Puppet MastersS


X

No plans for martial law in Russia says Kremlin


RT
Wed, 11 May 2022 13:55 UTC
Peskov
© Sergei Bobylev/TassKremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov
Moscow harbors no plans to impose martial law in the country amid the ongoing conflict with Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday, dismissing claims made by a top US spy.

"No, there are no such plans," Peskov told reporters when asked to comment on a fresh statement by Director of US National Intelligence Avril Haines. The official also urged reporters and the public to listen to Russian President Vladimir Putin who has "reiterated and most recently confirmed that the special military operation is unfolding as planned."

The top US spy Haines alleged that Moscow may impose martial law in the country to ramp up its efforts in Ukraine. Haines also claimed:
"President Vladimir Putin's aims are greater than what Russia is capable of militarily and the situation is likely to be more unpredictable and potentially escalatory in the next few months. The current trend indicates the likelihood that President Putin will turn to more drastic measures, including imposing martial law."

Comment: Haines views Russia with an American lens - the only one that counts.

Read More...
Oil Well

US asked Brazil's Petrobras if it could raise oil output; it said no

Gabriel Stargardter, Gram Slattery
Regina Leader-Post
Tue, 10 May 2022 00:00 UTC
Petrobras
© Petrobras/A1stripeandgraphics/KJNBrazilian Oil Company Petrobras
U.S. government officials in March asked Brazil's state-run oil company Petrobras whether it could increase crude output after Russia's invasion of Ukraine sent global prices soaring. They came away empty-handed, the sources said.

Officials at Petrobras, formally Petroleo Brasileiro SA , said output levels were a function of business strategy rather than diplomacy and also that a significant short-term production boost would not be logistically possible.

A U.S. State Department spokesperson said:
"We are ... doing everything possible with our allies and partners to mitigate the economic impacts of Russian actions on other economies like Brazil. We are working with energy companies to surge their capacity to supply energy to the market, particularly as prices increase."
The spokesperson did not elaborate or comment specifically on the March meeting with Petrobras officials. Petrobras denied in a statement that any meeting had occurred with "representatives of the U.S. State Department." It did not respond to a request for comment when asked if it had been contacted by any other U.S. government agency.

Washington has been making a sweeping diplomatic push to secure global oil supplies and keep a lid on prices after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. U.S. officials also have been trying to improve relations with the right-wing government of President Jair Bolsonaro, despite disagreements over the Ukraine war and environmental policy.

Brazil is the world's ninth-largest oil producer.


Comment: The US and NATO are financial/military co-conspirators in the Ukraine war, thus deserve as much blame for the rise in oil prices as Ukraine or Russia.


Comment: When the US locks down oil production deals, it becomes the gatekeeper.

Read More...
X

What the media still isn't telling you about Russiagate

Ray McGovern
Antiwar.com
Mon, 09 May 2022 00:00 UTC
Schiff
© AP/Andrew Harnik/KJNChair of House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff
Two years ago last Saturday (May 7, 2020) Adam Schiff (D, California), Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, was forced to perform what Nixon co-conspirator John Ehrlichman famously called a "modified limited hangout."

On that day, Schiff released sworn testimony that there was zero technical evidence that Russia - or anyone else - hacked those DNC emails so prejudicial to Hillary Clinton (later published by WikiLeaks).

Now, please, before you put me in Putin's or Trump's pocket, read on:

The testifier was Shawn Henry, the head of the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. For reasons former FBI Director James Comey would never really explain, he deferred to CrowdStrike to do the forensic work on the DNC computers that were supposedly "hacked." Comey told Congress that CrowdStrike "would share with us what they saw."

In June 2019, it was revealed that CrowdStrike never produced an un-redacted or final forensic report for the government because the FBI never required it to, according to the Justice Department.

Are you starting to smell a rat? What about the "modified limited hangout"?

Well, if some or all of this is news to you, it is because the NY Times and other major media have deep-sixed it for exactly two years now, and counting. It gets worse - much worse.
Read More...
X

Hungary: EU has 'no solution' to fix damage from Russian oil ban


RT
Wed, 11 May 2022 11:17 UTC
Szijjarto
© Bertrand Guay/AFP/KJNHungary's Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has said that the EU had failed to find a way to mitigate the damage from a proposed ban on oil supplies from Russia as part of sanctions over its military campaign in Ukraine.
"Brussels has no proposal for a solution ... which could handle the atomic bomb-like impacts of this potential oil embargo against Russia on Hungary's economy."
Last week, the European Commission proposed to do away with oil imports from Moscow by the end of the year. Budapest rejected the idea due to its heavy reliance on Russian energy.

Szijjarto told Hungary's parliament on Monday that the proposed sanctions were "problematic for the country." Hungarian officials repeatedly warned that they would use their veto power to block an oil embargo.
Read More...
Oil Well

RT explainer: What Ukraine's block on Russian gas means for Europe


RT
Wed, 11 May 2022 18:46 UTC
natural gas cut off valve russia ukraine
© Getty Images / Michael Moeller / EyeEmUkraine has turned the taps off for Russian gas heading to Europe
Kiev has stopped flows via a key transit point, raising fears of European energy shortages

Ukraine's gas network operator on Wednesday stopped the transit of Russian natural gas to Europe through one of its key cross-border stations, citing "interference by the occupying [Russian] forces." Here is what this development means for the European gas market and economy.

What happened?

