Puppet MastersS


NPC

The DREAM TEAM! Biden picks Harris for VP (thus prez)

Jonathan Easley and Max Greenwood
The Hill
Tue, 11 Aug 2020 16:17 UTC

Comment: Their slogan should be:
'Vote for Her because she's an African-American Woman! Well, Jamaican-American. Actually, she introduced herself at the outset of her political career as Indian-American, but who cares! She has a vagina and looks a bit chocolate-colored!'

kamala harris
Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden named Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) as his running mate on Tuesday, ending months of speculation over one of the most consequential decisions of his 2020 presidential bid.

Biden called Harris, a former rival in the Democratic primary, the best equipped to help him defeat President Trump and lead the nation through the coronavirus pandemic, economic downturn and racial divide.

Harris, who is of Jamaican and Indian descent, would be the first woman to be vice president if Biden is elected.

Comment: Some big name Twitter reactions:







See also:

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Camcorder

Viral fake footage of "Chinese" atrocities shows the power of narrative spin

Caitlin Johnstone
Medium
Sun, 09 Aug 2020 06:16 UTC
chinese video fact check
The odious right-wing influencer Ian Miles Cheong recently posted a video of a man being brutalized by an unseen tormenter which he captioned "Chinese communism", adding "I don't know who needs to hear this but this is what real oppression looks like, not cops in Portland pepper spraying rioters for throwing molotovs at them."


There's nothing in the video footage that shows that this is happening in China, nor that the person performing the abuse is a government authority figure. But many people credulously shared the video around, because anti-China sentiment has exploded over the last two years with the help of careful narrative management by the western political/media class.

Comment: See also: China detaining millions of Uyghurs? US-backed NGO and far-right researcher 'led by God' make flimsy claims against Beijing

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Sherlock

Hong Kong tycoon Jimmy Lai arrested, accused of 'collusion with foreign forces' under new security law

Greg Torode
Reuters
Mon, 10 Aug 2020 02:22 UTC
jimmy lai
Apple Daily live feed.
Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai became the highest-profile person arrested under a new national security law on Monday, detained over suspected collusion with foreign forces as around 200 police searched the offices of his Apple Daily newspaper.

Mainland-born Lai, who was smuggled into the British colony of Hong Kong on a fishing boat when he was a penniless 12-year-old, has been one of the most prominent democracy activists in the now Chinese-ruled city and an ardent critic of Beijing.

His arrest comes amid Beijing's crackdown against pro-democracy opposition in the city and further stokes concerns about media and other promised freedoms when it returned to China in 1997. China imposed the sweeping new security law on Hong Kong on June 30, drawing condemnation from Western countries.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he was "deeply troubled" by reports of the arrest, calling it further proof that the Chinese Communist Party had "eviscerated" Hong Kong's freedoms and eroded the rights of its people.

Comment: Hong Kong Free Press reports:
Live streams showed officers lining up staff members to check their identities after entering at around 9:45am, whilst other officers went desk-to-desk.


The raid comes hours after Jimmy Lai - the founder of Next Digital, which owns the tabloid - was arrested in his home on Monday morning. He was detained for allegedly "colluding" with foreign forces - a crime under the new national security law.

Senior superintendent of the national security department Steve Li told reporters outside the building that officers had conducted an initial review to see which departments or units of the newspaper firm they were entitled to search under the warrant.

He said the force would refrain from searching departments that handle news and journalistic materials.

However, footage showed police flipping through items on staff members' desks.

Li did not present the warrant to reporters but said it was placed inside the company's building for legal representatives to check: "I can say our search process has been smooth so far. We hope to complete it as soon as possible and not disturb the operation of this media company."

'Attack on press freedom'

The Democratic Party criticised the raid, saying the government is tightening freedom of the press on a large scale: "It is the first time the government arrested members of the press under the national security law. They raided offices of a news outlet and created a deterrent effect among the industry. Press freedom and freedom of speech promised in the Basic Law is precarious."

The head of the University of Hong Kong's journalism department also said the raid was an "outrageous, shameful attack on press freedom."

"With police raiding a newsroom and a handcuffed editor doing a perp walk, I would say HK as we knew it is already unrecognizable. These scenes are shocking. And shameful," he tweeted.

Jimmy Lai
© Apple Daily.Officers outside Jimmy Lai's house on Monday.
In June, Beijing enacted laws to prevent, stop and punish behaviours in Hong Kong that it deemed a threat to national security. The legislation was inserted into the city's mini-constitution, bypassing the local legislature, in order to criminalise subversion, secession, foreign interference and terrorism. The move - which gives police sweeping new powers - alarmed democrats, civil society groups and trade partners, as such laws have been used broadly to silence and punish dissidents in China.

