Puppet MastersS


Handcuffs

US holds world hostage to its nukes, Ex-American intel officer says


Sputnik
Sat, 29 Oct 2022 15:11 UTC
Nuked
© CC By 2.0/International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear WeaponsNuclear explosion
Earlier this week, Pentagon released nuclear posture, which suggests that the US doesn't rule out use of the nuclear arsenal against non-nuclear threats - which contradicts previous pledges by the Biden administration.

Scott Ritter, a military analyst and former US Marine Corps intelligence officer, explained Sputnik why Washington adopted new nuclear policies and what do they mean for regular Americans.

Sputnik: Why are Russia and Сhina to be blamed for the Biden's administration failure to reduce nuclear weapons?

Scott Ritter: We have to look for somebody to blame. We can't blame ourselves. That's normally what happens. But we are solely to blame. President Biden ran on a platform that said that he would be seeking what's called the single-use policy for nuclear deterrence. And what that means is its a single-purpose policy. And the single purpose would be that the sole purpose of the US nuclear weapons arsenal is deterrence. And that's it; that we would never use nuclear weapons under any circumstance other than to respond to somebody using nuclear weapons against us; that we are here to deter a nuclear attack on the United States.

He's broken that promise.

Comment: Rational thinking is above Washington's level of comprehension.

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Eye 1

Iran's top intelligence bodies: CIA ploy to incite riots foiled


Tehran Times
Sat, 29 Oct 2022 12:51 UTC
2 symbols
© IRGC/Iran Ministry of IntelligenceIRGC • Iran Ministry of Intelligence
The statement, which provided a detailed explanation of several elements of the recent riots in Iran, was released on Friday by the Iranian Intelligence Ministry and the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Intelligence Organization.

"Numerous examples and undeniable references of the all-out role of the terrorist American regime in engineering, implementing, and maintaining" the unrest are being revealed by more than a year of "continuous and precise" intelligence monitoring coupled with documents that have been acquired during the most recent unrest, the statement said.

The statement further elaborated on the issue by offering facts on three categories "before the unrest," "during the unrest" and "after the unrest."
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TV

German president accused of staging Ukraine bomb shelter incident


RT
Mon, 31 Oct 2022 13:37 UTC
air raid shelter
© Global Look Press/Michael KappelerGerman President Frank-Walter Steinmeier (M) waits in the air-raid shelter after an air-raid alert and talks to residents of the city and listens to their experiences.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier may have been part of a staged propaganda stunt, according to an article published by Der Spiegel on Monday. Columnist Thomas Fischer raised several questions about the politician's recent visit to Ukraine, where he spent over an hour in a basement bomb shelter amid a supposed air raid by Russian forces.

On October 25, Steinmeier made his first trip to Ukraine since Russia launched its military offensive against the country in late February. While speaking to reporters in the northern town of Koryukovka near the Russian border, an air raid siren went off and the the president was escorted to a bomb shelter located in the basement of a nearby public building. Steinmeier ended up spending over an hour in the shelter with a group of officials and other people.

Following the incident, Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine's interior minister, said it was "a very good illustration why Ukraine needs more air defense systems" as soon as possible, referring to Berlin's pledge to deliver several Iris-T systems to Kiev.

Comment: 'All the world is a stage'. Expect a curtain call.

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Hammer

Cockamamie Story

James Howard Kunstler
Clusterfuck Nation
Mon, 31 Oct 2022 00:00 UTC
Pelosi house
© Flightrisk/BACKGRIDPelosi residence • David DePape, alleged attacker
All the narratives spun by the Party of Chaos are falling apart now, but this final fiasco, a mere week before the midterm election, is a humdinger with a cherry-on-top.

It's been several days since San Francisco police interrupted a hammer fight between Paul Pelosi — husband of House Speaker Nancy — and his "friend... David," in the Pelosis' Pacific Heights home, and apparently the cops have not asked David DePape why he was there in the first place. Odd, a little bit. Is it possible that a whole chain of authorities from the SFPD clear up into the top of the US government and its Democratic Party sidekicks don't want you to know what actually happened?

So far, not much in this cockamamie story adds up. Quite a bit is known now about the attacker, David DePape. He was a colorful character on the scene in radical Berkeley across the bay, a "nudist activist" and BLM supporter. He'd lived there and had a child with one Oxane "Gypsy" Taub, a fellow nude activist and whack-job, who has spent time in prison for child abduction. That partnership ended seven years ago and DePape has been homeless on and off since then. Acquaintances and Berkeley neighbors describe him as not mentally healthy, saying he exhibits psychotic delusions and is sometimes incoherent.

Comment: See also:

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Arrow Up

Wheat prices jump after Russia exits grain deal; UN races to save agreement

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Mon, 31 Oct 2022 08:40 UTC
wheat futures
© Yahoo Finance
It's been two days since Russia suspended its participation in the Ukraine grain export deal after a swarm of drones targeted at least one Russian warship from the Black Sea navy. Wheat futures soared Monday as traders eye tightening world supplies following Russia's exit.

Moscow immediately suspended its compliance with the grain deal, known as the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which was formed and launched in July and ended a five-month Russian blockade of Ukraine's ports. The United Nations and Turkey brokered the deal, allowing safe passage for cargo ships in and out of Ukraine's ports to haul farm goods worldwide.

The deal was successful, as Bloomberg data shows Ukrainian exports via the Black Sea ramped after the agreement was signed in late summer.
Graph 1
But what the Russian Defense Ministry describes as a "massive" drone attack on the Black Sea Fleet in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol derailed all hopes of a continuation of the deal as Moscow pulled out.

