Puppet MastersS


Sherlock

Bezos investigation suggests the Saudis obtained his private data for blackmail purposes

Gavin de Becker
The Daily Beast
Mon, 01 Apr 2019 09:43 UTC
Jeff Bezos MBS Mohammed Bin Salman
© Sarah Rogers/The Daily Beast / Photos by Getty
For 40 years, I've advised at-risk public figures and government agencies on high-stakes security matters. My career has included working with the CIA, FBI, at the Reagan White House, counseling foreign leaders, and advising on controversial murder cases. I've seen a lot. And yet, I've recently seen things that have surprised even me, such as the National Enquirer's parent company, AMI, being in league with a foreign nation that's been actively trying to harm American citizens and companies, including the owner of the Washington Post. You know him as Jeff Bezos; I know him as my client of 22 years.

To understand where this story goes, some background is needed.

In January, the National Enquirer published a special edition that revealed an intimate relationship Bezos was having. He asked me to learn who provided his private texts to the Enquirer, and why. My office quickly identified the person whom the Enquirer had paid as a source: a man named Michael Sanchez, the now-estranged brother of Lauren Sanchez, whom Bezos was dating. What was unusual, very unusual, was how hard AMI people worked to publicly reveal their source's identity. First through strong hints they gave to me, and later through direct statements, AMI practically pinned a "kick me" sign on Michael Sanchez.
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Light Sabers

Fmr French spy suspected in failed Congo hit-job found shot to death in parking lot

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Mon, 01 Apr 2019 09:43 UTC
Daniel Forestier Gen ferdinand Mbaou
Daniel Forestier & GenFerdinand Mbaou
A former French spy has been murdered six months into an investigation for allegedly plotting to assassinate an opponent of Congolese President Sassou Nguesso, according to The Times.

The body of 57-year-old Daniel Forestier was found with five bullet wounds, including to the head and heart, in a remote car park near his home on the shores of Lake Geneva in the Alps.
France Bleu radio in Haute-Savoie said Forestier lived in the village of Lucinges, nine miles (15km) from where his body was found, with his wife and two children and had served as a local councillor until he was put under investigation last September.

The public prosecutor said the killing was probably a settling of scores. "There's almost no doubt about it," Philippe Toccanier said. Forestier had been shot five times in the thorax and the head, he added. -The Guardian
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Star of David

New leaks: Cory Booker says he & AIPAC president 'text message like teenagers'


The Intercept
Mon, 01 Apr 2019 09:43 UTC
Sen. Cory Booker
© AP Photo/Andrew HarnikSen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., left, accompanied by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., right (File).
In a closed-door meeting with activists from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee on Tuesday, presidential candidate Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., spoke about working closely with the organization and his desire to create a "unified voice from Congress" against the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement, or BDS.

Booker spoke to AIPAC members from New Jersey at the organization's annual policy conference in Washington, D.C., a gathering of thousands of activists from around the country, culminating in a lobbying effort on Capitol Hill. Booker's appearance came at a contentious time; last week, the progressive advocacy group MoveOn called on 2020 candidates to skip the conference, and at least five of the Democrats declined to attend.

Booker's remarks, some of which were first reported by the Jerusalem Post, did not appear on a schedule of on-the-record events for journalists covering the conference. The Intercept obtained a 35-minute audio recording of the session from a conference attendee and is publishing the recording in full here.
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Snakes in Suits

Europe's migrant crises: Accidental or predesigned?

Robert Kearney
News Compact
Mon, 18 Mar 2019 12:00 UTC
immigrants boat
© Irish Defence Forces / Flickr.com
For the past decade, the coast of Europe has been inundated with a practically ceaseless flow of migrants from the Mideast and Africa almost all under the guise of "refugees" fleeing from some war and chaos in their own lands. At first, most Europeans welcomed them with open arms, having been pressed by their governments and religious leaders to do so out of charity and compassion. As time passed though, it became more and more clear that the great bulk of those crossing over where not in fact refugees at all, but mere economic migrants falsely claiming asylum status, settling in ethnic ghettos of extrajudicial religious practices that are alien to the European spirit. Confronted by the increasingly dismal conditions which now plagued portions of their nations, many began to investigate further into not only what has caused the migrant influx but who benefits both directly and directly by it.

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

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Arrow Down

Ridiculous political theater: Self-declared Venezuelan 'interim president's' wife meets Miami leaders, receives key to county


NBC
Fri, 29 Mar 2019 20:49 UTC
Fabiana Rosales
Fabiana Rosales meets with Melania Trump
The wife of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido met Miami city leaders on Friday part of a multi-city tour to drum up support for her husband and opposition government aiming to oust dictator Nicolas Maduro.

