Puppet MastersS


Attention

'God save the Queen' from Brexit, reviving Cold War plan to rescue royals from riots


RT
Sun, 03 Feb 2019 10:03 UTC
Queen Elizabeth
© Reuters/Leon Neal/PoolBritain's Queen Elizabeth
A secret Cold War-era plan to evacuate the British royal family has reportedly been dusted off and repurposed in preparation for Brexit chaos that could see angry riots endanger the Queen's life. According to the Sunday Times and the Mail on Sunday, plans are in motion to evacuate the Queen and her family from mobs of angry Britons should Brexit really hit the fan.

The Cold War plan has been "repurposed in the event of civil disorder following a no-deal Brexit," an unnamed source from the Cabinet Office told the Sunday Times. The plan would see the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh ferried out of London to a top secret location elsewhere in the country.

The Cold War-era plan 'Operation Candid' would have seen the royals dispersed to country homes around the UK in an extreme national emergency. The Queen, though, was to set off on the royal yacht Britannia if there was a nuclear attack on the UK. The evacuation plans are reportedly now being updated to be ready to go should Brexit turn violent.

Comment: By 'all means', hide and save the antiques.

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Camcorder

Microsoft: It would be cruel to stop facial recognition software use by government agencies

Jake Kanter
Insider
Sun, 03 Feb 2019 00:00 UTC
Microsoft face API
© Microsoft
A top Microsoft executive has said that stopping government agencies from using facial recognition software would be "cruel in its humanitarian effect."

More than 85 human rights groups wrote to Microsoft, Amazon, and Google last month demanding they stop selling facial recognition software to the public sector, fearing it will lead to government surveillance.

Business Insider asked Brad Smith, Microsoft's president and chief legal officer, about the letter at the World Economic Forum in Davos. He strongly rejected the idea that government agencies, including law enforcement, should step back from the technology.
"I do not understand an argument that companies should avoid all licensing to any government agency for any purpose whatsoever. A sweeping ban on all government use clearly goes too far and risks being cruel in its humanitarian effect."

Comment: Words or actions?

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Eagle

Trump refuses to meet Maduro, says military intervention 'an option'


Reuters
Sun, 03 Feb 2019 18:48 UTC
guaido and maduro
© (L/R) REUTERS / Carlos Garcia RawlinsVenezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido (L) and President Nicolas Maduro (R)
U.S. President Donald Trump said that sending the military to Venezuela was "an option" as Western nations boost pressure on socialist leader Nicolas Maduro to hand over power to opposition leader and self-proclaimed President Juan Guaido.

The United States, Canada and several Latin American countries have disavowed Maduro over his disputed re-election last year and recognize Guaido as the rightful leader of the economically troubled OPEC nation.

Maduro however still maintains the powerful backing of Russia, China and Turkey, whose foreign minister said on Sunday that Western meddling was fueling Venezuela's troubles and punishing millions of its people.

In an interview with CBS on Sunday, Trump reiterated that military intervention was a possibility.

"Certainly, it's something that's on the - it's an option," Trump said, adding that Maduro requested a meeting months ago.


Comment: Hopefully it's an option in the sense that it was an option for North Korea.


"I've turned it down because we're very far along in the process," he said on a CBS "Face the Nation" interview. "So, I think the process is playing out - very, very big tremendous protests."


Comment: See also:

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Rocket

Russian MOD publishes photo of Raytheon factory, alleged to be producing INF-violating missiles

Paul Antonopoulos
Fort Russ News
Sun, 03 Feb 2019 18:40 UTC
arizona raytheon
The Russian Ministry of Defense has published a photo of a factory in the United States of the Raytheon industrial corporation, where preparations for the production of missiles forbidden under the Intermediate Scope Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) were found.

Earlier, the ministry said that the US made a decision to abandon the treaty several years before accusing Russia of violating it. According to the Russian ministry, missile-making preparations forbidden by the treaty began in 2017, using the facilities of the Raytheon corporation in the city of Luzon, Arizona, to create medium- and short-range missiles.

In the last two years, the factory's territory increased 44%, from 55 to 79 thousand square meters. The number of employees has grown to almost 2,000, according to the ministry.

In addition, the ministry recalled that in November 2017, almost simultaneously with the expansion of factory facilities, the US Congress allocated the first US $58 million tranche to the Pentagon by openly mentioning that the resources would be intended for the "development of a medium-range ground missile".

Comment: See also: Cold War is on: Russia suspends INF Treaty in 'mirror response' to US halting the agreement, greenlights creation of hypersonic mid-range missile

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Bomb

History repeats: ISIS attacks Syrian Army positions after US coalition bombs army positions


Sputnik
Sun, 03 Feb 2019 18:34 UTC
deir ezzor
© Sputnik / Mikhail Alayeddin
Saturday evening, at least two Syrian Army servicemen were injured after the US-led international coalition conducted an airstrike on a Syrian Armed Forces artillery mount in the country's northeast.

