Puppet MastersS


Green Light

Ventriloquist behind the wheel?

The Evolved Psyche
The Circulation of Elites
Wed, 02 Feb 2022 00:00 UTC
Truck Frudeau
© Vito AmatiREXCanadian Freedom Convoy Supporters
Greetings one and all. That lengthy, ambitious, theoretical piece I promised last week is ready to go. Or at least as ready as I see it being for now. Buuuuuut, come on.

How could I let this week go by without offering my thoughts on the events in my homeland, that have captured the attention and imagination of so many people around the world? I am of course referring to Canada's truckers for freedom convoy. As I write, it's hard to be certain whether we're just at the beginning or coming up to the end. Different levels of government are threatening a variety of suppressive actions. I suspect the response of the truckers and their supporters will be peaceful, not going beyond passive resistance at the most. It would be foolish though to be blind to how these kinds of dynamic situations have the potential to get out of hand.

The Prime Minister, whose behaviour in response to the convoy has been embarrassing, this morning made a speech which I haven't yet heard. What I have heard though was the disgust and outrage from the convoy supporters. I mean, many of them have called for him to resign, so we wouldn't expect them to be terribly pleased by anything he had to say, short of announcing his resignation. But I've been taken aback by the outrage. Clearly, the majority of those I sampled considered his speech nothing short of throwing down the gauntlet. There's still 48 hours until I publish this, so if any dramatic developments occur between then and now, I'd add further comment below.


Comment: See also:



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Arrow Up

Cost of living in Europe smashes all-time high


RT
Wed, 02 Feb 2022 14:28 UTC
Lagarde
© Financial TimesECB President Christine Lagarde
Inflation across the Eurozone surged to 5.1% in January from 5% in the previous month, despite optimistic expectations for a sharp drop to 4.4%, data from Eurostat showed on Wednesday. Inflation is now more than twice the ECB's 2% target.

The latest growth reportedly reflects the hottest rate of inflation across the 19 countries that have shared the euro since the records began.

Meanwhile, the single currency jumped by 0.3% to $1.13050, touching a one-week high to the US dollar, on the expectation that the ECB would signal a faster path for policy tightening as early as Thursday.

The ECB's Governing Council is scheduled to gather this week, with an announcement due on Thursday afternoon. The soaring cost of living in Europe is putting pressure on the regulator to tighten money printing.

Comment: There is no plan. The decision is up for grabs.

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Footprints

US special forces kill top ISIS leader in raid in Syria


Just the News
Thu, 03 Feb 2022 03:20 UTC
al Hashimi al Qurayshi
© AP/Islamic State leader Abu Ibrahim al Hashimi al Qurayshi • Residence, site of raid
Thirteen people were reportedly killed including six children and four women, according to the Associated Press.

US special forces overnight killed top leader of the Islamic State group, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, in a large-scale raid in northwestern Syria, President Biden said Thursday morning.

"Thanks to the skill and bravery of our Armed Forces, we have taken off the battlefield Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi — the leader of ISIS," Biden said in a statement. All Americans involved in the operation returned safely, according to the president, who is scheduled to provide more details later today about the raid.

Thirteen people, including six children and four women, were reportedly killed in the roughly two-hour U.S. operation in which special forces arrived in helicopters and clashed with gunmen at a house near the Turkish border, according to the Associated Press.

Comment: Is Biden taking undue credit? Other sources say:
Reportedly, Al-Qurashi blew himself up inside his safe house in Idlib, Syria while the U.S. military forces were approaching it. Biden celebrated the death of the Daesh supremo, who once happened to be an 'eager' informant to the U.S. military.

Biden, in his White House speech said:
"We all remember the gut wrenching stories, mass slaughters that wiped out entire villages, thousands of women and young girls sold into slavery, rape used a weapon of war," and that "this horrible terrorist leader is no more."
According to NBC, a military chopper had a maintenance issue during the mission and landed a mile away from the target, where it was detonated since it was considered unsafe to resume.

Al-Qurashi's rise as the ISIS supremo can be traced back to 2008 when he served as an indispensable informant to the US Defence Department. Al-Qurashi, whose real name is Amir Muhammad Sa'id Abdal-Rahman Al-Mawla, was held in an American detention camp in Iraq sometime around late 2007 or early 2008 for his militant activities. At the time, the US authorities found him to be a cooperative 'prison snitch', who willingly provided valuable insights about the Islamic State.


