Puppet MastersS


Briefcase

House Intelligence Committee questioned about alleged surveillance of WikiLeaks founder

José María Irujo
El Pais
Fri, 04 Nov 2022 01:08 UTC
Julian Assange Stefania Maurizi
Surveillance footage of Stefania Maurizi meeting Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy.
Judge Santiago Pedraz of Spain's National High Court has filed a request for judicial assistance with the United States House Intelligence Committee. He is asking the committee - charged with overseeing the US intelligence community - to provide his office with information pertaining to a Spanish firm that may have surveilled WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

While Assange was protected by the Ecuadorian embassy in London - in an attempt to avoid extradition to the United States to face charges over leaking thousands of classified documents - he was allegedly subjected to espionage by the Spanish security firm Undercover Global SL. Pedraz has pointed out that the CIA may have been a possible recipient of the material that was collected on Assange.

Comment:

Read More...
Arrow Down

The West bullies Iran, again

M.K.Bhadrakumar
Indian Punchline
Mon, 07 Nov 2022 01:02 UTC
Drone Inspection
© Indian PunchlineA police officer inspects parts of a drone at the site of a Russian strike on fuel storage facilities, Kharkiv, Ukraine, Oct 6, 2022 .
The manner in which Tehran handled its drone deal with Russia has been somewhat clumsy. The fact that the first 'leak' on this topic originated from none other than President Biden's National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan should have alerted Tehran that something sinister was afoot.

Instead, for whatever reasons, Tehran went into a flat denial mode. And now in a turnaround, we are given to understand that Iran's denial was factually correct, albeit not wholly true in content. Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian has acknowledged that the "drone part is true, and we provided Russia with a small number of drones months before the Ukraine war."

The minister added the caveat that "This fuss made by some Western countries, that Iran has provided missiles and drones to Russia to help the war in Ukraine — the missile part is completely wrong."

Howsoever good Iran's drone technology might be, it has not been a game changer for Russia in the war in Ukraine. Russia's own missile capability is surprising even the western experts who had predicted months ago that it was "running out" of its inventory. In fact, the missile strikes may continue until Ukraine collapses and the West has no meaningful interlocutor left in Kiev's rubble.

Russia and Iran seem to have got mired in a controversy unnecessarily. What seems to have happened is that just as Iran did reverse engineering on US' drone technology, Russians also did a good job to remake the Iranian kamikaze drones that were in its inventory prior to the special military operation in Ukraine. Kiev now says, after examining the debris of the Russian drones that it shot down, that they had Ukrainian parts, too!

It stand to reason that the Russian defence industry picked something from Iran's technology, something else from Ukraine's, and came up with a startling "Russian model". That probably explains the sophistry in Moscow' consistent stance that it didn't use Iranian drone.

Amirabdollahian revealed that Iran offered to explain the situation to Ukrainian authorities and a meeting was even set up in Poland to clear the misunderstanding and restore Iran's diplomatic ties with Kiev, but the Americans got it scuttled. Evidently, the US is not interested in a normalisation of Ukraine-Iran relations. Israel too would have an interest in keeping Iran at arm's length from Kiev. The US and Israel would apprehend that a strong Iranian diplomatic presence in Kiev might work to Russia's advantage.
Read More...
Pirates

EU, US must address protectionist U.S. inflation act that threatens European companies - German finance minister


Reuters
Mon, 07 Nov 2022 21:42 UTC
German Finance Minister Christian Lindner
© REUTERS/Benjamin WesthoffGerman Finance Minister Christian Lindner holds a news conference on new estimates for tax revenue in Bonn, Germany October 27, 2022.
Germany wants dialogue with Washington rather than tit-for-tat measures to ease trade tensions triggered by the U.S Inflation Reduction Act, which could harm European businesses and industry, Germany's finance minister said on Monday.

Christian Lindner said a task force set up between the United States and the European Union should address the issue urgently.

"The correct path now is to seek dialogue with the U.S. administration in order to exchange concerns and find common ways in which our economic interests can be combined," Lindner said ahead of talks with his Eurogroup counterparts in Brussels.

"I have not been assured that the American side has completely grasped how great our concerns about the consequences are," he told reporters, while expressing confidence that solutions could be found.


Comment: Perhaps the US simply doesn't care because it knows that, at the moment, Europe is its vassal.


Comment: Yet again the EU will suffer so the US can (at least temporarily) profit:

Regarding Mr Bertand's second comment: 'New centers of power are emerging in a multipolar world, we want to partner with them' - Chancellor Scholz writes in Politico before Beijing trip

Read More...
Mr. Potato

6 election security threats to watch for on Election Day

Eric Geller
Politico
Mon, 07 Nov 2022 20:03 UTC
election
© Joe Raedle/Getty ImagesThe U.S. officials charged with protecting election security say they’re watching for threats from multiple groups and countries.
The midterms face a bevy of digital threats, from stolen Twitter accounts to hacked election websites, that could spark chaos, confusion and unrest that last long after the polls close.

The 2020 presidential election was rife with allegations of voting machine hacks that were later debunked. Yet there are real risks that hackers could tunnel into voting equipment and other election infrastructure to try to undermine Tuesday's vote.


Comment: This has got to be one of the most hilarious bits of regime newspeak to grace the pages of the mainstream press recently. Back when there was the danger that Trump would be re-elected, you see, there was no danger and, in fact, no election fraud. Now that the Democrats are in danger of losing seats, those dangers magically appear.


The U.S. has many safeguards protecting voting equipment, so any actual hack would probably be localized, quickly detected and unlikely to affect final results. But as 2020 showed, even an attempt to change votes — or the mere allegation of tampering — could undermine faith in the outcome.


Comment: No, and no. It turns out that election fraud is seemingly very easy. If it happens against candidates you dislike, you simply deny it. And if candidates you don't like win, you simply assert that there was fraud. That's the mainstream way!


The U.S. officials charged with protecting election security say they're watching for threats from multiple groups and countries. And in recent months, social media companies and cybersecurity researchers have identified Chinese influence operations aimed at the elections.

"More attention to securing voting systems hasn't eliminated critical technical and human threats to our elections," said Matthew Weil, executive director of the Bipartisan Policy Center's Democracy Program. "And this cycle is practice for 2024."

The federal government has worked since 2016 to improve coordination with state and local officials on everything from fixing digital vulnerabilities to promoting trusted sources of information. Biden administration officials say that's one reason that they've seen less foreign interference than in 2016.
Read More...
Bad Guys

Why is the US government pursuing war with Russia-China but NOT PREPARING FOR war with Russia-China?

Leo Hohmann
LeoHohmann.com
Thu, 03 Nov 2022 00:00 UTC
American soldier
The entity in Washington that calls itself the government seems to be hell-bent on war with Russia-China-Iran, deliberately placing itself on a collision course that can only lead to World War III.

And if World War II was exponentially more bloody and deadly than World War I, we should assume that World War III will be exponentially more bloody and deadly than World War II.

And yet this entity in Washington is not acting like a government preparing for what would be the biggest, nastiest, most devastating war in the history of mankind, involving all manner of weapons, conventional and non-conventional, of mass destruction.

We are not talking about Iraq under Saddam Hussein, or Afghanistan under the Taliban. This entity in Washington is poking a bear that has the world's largest and most sophisticated nuclear arsenal on the one hand (Russia) and the world's largest standing army (China) on the other.

Our enemies, Russia and China, are stockpiling wheat and petroleum in preparation for war.

But the U.S. is selling off its wheat and petroleum.

In fact, the US exported a record amount of wheat in September. Why?

Comment: Of course these policy decisions do make some sense once one considers the incredible levels of incompetence that pathological individuals in positions of power are capable of.

Read More...
Bad Guys

Vodka Nan quietly turfed out? Decision to replace Nancy Pelosi made in September following 'secret' meeting

Jon Dougherty
Conservative Brief
Sat, 05 Nov 2022 17:33 UTC
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
© GettyHouse Speaker Nancy Pelosi
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi could be on her way out of the Democratic Party's leadership role, according to a Friday report.

Politico reported that the battle to succeed her actually began Sept. 1 during a "secret" meeting between Reps. Hakeem Jeffries of New York and House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn of South Carolina.

"Jeffries, the fifth-ranking House Democrat who aspires to be the first-ranking House Democrat in the next Congress, was picking up heightened chatter from colleagues about California Rep. Adam Schiff's outreach expressing his own interest in the top caucus job," the report noted.

Comment: A bit more from the Politico article on Schifty Schiff's delusional Speaker ambitions:
Another longer-serving lawmaker could not believe he had to inform Schiff of what should have been obvious. "The fact he didn't know I was for Hakeem tells you how out of touch he is," said this lawmaker. "I'm part of Hakeem's whip operation."

To Schiff's detriment, it's not only that he's playing catch up, it's that it's obvious he's playing catch up. More focused on raising his media profile than cultivating colleagues during the Trump years — and seen in the caucus as capable but aloof — his outreach has prompted some lawmakers to privately ridicule him for only texting them for the first time when he became interested in the leadershi

In private, Schiff has expressed confidence that the 42-member delegation of California Democrats could vault him into contention.

But that bloc is hardly unified around him. "Should there be a change in leadership I think Hakeem would be a strong, unifying leader," said Rep. Ami Bera of California, who's eyeing the DCCC chairmanship.

Another one of Schiff's California colleagues said Schiff should avoid the near certainty of losing a leadership race when lawmakers return to Washington after the midterms. "If he played his cards right, he'd say, 'I'm not going to do this, I need your help for the Senate,'" said this lawmaker.

With over $21 million on hand in his House campaign account, money that could be rolled over to a Senate bid, he could be formidable in California's TV-driven statewide politics.

That is, however, assuming there's a race at all.

Should Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein vacate the seat before her term expires in 2025, Newsom has said he'll name a Black woman as senator.

This same attentiveness to the Democratic coalition is what ultimately may pose the biggest challenge to Schiff's House ambitions.

It's not just the symbolism of tapping a white man rather than elevating the first Black leader to succeed the first female speaker. It's that Jeffries is poised to ascend with a pair of well-liked deputies, Reps. Katherine Clark of Massachusetts and Pete Aguilar of California, who together reflect the makeup of their party — a Black man, a white woman and a Latino.

Few Democrats more fully grasp the power of the party's diversity than Clyburn, the man whose eleventh-hour endorsement helped revive President Biden's campaign in the first primary state with a large share of Black voters.

The caucus' commitment to diverse leaders is "what this country is all about," he said.

And, he added, that "bodes well for Hakeem."


Read More...
Bizarro Earth

The Great Reset: A Perfect Storm

David Solway
PJ Media
Fri, 04 Nov 2022 00:00 UTC
great reset
Storms come in many forms and may consist of many different constituent elements, but when all these elements combine at the same critical moment, we call it a "perfect storm." When such a storm is transposed analogically to the cultural, political, and economic realms, that is, when it seems to impact the entire social environment, we have no choice but to grasp its significance and prepare for its onset by taking protective measures.

Such a storm is now upon us. All its elements clearly point to an orchestrated intention; in other words, it cannot be an accident. And the intention we discern in the current historical moment, the underlying plan, would appear to lay the ground for what has been called a "techno-totalitarian digital dark age," associated with the Club of Rome, the United Nations, and the World Economic Forum, that is, what has come to be known as the Great Reset — the corporate takeover of property, health, currency, travel, energy, and sustenance. The upshot involves a thorough restructuring of democratic society along neo-medieval lines, an elimination of the middle class, a two-tier political order, and a reduction of the global census.
Read More...
Bad Guys

Over 50 countries vote against UN anti-Nazism resolution


RT
Sat, 05 Nov 2022 14:30 UTC
Azov battalion, Ukrainian neo-Nazis
© Getty Images / STR
A UN resolution opposing the celebration of Nazism and related ideologies has met with significant resistance from the US and its allies, with 52 countries voting against it on Friday.

The draft resolution "Combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fueling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance," introduced by Russia's representative to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, was adopted with 105 votes in support. In addition to the 52 votes against, 15 countries abstained.

The resolution expresses concern about glorifying Nazism, neo-Nazism and former Waffen SS members, and condemns the construction of monuments and the holding of public ceremonies honoring the Third Reich. Introducing the resolution, the Russian delegate referenced an increase in xenophobia, anti-migrant sentiment, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism, among other forms of discrimination.

Comment: The 52 countries which voted against the resolution revealed something about themselves and their political leanings. One could surmise that perhaps Nazism isn't as reprehensible an ideology to those in power as they might have their populations believe.

Read More...
Rocket

Ukraine bombed dam with American missiles - Kherson officials


RT
Sun, 06 Nov 2022 14:14 UTC
Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station
© SputnikA Russian serviceman guarding the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station.
The Ukrainian military fired US-made HIMARS missiles at the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric dam in Kherson Region on Sunday, damaging one of the floodgates, emergency services have told RIA Novosti.

Six projectiles targeted the structure at around 10am local time. Five were intercepted by Russian air defenses, but one made it through, a representative said.

"The Armed Forces of Ukraine aren't giving up on their attempts to destroy the dam of the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station and create the circumstances for a humanitarian disaster," the statement explained.

The local authorities later clarified that the missile had failed to cause critical damage.

In recent weeks, Moscow has been blaming Kiev for attempting numerous attacks on the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric dam, which stands on the Dnieper River, upstream from the city of Kherson.
Read More...
Info

US 'privately' urging Ukraine to negotiate - WaPo


RT
Sun, 06 Nov 2022 07:24 UTC
ukraine us talks
© Office of the President of UkraineHead of Ukrainain President Vladimir Zelensky’s office Andrey Yermak holding talks with US national security advisor Jake Sullivan in Kiev.
Pressure is intended to alleviate foreign backers' concerns about a long conflict, sources say.

The White House is privately asking top Ukrainian officials to show openness to peace talks with Russia, the Washington Post reported on Saturday.

Kiev's public refusal to negotiate with Moscow unless President Vladimir Putin is removed from power in Russia must be abandoned, people familiar with the discussions told the paper.

Comment: So it's not about actually negotiating but putting up the appearance of negotiating in order to deflect criticism. Brilliant strategy.

See also:

Read More...