"I have always asked God to protect the people of Venezuela, to give us the strength to go on," Fabiana Rosales said in Spanish. "Today, Venezuela can be a great example for the world, and I know that the results of Venezuela, which we will see very soon, will be an example for the nations of the world never go through what Venezuela is going through today."

Rosales received the key to Miami-Dade county presented by Mayor Carlos Gimenez.

"Let me say as mayor of Miami-Dade County, I'm very familiar with the plight of the Venezuelan people," said Gimenez, explaining how his Cuban roots exposed him to the more negative aspects of socialism, "We stand by the people of Venezuela."


Comment: Then why support a woman whose husband doesn't seem to have the support of said people? This is a pretty pathetic display of political grandstanding. And it will only rally the Venezuelan people behind Maduro.


Rosales recently visited Melania Trump and spoke of her meeting with the United States' first lady, "I am sure that the First Lady admires the Venezuelan women for their bravery."

Comment: See also:

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Info

Venezuela and the half-truths of Noam Chomsky

Clifton Ross
Quillette
Mon, 25 Mar 2019 20:16 UTC
Noam Chomsky
As a young socialist, The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism by Noam Chomsky and his late collaborator Edward S. Herman helped to convert me to the worldview of the anti-Imperialist Left. I remained a member of this political tendency, for whom Chomsky has become an unrivaled intellectual hero, for most of my adult life. That is, until I was confronted by the gap between its doctrines and an unfolding reality I really knew something about.

I continue to respect some of Chomsky's writing on topics such as the devastation of East Timor by Indonesia. But the more one knows about a subject, the more apparent the selectivity of Chomsky's analysis becomes. When Chomsky argued that the 9/11 atrocities were morally equivalent to President Clinton's rocket strike on the Al Shifa medicine factory in Sudan (and that "we" should therefore hesitate before judging "them"), his erstwhile admirer Christopher Hitchens observed that, "Noam Chomsky does not rise much above the level of half-truth." This, Hitchens went on to complain, had "lately become his hallmarks."

In retrospect, a writer as intelligent as Hitchens might have noticed this habit earlier. In Chomsky's writing on Cambodia (which Hitchens defended), the Balkans, and various other conflicts, complexity was reliably collapsed into a simplistic indictment of the West in general, and America in particular (irrespective of the sitting president's political affiliation). Simplicity can be seductive, especially when it encourages moral outrage, and it wasn't until I saw Chomsky's half-truths deployed in defense of the Bolivarian regime that I began to question Chomsky's honesty and interest in objectivity.

Comment: Black-and-white thinking is a big trap for anti-Imperialist thinkers. Just because you oppose American intervention, that does not mean one should necessarily support those on the receiving end. It's entirely possible to reject Chavez's and Maduro's policies as perhaps well-intentioned but incompetent, and to reject the heavy-handed arrogance of American intervention. The anti-imperialists at least get the latter correct, and you have to look no further than Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine to get an idea of just how destructive and incompetent the U.S. and their allies are when it comes to "democracy promotion". Venezuela needs a change, but it doesn't need the U.S. making things worse either.

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Alarm Clock

SOTT Focus: Facebook Teams up With Mainstream Media to Directly Censor News Websites

Joe Quinn
Sott.net
Sun, 31 Mar 2019 23:50 UTC
Le Monde Paris
Several days ago I received a Facebook notification that content shared on the French Sott.net website Facebook page (Les Signes des Temps) had been "rated false by an independent fact-checker."

Clicking on the notification produced this pop-up window...

Facebook false rated content
...where I was informed that fr.sott.net shared content that had been reviewed by someone called 'Les Décodeurs du Monde' and that they found it to be "false". Included was a link to the offending article on the fr.sott.net FB page, a link to and "additional reporting" page at 'Les Décodeurs du Monde', and text telling me that:
"To fight false news, Facebook reduces the distribution of misleading content while also showing additional reporting on the same topic.

Pages and websites that repeatedly publish or share misleading content will see their overall distribution reduced, their ability to monetize and advertise removed and their ability to register as a news page removed.

Deleting the misleading content won't affect these outcomes."
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Snakes in Suits

Mueller inquiry offers three lessons for the Left

Jonathan Cook
CounterPunch
Mon, 25 Mar 2019 00:00 UTC
Mueller
© Christopher Morris/VII/ReduxSC Robert Mueller
Here are three important lessons for the progressive left to consider now that it is clear the inquiry by special counsel Robert Mueller into Russiagate is never going to uncover collusion between Donald Trump's camp and the Kremlin in the 2016 presidential election.

Painting the pig's face

1. The left never had a dog in this race. This was always an in-house squabble between different wings of the establishment. Late-stage capitalism is in terminal crisis, and the biggest problem facing our corporate elites is how to emerge from this crisis with their power intact. One wing wants to make sure the pig's face remains painted, the other is happy simply getting its snout deeper into the trough while the food lasts.

Russiagate was never about substance, it was about who gets to image-manage the decline of a turbo-charged, self-harming neoliberal capitalism.

The leaders of the Democratic party are less terrified of Trump and what he represents than they are of us and what we might do if we understood how they have rigged the political and economic system to their permanent advantage.

It may look like Russiagate was a failure, but it was actually a success. It deflected the left's attention from endemic corruption within the leadership of the Democratic party, which supposedly represents the left. It rechannelled the left's political energies instead towards the convenient bogeymen targets of Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Comment: Mueller's charge was to investigate alleged Russian government interference in the 2016 election and any potential Trump campaign 'collusion' with said interference and prosecute any federal crimes. Was the outcome a success or a failure? For the president, the investigation succeeded in vindicating him against the accusations and innuendo that crippled his administration and tarnished its effectiveness. For the Left, it failed to justify partisan attempts to delegitimize the election and unseat a duly elected president. Unless you were hoping for collusion, that sounds like a success.

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Airplane

Reasons to believe Vasily Prozorov's testimony about Ukraine's role in the downing of MH-17

Whitney Webb
MintPress News
Wed, 27 Mar 2019 00:00 UTC
Malaysia Flight 17 crash
© Dmitry Lovetsky/APPeople inspect the crash site of passenger plane Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 near the village of Grabovo, Ukraine.
A former top official in Ukraine's Security Service (SBU), who recently fled the country, has given explosive testimony regarding the involvement of the Ukrainian government in the 2014 downing of the MH-17 passenger plane. The incident, which killed all 283 passengers and 15 flight crew members on board, had been blamed on Russia by Ukraine's government, the United States and much of Western media.

In addition, the former official, Vasily Prozorov, told a group of international reporters that Ukraine's controversial Azov Battalion, known for its Neo-Nazi ideology and symbolism, ran and maintained secret prisons in contested areas of Eastern Ukraine where there is fighting between pro-government forces and pro-Russian separatists. Prozorov, who has sought asylum in Russia, also accused the United States and the United Kingdom of training an SBU division that returned to Ukraine to conduct terrorist attacks in the Donbass region, which has been the site of a civil war since the overthrow of Ukraine's government in 2014 in a U.S.-backed coup.

Prozorov's identity was kept secret until the press conference began, in breaking with standard protocol. Prozorov then introduced himself, stating that he had been employed by the SBU from 1999 to 2018, but - after the U.S.-backed coup in 2014 - had contacted Russian intelligence and began working undercover in the central office of the SBU. He does not describe himself as a defector, as he stated that his allegiance remains with the Ukrainian people while the allegiance of those who came to power with U.S. assistance in 2014 has long been suspect.

Comment: Prozorov's full conference can be watched here (in Russian). A summary with English subtitles can be watched here.

See also:

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Airplane

As US influence ebbs in Iraq, Iran's flows

Ulson Gunnar
New Eastern Outlook
Sun, 31 Mar 2019 00:00 UTC
Trump/Melania Iraq
© UnknownChristmas visit by President Trump and First Lady to visit US troops in Iraq.
In the dead of Christmas night last year, to evade possibly being shot down, US President Donald Trump made a surprise, whirlwind visit to US troops in Iraq.

He visited Al Asad Air Base about 100 miles west of Baghdad in Al Anbar province, or about halfway between Baghdad and the Syrian border where US forces are also operating. Between Al Asad and Baghdad are the notorious cities of Ramadi and Fallujah, hotbeds of resistance after the 2003 US invasion, and since then, hotbeds of extremism fueling the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq.

The base is home to about 5,000 US service members.

As in Syria, America's presence in Iraq seems to be clinging to areas where extremism and separatism are greatest. In many instances, it is the US openly and deliberately encouraging both, especially in Kurdish territory stretching over both nations, but also in areas dominated by Sunni Muslims where extremist fronts like Al Qaeda and IS believe they can find support.

Comment: See also:

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