Puppet MastersS


Bullseye

50% of Ukrainians who oppose NATO are 'smart' knowing they'd be used by US as cannon fodder against Russia - Putin


RT
Thu, 10 Jun 2021 11:27 UTC
Putin
© Sputnik / Sergei IlyinRussian President Vladimir Putin meets with Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation Director Dmitry Shugaev at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has lavished praise on Ukrainians who are opposed to Kiev signing up for the US-led NATO military bloc, suggesting the move would be a red line for Russia if it were threatened by Western rockets.

"At least 50% of Ukrainians do not want the country to join NATO," Putin said in an interview with the Russia 1 news channel on Wednesday, "and these are smart people."

"I am speaking without irony, and not because the others are stupid," the president added, "but because those people [who support joining the bloc] do not understand that they are better off not being in the line of fire. They don't want to be a bargaining chip or cannon fodder."

Comment: Earlier this week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken suggested that Europe and the US would be encouraged to subsidize Ukraine's military expenditure: Nord Stream 2 sanctions could have 'poisoned' US ties with Germany & failed anyway - US Sec Blinken

See also: Russia tells US to expect 'uncomfortable' signals ahead of Putin-Biden summit, as West increases activity on its border

Read More...
Wolf

Coincidence: George Soros gave billions to left-wing causes in years he paid no federal income tax

Joel B. Pollak
Breitbart
Thu, 10 Jun 2021 20:13 UTC
George Soros
© AP/Manuel Balce CenetaGeorge Soros
Billionaire left-wing financier George Soros gave millions of dollars to left-wing political campaigns, and billions to his own liberal foundation, in years when he paid no federal income tax.

On Tuesday, ProPublica, citing Internal Revenue Service documents, revealed that several of America's richest people — Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, and Soros, among others — paid no federal income tax in certain years, as they claimed to have made net losses that offset gains.

Soros's tax avoidance is among the most striking, since he funds a vast array of left-wing groups, which generally share the belief that the rich should be taxed more to redistribute their wealth to the poor, and to fund government programs.

Comment:

Read More...
Stop

Manchin says he won't budge on voting bill opposition


Human Events
Tue, 08 Jun 2021 19:52 UTC
Manchin
West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin
Even after meeting with civil rights groups for a discussion, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia said he won't budge on his democrat voting bill opposition.

As previously reported by Human Events News, Manchin said he will vote against the election reform bill pushed by his colleagues.

Manchin said that because the bill, called the "For the People Act," was forced through via the reconciliation process, it will further deepen the existing divides in Congress and the country as a whole.

"I believe that partisan voting legislation will destroy the already weakening binds of our democracy, and for that reason, I will vote against the For the People Act," he wrote.

Manchin also reaffirmed that he won't vote to weaken or eliminate the filibuster.

"There was nothing basically for or against...basically everyone's position was discussed," Manchin said after meeting with NAACP President Derrick Johnson, Al Sharpton, National Urban League president Marc Morial and others, per the Epoch Times.

Comment: Manchin is pretty much the sole sane Democrat in office. Naturally, the Borg isn't pleased with such a blatant expression of principled individualism.

Read More...
Eye 1

Canada's use of US facial-recognition tech violated multiple laws - privacy watchdog

Jim Bronskill
National Post
Thu, 10 Jun 2021 18:42 UTC
facial recognition
© CC0/Pixbay
The RCMP broke the law by using cutting-edge facial-recognition software to collect personal information, the federal privacy watchdog has found.

In a report Thursday, privacy commissioner Daniel Therrien said there were serious and systemic failings by the RCMP to ensure compliance with the Privacy Act before it gathered information from U.S. firm Clearview AI.

Clearview AI's technology allows for the collection of huge numbers of images from various sources that can help police forces, financial institutions and other clients identify people.


