Puppet MastersS


MIB

Eric Schmidt's hidden influence over US defense spending


Tech Transparency Project
Wed, 25 May 2022 00:00 UTC
Eric Schmidt
Former Google head has assembled a secretive fund with Washington insiders to help direct US national security investments — potentially to his own benefit.

Eric Schmidt has been quietly building an investment vehicle blending public and private funds that could grant the former Google CEO unusual influence over U.S. national security policy and, potentially, the opportunity to steer taxpayer money to his own bets.

The blandly named America's Frontier Fund — which has so far received no media attention — will be led by a who's who of the defense establishment combined with close associates of Schmidt's ventures in business, finance and public policy. The high-powered investment vehicle appears to be modelled on In-Q-Tel, a nonprofit venture capital firm with close ties to the Central Intelligence Agency that has faced allegations of serious conflicts of interest among its trustees.

In fact, AFF will be helmed by the former chief executive of In-Q-Tel, Gilman Louie, and a former executive at Schmidt Futures, Jordan Blashek. A roster of well-connected defense insiders will populate the board and serve as its anchor funders, including Michèle Flournoy, former undersecretary of defense under President Barack Obama, former Secretary of Defense Ash Carter and H.R. McMaster, U.S. national security advisor at the Trump White House.

America’s Frontier Fund
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Eye 1

Soros to blame for Ukraine conflict - Hungary


RT
Fri, 10 Jun 2022 06:49 UTC
Viktor Orban
© AP / Geert Vanden Wijngaert
Budapest-born oligarch "symbolizes" business circles that are interested in prolonging the conflict in Ukraine, the country's PM has claimed

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has listed billionaire financier George Soros among the "instigators of war" in Ukraine.

In an interview with Kossuth radio on Friday, Orban said that only peace would curb inflation and save the economy from further shocks, but admitted that Ukraine had "the right to defend itself."

He also said that Hungary was now virtually the only country that wanted peace. Indeed, Budapest, unlike most other European capitals, has refused to send weapons to Ukraine.
"We need to fund peace, not war," Orban explained.
However, he did emphasize that there were people who were interested in prolonging the conflict.

Comment: See also:

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Broom

Bolivia's ex-president Anez sentenced to 10 years in prison for coup, facing genocide charges


News.com.au
Sat, 11 Jun 2022 15:44 UTC
Jeanine Áñez anez
Jeanine Áñez is escorted into prison in March of 2021 after being arrested over accusations she took part in a coup
Bolivian ex-president Jeanine Anez was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison, more than a year after her arrest for an alleged plot -- dismissed as fictional by many -- to oust her rival and predecessor Evo Morales.

For that, Anez also faces genocide charges, which carry prison sentences of between 10 and 20 years.

Comment: A few more details on Anez from a 2021 article: Bolivian court issues warrants for arrest of former interim President Jeanine Añez, other ministers UPDATE
Last week, Jeanine Añez, the former self-proclaimed interim president of Bolivia, refused a summons to meet with the state prosecutor in her home province of Beni, paving the way for her arrest for giving security forces a "license to kill" protesters who challenged her interim government's rule in 2019 and 2020. ​


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Sherlock

Turkey claims to have foiled Iranian plot against Israeli targets


Haaretz
Sun, 12 Jun 2022 18:07 UTC
Isaac Herzog Tayyip Erdoga
© AFPIsraeli President Isaac Herzog (L) and his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan shake hands during a press conference in Ankara, in March
Turkey exposed an Iranian ring that had planned to carry out an attack against Israeli targets in Turkey. An Israeli source said the ring was uncovered following an Israeli tip-off to Turkish authorities about a month ago.

In late May, Israel's National Security Council revised its travel warning to Turkey. The updated warning came amid Iranian threats that had followed the assassination of an Iranian Colonel Hassan Sayyad Khodaei. Iranians have attributed the killing of Khodaei, a senior member of Iran's Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force, to Israel.

Since the incident, senior Iranian officials have threatened to carry out retaliatory actions against Israel - both within Israeli territory and abroad.

Comment: Even if this was - and note that it was an Israeli 'tip off' - Israel is a world leader in assassinations and extreme criminal activity abroad:

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Eye 1

Italy's intel agencies surveilled figures with 'pro-Kremlin' views, leaked gov't doc reveals


RT
Sun, 12 Jun 2022 15:22 UTC
Franco Gabrielli
Franco Gabrielli state undersecretary for security. The government was forced to declassify a memo about "disinformation" during the Russian-Ukraine conflict.
Italy has rejected a media report that it was investigating public figures suspected of spreading pro-Russian views. Additionally, the government chose on Friday to publish a declassified document about "pro-Kremlin" activities on social media, parts of which were previously leaked to the press, sparking an outcry.

Franco Gabrielli, the state undersecretary for security, insisted that the rumored secret government dossier on supposedly pro-Russian figures was "actually nonexistent."

"There is no Big Brother, no Spectre in Italy: no one wants to investigate people's opinions," Gabrielli said, referring to a villainous organization from James Bond novels. "Opinions are always respected, which is different from fake news," he said, adding that "the only antidote to propaganda is free information." The leaking of a classified document to the media, however, will be investigated and "nothing will go unpunished," Gabrielli stressed.
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SOTT Logo Radio

SOTT Focus: NewsReal: Pride Month 2022 - LGBTQ, Plus Ukrainians


Sott.net
Sun, 12 Jun 2022 21:47 UTC
ukraine pride lgbt cia newsreal
© Sott.net
June is 'Pride Month', apparently, and this year's campaign narrators have welcomed Ukrainians as 'one of us'. But the 'glorious victory' for the US client regime in Ukraine isn't going so well, and media talking heads are beginning to realize it.

This week on NewsReal, Joe and Niall discuss the growing 'war fatigue' from the media inverting reality 180 degrees. The US may have 'won the information war', but blaming all of society's ills on Putin is not a long-term winning strategy.


Running Time: 01:44:19

Download: MP3 — 71.6 MB

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Brain

Everything is a weapon: The US government is waging psychological warfare on the nation

John W. Whitehead, Nisha Whitehead
The Rutherford Institute
Wed, 08 Jun 2022 00:00 UTC
Psych warfare
© greatgameindia.com/KJN
"Have you ever wondered who's pulling the strings? ... Anything we touch is a weapon. We can deceive, persuade, change, influence, inspire. We come in many forms. We are everywhere."
— U.S. Army Psychological Operations recruitment video
The U.S. government is waging psychological warfare on the American people.

No, this is not a conspiracy theory.

Psychological warfare, according to the Rand Corporation, "involves the planned use of propaganda and other psychological operations to influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes, and behavior of opposition groups."

For years now, the government has been bombarding the citizenry with propaganda campaigns and psychological operations aimed at keeping us compliant, easily controlled and supportive of the police state's various efforts abroad and domestically.

The government is so confident in its Orwellian powers of manipulation that it's taken to bragging about them. Just recently, for example, the U.S. Army's 4th Psychological Operations Group, the branch of the military responsible for psychological warfare, released a recruiting video that touts its efforts to pull the strings, turn everything they touch into a weapon, be everywhere, deceive, persuade, change, influence, and inspire.

This is the danger that lurks in plain sight.

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Attention

Elon Musk is not a renegade outsider - he's a massive Pentagon contractor

Alan Macleod
MintPress News
Tue, 31 May 2022 00:00 UTC
Musk
© MintPress NewsThe Myth of Elon Musk
Elon Musk's proposed takeover of Twitter has ruffled many feathers among professional commentators. "Musk is the wrong leader for Twitter's vital mission," read one Bloomberg headline. The network also insisted, "Nothing in the Tesla CEO's track record suggests he will be a careful steward of an important media property." "Elon Musk is the last person who should take over Twitter," wrote Max Boot in The Washington Post, explaining that "[h]e seems to believe that on social media anything goes. For democracy to survive, we need more content moderation, not less." The irony of outlets owned by Michael Bloomberg and Jeff Bezos warning of the dangers of permitting a billionaire oligarch to control our media was barely commented upon.

Added to this, a host of celebrities publicly left the social media platform in protest against the proposed $44 billion purchase. This only seemed to confirm to many free speech-minded individuals that the South African billionaire was a renegade outsider on a mission to save the internet from authoritarian elite control (despite the fact that he is borrowing money from the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia in order to do so).

Musk has deliberately cultivated this image of himself: a real life Tony Stark figure who thinks for himself and is not part of the established order. But behind this carefully constructed façade, Musk is intimately connected to the U.S. national security state, serving as one of its most important business partners. Elon, in short, is no threat to the powerful, entrenched elite: he is one of them.
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Propaganda

Top EU official use poorly sourced disinformation in attempt to smear Russia at UN

Rachel Marsden
RT
Sat, 11 Jun 2022 11:40 UTC
Michel
© Sakis Mitrolidis/AFPEuropean Council President Charles Michel
Earlier this week, the Russian Ambassador to the United Nations National Security Council Vassily Nebenzia walked out of an "address on peace and security in Ukraine" by European Council President Charles Michel. "You may leave the room. Maybe it's easier not to listen to the truth, ambassador," the top EU official smugly retorted. But was Michel actually telling the truth in his prepared remarks?

The specific comments widely portrayed by the press as having sparked Nebenzia's walkout blamed Russia for a looming global hunger. Michel said:
"Russia is solely responsible for this food crisis, Russia alone. Despite the Kremlin's campaign of lies and disinformation. I have seen it with my own eyes. A few weeks ago in Odessa, millions of tons of grain and wheat stuck in containers and ships because of Russian warships in the Black Sea and because of Russia's attack on transport infrastructure."
This assertion is contradicted by the presence of Russian ships reportedly seeking buyers for Ukrainian grain. Ukraine and its Western allies are accusing Russia of "stealing" the grain. Moscow rebuffs the accusations and claims that Kiev is obstructing shipments, with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov saying:
"In order for it to leave the ports, Mr. [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky must give the order, that's all."

Comment: The war is for the minds of the people. It comes in many forms.

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Russian Flag

Ex-DOD officer: US, NATO seek peace as Russian military victory in Ukraine is all but inevitable

Ekaterina Blinova
Sputnik
Sat, 11 Jun 2022 00:00 UTC
Pilot and plane
© Russian Defense Ministry
US officials have been meeting regularly with their UK and EU counterparts to discuss how to end the Ukraine conflict through a negotiated settlement, CNN revealed in early June, adding that Kiev is not directly involved in those discussions. Proposals include Ukraine's non-aligned status, and a Russo-Ukraine deal on Crimea and Donbass' future.

David T Pyne, an EMP Task Force scholar and former US Department of Defenсe officer, says:
"I think that President Biden has been torn between keeping up his administration's propaganda talking points in public which state that official US policy is to help Ukraine win the war against Russia, and - behind the scenes - probably being told weekly, if not daily, by members of his national security team that the chances of a Ukrainian military victory remain extremely slim."
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