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Snakes in Suits

'Sick joke': BoE boss calls for pay rise 'restraint' to help control inflation amidst worst drop in living standards for 3 decades

Richard Partington
The Guardian
Fri, 04 Feb 2022 11:02 UTC
Andrew Bailey
© Dan Kitwood/Getty ImagesAndrew Bailey was paid £575,538, including pension, in his first year as the Bank's governor from March 2020.
The governor of the Bank of England has said workers should show restraint when asking for wage rises to help control inflation.

Andrew Bailey said he wanted to see "quite clear restraint" in the annual wage-bargaining process between staff and their employers to help prevent an upward spiral taking hold.

With households expected to face the worst annual fall in their living standards for three decades, he told the BBC's Today programme that controlling wage increases was key to keeping a grip on inflation.

Comment: Thus far it seems that people have been willing to suffer devastating losses and plummeting living standards, however it's likely that once the looming food shortages bite, unrest will really begin. Which is particularly concerning because the establishment will need a threat to hold over the population to retain their strangle hold. And that might partly explain why governments across Europe have been crafting and attempting to ram through new, dystopian anti-protest legislation: And check out SOTT radio's: NewsReal: Canadian PM Flees Freedom Convoy as Washington Seeks War in Europe



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Eagle

Biden administration turns intel 'success' into a media mess

Alexander Ward
Politico
Fri, 04 Feb 2022 20:36 UTC
Psaki
© Youtube/screenshot/White HouseWhite House Press Sec. Jen Psaki
When it comes to matters of war, the Biden administration's current stance is "trust us" — and if you disagree, you're Vladimir Putin's or ISIS' talking puppet.

Thursday should have been a blemish-free day for the Biden administration to tout a couple rare wins in the contested national security and intelligence arenas — the death of ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi and the "discovery" of a Russian disinformation plot in Ukraine. But instead it bumbled the message, raised the hackles of a skeptical press, and bullied the conversation into a Bush-era "you're either with or against us" false dichotomy.

It speaks to a communications shop that seems frustrated when journalists don't buy their line and that's straining against a real current of Russia-friendly positions spouted by right-wing figures in the U.S.


Comment: Because they lie so much even journalists are skeptical, and realizing that in most matters of dispute with the U.S., Russia actually tells the truth.


But it's one thing to know such a startling symbiosis is happening. It's another to imply American reporters, and political opponents, have bought into it.

When Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) suggested Wednesday that the U.S. shouldn't offer Ukraine membership in NATO and should focus more on China, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said he was "digesting Russian misinformation and parroting Russian talking points."

Then Thursday, NPR's Ayesha Rascoe asked Psaki if the U.S. could provide evidence supporting President Joe Biden's statement that al-Qurayshi detonated a suicide bomb and killed civilians during the U.S. military raid "[b]ecause there may be people that are skeptical of the events."
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Light Sabers

State Department hammered over reaction to Amnesty International's Israel report


RT
Fri, 04 Feb 2022 19:47 UTC
Ned Price biden spokesman
© AP / Susan WalshNed Price speaks during a briefing at the State Department in Washington, DC, February 1, 2022
Squabbling with spokesman, journalist says US only accepts criticism of countries it has "significant policy differences" with

AP reporter Matt Lee hounded State Department spokesman Ned Price for rejecting an Amnesty International report accusing Israel of practicing "apartheid" and "oppression" against the Palestinian people. Critics have accused the US of trying to "have it both ways," by supporting Amnesty's claims of abuse, but only against countries the US has "significant policy differences" with.

Published on Tuesday, Amnesty's report explicitly describes Israel's policies toward Palestinians - which involve forced evictions, unlawful killings, and severe restrictions on movement and freedom - as "an institutionalized regime of oppression and domination of the Palestinian population for the benefit of Jewish Israelis-a system of apartheid."

Comment: Kudos to AP reporter Matt Lee for doing actual journalism in not letting Ned Price weasel out of the question, unlike the rest of the well-trained performing animals that pass for the Washington press corp.

Amnesty International has not been a 100% critic of Israel and has been called out for it. But over the years, they have highlighted various repressive aspects of the Zionist regime.

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War Whore

Al-Qurayshi killing: Terrified witnesses recount three-hour US commando raid that left ISIS leader dead

Bel Trew
Yahoo
Thu, 03 Feb 2022 19:37 UTC
al-Qurayshi house
© APPeople inspect a destroyed house following an operation by the US military in the Syrian village of Atmeh, after US special forces conducted a large-scale raid overnight
Witnesses living in the same village as Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, have told how US special forces carried out a three-hour raid to take out the Islamic State leader.

Al-Qurayshi's death was announced by US President Joe Biden on Thursday, hours after US commandoes attacked an address in Atmeh, northwestern Syria. The deadly overnight raid led to other casualties, with first responders telling The Independent that 13 people had been killed, including six children and four women.

American troops landed in helicopters and clashed for hours with gunmen, witnesses said. Residents described continuous gunfire and explosions that jolted the town of Atmeh near the Turkish border, an area dotted with camps for internally displaced people from Syria's civil war.

"Thanks to the skill and bravery of our armed forces, we have taken off the battlefield Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi - the leader of Isis," Mr Biden said in a statement.
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Bug

We are all ensnared in the elite's web

Paul Craig Roberts
paulcraigroberts.org
Fri, 04 Feb 2022 19:31 UTC
States of Emergency
© Amazon
Yes, there is a conspiracy. It is a conspiracy of the elite against the rest of us. It has been in operation for years. You can learn much about it from Kees Van Der Pijl's just published book by Clarity Press, States of Emergency.

The elites are a mere handful, but they control all the power. They control the print, TV, and social media, universities, think tanks, governments, finance, large scale production, bar associations, health care, most celebrities, and have their own organizations that comprise interlocking directorates such as Bilderberg, Atlantic Council, Trilateral Commission, Council on Foreign Relations, the G30 group of former central bank presidents, World Economic Forum, the World Bank, the IMF. The same people comprise corporate boards and the top executive ranks of large corporations.

The gathering of power went through many steps. For example, during the Clinton regime in the US the diverse and independent media was concentrated in 6 hands. Six mega-companies were permitted to buy up 90% of the US media. The concentration of the media went against all American tradition. Regulation of industries was abandoned on the basis of Alan Greenspan's edict that "markets are self-regulating," and regulatory agencies became marketing agents for formerly regulated industries such as pharmaceuticals. The Sherman Anti-trust Act became a dead letter law on the basis of the assertion that in the global economy only the very large could compete. Thus, monopoly control replaced the market economy.
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Star of David

The act of theatre that shows Israel's contempt for Gaza

Eva Bartlett
RT
Sun, 30 Jan 2022 19:30 UTC
israel flag
© Andrew Burton / Getty Images
Israel has apparently reprimanded a soldier for firing rounds into Gaza. That's all very well, but what about the countless other soldiers who have done the same for years, maiming and killing Palestinian civilians?

The soldier, who posted his bravado video to TikTok, reportedly got 10 days in military prison. According to an Israeli army statement, "The soldier's behavior in the video does not conform with the norms expected of soldiers and commanders."

His sentencing and the media reporting around the incident is pure theatre, given the reality of how the Israeli army routinely targets Palestinians working on land in Gaza's east and northern regions. While this one particular soldier received a mild punishment, many others who attack unarmed civilians are not held accountable.

Since pulling the illegal settlers out of Gaza in 2005, Israel has implemented a kill zone - dubbed the "buffer zone" or "no go zone" - where, on a regular basis, its soldiers shoot at Palestinian civilians. Ostensibly, it comprises a band of land 300 metres from the fence encaging Palestinians in Gaza. In reality, Israeli soldiers fire upon civilians well over a kilometre away, or even further, as I have experienced myself.
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Putin

Putin names possible reason for Russia-NATO war


RT
Tue, 01 Feb 2022 19:22 UTC
putin
The possibility of Ukraine joining NATO poses a threat to European security, as it creates the grounds for a major conflict between Moscow and the military bloc, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned on Tuesday.

Ukraine's official state doctrine includes an intention to restore Kiev's sovereignty over the Crimean Peninsula, which has been part of Russia since 2014, and, notably, by "military means," he pointed out, during a joint press conference with the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban.

A potential NATO membership would see Ukraine "filled chock-full" with arms, with Kiev provided with access to state-of-the-art offensive weapons, Putin added.
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