Comment: It's possible that this data isn't staying within Canada, either: Danish PM insists relations with European allies don't need repairing amid US spying connection allegations


Comment: A similar ruling was made over in Wales, in the UK, yet the judge declared that the uses of the technology were 'potentially great' - despite having an error rate of up to 96% - and in recent years they've also been trialed on London's streets. In a more unsettling move, but as an example of just what these new technologies can do, the UK's traffic cameras were turned onto pedestrians to monitor whether 'social distancing' restrictions were being adhered to.

And that's just in the UK; numerous other countries in the West seem a little too eager to deploy these 'Big Brother' technologies against their citizens. Over the last year the coronavirus has provided cover for the encroaching dystopia, but before that it was sold to people as simply part of the new 'smart cities'.

The establishment and its propaganda media are quick to criticise the use of these technologies by other countries, China in particular, but they're almost silent on their use in their home countries, against their own population.

Read More...
Sherlock

The notorious London spy school churning out many of the world's top journalists

Alan Macleod
MintPress News
Fri, 04 Jun 2021 00:00 UTC
Kings College
© David JC/AlamyKing's College London, Maughan Library Gate, UK
In a previous investigation, MintPress News explored how one university department, the Department of War Studies at King's College London, functions as a school for spooks. Its teaching posts are filled with current or former NATO officials, army officers and intelligence operatives to churn out the next generation of spies and intelligence officers. However, we can now reveal an even more troubling product the department produces: journalists. An inordinate number of the world's most influential reporters, producers and presenters, representing many of the most well-known and respected outlets — including The New York Times, CNN and the BBC — learned their craft in the classrooms of this London department, raising serious questions about the links between the fourth estate and the national security state.

National security school

Increasingly, it appears, intelligence agencies the world over are beginning to appreciate agents with a strong academic background. A 2009 study published by the CIA described how beneficial it is to "use universities as a means of intelligence training," writing that, "exposure to an academic environment, such as the Department of War Studies at King's College London, can add several elements that may be harder to provide within the government system." The paper, written by two King's College staffers, boasted that the department's faculty has "extensive and well-rounded intelligence experience."

This was no exaggeration. Current Department of War Studies educators include the former Secretary General of NATO, former U.K. Minister of Defense, and military officers from the U.K, U.S. and other NATO countries. "I deeply appreciate the work that you do to train and to educate our future national security leaders, many of whom are in this audience," said then-U.S. Secretary of Defense (and former CIA Director) Leon Panetta in a speech at the department in 2013.

King's College London also admits to having a number of ongoing contracts with the British state, including with the Ministry of Defence (MoD), but refuses to divulge the details of those agreements.
Read More...
Target

Biden quietly moves to begin closing Guantánamo ahead of 20th anniversary of 9/11

Carol E. Lee, Courtney Kube
Yahoo News
Wed, 09 Jun 2021 04:31 UTC
Guantanamo prisoner
© Khaama Press
President Joe Biden has quietly begun efforts to close the U.S. detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, using an under-the-radar approach to minimize political blowback and to try to make at least some progress in resolving a long-standing legal and human rights morass before the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

After initial plans for a more aggressive push to close the facility — including rebuffed attempts to recruit a special envoy to oversee the strategy — the White House changed course, sources said. The administration has opted to wait before it reaches out to Congress, which has thwarted previous efforts to close the camp, because of fears that political outcry might interfere with the rest of Biden's agenda. A former senior administration official involved in the discussions said of Biden officials:
"They don't want it to become a dominant issue that blows up. They don't want it to become a lightning rod. They want it to be methodical, orderly."
The administration hopes to transfer a handful of the remaining terrorism suspects to foreign countries, the people familiar with the discussions said, and then persuade Congress to permit the transfer of the rest — including 9/11 suspects — to detention on the U.S. mainland. Biden hopes to close the facility by the end of his first term, the people familiar with the discussions said.

But even though just 40 people are left at Gitmo, the Biden administration faces many of the same obstacles that doomed President Barack Obama's much more public effort to close it a dozen years ago.
Read More...
Sun

Biden tells troops 'global warming' is the 'greatest threat to America'

Libby Emmons
PM
Wed, 09 Jun 2021 04:44 UTC
BidenTroops
© screenshotUS President Joe Biden
President Joe Biden spoke to troops at the US Air Force Base in Suffolk, England, on Wednesday, at the beginning of his first overseas trip as president. Even so, he joked "I keep forgetting I'm president."