See also:

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Attention

Best of the Web: Putin and Russia face a very serious crisis in Belarus

The Saker
The Unz Review
Mon, 10 Aug 2020 17:19 UTC
belarus flag Lukashenko
© Unz Review
Some of my longtime readers might have noticed that I rarely (if ever!) wrote about Belarus or President Lukashenko. As always with the blog, there is a reason for why I do mention something and no less a reason why I do not mention something. In the case of Belarus or Lukashenko, my reason for not writing about them was the exactly why I never wrote about the Ukraine before 2013: I was both uninspired and mostly disgusted with what I saw taking place there. And I did not feel strongly enough to write about it. That changed for the Ukraine with the Euromaidan.

Now the events in Belarus force me to address this very unpleasant topic: Belarus is facing a complex and dangerous situation which might well result in a major crisis inside Belarus and even a loss of sovereignty. But first, before we look into what just happened, let me begin with a quick "mini-primer" about Belarus. Here is what I think everybody ought to know about this country:

Comment: And yet, for all his failings, Lukashenko refused to sell his country down the Covid-hoax river:

Alexandr Lukashenko, a president with scruples
While Russian deaths started rising to US, UK elevations, its near neighbour Belarus was containing COVID-19 in the way I was expecting Russia to have done, the way South Korea was still doing. The most likely reason for the Russian policy change has only come to light within the last week or two. Tyler Durden posted an article in GreatGameIndia.com which showed that the Belarus president, Alexandr Lukashenko, had been offered a bribe to adopt the same measures Italy had adopted - that is lockdown, curfews, masks and other severe restrictions.

In an act of integrity rarely found in world leaders Lukashenko refused the bribe.

Africa, which has had a very low infection and death-rate from COVID-19, has likewise had several of its countries targeted by multi-billion cash-cows - WHO and Bill Gates - which pretty well amounts to Bill Gates since he is one of the biggest donors to WHO. African countries which have been offered bribes include Tanzania, Burundi and Madagascar. It can hardly be assumed they are alone.

Meanwhile in Belarus life has gone on as normal. Football spectators have continued to go to matches and the season is in full swing with cup matches currently being played. According to the United Nations Human Rights Council a few companies have encouraged employees to work from home.


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Handcuffs

Flashback Best of the Web: Kamala Harris is an oligarch's wet dream

Caitlin Johnstone
Medium
Fri, 28 Jun 2019 12:09 UTC
kamala harris
California Senator Kamala Harris won the Democratic presidential debate last night. It was not a close contest. She will win every debate she enters during this election cycle. If she becomes the nominee, she will win every debate with Trump.

Night two of the debates was just as vapid and ridiculous as night one. Candidates interrupted and talked over each other a lot, questions about foreign policy were avoided like the plague to prevent NBC viewers from thinking critically about the mechanics of empire, and Eric Swalwell kept talking despite everyone in the universe desperately wanting him not to. Buttigieg and Gillibrand did alright, Bernie played the same note he's been playing for decades, and everyone was reminded how bad Joe Biden is at talking and thinking.

Biden has been treated kindly by polls and regarded as a "frontrunner" in this race exclusively because for the last decade he hasn't had to do anything other than be associated with Barack Obama. Now that he's had to step out of that insulated role and interact with reality again, everyone's seeing the same old garbage right-wing Democrat who sucks at making himself look appealing just as badly as he did in his last two presidential campaigns. By the end of the night, even Michael Bennet was slapping him around.

Comment: See also:

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Vader

Flashback Kamala Harris was not a 'progressive prosecutor'

Lara Bazelon
NY Times
Thu, 17 Jan 2019 22:21 UTC
kamala
© Damon Winter/The New York TimesBefore she was a senator, Kamala Harris was an attorney general and district attorney who acted in ways that could hardly be described as "progressive," Lara Bazelon writes
With the growing recognition that prosecutors hold the keys to a fairer criminal justice system, the term "progressive prosecutor" has almost become trendy. This is how Senator Kamala Harris of California, a likely presidential candidate and a former prosecutor, describes herself.

But she's not.

