Puppet MastersS


Gold Bar

Ft. Knox full of impure gold unfit for international transactions

Jp Cortez
MisesInstitute
Tue, 28 Apr 2026 00:00 UTC
Gold Fort Knox
© UnknownGold • Fort Knox
The bulk of the US gold reserves held in Fort Knox are made up of impure "non-standard" bars that don't qualify for use in international settlements. In practice, this means that most of America's massive gold stockpile is illiquid and wouldn't be readily accepted on the international market should the need arise:

"It's a decrepit relic just like our monetary policy is. With respect to America's gold stockpile, we hold ourselves to a lower standard than the rest of the world," Money Metals CEO Stefan Gleason said.

The French central bank recently sold 129 tonnes of similar non-standard gold that was stored in New York and replaced it with higher-quality bars that will remain in France.

Notwithstanding the lack of any credible physical audits for decades, US gold reserves are reported to be 8,133.5 metric tons. That's roughly 261.5 million troy ounces. About half of that (147.3 million ounces according to the US Mint) is stored at Fort Knox. The rest is spread out between the Denver Mint, the West Point Bullion Depository, and the Federal Reserve vault in New York.

America's gold is valued at $42.22 per ounce by statute. The price does not fluctuate with market movements.
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Attention

Pentagon admits 'no defense' against Russian and Chinese hypersonic weapons


RT
Tue, 28 Apr 2026 15:47 UTC
THAAD
© Global Look Press/US ArmyUS Army conducts THAAD missile system training exercise at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam • Feb. 6, 2019
Officials are seeking funding for Trump's Golden Dome missile defense system by citing the rival capabilities

The United States will struggle to defend itself against advanced missile systems developed by China and Russia, senior Pentagon officials told lawmakers as they called for funding for the proposed Golden Dome missile defense program.

President Donald Trump unveiled the initiative shortly after taking office in January 2025, proposing a large-scale investment - potentially reaching hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade - to expand ground- and space-based capabilities.

Assistant Secretary of War for Space Policy Marc Berkowitz said at a Senate armed services committee hearing on Monday:
"The upgrade is urgently needed, as the US has a very limited ground-based single layer homeland defense system that was specifically designed against a small scale rogue attack. The country would face serious issues against ballistic missiles and has no defense against hypersonic weapons or cruise missiles today."

Comment: Perhaps diplomacy and cooperation are the better 'golden dome' - especially after announcing the US has no defense for multiple top grade weapons.

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Popcorn

Spitting the dummy: US leads new call backing Panama against China 'threat'


Gulf News
Thu, 30 Apr 2026 10:53 UTC
Panama container ship
The Panama-flagged MV 'Ever Given' (operated by Taiwan-based Evergreen Marine) container ship as it begins to move.
The United States on Tuesday led a group of regional countries in a joint call backing Panama in a dispute with China over the canal, calling Beijing's actions a threat to them all.

The United States, which has already been vocal on the issue, led a joint statement of mostly right-leaning countries: Bolivia, Costa Rica, Guyana, Paraguay and Trinidad and Tobago.

China's actions "are a blatant attempt to politicize maritime trade and infringe on the sovereignty of the nations of our hemisphere," said the statement released by the US State Department.

"Panama is a pillar of our maritime trading system, and as such must remain free from any undue external pressure," it said.

"Any attempts to undermine Panama's sovereignty are a threat to us all."


Comment: How dare China retaliate? Only the US is allowed to undermine Panama's sovereignty.


Comment: The Trump administration strongarmed the Panama authorities to go back on a deal they had made with China and now the US is crying foul as China dares to respond.

It is of course the same US, which didn't respect the sovereignty of Venezuela or Iran and who is making a strangling boycott of Cuba. The same US, which has openly talked about seizing Greenland, Cuba, Panama just to mention a few. The same US, which openly kills sovereign leaders as in Iran, when they don't bend the knee or kidnaps them as the case was in Venezuela. As for the US, it is like a good looking apple which just happens to be rotten to the core.

