Puppet MastersS


Briefcase

DOJ inspector general launches review of Trump-era seizure of members of Congress' communications

Jake Gibson
Fox News
Fri, 11 Jun 2021 17:05 UTC
michael Horowitz
Inspector General Michael Horowitz
It was a rare confirmation by the IG that his office had initiated a review

Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz announced Friday that his office had initiated a review of the DOJ's use of subpoenas and other legal authorities to obtain communication records of Members of Congress and of some in the news media.

"The review will examine the Department's compliance with applicable DOJ policies and procedures, and whether any such uses, or the investigations, were based on improper considerations," said Horowitz in the statement.

Comment: Independent journalist Glenn Greenwald penned an excellent piece on the matter, highlighting how the Democrats set themselves up for just such an outcome:

Schiff and Swalwell crying foul, as Trump DOJ obtained data on the two long-time champions of domestic spying

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NPC

MSM sycophants: 'Time' cover fawns over Biden in 'macho staring match' with Putin, social media bites back


RT
Sat, 12 Jun 2021 00:27 UTC
time cover biden putin
© Twitter / @TIME / screenshotDoesn't get much sadder than this
A new Time Magazine cover showing President Joe Biden locked in an icy staring match with his Russian counterpart has been mocked as an over-the-top display of machismo, producing a number of parodies online.

Titling the issue "Taking on Putin," Time released the cover on Friday, just days before a summit between the two leaders set for June 16 in Switzerland. The magazine features an illustration of a stone-faced Biden decked out in aviation shades, with Putin reflected in their lenses.

The cover soon drew ridicule from observers online, with journalist Glenn Greenwald saying it is not only "adolescent," but highlights a serious failing of the American corporate press.
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Bug

Obama claims media stokes 'fear and resentment' among white Americans

Lee Brown
New York Post
Tue, 08 Jun 2021 08:31 UTC
Obama
Former President Barack Obama worries cancel culture could turn into “condemning people all the time.”
Former President Obama is claiming right-wing media outlets of profiting by stoking "fear and resentment" among white people toward a "changing America" — pointing to national pushback on critical race theory as an example.

The 44th commander-in-chief told Anderson Cooper in a CNN special Monday that many race problems are a reflection of the US not having "fully reconciled with our history."


Comment: Many of today's race problems are caused by individuals not reconciled with contemporary reality; not everything can or should be seen in the narrow scope of race relations - despite what proponents of critical race theory would have you believe.


He said it was "hard for the majority" of white Americans "to recognize you can be proud of this country and its traditions and its history and our forefathers and yet, it is also true that this terrible stuff happened."

"The vestiges of that linger and continue," Obama said.

The Democrat said that his political opponents would often "not only block that story but try to exploit it for their own political gain."


Comment: Obama is projecting Big Time here. It is the Dems and progressives that have been exploiting the radical left movement for their own political advantage...


"I also think that there are certain right-wing media venues ... that monetize and capitalize on stoking the fear and resentment of a White population that is witnessing a changing America and seeing demographic changes," he said, without identifying specific outlets.


Comment: More projection: Groups like BLM, Antifa and other far left groups thrive on their resentment of others - and use this hysteria in their attempts to accrue more power for themselves. They are the pawns of the political elite who have been using the activists as a kind of forward team or proxy force of woke policies; a camouflage for a decidedly illiberal agenda.

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Quenelle - Golden

"Unilateral bullying acts of the United States" root cause for Iranian nuclear issue - China's FM

Stephanie Nebehay
Reuters
Fri, 11 Jun 2021 12:33 UTC
Wang Yi
© Bandar Algaloud/Courtesy of Saudi Royal Court/Handout via REUTERSSaudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman meets with China's State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, March 24, 2021. Bandar Algaloud/Courtesy of Saudi Royal Court/Handout via REUTERS

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman meets with China's State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, March 24, 2021.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi urged the United States and Russia on Friday to further cut their nuclear arsenals, days before U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin hold a summit in Geneva.

Wang, addressing the U.N.-backed Conference on Disarmament from Beijing, said that fresh reductions by the two powers would help spur multilateral nuclear disarmament, and he also took a thinly-veiled swipe at the United States.

"China opposes the development and deployment of regional and global missile defence systems by a certain country that undermine strategic stability, and China opposes the deployment of land-based intermediate-range ballistic missiles by the same country in the neighbourhood of other countries," Wang said.