Time after time, when progressives urged her to embrace criminal justice reforms as a district attorney and then the state's attorney general, Ms. Harris opposed them or stayed silent. Most troubling, Ms. Harris fought tooth and nail to uphold wrongful convictions that had been secured through official misconduct that included evidence tampering, false testimony and the suppression of crucial information by prosecutors.
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Star of David

Biden (or someone) bucks progressives, won't denounce Israeli Occupation

Colum Lynch
Foreign Policy
Thu, 06 Aug 2020 18:43 UTC
biden israel occupation policy democrats
© Carlos Latuff/Mondoweiss
The Sanders wing has scored a lot of victories in the Democratic platform — but didn't get all it wanted on Israel.

In early July, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and other influential progressives were convinced that they had secured a critical concession from Joe Biden's campaign: For the first time, the Democratic Party platform would assert that Palestinians had a right to live free of foreign "occupation," a scarcely veiled reference to Israel.

But days before a draft platform was released on July 15, the presumptive Democratic nominee personally weighed in, according to three sources familiar with the discussion, ordering his advisors not to include any reference to Israeli "occupation." The decision, according to these sources, followed heavy last-minute lobbying by pro-Israel advocacy groups. Biden aides subsequently phoned progressive leaders and urged them to drop their demand to declare Israel an occupying power, arguing that the inclusion of the phrase threatened to undermine unity within the Democratic Party.
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Bad Guys

New Zealand's fanatical PM shuts down Auckland for THREE DAYS because of FOUR 'cases'!

Amelia Wade and Derek Cheng
NZ Herald
Tue, 11 Aug 2020 19:33 UTC
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern
© Getty
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced Auckland will go into lockdown and the rest of the country will go into level 2.

It comes after four cases of community transmission from the same family were confirmed - after 102 days without any.

Ardern and director general of health Ashley Bloomfield announced the news tonight and an alert was sent to New Zealanders' phones.

As of noon tomorrow, Auckland will move to level 3 for three days until midnight on Friday.

The rest of the country will move to alert level 2 at midday tomorrow - until midnight on Friday.
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Magnify

Western media's favorite Hong Kong 'freedom struggle writer' is American ex-Amnesty staffer in yellowface

Max Blumenthal
The Grayzone
Sat, 08 Aug 2020 00:00 UTC
Kong Tsung-gan, Brian Kern
© yellowface mediaKong Tsung-gan is Brian Kern
A prominent Hong Kong pundit and anti-China activist named Kong Tsung-gan has become a go-to source for Western media. An investigation by The Grayzone confirms Kong as a fake identity employed by an American teacher who's a ubiquitous figure at local protests.

An American man with ties to Amnesty International and key Hong Kong separatist figures has been posing online as a Hong Kong native named Kong Tsung-gan. Routinely cited as a grassroots activist and writer by major media organizations and published in English-language media, the fictitious character Kong appears to have been concocted to disseminate anti-China propaganda behind the cover of yellowface.

Through Kong Tsung-gan's prolific digital presence and uninterrogated reputation in mainstream Western media, he disseminates a constant stream of content hyping up the Hong Kong "freedom struggle" while clamoring for the US to turn up the heat on China.

Whispers about Kong's true identity have been circulating on social media among Hong Kong residents, and was even mentioned in a brief account last December by The Standard.


Comment: Super Dupers: A well-propagandized mindset tends not to scratch the surface to discover what lies beneath a news story. False loyalty is purposed to be the stronger conviction, remaining firm even after a supported reveal. The Kern tool has played this deceit to the hilt. Even if exposure brings his 'run' to an end, propaganda damage has been done and can't be retracted.

See also:

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Propaganda

Pompeo denounces proposed Russian law as 'burdensome' limitation on US propaganda outlets


RT
Mon, 10 Aug 2020 23:46 UTC
Pompeo
© Pablo Martinez Monsivais/Pool via ReutersUS Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has voiced a protest over a proposed Russian rule that would require labeling of propaganda content, saying it would burden "independent" information work of outlets such as Voice of America.

"This decree will impose new burdensome requirements that will further inhibit RFE/RL's and VOA's ability to operate within Russia," Pompeo said Monday, commenting on the draft rule published by the media regulator Roskomnadzor.

Pompeo called VOA and its sister outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty "vital sources of independent news and information for the people of Russia" for "more than 70 years."

Far from independent, however, they were both established as US propaganda outlets at the dawn of the Cold War. They are fully funded by the government, and the charter of their parent organization - now known as US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) - mandates they
"be consistent with the broad foreign policy objectives of the United States" and "provide a surge capacity to support United States foreign policy objectives during crises abroad."
The 1948 law that established these outlets outright prohibited their content from being broadcast in the US itself, until the Obama administration amended it in 2013.

Comment: Russia is leveling the playing field with similar measures while calling out the US on its disrespect and manipulation.

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