Puppet MastersS


Target

Douma: Three Years On

Hassan Diab
© UnknownHassan Diab (L) in a hospital hozed down with water an alleged victim of chemical weapons. Hassan would later testify there was no chemical weapons attack.
May 20 marked the start of the 2021 Syrian presidential elections. Syrians around the world outside of Syria will cast their votes — if their embassies haven't been closed, or voting prohibited, in the countries they reside in that is.

As I wrote last week,
Western leaders hypocritically claimed concern for Syrians and wanted to ensure they live democratically - by funding and arming terrorists from around the world to slaughter them and destroy their homes, governmental buildings, and historic and cultural places - but continue to do everything in their power to make it difficult-to-impossible for Syrians to exercise their rights to vote for their president.

In closing Syrian embassies around the world, the regime-change alliance made very clear that they do not want the Syrian people to exercise their democratic right to vote in presidential elections past and future. They know that Syrians would come out in masses to vote for their president.
Otherwise, Syrians will, on May 26, vote in Syria. This is a historic moment: after 10 years of would-be regime change in Syria, ten bloody years of unnecessary war on Syria, Syrians voting, whether for Assad or not, are voting in defiance of the West's attempts to install a puppet government.

X

Senate Republicans use filibuster to kill Jan. 6 commission

McConnell/staffer
© Jacquelyn Martin/APSenate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and staffer walk to Senate chambers.
In a remarkable political moment, Republicans on Friday blocked the Senate from moving forward on a bill that would establish a bipartisan, independent commission to investigate the Jan. 6 assault by Trump supporters on the U.S. Capitol they were forced to flee in fear.

Six Republicans joined Democrats in the 54-35 vote, but that fell four votes short of the 60 needed to start debate on establishing a commission -- which then, normally, would require only a simple majority to pass in a final vote.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said right after the vote.
"Out of fear or fealty to Donald Trump, the Republican minority just prevented the American people from getting the full truth about January 6. Senate Republicans chose to defend the 'big lie' because they believe anything that might upset Donald Trump could hurt them politically".

Star of David

Flashback Netanyahu in 2001: 'America is a thing you can move very easily'

Neti
© UnknownIsraeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu
A newly released video of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could add some additional strain to the sometimes tense relationship between him and President Obama. In the video, which is from 2001, Netanyahu — who reportedly did not know his speech was being recorded — speaks frankly in Hebrew about relations with the Clinton White House and the peace process.

As noted in Haaretz, Netanyahu seems to boast of his knowledge of the US by saying, "I know what America is. America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won't get in their way."

He also boasts of manipulating the U.S. in the ongoing peace process, as the Washington Post points out:
"They asked me before the election if I'd honor [the Oslo accords]. I said I would, but ... I'm going to interpret the accords in such a way that would allow me to put an end to this galloping forward to the '67 borders. How did we do it? Nobody said what defined military zones were. Defined military zones are security zones; as far as I'm concerned, the entire Jordan Valley is a defined military zone. Go argue."

Comment: Hard to imagine much has changed...it worked so well then.


Arrow Up

Syrian President Bashar Assad wins re-election as Western powers denounce outcome, close embassies, deter voting

Bashar al-Assad
© Louai Beshara/AFPSyrians in Damascus wave national flags and carry a portrait of President Bashar al-Assad on May 27, 2021
President Bashar Assad has been reelected to a fourth term with over 95% of the votes cast, defeating two challengers - including a former senior official of a rebel coalition, Syrian authorities have announced.

Turnout in Wednesday's election was 78%, with Assad winning over 13 million votes, according to Hammouda Sabbagh, speaker of the Syrian legislature.

Mahmoud Ahmad Marei, who previously served as secretary-general of the rebel coalition National Front for the Liberation of Syria, received some 470,276 votes, or 3.1%, while Abdullah Sallum Abdullah of the Socialist Unionist Party came in third with about 213,968 votes, or 1.5%.

The total number of eligible voters was 14,239,140 out of the 18,107,000 Syrians currently inside or outside the country, according to Interior Minister Muhammad al-Rahmoun.