Comment: See also: The United States rejoining the Iran nuclear deal is a good thing, right? Well, not necessarily

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NPC

'Empire 2.0 fantasy': Boris Johnson pens G7 article on post-Covid world, draws flak for 'hypocrisy' and 'undermining democracy'


RT
Thu, 10 Jun 2021 12:02 UTC
boris johnson
© Matt Dunham/Pool via REUTERSBritain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks during a news conference about the ongoing coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in London, Britain May 14, 2021.
Ahead of the G7 summit, British PM Boris Johnson has drawn ridicule for an article in which he seemingly invokes wartime bonhomie to state his vision for a post-Covid world built on "openness, freedom, democracy and free trade."

Among the priorities Johnson lists in the article, published on Thursday, is a pledge to "vaccinate the world" by the end of 2022, reduce carbon emissions, fight loss of biodiversity and fund the education of 40 million girls by 2025.

In addition, Johnson and US President Joe Biden will draw up a successor to the 'Atlantic Charter' - a 1941 agreement between Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt to redraw the world after World War II - that "underscores" the trans-Atlantic commitment to NATO, "dispel any sense of gloom" and protect "allies on Europe's eastern flank."

Comment: Also from RT:
Pundits Twitter-whip BoJo after PM takes private jet from London to Cornwall to attend climate-focused G7 summit

Boris Johnson has been mercilessly heckled after flying to a G7 summit in Cornwall - where he says environmental issues are top of the agenda. The UK prime minister insists there is nothing odd with his choice of transport.

The British leader tweeted out an eco-friendly message to the world after his plane touched down in Newquay on Wednesday evening.

"I've arrived in Cornwall for this year's @G7 where I'll be asking my fellow leaders to rise to the challenge of beating the pandemic and building back better, fairer and greener," he wrote, including a photograph of himself giving a thumbs-up sign as he exited a private jet.

BoJo presumably had a pleasant one-hour flight, but his green-preaching didn't land very well.

...



...

But Johnson didn't express regret when members of the press inquired about his questionable travel arrangements.

"If you attack my arrival by plane, I respectfully point out that the UK is actually in the lead in developing sustainable aviation fuel," the prime minister argued. He pointed to the fact that his 10-point plan for ushering in a "green industrial revolution" includes the goal of getting to "jet zero as well as net zero."
The world is so brainwashed that the news cycle has become a bunch of NPCs heckling over non-issues, the mark of a civilization in its death throes.

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Question

Two-tier societies are emerging, with dwindling rights for the unvaccinated. Why do governments consider them such a threat?

Rachel Marsden
RT
Fri, 11 Jun 2021 18:07 UTC
COVID-19 vaccine syringe
© AFP / Adrian DENNISA COVID-19 vaccine syringe.
While the authorities keep saying that Covid-19 vaccination isn't obligatory - at least, not yet - good luck trying to live a normal life without it. It's clear the ostracization of those who haven't had the jab is well underway.

Last year, at this time, Covid-19 cases fell significantly without any substantial measures, as everything opened up for the summer and the powers-that-be in some countries allowed life to return to normal for a few months, all in the absence of vaccination.

This year, exactly the same phenomenon observed in 2020 is being attributed to mass inoculation. The narrative is that this is what's saving us from Covid. And now the pressure's on to force everyone into compliance, lest they want to live any semblance of normal life, beginning with summer travel.

Holiday options are shaping up to be quite different, depending on whether you're vaccinated or not. France is now exempting vaccinated travelers from Europe and zero-Covid countries from quarantine and testing. But even vaccinated travelers from the US and elsewhere need to produce a negative test result before their flight, which begs the question, if the vaccine is so reliable, why do you need to test at all?

Comment:
The totalitarian state - a phenomenon of modernity - consists in the attempted extension of the secular state into all dimensions of life, and the only way this would be possible is through the imposition of a totalitarian ideology that can brook not a single dissenter or heretic. In an ideocracy, the greatest criminal is imagined by ideocrats to be the dissenter, the one who by his very existence reveals the totalistic construct imposed on society to be a lie.

- Arthur Versluis, The New Inquisitions


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Bad Guys

Russia blasts US flight of 'Dr. Strangelove' nuclear bombers near its borders, warning move could darken Putin-Biden meeting


RT
Fri, 11 Jun 2021 09:10 UTC
Stratofortress
© Reuters / J.T. Armstrong/U.S. Air Force photoFILE PHOTO. B-52H Stratofortress at Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, U.S.
Moscow's embassy in Washington has warned that the presence of nuclear-capable American warplanes at recent NATO exercises is a serious escalation and could overshadow the upcoming summit between the leaders of the two nations.