Comment: Self-sabotage works every time.

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Bad Guys

EU ignores its own free-market principles - Qatar


RT
Tue, 01 Nov 2022 16:08 UTC
natural gas tanker
© Loic VENANCE / AFPThe liquefied natural gas tanker Rudolf Samoylovich in France.
EU nations that want to "fix" the gas market by capping prices are acting against their own laws that protect free competition, the energy minister of Qatar has said.

"Free market is always the best solution, and if you try to fix the market you are going against all the anti-competition laws that the Europeans were trying to put on sellers - and now they are doing it themselves," Saad Al Kaabi told Bloomberg TV on Sunday.

Host Simone Foxman asked if he thought Brussels was being "a bit hypocritical" with the proposed cap, to which the Qatari official responded: "It's not a bit, it's a lot hypocritical."

The European Commission is considering a dynamic price cap on natural gas traded on EU exchanges. The measure would supposedly reduce market volatility and extreme speculation amid the transition away from Russian pipeline supplies. The EU is also mulling joint purchases of gas and mandatory sharing by member states to cope with potential shortages.
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Che Guevara

Lula's victory is good for Brazil, but far from a revolution

Bradley Blankenship
RT
Tue, 01 Nov 2022 15:57 UTC
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
© AP Photo/Andre PennerFormer Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva celebrates after the electoral authority said the defeated incumbent Jair Bolsonaro to become the country's next president, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Sunday, Oct. 30, 2022.
The results are in for Brazil's presidential election, which has drawn serious international attention. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, known mononymously as Lula, won the contest with 50.9% of the vote, to incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro's 49.1%, which is in line with what polls suggested would happen. My best friend, who I mentioned in my last column on this topic for RT, thankfully was not left in tears this time, but was shrieking over the phone in glee.

And that's because Lula's victory, as I outlined, represents a massive step forward for Brazil. It means that the rich-poor divide has a chance of shrinking, that the South American country has a shot at getting off the world hunger map, that people might enjoy expanded social services, and that Brazil might return to its rightful place as a major power player on the world political stage. It also means, hopefully, the preservation of Brazil's nature, namely the Amazon rainforest, commonly referred to as the 'lungs of the planet' for its role in pumping oxygen into the atmosphere and expelling carbon.

As I noted weeks ago in my piece, this has serious implications for Latin America and the world writ large. It means a serious blow to American imperialism, given Bolsonaro's status as a running dog for the Yankee empire and its projects in the region such as the destabilization of Venezuela and expansion of the so-called War on Drugs. It could also mean more business dealings for Beijing on the South American continent, for example, if Brazil joins the China-led Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
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Pirates

Moscow raises concerns over alleged Truss message to Blinken


RT
Tue, 01 Nov 2022 15:51 UTC
Liz Truss
© Tolga AKMEN / AFPLiz Truss speaks on the phone, September 25, 2019.
Russia's Foreign Ministry has weighed in on speculation that former British prime minister, Liz Truss sent a suspicious message to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken after the Nord Stream undersea pipelines were damaged.

London should officially comment on a claim that Truss messaged "It's done" to America's top diplomat right after powerful blasts disabled the gas pipelines that run between Russia and Germany, spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Tuesday.

She stated that "millions of people around the world have the right to know what happened to world energy security" and whether the US and UK had a role in the attack.
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X

Zelensky 'nullified' grain shipping deal - Moscow


RT
Tue, 01 Nov 2022 15:45 UTC
Ukraine farmer
© AP Photo / Efrem LukatskyA farmer harvests a field in Dnepropetrovsk Region, Ukraine, July 4, 2022.
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has rendered an internationally brokered grain shipping agreement void by using safe passage in the Black Sea to strike Russian warships, Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the State Duma, the lower house of Russia's parliament, has claimed.

Moscow has asserted that Kiev dispatched attack drones, last weekend, via a route designated for grain vessels.

"The resumption of the grain deal is impossible as long as the safe corridor is being used for terrorist attacks," Volodin wrote on his Telegram channel on Tuesday. "With his actions, Zelensky has nullified all of the agreements that were brokered by Türkiye and the UN."

The senior legislator said the use of the safe corridor for the attack on Russia's Black Sea Fleet is "unacceptable" and that the grain agreement "cannot exist on the old terms."
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Vader

SOTT Focus: War and Regrets in Ukraine

Douglas Macgregor
The American Conservative
Wed, 19 Oct 2022 16:48 UTC
ukraine
© Carl Court/Getty Images
Of the Vietnam War, Henry Kissinger, former national security advisor and secretary of State under Presidents Nixon and Ford, said, "We should never have been there." Before long, Americans, even the politicians inside the Beltway, will reach the same conclusion about Washington's Ukrainian proxy war against Russia.

No one in the White House, the Senate, or the House consciously set out to turn the proxy Ukrainian war with Moscow into a contest of "competitive societal collapse" between Russia and NATO. But here we are. No one imagined that the Biden administration and the bipartisan war party would drive Americans and Europeans into a political, military, and economic valley of death, from which there is no easy escape. Yet that is precisely what is happening.

For the moment, Washington remains blind to these developments. Whether in print, radio, television, or online, the narrative is clear: despite horrific losses — at least 400,000 Ukrainian battlefield casualties including 100,000 soldiers killed in action — Ukrainian forces are winning. Moreover, the narrative says, America's financial and economic dominance will ultimately overwhelm the deceptively weak Russian economy.
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