See also:

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Cruise Missle

Iran has caused billions in damage to US military bases in Gulf region

Ashleigh Fields
The Hill
Sun, 26 Apr 2026 21:46 UTC
damage us military bases gulf states
© English almayadeen.net/XA CNN report, backed by satellite imagery, shed light on the scale of damage to US military facilities across #Gulf states following Iranian retaliatory strikes.
Iran has reportedly caused billions of dollars in damage to U.S. military assets and bases in the Gulf region, sparking questions about the Trump administration's transparency regarding potential costs for repairs.

Six people familiar with the damage said runways, high-end radar systems, dozens of aircraft, warehouses, command headquarters, aircraft hangars and satellite communications infrastructure were struck by Iranian forces in an interview with NBC News.

The destruction spans across several countries in the Middle East and could cost up to $5 billion to repair.

The projected price tag does not include fixes to radar systems, weapons systems, aircraft and other equipment that were either impaired or rendered unsalvageable as a result of Iranian strikes, the outlet reported.

Comment: The U.S. has been beyond embarrassed at how easily their assets have been degraded by 'backwards' Iran. No wonder there is such a problem getting accurate information





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Star of David

Ex-Mossad chief says Israeli violence against Palestinians echoes Holocaust


RT
Tue, 28 Apr 2026 21:35 UTC
Tamir Pardo
© Moti MilrodFormer Mossad Chief Tamir Pardo.
Ongoing attacks in the West Bank pose an "existential threat" to the Jewish state, Tamir Pardo has said

Violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank echoes attacks on Jews during the Holocaust and poses an "existential threat" to Israel, former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo has said.

Israeli settlers live in communities built in the West Bank, a territory Israel captured in the 1967 Six-Day War and which Palestinians seek as part of a future state. Successive Israeli governments have backed or tolerated the settlements for security, political, and religious reasons.

Pardo spoke to local media on Monday while touring Palestinian villages that have come under settler attacks in recent months.

Comment: Apparently this particular Mossad agent is still possessed of a conscience. Will his voice be heeded, or drowned out by the religious fanaticism that infests the top levels of the Israeli government?

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No Entry

Turkey and Iran demonstrate pragmatism and stick to neutrality

Alexandr Svaranc
New Eastern Outlook
Tue, 28 Apr 2026 00:00 UTC
Pezeshkian • Erdogan
© UnknownIranian President Massoud Pezeshkian • Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
Iran and Turkey, despite potential points of tension, adhere to a pragmatic policy aimed at avoiding an escalation of the conflict and preserving their national interests in view of the complicated situation unfolding in the region.

Why Iran does not attack American military bases in Turkey

In March, there appeared reports that Iran had launched ballistic missiles towards Turkey, in the vicinity of American and NATO military bases of Incirlik and Kürecik. According to available data, however, those missiles did not reach their targets and were intercepted by NATO's missile defence system in Turkish airspace. The incidents caused no serious destruction or casualties.

Notably, every single time, the Iranian authorities have denied any involvement in these strikes. According to their statements, the strikes could have been provocations by Israel and the United States aimed at dragging Turkey into a military confrontation with the Islamic Republic.

Ankara, for its part, threw its indirect support behind Tehran's position. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has repeatedly stressed that Turkey will not allow itself to be drawn into an anti-Iranian conflict and that it is aware of attempts by external forces to ignite regional conflagration. At the same time, Turkey has not ruled out the possibility of such incidents having been triggered by internal developments in Iran, such as the death of the supreme leader, the decentralisation of power, and the growing influence of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Comment: Turkey has found a position of extreme benefit - self-preservation.

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Gavel

Netanyahu attends 81st court session to answer corruption charges


PRESS TV
Tue, 28 Apr 2026 04:54 UTC
Netanyahu
© UnknownIsraeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared Tuesday before the District Court in Tel Aviv for the 81st time since his trial began in 2020, responding to corruption charges against him.

Tuesday's session marked Netanyahu's first court appearance in nearly two months, his last having taken place on February 24, shortly before US-Israeli aggression against Iran began on February 28. ‎The aggression started with airstrikes, assassinating the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei and senior Iranian officials and commanders.

‎Netanyahu had been scheduled to appear on Monday but requested the session be canceled, citing "security reasons."

"In the past two weeks, his hearings were canceled at his request, and since the start of the war with Iran, he has not testified, despite the resumption of all court sessions in Israel," Israeli daily Maariv reported on Tuesday.

‎He is now in the final stage of his testimony, having already completed more than 80 days of hearings. According to the prosecutor's office, he still has approximately 11 full days of testimony remaining, along with a brief re-examination by his defense team.
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Gavel

Comey indicted as Trump DOJ takes second bite at the apple

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Tue, 28 Apr 2026 02:40 UTC
Comey
© UnknownFormer FBI Director James Comey
The U.S. Department of Justice has secured a new federal indictment against former FBI Director James Comey, marking the second criminal case brought against him by the Trump administration in under a year. The charges center on a controversial May 2025 Instagram post in which Comey shared a photograph of seashells arranged on a beach to form the numbers "86 47."

According to CNN, citing multiple sources familiar with the matter (who ran to CNN to leak the news), the indictment was returned by a grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia. It comes after the Justice Department's first case against Comey-filed in September 2025 and charging him with making false statements and obstructing a congressional proceeding related to his 2020 Senate testimony-was dismissed late last year. A federal judge ruled that the interim U.S. Attorney who brought those charges had been improperly appointed without Senate confirmation.

So - the guy acts as Obama and Hillary Clinton's hatchet man to frame Trump and they're going after the seashell thing... right.

Comment: Problem with sand...it shifts, as Comey is finding out.

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Arrow Down

How U.S. foreign policy affects the world and America itself

Simon Westwood
New Eastern Outlook
Wed, 29 Apr 2026 00:00 UTC
USA icons
© Unknown
Contemporary U.S. foreign policy remains one of the key drivers of global instability, producing complex consequences for both the international system and American society itself.

There is a common belief that the American people are utterly bad, entirely ignorant, and warmongers. However, quite contrary to the common belief, the majority of the American people are not utterly bad, not entirely ignorant, and are not warmongers. It is critical to understand why such a common belief has gained so much acceptance around the world.

After World War II, the successive US administrations have done so much to create insecurity and chaos around the globe. So much so, not a single country around the globe has been spared by the US administrations. The US created the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the name of security; however, NATO has been an actor of insecurity and chaos in Europe.
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Vader

The US and Iran: Between stalemate and checkmate

Scott Ritter
Energy Intelligence
Tue, 28 Apr 2026 15:18 UTC
us iran chess pieces graphic
© rawf8/Shutterstock
The US and its allies started a war with Iran that they did not win. For nearly 40 days, from the start of the war on Feb. 28 to the Apr. 7 ceasefire, the US and Israel carried out an incessant strategic bombing campaign against Iran. The goals and objectives of this campaign were variously to bring about a change of regime in Iran, to degrade Iran's conventional military capabilities — particularly its missile and drone stockpiles, manufacturing capacity and launchers — and to deny Iran the ability to develop a nuclear weapon. None of these objectives has been fully met, and the US was instead compelled to seek a ceasefire that arguably leaves Iran in a strategically advantageous position.

The US and Israel, between them, struck tens of thousands of targets inside Iran. Several senior Iranian leaders, including the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, were killed, and a large part of Iran's identifiable military infrastructure was destroyed, including most of Iran's major naval vessels and many helicopters and aircraft. But Iran's prewar preparations for this very sort of conflict, which had been under way for more than two decades, effectively blunted the effectiveness of the US-led strategic air campaign. Not only did Iran's government withstand the assault, but the state's core institutions appear to have remained intact.
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