Responding on Friday to news that US Air Force B-52H Stratofortress bombers had flown over the Baltic Sea on several occasions earlier this week, the envoys slammed the maneuvers as "yet another provocation."

In a statement, the officials said that "this saber-rattling is fueling tensions in Europe," as well as arguing that it "darkens the atmosphere in anticipation [of the] Russia-US summit meetings." Russian President Vladimir Putin is due to sit down for talks with his American counterpart, Joe Biden, in Switzerland next week. The White House pitched the summit as part of efforts to achieve "a stable and predictable relationship with Russia, consistent with US interests."

Comment: A similar provocation occurred when Trump was in China trying to thrash out a trade deal and US warships sailed through the South China Sea - twice. Considering the impact such an incident would have on a meeting it's unlikely either President would make such an order, which leads one to suppose that maybe a sitting US President doesn't have as much control over the military as perhaps other agencies do:

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Arrow Down

Moscow sold $5 billion in May as part of oil fund dollar dump

Aine Quinn and Andrey Biryukov
Bloomberg
Fri, 11 Jun 2021 20:42 UTC
putin oil dollars russia wealth fund dedollarize
Russia sold $5 billion of U.S. currency from its oil fund in May as part of a drive to reduce exposure to the greenback and vulnerability to Western sanctions.

The National Wellbeing Fund converted $4 billion into yuan and $1 billion into euros, the Finance Ministry said in a statement. That leaves $35 billion of dollar holdings still to cut after the ministry said last week that it would eliminate all greenback exposure in the fund. The transfer is taking place within the central bank's huge reserves so any market impact will be limited.

Comment: A prudent move by Putin, which other countries are beginning to take notice of, especially those in the cross-hairs of US sanctions. As Russia excels in long-terms thinking, this plan has been in effect since at least 2018, but smaller steps were begun much earlier. It's clear that Russia has given up on any mature, mutually beneficial relationship with the US.

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Headphones

Schiff and Swalwell crying foul, as Trump DOJ obtained data on the two long-time champions of domestic spying

Glenn Greenwald
greenwald.substack.com
Fri, 11 Jun 2021 19:24 UTC
swalwell adam schiff
© Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesHouse Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) (L) and committee member Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) return to a closed-door hearing at the U.S. Capitol March 06, 2019 in Washington, DC.
The two California Democrats join the long list of politicians who enable spying on ordinary citizens, then angrily object when they themselves are targeted.

The Trump Justice Department in 2017 and early 2018 issued subpoenas to Apple to obtain the communications records of at least two Democratic members of the House Intelligence Committee, Reps. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Eric Swalwell (D-CA). According to The New York Times, DOJ prosecutors attempting to determine who leaked classified information to the media about Russiagate suspected the two House Democrats were the culprits, and to prove that, they obtained their communications records as well as those of family members, including minor children.

A DOJ leak investigation aimed at sitting members of Congress is highly unusual. Both the Obama and Trump administrations, in a hunt for leakers, created controversy by obtaining the communications records of journalists, including — in the case of the Obama DOJ — the family members of those journalists. But investigating members of the House Intelligence Committee for leaking crimes — as opposed to corruption or other standard criminal charges — can present different dangers. Neither Congressman was charged with any crimes and the investigation reportedly bore no fruit.

Comment: Two hypocrites hoist on their own petard

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Bomb

How Israel bombed Gaza's economy


The Electronic Intifada
Fri, 11 Jun 2021 19:09 UTC
zgrada gaza
© AFP / Mahmud Hams
One objective of Israel's 11-day bombing campaign in Gaza last month was to further damage the territory's already depleted economy.

During the Israeli attack, more than 250 Palestinians were killed, including at least 67 children.

In addition, Israel inflicted material losses of hundreds of millions of dollars, according to initial estimates.

"This is destruction," Muhammad Abu Halima, the director of a factory in Gaza, told The Electronic Intifada.

"They destroyed our economy, our families, they've ruined the workers, the accountants, the companies, the employees. What did they get out of it?"

Israel bombed factories, commercial buildings, stores, farms, restaurants and businesses. More than 500 enterprises were destroyed or damaged, including 50 factories.

Israel bombed the Gaza Industrial Estate, a major economic center southeast of Gaza City founded in 1996 with support from the US government, the European Union and the World Bank.

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