Comment: Glimpses into the Syrian election process and public reaction:
Head of Parliament Hammouda Sabbagh announced the result at a news conference on Thursday, saying voter turnout was around 78%.
Sabbagh
© ReutersHead of Parliament Hammouda Sabbagh announced the result at a news conference on Thursday, saying voter turnout was around 78%.
The vote was boycotted by the US-backed Kurdish-led forces who administer an autonomous oil-rich region in the northeast and in northwestern Idlib region, the last existing rebel enclave, where people denounced the election in large demonstrations on Wednesday.

The win delivers Assad, 55, seven more years in power and lengthens his family's rule to nearly six decades. His father, Hafez al-Assad, led Syria for 30 years until his death in 2000.
Though Assad's win was not in doubt, his re-election is likely to deepen the rift with the West and closer to Russia, Iran and China.
Poll workers
© ReutersPoll workers count ballots after polls close during presidential election in Damascus, Syria
May 27, 2021
Damascus erupted in celebrations, with gunfire and fireworks lighting the night sky. Thousands gathered in major squares in Damascus, and the coastal city of Tartus, dancing while waving flags and pictures of Assad. They chanted: "With our soul, blood, we defend you Bashar," and "We only choose three: God, Syria and Bashar."

Assad Supporters
© AP/Hassan AmmarAssad supporters in Omayyad Square, Damascus
See also: Syria's Assad wins 4th term with 95% of vote


Star of David

Why everyone is wrong about Israel-Palestine - Israel's greed for Gaza's huge gas reserves and money is what drives the conflict

gaza bombed houses 2021
© ReutersA Palestinian flag flies as the ruins of houses, which were destroyed by Israeli air strikes during the Israeli-Palestinian fighting
There are trillions of tonnes of recoverable gas lying underneath the disputed waters off Gaza, Israel, Syria and Lebanon. And the Israelis want to make sure they alone control and profit from it.

Few topics rile people up on both sides of the political aisle more than the Israel-Palestine question. It is without doubt one of the most - if not the most - explosively divisive issues on the planet.

For example, when I have criticised Saudi Arabia's criminal bombardment of Yemen, I have never once even contemplated fearing a backlash of people accusing me of being anti-Islamic or labelling me an Islamophobe. (Sure, Saudi nationals critical of its government's actions may have to avoid entering into their local Saudi consulate upon invitation, but that's for a different reason.)

Comment: Israel, of course, not above stealing from its other neighbors either:


Eye 1

Anti-establishment? Dominic Cummings' contradictory testimony only enforces the global elite's pro-lockdown narrative

dominic cummings
© Sky News
In insisting Britain should have locked down earlier and harder in March 2020, Boris Johnson's former chief adviser has gone from zero to hero in the eyes of those who hated him. But where's the evidence it'd have saved lives?

It's been quite a turnaround. Dominic Cummings was loathed by pro-Remainers and 'centrists' for his role in 'getting Brexit done' but now he's being toasted as the 'insider' who spilled the beans in public on how incompetently PM Johnson and his health secretary handled Covid-19. All of a sudden 'Bad Boy Dom' is not so bad. He's a credible, reliable source we should all be listening to.

Yet, while we can all probably agree about his verdict on the awful Matt Hancock (the late comedian Tony Hancock would probably have made a better health secretary - and he's been dead for 53 years), Cummings' testimony on Wednesday to the House of Commons Health and Science Select Committees was highly contradictory. As Leo McKinstry pointed out in the Daily Express, he had a scattergun approach, but no smoking gun. The core thrust of his critique - that Boris Johnson didn't take the novel coronavirus seriously enough, was mistakenly pursuing a policy of 'herd immunity', and should have locked the country down earlier and harder - is itself based on false assumptions, or, more precisely, ludicrously over-the-top modelling, which was disproved by real-life events in countries that didn't lock down.

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Fauci facing calls for resignation after shifting positions on probe of Wuhan lab

dr anthony fauci
© Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesAnthony Fauci listens during a briefing on the coronavirus pandemic in the press briefing room of the White House.
Republican lawmakers are calling for Dr. Anthony Fauci to be fired, amid his litany of shifting opinions on the coronavirus, its origin and his stance on an investigation into the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Fauci is coming under fire from congressional Republicans who point to his admission that the NIH earmarked $600,000 for the Wuhan Institute of Virology to study the possibility that bat coronaviruses could be transmitted to humans.

