the Biden administration's attempts to keep the US border open - allowing Texas to enforce a new law giving local police the power to arrest migrants.

With three liberal justices dissenting, the conservative-majority court rejected an emergency request by the Biden administration which claimed that states have no authority to legislate on immigration.

The ruling means that Texas' law can go into effect while litigation continues in lower courts.

The law, SB4, allows police to arrest migrants who illegally cross into the United States from Mexico, and imposes criminal penalties. It also empowers judges to deport people to Mexico.

Comment:


Big Bomb

How NATO undid decades of post-colonial development in mere months

FILE PHOTO: Lybia's Leader Muammar Gaddafi attends a meeting with seven hundred Italian women at the Auditorium Parco Della Musica on June 12, 2009 in Rome, Italy.
© Franco Origlia/Getty ImagesFILE PHOTO: Lybia's Leader Muammar Gaddafi attends a meeting with seven hundred Italian women at the Auditorium Parco Della Musica on June 12, 2009 in Rome, Italy.
Thirteen years ago, the NATO operation against Libya demolished one of the most well-off African nations

Once one of the leading and most economically prosperous countries in North Africa, Libya has today become a hotbed of instability and destruction. This country is yet another victim of the so-called 'Arab Spring'.

In January 2011, the first riots began, the day after the news of the flight of Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali from his own country became known. The first protests hit the Libyan cities of Benghazi, Derna, and Al-Bayda. The discontent was caused by excessively long construction times for housing. Protesters began to seize unfinished houses, attack contractor offices and municipalities.

Indeed, there were problems with construction times. Immediately after the start of the protests, then leader Muammar Gaddafi condemned the rallies, but at the same time noted that the construction times for housing had been delayed and promised to punish the perpetrators. On January 27, Reuters reported that the Libyan government had set up a $24 billion fund "to provide housing for the population."

Comment: Gaddafi worked for his country and his people, primarily, rather than the western elites. The NATO countries and nudging from Israel rewarded with balkanisation. Still his work was not in vain, he set an example for others.

1) Gaddafi in SOTT articles, in summary; in title; 220+ articles, 600+ articles, (for Qaddafi in title; 10+ articles, in summary; 90+ articles)
A former Italian premier, in an interview, has contended that a French air force missile brought down a passenger jet over the Mediterranean Sea in 1980 in a failed bid to assassinate Libya's then-leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Former two-time premier Giuliano Amato appealed to French President Emmanuel Macron to either refute or confirm his assertion about the cause of the crash on June 27, 1980, which killed all 81 persons aboard the Italian domestic flight.

In an interview with Rome daily La Repubblica, Amato said on Saturday he is convinced that France hit the plane while targeting a Libyan military jet.

While acknowledging he has no hard proof, Amato also contended that Italy tipped off Gaddafi, and so the Libyan, who was heading back to Tripoli from a meeting in Yugoslavia, didn't board the Libyan military jet.

What caused the crash is one of modern Italy's most enduring mysteries.

Some say a bomb exploded aboard the Itavia jetliner on a flight from Bologna to Sicily, while others say an examination of the wreckage, pulled up from the seafloor years later, indicates it was hit by a missile.

Radar traces indicated a flurry of aircraft activity in that part of the skies when the plane went down.

"The most credible version is that of responsibility of the French air force, in complicity with the Americans and who participated in a war in the skies that evening of June 27," Amato was quoted as saying.

NATO planned to "simulate an exercise, with many planes in action, during which a missile was supposed to be fired" with Gaddafi as the target, Amato said.

In the aftermath of the crash, French, US and NATO officials denied any military activity in the skies that night.
Best of the Web: Hillary's emails confirm France and US killed Qaddafi for his gold and oil
Clinton e-mails reveal Washington's obsession with overthrowing Qaddafi government in Libya
The Ugly Truth: video Of Libyan rebel beheading Gadhaffi soldier and other Nato war crimes
The despicable and heinous timeline of Gaddafi's murder
Why they came for, and killed, Colonel Muammar Qaddafi
Qaddafi Compound Hit by U.K. Missiles as Coalition Says Leader's Forces in Disarray
NATO: Qaddafi loyalist resilience surprising
2) About Gadaffi's "The Green Book"
The Green Book is a short book setting out the political philosophy of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. The book was first published in 1975. It was "intended to be read by all people". It is said to have been inspired in part by The Little Red Book (Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung). Both were widely distributed both inside and outside their country of origin, and "written in a simple, understandable style with many memorable slogans".
The book has three chapers:
Chapter 1: The Solution of the Problem of Democracy: The Authority of the People

Chapter 2: The Solution of the Economic Problem: Socialism

Chapter 3: The Social Basis of the Third International Theory
See also Wiki. The Green Book Center has versions "in European languages and in CIS languages at separate sites."

Given the independent mind of Muammar Gadaffi, adding a little inspiration from The Little Red Book (Quotations from Chairman Mao Tsetung), it is not hard to imagine how his administration ended up in the red/black books of the NATO alliance partners.

3) On Lockerbie
There's plenty of evidence that suggest that, if the FBI does indeed re-open the Lockerbie case file, they should be looking past the "usual suspects" aka patsies of Libyan terrorists:
4) Libya in the SOTT articles, in title; 800+ articles, in summary, 2410+ articles
In a massive show of support for limitless executive power, Congress rejected legislation that would have terminated national emergency powers allowing Washington to wage war across the Middle East - and to test biological weapons on US citizens.

Led by Representative Paul Gosar, a handful of Republican members of Congress launched a protest against 41 nominal "national emergency" declarations, many of which are decades old.

Rep. Gosar has argued the National Emergencies Act is "tyrannical," granting 148 separate powers to the executive branch.

This July 18, the House voted down five resolutions to terminate national emergency powers which date back as far as 2003. The countries affected by the five resolutions include Congo, Yemen, Libya, Syria and Iraq. Each vote saw a coalition of pro-war Democrats and Republicans join together in overwhelming numbers to protect the executive branch's emergency authorities.
5) Gaddafi on Ukraine 2009

Since 2009 Gaddafi and Libya are gone. Changes in Ukraine have been even more dramatic and are ongoing.

6) The GDP chart of Libya from this Wiki is illustrative of the western sponsored post-post colonial development.
Libyan GDP before and after civil war