Ukraine's gas network operator, GTS Ukraine, announced late Tuesday that it would stop receiving Russian natural gas into the Sokhranovka gas metering station starting on Wednesday because it can no longer control the infrastructure in territory "occupied" by Russian troops. According to the statement of the company's press service, "the occupying forces" interfered in the technological processes, jeopardizing the security of the country's entire gas transportation system. The company said it views the situation as a force majeure, stating it is unable to provide deliveries to Europe for reasons beyond its control.
Read More...
Arrow Down

A Democrat 'super-lawyer' in decline

Kevin Daily
Washington Free Beacon
Tue, 10 May 2022 18:29 UTC
marc elias
© Robert Willett/The News & Observer via AP, PoolLawyer and long-time Democrat operative Marc Elias
Marc Elias, the left's go-to attack dog, is laughed out of court, accused of lying to the special counsel, and on the losing end of several voting-rights cases

It's not every day that a federal judge calls a lawsuit from one of the country's top lawyers a nasty and partisan "Hail Mary pass" intended to undermine free and fair elections. But that's what happened on Wednesday when U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, a Clinton appointee, tossed out a lawsuit brought by Democratic superlawyer Marc Elias.

"In the 102 years since my father, then a Ukrainian refugee, came into this country, if there were two things that he drilled into my head, they were ... free, open, rational elections [and] respect for the courts. The relief that I'm being asked to give today impinges, to some degree, on the public perception of both," Kaplan said of the lawsuit, which sought to preserve redistricting lines in New York state that a court had already ruled unconstitutional. "And I'm not going to do that."

It's been a rough month for Elias, the man former president Barack Obama tapped to lead his post-presidential initiative to expand "voting rights" and the Democratic Party's premier legal attack dog. Just last week, Special Counsel John Durham accused Elias, who represented Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign — and who every election cycle counts virtually every powerful Democrat as a client — of lying about his relationship with the opposition research firm he retained to assist that campaign.

Comment: Couldn't happen to a more deserving fellow. More of Elias' pratfalls:

Read More...
Attention

New governor of Kherson Region, not Putin, surprises the West on Victory Day: Declares intent to accelerate reunification with Russia

Andrew Korybko
One World Press
Mon, 09 May 2022 15:19 UTC
Vladimir Saldo Governor of Kherson Region Ukraine
© TwitterVladimir Saldo, Governor of Kherson Region, Ukraine
Governor Vladimir Saldo revealed that Kherson Region is accelerating its reunification with Russia by already using the ruble, emulating its historic homeland's administrative-economic models, returning the Russian language to its rightful role, and correcting the Neo-Nazis' falsehoods that were included in school textbooks.

The US-led West went wild speculating what President Putin might declare during his annual speech at this year's Victory Day parade, but the person who ultimately ended up surprising them was the new Governor of Kherson, Vladimir Saldo, after what he revealed in his exclusive interview with TASS that was released on that same day. It's in Russian, but Google Translate does a decent job conveying his main points. A lot of it concerned the socio-economic situation in his liberated region of Lenin's unnatural mini-empire that began crumbling even more following the commencement of Russia's ongoing special military operation in Ukraine, but it was the political details that stand out the most.

Comment: Another step in Russia securing a land bridge with Crimea. Speculation is that Moscow wishes to annex the entire Black Sea coast up to and including Transnistria.
russia territory ukraine
The red areas are predominantly Russian-speaking.


Read More...
Pistol

'Single round from a firearm' shot into window of Republican Virginia Attorney General's office

Mary Margaret Olohan
The Daily Wire
Tue, 10 May 2022 00:01 UTC
jason miyares
Richmond police are investigating a bullet shot into a window of the Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares' office, The Daily Wire has learned.

"Capitol Police were called to the Barbara Johns Building at 7:13 p.m. Monday for a report of a bullet that may have been fired into the building from outside," Public Information Officer Joe Macenka told The Daily Wire on Tuesday evening. "Officers found a bullet in a sixth-floor office that also had a small round hole near the top of a window."

"Capitol Police are investigating the matter and have no further comment at this time," he added.
Read More...
Bizarro Earth

"90% of nations planning Central Bank Digital Currency"

Kit Knightly
Off-Guardian
Fri, 06 May 2022 00:00 UTC
dark earth
A new report from the Bank of International Settlements estimates that up to 90% of national central banks are at least in the planning stages for launching a central bank digital currency (CBDC):
Nine out of 10 central banks are exploring central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), and more than half are now developing them or running concrete experiments. In particular, work on retail CBDCs has moved to more advanced stages
This echoes a March report from the IMF, which claimed over one hundred nations are at least in the planning stages of releasing their own CBDC.

You can read the entire IMF report here, or a summary published by Bloomberg here.

It seems programs of government-issued digital money have been gaining momentum all around the world since at least 2020, and apparently, now they exist in over half the countries on the planet.

Comment: "Picking a side" may not help in this context, but it remains to be seen just how the CBDC's will be implemented and programmed by each country.

Read More...
Light Sabers

White House warns protesters: Justices 'must be able' to do jobs without 'concern' for 'personal safety'

Brooke Singman
Fox News
Mon, 09 May 2022 21:48 UTC
abortion protestors
© Fox News DigitalProtestors gather outside the Supreme Court to protect federal abortion rights.
The White House condemned violent protests and vandalism Monday, and demanded that judges be able to "do their jobs without concern for their personal safety," as demonstrations over the weekend extended from churches to the homes of Supreme Court justices amid fallout following the release of a draft opinion signaling the high court's intent to overturn Roe v. Wade.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Monday said President Biden "strongly believes in the Constitutional right to protest."

"But that should never include violence, threats, or vandalism," Psaki tweeted. "Judges perform an incredibly important function in our society, and they must be able to do their jobs without concern for their personal safety."
Read More...