Daesh terrorists attacked the Syrian Army positions shortly after a coalition airstrike in north-eastern Deir ez-Zor province on Saturday, Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reports.

According to SANA, most of the terrorists who launched the attack were fleeing the village of Baguz, which was destroyed by the Syrian Army.

The attack came hours after a Syrian military source told Sputnik on Sunday that the US-led international coalition had carried out an airstrike on an army artillery mount located near the eastern Syrian city of Abu Kamal.

Comment: While not as dramatic, this event recalls a similar one from September 2016:

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Bad Guys

How the US got it wrong in Russia

Alexander Lukin
The National Interest
Fri, 01 Feb 2019 18:05 UTC
Yeltsin clinton
© ReutersBoris Yeltsin and Bill Clinton
Russian-U.S. relations are now at their lowest point since the collapse of the Soviet Union. According to the ruling elite in Washington, the authoritarian and corrupt regime in Moscow pursues expansionist policies, supports anti-U.S. forces around the world, and works to undermine the so-called "liberal world order" that the United States has been trying to build for the last several decades. For their part, rulers in Moscow view Washington's position as Russophobic and feel that the United States has cast Russia in the role of a McCarthyesque bogeyman, a scapegoat of sorts that is to blame for all of its problems. Moscow considers U.S. foreign policy to be senseless, if not plain stupid, and as undermining global stability as well as Russia's own political system. Leaders in both Moscow and Washington believe that, under these circumstances, there is no reason to talk with the other country about seriously improving relations - and no one to discuss the subject with anyway.

This state of affairs leaves little hope for improved relations or for Russia to return to a pro-Western stance. But there is another question: Who is to blame for the fact that Russia gradually shifted its pro-U.S. position of the early 1990s to an anti-U.S. policy later? If Boris Yeltsin considered the United States a natural friend and ally in the early years, why did his successor, Vladimir Putin, come to view it as a dangerous opponent?

Comment: The US is now reaping the results of its greedy doings in Russia. It should be grateful the Russians are not a vengeful people. They have come to regard America as increasingly irrelevant (in the broadest sense, it is still militarily dangerous) in the world, and are charting their own course in tandem with China. America has only itself to blame.

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Star of David

Trump supports keeping troops in Iraq to 'watch Iran'

Doina Chiacu
Reuters
Sun, 03 Feb 2019 18:20 UTC
trump i netanyahu
U.S. President Donald Trump said it was important to keep a U.S. military presence in Iraq so that Washington can keep a close eye on Iran "because Iran is a real problem," according to a CBS interview to be broadcast on Sunday.

The Republican president lamented "endless wars" in Syria and Afghanistan in an interview with CBS' "Face the Nation" and made clear he wants to reduce the costly U.S. military presence in those countries despite warnings against such moves from his military advisers and spy chiefs.

The United States could rely heavily on intelligence work in Afghanistan, he said, and respond to developments in Syria from U.S. bases in neighboring Iraq.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards have sent weapons and thousands of soldiers to Syria to help shore up the rule of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during a 7-year civil war there.

Trump said the United States has spent a "fortune" on the Al Asad Air Base in western Iraq, which he visited in December, and that the United States should hold on to it.

Comment: We'll see what the Iraqis have to say about that. There have been increasing calls for the Americans to go home. See, for example: Iraq Defense Ministry spokesman: There were no, and shall be no foreign military forces in Iraq. But then, the U.S. has never been a nation to take the wishes of their vassals seriously.

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Black Cat

Virginia governor's yearbook page showed men in blackface, KKK costumes

Joshua Caplan
Breitbart News
Fri, 01 Feb 2019 17:43 UTC
Ralph northan yearbook blackface
© Alex Wong/Getty/Breitbart News
A picture emerged Friday of Gov. Ralph Northam's (D-VA) medical school yearbook showing two men - one in blackface and another wearing Ku Klux Klan attire - on the Virginia Democrat's designated page.

The Virginian-Pilot, the largest daily newspaper in Virginia, obtained the photo from the Eastern Virginia Medical School library, which can be found in school's 1984 yearbook - the same year Northam graduate from the school. Big League Politics first reported on the photo Friday.

Comment: CNN was caught in a subtle bit of propaganda as Ralph Northam attempted to defuse the controversy around the photo:
CNN aired a chyron Friday evening labeling Virginia Democrat Gov. Ralph Northam a Republican during a report on the Virginia Democrat apologizing for a racist medical school yearbook photo depicting two men- one of them himself- in blackface and Ku Klux Klan garb.

The chyron aired at 9:00 p.m. EST during a CNN broadcast of Anderson Cooper 360, which showed a video of Northam addressing the inflammatory yearbook photo in a video posted to his Twitter account.

As the video of Northam apologizing began, the CNN chyron identifying Northam placed an "R" next to his name instead of a "D."

Other outlets plus the Twitterverse were quick to jump on the "mistake":
A Democrat with a racist past? That fact might be too far from the mainstream line for CNN, so they labeled Virginia Governor Ralph Northam a 'Republican' when reporting on his apology for a past racist photo.

Northam is under pressure from both Democrats and Republicans to resign after admitting that he is one of two men that appeared in an old photograph, one in blackface and the other dressed in a KKK robe.

He apologized for the photo, unearthed from a 1984 school yearbook this week, saying that it did not reflect the person he is today, and promised to work to regain the public's trust, but did not indicate any intention to leave office.

When the story was covered on Anderson Cooper's show on CNN Friday night, the governor's name was labeled with the letter 'R' - which stands for 'Republican'.


The network, which has been in bitter conflict with President Donald Trump - who often refers to CNN as 'fake news' - apologized for the mistake after being torched on social media.

Now that the old picture has surfaced, several journalists wondered how the mainstream media had not dug up the image earlier, given all the attention they dedicated to the Virginia election, and Gillespie's campaign, when it came to doing opposition research.

Past actions conveying racism typically cost public officials their jobs. Just last week, Florida Secretary of State Michael Ertel, a Republican, resigned in disgrace after photos of him mocking Hurricane Katrina survivors by wearing blackface and drag in 2005 were posted online.


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Red Flag

C'est pas moi: Macron blames social media and the Russians for the Yellow Vest protests


RT
Sun, 03 Feb 2019 17:49 UTC
Macron protest
© Reuters / REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer
Who is at fault for Yellow Vest protests raging in France since November? For President Emmanuel Macron it's not actual economic problems or his own decisions, but the right, the left, social media and, of course, "Russes."

Macron blasted the nation's mainstream media for failing to control the narrative and argued that social networks and "the Russians" are driving all content instead, with traditional outlets falling into line. The president's calculated outburst was published by the weekly Le Point on Friday, just before the Yellow Vests officially marked the 12th consecutive week of staging large-scale protests against the government.

The president dismissed Eric Drouet, the 33-year-old trucker who emerged as a prominent figure in the protests, as "a media product, a product of social networks," and claimed that the demonstrators are being "advised from outside," without elaborating. He argued that 90 percent of the chatter online about the Yellow Vests comes from the "[far] rightists, leftists, and the Russians."

Comment: Linguist explains Macron's hidden message to Yellow Vests

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Magnify

Washington's aggression toward Venezuela as a diagnostic tool

The Saker
The UNZ Review
Thu, 31 Jan 2019 00:00 UTC
Elliott Abrams
Would you trust that face?
The Neocons never cease to amaze me and their latest stunt with Venezuela falls into this bizarre category of events which are both absolutely unthinkable and simultaneously absolutely predictable. This apparent logical contradiction is the direct result of a worldview and mindset which is, I believe, unique to the Neocons: a mix of imperial hubris and infinite arrogance, a complete lack of decency, a total contempt for the rest of mankind, crass ignorance, a narcissist/sociopath's inability to have any kind of empathy or imagine another guy's reaction and, finally, last but most certainly not least, crass stupidity. There is so much which can be said about the latest US aggression on Venezuela that entire books could be (and will be) written about this, but I want to begin by look at a few specific but nonetheless very symptomatic aspects:

"In your face" stupidity or bootcamp-like deliberate public humiliation?

Remember the almost universal reaction of horror when Bolton was appointed as National Security Advisor? Well, apparently, either the Neocons completely missed that, which I doubt, or they did what they always do and decided to double-down by retrieving Elliott Abrams from storage and appointing him US Special Envoy to Venezuela. I mean, yes, of course, the Neocons are stupid and sociopathic enough not to ever care about others, but in this case I think that we are dealing with a "Skripal tactic": do something so ridiculously stupid and offensive that it places all your vassals before a stark choice: either submit and pretend like you did not notice or, alternatively, dare to say something and face with wrath of Uncle Shmuel (the Neocon's version of Uncle Sam). And it worked, in the name of "solidarity" or whatever else, the most faithful lackeys of the Empire immediate fell in line behind the latest US aggression against a sovereign nation in spite of the self-evident fact that this aggression violates every letter of the most sacred principles of international law. This is exactly the same tactic as when they make you clean toilets with a toothbrush or do push-ups in the mud during basic training: not only to condition you to total obedience, but to make you publicly give up any semblance of dignity.

Comment:

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