Puppet Masters
Now the events in Belarus force me to address this very unpleasant topic: Belarus is facing a complex and dangerous situation which might well result in a major crisis inside Belarus and even a loss of sovereignty. But first, before we look into what just happened, let me begin with a quick "mini-primer" about Belarus. Here is what I think everybody ought to know about this country:
Night two of the debates was just as vapid and ridiculous as night one. Candidates interrupted and talked over each other a lot, questions about foreign policy were avoided like the plague to prevent NBC viewers from thinking critically about the mechanics of empire, and Eric Swalwell kept talking despite everyone in the universe desperately wanting him not to. Buttigieg and Gillibrand did alright, Bernie played the same note he's been playing for decades, and everyone was reminded how bad Joe Biden is at talking and thinking.
Biden has been treated kindly by polls and regarded as a "frontrunner" in this race exclusively because for the last decade he hasn't had to do anything other than be associated with Barack Obama. Now that he's had to step out of that insulated role and interact with reality again, everyone's seeing the same old garbage right-wing Democrat who sucks at making himself look appealing just as badly as he did in his last two presidential campaigns. By the end of the night, even Michael Bennet was slapping him around.
Comment: See also:
- Kamala Harris' own father slams her 'identity politics' after she mocks 'pot-smoking Jamaicans' on radio show
- Democratic darling Kamala Harris packed California prisons with people for selling pot
- Fmr attorney Kamala Harris' record on criminal justice is appalling
- Kamala Harris dons progressive mantle in public, strips it off in private as she courts Israel lobby

Before she was a senator, Kamala Harris was an attorney general and district attorney who acted in ways that could hardly be described as "progressive," Lara Bazelon writes
But she's not.
Time after time, when progressives urged her to embrace criminal justice reforms as a district attorney and then the state's attorney general, Ms. Harris opposed them or stayed silent. Most troubling, Ms. Harris fought tooth and nail to uphold wrongful convictions that had been secured through official misconduct that included evidence tampering, false testimony and the suppression of crucial information by prosecutors.
In early July, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and other influential progressives were convinced that they had secured a critical concession from Joe Biden's campaign: For the first time, the Democratic Party platform would assert that Palestinians had a right to live free of foreign "occupation," a scarcely veiled reference to Israel.
But days before a draft platform was released on July 15, the presumptive Democratic nominee personally weighed in, according to three sources familiar with the discussion, ordering his advisors not to include any reference to Israeli "occupation." The decision, according to these sources, followed heavy last-minute lobbying by pro-Israel advocacy groups. Biden aides subsequently phoned progressive leaders and urged them to drop their demand to declare Israel an occupying power, arguing that the inclusion of the phrase threatened to undermine unity within the Democratic Party.
It comes after four cases of community transmission from the same family were confirmed - after 102 days without any.
Ardern and director general of health Ashley Bloomfield announced the news tonight and an alert was sent to New Zealanders' phones.
As of noon tomorrow, Auckland will move to level 3 for three days until midnight on Friday.
The rest of the country will move to alert level 2 at midday tomorrow - until midnight on Friday.
An American man with ties to Amnesty International and key Hong Kong separatist figures has been posing online as a Hong Kong native named Kong Tsung-gan. Routinely cited as a grassroots activist and writer by major media organizations and published in English-language media, the fictitious character Kong appears to have been concocted to disseminate anti-China propaganda behind the cover of yellowface.
Through Kong Tsung-gan's prolific digital presence and uninterrogated reputation in mainstream Western media, he disseminates a constant stream of content hyping up the Hong Kong "freedom struggle" while clamoring for the US to turn up the heat on China.
Whispers about Kong's true identity have been circulating on social media among Hong Kong residents, and was even mentioned in a brief account last December by The Standard.
Comment: Super Dupers: A well-propagandized mindset tends not to scratch the surface to discover what lies beneath a news story. False loyalty is purposed to be the stronger conviction, remaining firm even after a supported reveal. The Kern tool has played this deceit to the hilt. Even if exposure brings his 'run' to an end, propaganda damage has been done and can't be retracted.