He told members of a House Appropriations subcommittee on Tuesday that the money was provided to the lab through the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance and funded a "modest collaboration with very respectable Chinese scientists who were world experts on coronavirus."

Comment: See also:


Dollar

EU leaders agree to close skies & airports to Belarus over Ryanair incident, freeze €3bn investment until Minsk turns 'democratic'

belavia plane fence
© Sputnik/Andrei AleksandrovA plane belonging to the Belarus national carrier Belavia at the Minsk national airport.
The leaders of 27 European Union countries have called for a ban on Belarus-based airlines landing in the bloc and told EU-based carriers to avoid the country's airspace, after the diversion of a Ryanair flight to Minsk on Sunday.

The plane was brought to the Belarusian capital, under the pretence of a bomb scare, in order to arrest a wanted activist on board, Roman Protasevich.

Meeting in Brussels on Monday, the European Council - heads of state or government of all EU members - issued a memo demanding the "immediate release" of Protasevich and his girlfriend, Sofia Sapega, a Russian citizen. It also called on the International Civil Aviation Organization to investigate Sunday's incident, which it described as "unprecedented and unacceptable."

Comment: And this response from the UK - when in doubt, blame Russia! From RT:
A leading British parliamentarian has called for the blocking of the Russian-German Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project, in response to the arrest of a Belarusian opposition activist on a plane diverted to Minsk on Sunday evening.

Tom Tugendhat, a Tory MP and chair of the foreign affairs committee in Westminster, also said the existing "Yamato" (sic) energy pipeline "must be frozen" in response to the arrest of Roman Protasevich in Minsk over the weekend. The most likely autocorrected name was a reference to the Yamal-Europe pipeline, which supplies Germany and Austria with natural gas from Russia, via Belarus and Poland.


Tugendhat was agreeing to and amplifying a suggestion by Polish MEP and former foreign minister Radek Sikorski - now a Harvard fellow - that stopping Nord Stream 2 "would be [the] simplest and best" move to sanction Russia, which he blamed for the incident.

Nord Stream 2 is a pipeline, under construction, running through the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany, bypassing Poland and Ukraine. It is nearly complete, despite a years-long campaign of sanctions, obstruction and intimidation led by the US. Yamal-Europe passes through Belarus and Poland. It began operations in 1997, and reached its rated annual capacity in 2005.

Tugendhat argued that the pipeline is "where the money comes from that supports this tyrannous regime," according to British media.

UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, Tugendhat's fellow Tory, responded that the government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson will "consider and consult" with partners on the question of Nord Stream 2.



Better Earth

Syria's Assad wins 4th term with 95% of vote

Assad has won another seven-year term with a vote share of 95.1%. The rather predictable official results are unlikely to quell criticism from the West.

Syrian President Bashar Assad
The official tally gave Assad 95.1% of the vote
Syrian President Bashar Assad won a fourth term in office with 95.1% of votes, the country's parliament speaker announced in a live conference on Thursday.

Hammoud Sabbagh also said voter turnout was 78.66%.

The Syrian government's official Twitter account posted: "The Syrians had their say. Bashar al-Assad wins the presidential elections of the Syrian Arab Republic after obtaining 95.1% of the votes inside and outside Syria."


Whistle

Best of the Web: Engdahl: Alarming casualty rates for mRNA vaccines warrant urgent action

Εμβόλια mRNA
As official government data is emerging in Europe and the USA on the alarming numbers of deaths and permanent paralysis as well as other severe side effects from the experimental mRNA vaccines, it is becoming clear that we are being asked to be human guinea pigs in an experiment that could alter the human gene structure and far worse. While mainstream media ignores alarming data including death of countless healthy young victims, the politics of the corona vaccine is being advanced by Washington and Brussels along with WHO and the Vaccine Cartel with all the compassion of a mafia "offer you can't refuse."

Comment: See also: And check out SOTT radio's: