Puppet MastersS


Helm

Pentagon orders USS Gerald R. Ford into Caribbean, first carrier sent to region

Nicholas Slayton
Yahoo!News
Fri, 24 Oct 2025 02:37 UTC
Gerald R. Ford strike group
© FileThe Pentagon has ordered the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group to sail to the Caribbean, adding an aircraft carrier, multiple destroyers and several fighter squadrons to the U.S. forces that have amassed in the region.
The Pentagon ordered the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group to sail to the Caribbean, adding one of the Navy's largest and most potent formations to the major U.S. build-up in the region. The new deployment will add the aircraft carrier's more than 70 aircraft and multiple destroyers to the array of firepower already sent to the region for a mission the White House insists is aimed at drug traffickers.

Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell confirmed the deployment in a statement, saying the strike group would be "in support of the President's directive to dismantle Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs) and counter narco-terrorism."

Carrier Strike Group 12 includes the USS Gerald R. Ford, the destroyers USS Bainbridge and USS Mahan and Carrier Air Wing 8. Their arrival makes this fall's buildup one of the largest deployments of naval power since the start of the Red Sea conflict in late 2023. The strike group's air contingent includes four squadrons of F/A-18 fighters and one squadron of E/A-18G strike fighters.

Word of the deployment came shortly after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced another airstrike on a civilian vessel in the Caribbean. Hegseth said the strike killed six on board, a tally which would bring the death toll in U.S. strikes on boats in the region to 43 since September, according to White House figures.
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Robot

Musk planning 'robot army'


RT
Fri, 24 Oct 2025 09:22 UTC
E Musk
© Richard Bord/WireimageElon Musk
The Tesla CEO wants more control through a 25% voting stake and has defended a $1 trillion compensation plan.

Elon Musk is planning to build what he has described as a "robot army," Wired reported earlier this week, citing remarks by the Tesla CEO during the company's recent earnings call. The billionaire entrepreneur is said to be seeking greater personal influence over Tesla as it expands into robotics and AI.

According to the report, Musk is pushing to increase his voting power in Tesla to around 25% and has defended a compensation package potentially worth up to $975 billion, arguing that stronger control is necessary as the company develops humanoid robots and AI systems.

Musk reportedly told investors that his main concern is maintaining enough control over Tesla's future direction. He said he wouldn't feel comfortable "building a robot army" unless he has a strong say in how it operates - not total control, but significant influence.
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Jet5

Overnight drone attack hits Moscow high-rise as Putin warns of 'overwhelming' response

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Fri, 24 Oct 2025 10:15 UTC
building attack
© TelegramMoscow building attacked by drone
Ukrainian drones have once again reached the Moscow area, far away from the border, at a moment the Kremlin is strongly warning against Washington allowing the transfer of US Tomahawk missiles to Kiev.

The attack on a Moscow suburb was part of a broader wave of overnight drone attacks which hit multiple regions across the country, injuring at least five people, including a child, when one drone slammed into an apartment building near Moscow.

According to Moscow region Governor Andrei Vorobyov, the drone hit a 14th-floor apartment in a high-rise building in the city of Krasnogorsk, northwest of the capital.
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Star of David

Expert: Israel's AI use in Gaza potentially normalizes civilian killings, obscures blame and exposes Big Tech complicity

Mevlut Ozkan
Anadolu Agency
Fri, 24 Oct 2025 17:47 UTC
israel idf artificial intelligence targeting
Israel is using AI systems with known inaccuracy risks at 'almost every stage' of its military operations, says Heidy Khlaaf, chief AI scientist at AI Now Institute

Israel's use of artificial intelligence (AI) in its ongoing assault on the Gaza Strip - aided by tech giants such as Google, Microsoft, and Amazon - is fueling concerns over the normalization of mass civilian casualties and raising serious questions about the complicity of these firms in potential war crimes, according to a leading AI expert.

Multiple reports have confirmed that Israel has deployed AI models such as Lavender, Gospel, and Where's Daddy? to conduct mass surveillance, identify targets, and direct strikes against tens of thousands of individuals in Gaza - often in their own homes - all with minimal human oversight.

Rights groups and experts say these systems have played a critical role in Israel's incessant and apparently indiscriminate attacks, which have laid to waste massive swaths of the besieged enclave and killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children.

Comment: Of course any weapon developed for war will find its "peaceful" uses:

Meet the Israeli intelligence-linked firm using AI to profile Americans and guide US lockdown policy

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Arrow Down

Why the Putin-Trump summit cancellation is terrible news for Ukraine

Tarik Cyril Amar
RT.com
Fri, 24 Oct 2025 14:15 UTC
The West and Kiev are once again stranding Ukrainians in the forever kill zone.

Ukraine Dead
© tarikcyrilamar.com
There was - or seemed to be - hope for peace for a brief moment. And how deceptive it turned out to be. I was among those cautiously optimistic when we were told just over a week ago that the presidents of Russia and the US, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, had a long and useful phone conversation and were planning to meet in person again.

The 'Alaska 2.0 summit', to take place in the Hungarian capital, Budapest, has been called off before it was even properly scheduled, and Russia-US relations have taken further severe hits. Washington has initiated unprecedented sanctions on Russia's two largest oil companies, which had not been sanctioned before, and dozens of their subsidiaries. All of this accompanied by what seems to be deliberately condescending and offensive rhetoric blaming Russia and its president - and them alone - for the persistent impasse in finding a negotiated solution to the Ukraine conflict - that is, the Western proxy war against Russia.

In reality, of course, it is Washington that can't stop making U-turns that mess up what could have been a rational if difficult process of making peace. Witness the rather silly way in which Trump and his team have just oscillated between demanding that Ukraine surrender territory not yet taken by Russia and reverting to the pre-Alaska-summit dead-end position that a ceasefire must precede a full peace.

In addition, the Trump administration has been ambiguous at best about another escalation: Trump has denied it rather implausibly, but in reality, Washington seems to have permitted Kiev to carry out long-range strikes with European missiles - in particular, the British Storm Shadow - which include US parts and involve American targeting data: Another serious and provocative escalation.
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Popcorn

No need to come: China snubs Germany's top diplomat


RT
Sat, 25 Oct 2025 09:52 UTC
German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul.
German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul.
Johann Wadephul has reportedly been forced to call off an impending visit to Beijing because too few meetings were arranged

German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul has been forced to cancel an upcoming trip to China after Beijing reportedly declined to arrange high-level meetings with him, multiple media outlets reported on Friday.

Wadephul was scheduled to depart for Beijing on Sunday to discuss China's export restrictions on rare-earths and semiconductors, as well as the Ukraine conflict.

"The trip cannot take place at this time and will be postponed to a later date," Politico cited a spokesperson for Germany's Federal Foreign Office as saying. Wadephul was slated to meet with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi but otherwise reportedly had too few meetings on the agenda.

According to Bild, the two diplomats will instead hold a telephone conversation soon.


Comment: China has had enough of German diplomats coming to China and lecturing it about what it should do. The previous German foreign minister, Baerbock did her part in annoying China but the current German administration hasn't helped to repair the bridges between the countries.


Comment: Germany and the rest of the EU only have themselves to blame for the blowback. Instead of isolating Russia and China, the EU is finding itself being more and more isolated and totally dependent on the whimps of the US. Not a winning strategy.

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Bad Guys

Declassified memo shows Merrick Garland personally ordered anti-Trump 'Arctic Frost' probe

Luis Cornelio
Headline USA
Fri, 24 Oct 2025 18:42 UTC
merrick garland christopher wray
© Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesAttorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray
'This probe also paved the way for Garland's appointment of Special Counsel Jack Smith, who went on to criminally indict Trump twice...'

A newly declassified memorandum confirms that the FBI's anti-Trump Arctic Frost probe was requested by FBI Director Chris Wray and personally approved in 2022 by Attorney General Merrick Garland, the two top officials in the Biden DOJ.

The memorandum — written by Wray and addressed to Garland on April 4, 2022 — explicitly requested authorization to launch the probe.

"Your approval is requested as soon as possible," Wray wrote in the memo for the "Approval to Open a Certain Sensitive Investigative Matter Investigation."

Comment: The whole gang is present:


The Federalist adds:
"Merrick, I recommend you approve," Monaco appears to have scribbled at the bottom of the memo on April 5, 2022.

Of course she did. If you recall, the politically driven deputy attorney general served as President Barack Obama's Homeland Security and counterterrorism adviser. Monaco was "a key figure behind the Trump and Jan. 6 prosecutions," as Hans Mahncke noted in these pages. She announced Obama's call for a "full review" of what her deep-state pals were describing as a Russian hacking activity tied to the 2016 election, a predicate for the leak of the infamous Steele dossier and the Russia collusion hoax.

"The president has directed the intelligence community to conduct a full review of what happened during the 2016 election process," Monaco told reporters at a Dec. 9, 2016, event.

As Mahncke reported in The Federalist, Obama's ordered "review" was the politically corrupted Intelligence Community Assessment, which "was never a neutral inquiry.It was a political weapon, designed to retroactively manufacture a conclusion that directly contradicted the intelligence community's own findings, as laid out in the Dec. 8 PDB."

Lisa Monaco is the most dangerous snake in the grass, yet so far, she's been able to pretty much stay out of the spotlight. How is that?

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Explosion

Russia's response to Tomahawk strikes would be 'staggering' - Putin


RT
Thu, 23 Oct 2025 18:27 UTC
Putin
© Kristina Kormilitsyna/SputnikRussian President Vladimir Putin
Supplying Kiev with the long-range missiles would be an "escalation attempt," the Russian president has said.

Russia would deliver a "very serious, if not downright staggering" response to any Ukrainian strike using US-made Tomahawk missiles, President Vladimir Putin warned on Thursday, calling pressure on Washington to supply such weapons "an attempt at escalation."

Speaking to journalists after a meeting in Moscow, Putin cautioned that any use of Tomahawk missiles against Russian territory would provoke a powerful reaction.
"This is an attempt at escalation. But if such weapons are used to strike Russian territory, the response will be very serious, if not downright staggering. Let them think about that."
Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky reportedly raised the issue of obtaining Tomahawk missiles during his meeting with US President Donald Trump at the White House last week. According to Axios, the request was turned down, although US officials have said the option remains under review, with Trump expected to make the final decision.
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Oil Pipeline

EU paying 'Chanel prices' for US gas


RT
Thu, 23 Oct 2025 04:35 UTC
Volodin
© SputnikRussian State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin
The bloc is buying overpriced American LNG while turning away from cheaper Russian supply.

The EU is paying exorbitant prices for US liquefied natural gas (LNG), while rejecting more affordable Russian supplies, Russia's State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin has said, arguing the policy is damaging the bloc's economy.

Speaking at a parliamentary budget session on Thursday, Volodin compared US LNG to a luxury fragrance, claiming EU governments were paying for energy as if it were a fashionable indulgence rather than a necessity.
"The gas supplied from America to Europe is not 'Chanel'. But they've valued its smell just as they would a French perfume. They're buying it, destroying their economy. And they blew up our pipelines, making things worse for themselves."

Comment: Despite claims by Trump that India would cease purchase of Russian oil...
"Everything continues," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko told TASS.

Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal told reporters last week that he was "not aware" of any conversation between Modi and Trump over New Delhi's purchases of Russian oil.

His comments came hours after India issued a formal statement saying its primary goal regarding energy trade is to protect the interests of its consumers in the volatile energy market, and that its import policies are driven solely by this objective.

Since 2022, India has substantially increased its oil imports from Russia. As of late September, Russia remained India's largest oil supplier, providing around 1.6 million barrels per day, which accounted for about one-third of India's crude imports, capitalizing on the discounted prices of Russian oil and exporting refined oil products to European markets.

In August, Trump announced a 25% tariff on India as a penalty for the country's purchases of Russian oil, which he claims are helping Russia prolong the Ukraine conflict.
Europe's stupor is Trump's bonanza.

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Star of David

Erdogan: 'Israel must be pressured with sanctions, arms bans for Gaza peace'


Daily Sabah
Fri, 24 Oct 2025 18:07 UTC
erdogan summit oman israel palestine peace
© AA PhotoPresident Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and first lady Emine Erdoğan arrive in Muscat, Oman, Oct. 22, 2025.
Israel must be pressured with sanctions and arms bans to keep its promises regarding the Gaza cease-fire, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Friday, underlining that Türkiye is ready to do what is necessary for Gaza.

"Israel must be forced to keep its promises through sanctions and the halting of arms sales. We are taking steps to achieve this and will continue to do so," Erdoğan told reporters on board the presidential plane while returning from his three-day Gulf tour.

On the other side, he also said that talks are underway on the multifaceted Gaza task force issue, with Ankara ready to offer the strip all necessary support. Most recently, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu voiced reservations about a Turkish military footprint in Gaza.

"The modality of this force is not determined yet. Our infrastructure works for this purpose is ongoing."

Comment: Fine words from Erdogan, and no doubt he telling the truth about the amount of aid his country has provided to the Palestinians, but remember that he's always working the angles with the West and Russia, to increase Türkiye's influence in the Middle East. The Gulf States aren't happy about that.

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