See also:
- In the Pentagon and China's propaganda wars, greedy Hollywood is a happy helper for both - the people and art are the victims
- The Pentagon-Hollywood Connection: Propaganda, censorship, and bribery
"This decree will impose new burdensome requirements that will further inhibit RFE/RL's and VOA's ability to operate within Russia," Pompeo said Monday, commenting on the draft rule published by the media regulator Roskomnadzor.
Pompeo called VOA and its sister outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty "vital sources of independent news and information for the people of Russia" for "more than 70 years."
Far from independent, however, they were both established as US propaganda outlets at the dawn of the Cold War. They are fully funded by the government, and the charter of their parent organization - now known as US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) - mandates they
"be consistent with the broad foreign policy objectives of the United States" and "provide a surge capacity to support United States foreign policy objectives during crises abroad."The 1948 law that established these outlets outright prohibited their content from being broadcast in the US itself, until the Obama administration amended it in 2013.
Comment: Russia is leveling the playing field with similar measures while calling out the US on its disrespect and manipulation.
"It's been six years since Michael Brown's life was taken in Ferguson — reigniting a movement," Biden tweeted. "We must continue the work of tackling systemic racism and reforming policing."
Comment: There was, actually, eye-witness testimony and evidence to the contrary in the Brown-Wilson tragedy. Biden's confusion may be a conflation of the two versions. His cognitive decline suggests he is unable to sort his facts nor filter his memories.
See also:
- Unorthodox police procedures come to light in grand jury documents
- DeAndre Joshua murdered, fits profile of eye-witness to Michael Brown shooting
- Nationwide protests against police brutality in AmeriKKKa: Wilson gets away with murder, Anonymous: #HoodsOff "The war is on!"
- "Witness 40": Fraud exposed in Ferguson
In the latest election threat update, officials also said China "prefers" that Trump "does not win reelection" in November.
Last month, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence was "primarily concerned" with China, Russia and Iran "seeking to compromise" the 2020 presidential election.
Director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center Bill Evanina on Friday revealed additional information on those threats.
A propaganda war is being waged by China and the US military for control of Hollywood, and therefore the minds of the public, for their own nefarious purposes.
Not surprisingly, like whores at a battlefield brothel, the morally ambiguous harlots of Hollywood are trying to profit from servicing both combatants. PEN America, a group championing free expression, recently released an exhaustive report detailing how China has taken control of Hollywood.
The report states: "The Chinese government, under Xi Jinping especially, has heavily emphasized its desire to ensure that Hollywood filmmakers - to use their preferred phrase - 'tell China's story well.'"
China strictly controls films released in its own market, which is soon to become the largest box office in the world, and Hollywood wants in on that lucrative action. So, it appeases its Chinese overlords by obeying censorial demands, like whitewashing a Tibetan character from Marvel's 'Dr. Strange', and strenuously self-censoring, like when it canceled a planned sequel to 'World War Z'.
This Orwellian sentiment of controlled storytelling to fit a government-approved narrative is not limited to the communists of China, however. The US military has long had a very fruitful arrangement with Hollywood in which it exchanges free military equipment, expertise, personnel and locations in exchange for ultimate control over scripts. Capt. Russell Coons, Director of Navy Office of Information West, sounded like Xi when he described Pentagon expectations while cooperating with a movie. "We're not going to support a program that ... presents us in a compromising way."
Comment: For more on China's role in Hollywood:
As for the Pentagon's influence, Tom Secker's work at Spy Culture is essential.














Comment:
- Another mercenary battalion deployed in Belarus to destabilize country claims President Lukashenko
- Belarus on the brink? Unloved in Moscow, a pariah again in the West & facing protests at home, Lukashenko is running out of road
- Is Belarus the West's next target for illegal regime change?
And yet, for all his failings, Lukashenko refused to sell his country down the Covid-hoax river:Alexandr Lukashenko, a president with scruples