Puppet MastersS


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None dare call it a recession lest the Democrats lose the mid-term elections

Tom Luongo
Gold, Goats 'N Guns
Mon, 25 Jul 2022 00:00 UTC
no recession
When all you have left is managing narratives, managing narratives becomes a full time job.

This is where The Davos Crowd is today - just before the next Fed rate hike and just over three months out from the US mid-term elections.

It doesn't matter the subject anymore, everything is managed, massaged, wheedled or cajoled into a convenient definition which serves some aspect of the Davos agenda. Last week it was blaming Russia for the West's financial problems - food and energy shortages forcing the ECB to raise rates.

This week we're going to be redefining a 'recession' and shifting the blame for it to the Federal Reserve.

Treasury Secretary cum Vice President Janet Yellen prepped the stage last week, using her gravitas (*snort*) to proclaim that she "doesn't see a recession" on the horizon. Now the O'Biden administration is redefining recession away from the technical definition of two straight quarters of negative GDP growth.
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Post-It Note

"I've delivered": New disclosures demolish President Biden's denials on Hunter dealings

Jonathan Turley
jonathanturley.org
Thu, 28 Jul 2022 00:00 UTC
Biden
New disclosures are demolishing the continued denials of President Biden that he had no knowledge and nothing to do with his son's business interests. The emails (reviewed by Fox and The Daily Mail) include exchanges with at least 14 of Hunter Biden's business associates while Joe Biden was vice president. They cast further doubt on the president's repeated claims that he had no knowledge of his son's foreign business dealings. In one almost plaintive email, Hunter actually complains to an associate that he had delivered on everything that was demanded of him in getting access to his father and the White House.

President Biden and the White House continue to repeat his denial from the campaign trail in 2019: "I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings." These denials have continued even after an audiotape surfaced showing President Biden leaving a message for Hunter specifically discussing coverage of those dealings.

Some of us have written for two years that Biden's denial of knowledge is patently false. Indeed, it is baffling how Attorney General Garland can ignore the myriad of references to Joe Biden in refusing to appoint a special counsel.
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Quenelle - Golden

Taiwan fails to report Chinese military drone flown around the island amidst drills, tensions rise prior to Pelosi visit

Liu Xuanzun
Global Times
Wed, 27 Jul 2022 06:11 UTC
china drone
© Screenshot from CCTVA TB-001 Twin-Tailed Scorpion armed reconnaissance drone is on display at an unmanned intelligent equipment exhibition organized by PLA Joint Logistics Support Force in early 2022.
After the Japanese Defense Ministry spotted an armed reconnaissance drone of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) flying above waters to the east side of the island of Taiwan on Monday, Taiwan media reported that the PLA aircraft went and made a full circle flight around the island of Taiwan for the first time.

Chinese mainland analysts said on Wednesday that Taiwan's defense authority's failure to report the drone's activity exposed the island's defense vulnerabilities against drones, a great vulnerability the PLA can abuse in a possible cross-Straits conflict.

A TB-001 drone of the PLA flew to the eastern side of the island of Taiwan, crossed the Bashi Channel and continued to fly along the alleged median line of the Taiwan Straits, marking that the drone made a clockwise circle around the island on Monday, the first day of Taiwan's annual Han Kuang military drills, media on the island reported on Tuesday.
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Oil Well

Austria says the quiet part out loud: EU ban on Russian gas 'impossible'


RT
Thu, 28 Jul 2022 17:31 UTC
russian gas sales europe
© RT
The European Union cannot ban Russian natural gas, as the step would harm EU members more than Russia, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer warned on Thursday, as cited by Austrian media outlets.

Chancellor Nehammer made the comments during a visit to Vienna by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

"Sanctions must hit those against whom they are directed more, but not harm those who decide them," Nehammer told the Austria Press Agency.

A ban on gas supplies from Russia - an idea that has been circulating within the EU since Moscow started its military operation in Ukraine - would lead to a domino effect in Europe, the Austrian chancellor suggested.

Comment:

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Snakes in Suits

Scott Ritter: Washington's Russian Drone Fantasy

Scott Ritter
Consortium News
Tue, 26 Jul 2022 00:00 UTC
3 NATO
© NATONATO Deputy Sec. Gen. Mircea Geoana
U.S. Natl. Security Advisor Jake Sullivan
NATO Sec. Gen. Jens Stoltenberg
Oct. 7, 2021
According to the official U.S. government narrative, a "desperate" Russia — suffering significant battlefield reversals in Ukraine including the loss of "large numbers" of reconnaissance drones while its own military industrial capacity lacks the ability to provide adequate replacements due to Russia's "economic isolation" — has turned to Iran for assistance.

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan declared:
"Our information, indicates that the Iranian government is preparing to provide Russia with up to several hundred UAV's [unmanned aerial vehicles], including weapons-capable UAVs on an expedited timeline. It's unclear whether Iran has delivered any of these UAVs to Russia already."
Sullivan's assessment was drawn from U.S. intelligence reports indicating that Russian officials had twice visited Iran — on June 8 and July 5 — for the purpose of observing at least two versions of Iranian UAVs in operation.

Both visits took place at Kashan Airbase, in central Iran. The Kashan facility has been publicly identified by Israel as the main training facility for Iran's UAV program. According to Sullivan, these visits represent the first by Russian officials. "This suggests ongoing Russian interest in acquiring Iranian attack-capable UAVs," Sullivan noted.