Comment: Relevant as always, Biden shared his #1 military priority while placing plastic straws a little farther down the list.

Read More...
Star of David

Even former Israeli ambassadors to South Africa say it's time to recognize that Israel has imposed an apartheid system in Palestine

Ilan Baruch and Alon Liel
GroundUp
Tue, 08 Jun 2021 17:27 UTC
israel apartheid map occupation
Map of the West Bank, the Israeli occupied Palestinian territory. Palestinian areas are green. Blue areas are Israeli-controlled.
During our careers in the foreign service, we both served as Israel's ambassador to South Africa. In this position, we learned firsthand about the reality of apartheid and the horrors it inflicted. But more than that - the experience and understanding we gained in South Africa helped us to understand the reality at home.

For over half a century, Israel has ruled over the occupied Palestinian territories with a two-tiered legal system, in which, within the same tract of land in the West Bank, Israeli settlers live under Israeli civil law while Palestinians live under military law. The system is one of inherent inequality. In this context, Israel has worked to change both the geography and the demography of the West Bank through the construction of settlements, which are illegal under international law. Israel has advanced projects to connect these settlements to Israel proper through intensive investment in infrastructure development, and a vast network of highways and water and electricity infrastructure have turned the settlement enterprise into a comfortable version of suburbia. This has happened alongside the expropriation and takeover of massive amounts of Palestinian land, including Palestinian home evictions and demolitions. That is, settlements are built and expanded at the expense of Palestinian communities, which are forced onto smaller and smaller tracts of land.
Read More...
Megaphone

El Salvador becomes first country to makes bitcoin legal tender

Nelson Renteria, Tom Wilson, Karin Stohecker
Reuters
Thu, 10 Jun 2021 17:06 UTC
seal el salvador bitcoin
El Salvador has green-lit using bitcoin of bitcoin for its citizens
El Salvador became the first country in the world to adopt bitcoin as legal tender after Congress on Wednesday approved President Nayib Bukele's proposal to embrace the cryptocurrency, a move that delighted the currency's supporters.

With 62 out of 84 possible votes, lawmakers voted in favor of the move to create a law to adopt bitcoin, despite concern about the potential impact on El Salvador's program with the International Monetary Fund.

Bukele has touted the use of bitcoin for its potential to help Salvadorans living abroad to send remittances back home, while saying the U.S. dollar will also continue as legal tender. In practice, El Salvador does not have its own currency.
Read More...
Map

How Russia's St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) is mapping the Eurasian Century

Pepe Escobar
Asia Times
Fri, 04 Jun 2021 00:00 UTC
St. Petersburg
It's impossible to understand the finer points of what's happening on the ground in Russia and across Eurasia, business-wise, without following the annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).

So let's cut to the chase, and offer a few choice examples of what is discussed on top panels.

The Russian Far East - Here's a discussion on the - largely successful - strategies boosting productive investment in industry and infrastructure across the Russian Far East. Manufacturing in Russia grew by 12.2% between 2015 and 2020; in the Far East it was almost double, 23.1%. And from 2018 to 2020, per capita investment in fixed capital was 40% higher than the national average. The next steps center on improving infrastructure; opening global markets to Russian companies; and most of all, finding the necessary funds (China? South Korea?) for advanced tech.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) - As I've seen for myself in previous editions of the forum, there's nothing remotely similar in the West in terms of seriously discussing an organization like the SCO - which has progressively evolved from its initial security focus towards a wide-ranging politico-economic role.

Russia presided the SCO in 2019-2020, when foreign policy got a fresh impetus and the socioeconomic consequences of Covid-19 were seriously addressed. Now the collective emphasis should be on how to turn these member nations - especially the Central Asian "stans" - more attractive for global investors. Panelists include former SCO secretary-general Rashid Alimov, and the current one, Vladimir Norov.
Read More...