The Biden administration believes that Russia is seeking to acquire "hundreds" of the Iranian UAVs and that Iran is prepared to begin training Russian operators on their use in the near future.

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby put the final spin on the story:
"It was important to make it clear to the world that we know that Russia needs these additional capabilities. They are expanding their resources at an accelerated rate."
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Cow Skull

Feckless Canadian PM Trudeau declares war on fertilizer, follows disastrous footsteps of Sri Lanka

John Hayward
Breitbart
Thu, 28 Jul 2022 17:00 UTC
justin trudeau
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ignored cries of anger and desperation from farmers and provincial officials last weekend by pressing ahead with a climate change agenda that will dramatically reduce Canada's use of fertilizer — the same ruinous strategy that drove Dutch farmers into revolt and destroyed the agriculture of Sri Lanka.

The Toronto Sun reported on a dismaying Friday meeting of federal and provincial ministers, in which the latter could not convince the Trudeau administration to show any "flexibility" in its emissions targets, not even with a global food crisis on the horizon:
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Arrow Down

U.S. in a recession after second straight quarter of negative growth

Tim Meads
The Daily Wire
Thu, 28 Jul 2022 00:00 UTC
USA arrow
© Peter Zelei/Getty Images
The United States is in a recession after the economy shrank for a second straight quarter by an annualized rate of 0.9%.

On Thursday, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis' (BEA) first estimate of the nation's gross domestic product was worse than the predicted expansion of 0.5%, FXStreet noted. Economists widely define a recession as two consecutive quarters of negative growth.
"The decrease in real GDP reflected decreases in private inventory investment, residential fixed investment, federal government spending, state and local government spending, and nonresidential fixed investment that were partly offset by increases in exports and personal consumption expenditures (PCE). Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, increased."
White House economic advisor Brian Deese has claimed that a recession is not universally defined as two straight quarters of negative growth. "It's not the definition that economists have traditionally relied on," Deese recently said regarding the aforementioned definition.

However: In 2008, Deese told the media, "Economists have a technical definition of recession, which is two consecutive quarters of negative growth."
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Snakes in Suits

Austrian politician wants Ukrainian oligarchs sanctioned


RT
Tue, 26 Jul 2022 15:03 UTC
Martin Graf
© Global Look Press/Leopold NekulaAustrian MP Martin Graf
An Austrian MP has called for the EU to impose sanctions on Ukrainian oligarchs, who he claims are the real culprits behind the military conflict between Kiev and Moscow. Martin Graf described the bloc's current policy on Ukraine deeply flawed.

He wrote a lengthy post on Facebook which featured excerpts from a recent interview:
"I demand that the EU authorities impose sanctions on Ukrainian oligarchs: Seize their yachts, assets and other property and use these funds to help Ukrainian refugees and to offset the losses suffered by the EU citizens due to sanctions [on Russia]."
Graf, who represents the right-wing Freedom Party of Austria (FPO), claimed the oligarchs had "sucked Ukraine dry" and "consistently funded" regime changes in Kiev with little regard for the consequences of political turmoil on the country's economy and society.

He said these same people, who had "bought" the right to do as they please, are now funding Ukrainian nationalists and illegal armed groups. The MP added that the oligarchs had "lost touch with reality" and "led Ukraine into war."
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Headphones

UK Home Office 'unlawfully' approved MI5 bulk surveillance warrants

Bill Goodwin and Tommy Greene
Computer Weekly
Mon, 25 Jul 2022 19:41 UTC
home office great britain spy surveillance MI5
The British Home Office, MI5 headquarters
MI5 provided 'false information' to the Home Office to secure bulk surveillance warrants, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal heard

The Home Office has unlawfully allowed MI5 to gather vast amounts of the public's data by wrongly approving bulk surveillance warrants, Britain's most secret court heard on 25 July 2022.

The human right's groups Liberty and Privacy International told the Investigatory Powers Tribunal that MI5 has provided false information to obtain warrants for bulk surveillance. The Home Office failed to investigate breaches by MI5, some of which date as far back as 2010, the court heard.

Liberty lawyer Megan Goulding said that the case showed that the UK's surveillance laws are not fit for purpose and fail to offer adequate safeguards to protect the public from abuse.
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Sheriff

Uganda's President praises Russia's help in decolonization amidst Lavrov's tour of Africa


Anadolu Agency
Tue, 26 Jul 2022 12:00 UTC
lavrov africa
© Russian Foreign Ministry Press Service via APFILE PHOTO: In this handout photo released by the Russian Foreign Ministry Press Service, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, left, and Ethiopia's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Demeke Mekonnen Hassen attend a joint news conference after their talks in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on July 27, 2022
Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov arrived in Uganda on Tuesday as part of his Africa tour aimed at rallying support for the sanctions-hit country.

He was received at the Entebbe International Airport by his Ugandan counterpart Abubaker Jeje Odongo.

Lavrov earlier visited Egypt and the Republic of Congo. He will head to Ethiopia after a two-day stop in Uganda.

After a closed-door meeting with Lavrov, Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni said in a joint news conference that Russia has been supporting the anti-colonial African movement for the last 100 years.

Comment: Telling footage from Lavrov's tour:





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