Puppet MastersS


Bug

US military arrive in Donbass and assess: Ukraine is 'too corrupt' to wage war

Joaquin Flores
Fort Russ News
Tue, 26 Feb 2019 00:00 UTC
Ukrainian soldiers
U.S soldiers have reportedly just arrived in the Donbass, amidst an increase in tensions along the line of demarcation, according to numerous reports. Commenting on this, "NATO countries intend to turn Ukraine into a platform for sabotage warfare", said Otaman of the Faithful Cossacks International Public Organization Alexei Selivanov.

According to him, American intelligence officers arrived in the area of ​​the operation of the combined forces in the Donbass to audit and analyze the weapons brought from the United States. Such measures have been followed because of corruption among the Ukrainian military, explained Selivanov.

"As our sources in the Ukrainian military department tell us, the Americans were not satisfied with what they saw, and the officers of the Ukrainian Armed Forces's accompanying officers from the Center for Peacekeeping and Implementation of International Treaties informed about it," he told REN TV .

Comment: Ukraine is an utter mess - too corrupt and disorganized to even get its act together enough to be the proxy force against Russia that the US would have them be! See also:

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Megaphone

Venezuelan FM: Photos show 'aid trucks' carrying nails and wire for barricades


RT
Wed, 27 Feb 2019 16:23 UTC
Venezuela’s Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza
© RTVenezuela’s Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza shows images at the UNSC that purport to depict some of the cargo carried by the 'aid trucks'
Addressing the UN Security Council, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza said trucks supposedly carrying humanitarian supplies to Venezuela were also loaded with nails and wire, showing photos of seized cargo.

The opposition-led and US-backed operation to drive trucks with humanitarian aid over the Colombia-Venezuela border led to violent scuffles which saw many police officers injured and several trucks set on fire.

Denouncing the botched delivery as a "well-orchestrated operation to violate the territory of Venezuela," Arreaza presented what he called evidence of the US-led effort being a Trojan horse aimed at inciting a coup.

"And let me tell you, when the trucks were inspected, it turned out that there was not just food and medicine in the trucks, but there was equipment for barricades. There were nails, wire and so on and so forth. And this is what is used by the opposition in Venezuela," Arreaza said, showing the photos of what looked like piles of heavy wire lying on the ground.
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Die

Best of the Web: The establishment's last roll of the dice: What will become of Europe?

Alistair Crooke
Strategic Culture
Fri, 15 Feb 2019 12:00 UTC
EU flag
Francis Fukuyama in his End of History essay, Gavin Jacobson writes in the TLS, "is ordinarily read as the apologia for rampant capitalism and Anglo-American interventions in the Middle East. Yet little 'Redemption' is to be found in his liberal end-state. Indeed, the [future, Fukuyama wrote], risked becoming a "life of masterless slavery", a world of civic putrefaction and cultural torpor, exfoliated of all contingency and complication. "The last men" would be reduced to Homo Economicus, guided solely by the rituals of consumption, and shorn of the animating virtues and heroic drives that propelled history forward."

Fukuyama warned that people would either accept this state of affairs, or, more likely, revolt against the tedium of their own existence.

Effectively since the Great Wars, but more particularly, "since the financial crash of 2008, across Europe and in the United States, there has been (to borrow a phrase from Frank Kermode) a "sense of an ending". Liberal orthodoxies have fallen into radical doubt. Populist movements are arrayed against the political and economic order that has stood in place for the past fifty years. Electorates have leaped into unknown futures", Jacobson concludes - linking this to Fukuyama's prediction that Homo Economicus' ennui ultimately would lead them to revolt.

Well, orthodoxies have indeed fallen into doubt - and, for good reason: The prevailing liberal construct, with its grand theory about bringing peace and economic prosperity to the world by pulling down borders and uniting mankind into a new universal order, is in serious disarray. It has lost its credibility.

Comment: In light of the above, the demented pantomime that is Brexit begins to make much more sense: And check out SOTT radio's:

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Bad Guys

Will the future bring the US a socialist president?

Robert W. Merry
The American Conservative
Tue, 26 Feb 2019 20:54 UTC
Bernie Sanders
© Gage Skidmore/Flickr
Lately we have seen numerous conservative commentators posit the thesis that the Democrats are disqualifying themselves from a 2020 presidential victory by lurching too far left on key economic and social issues. The idea is that the American people simply aren't prepared to follow the Democrats into the leftist territory that seems to be their nesting place these days. Ergo, the party is in the process of ceding the White House to the incumbent Republicans, meaning a likely Trump reelection triumph.

This may be comforting to conservatives, but it is based on faulty political analysis. There is a strong prospect that 2020 will see the emergence of a new leftist president who represents democratic socialism of the European style - a brand of politics eschewed by America since at least the end of World War II.

This perception is based on four broad political axioms worth exploring as the 2020 presidential spectacle gets under way.

Comment: "History may not repeat, but it does rhyme"? Though the below was written in the era of GW Bush, the same possibilities lurk. The massive societal dislocation that would be caused by attempting to impose a socialist structure, via the 'Green New Deal' or some other mechanism on the US would set the stage for the emergence of a "strong man" that would make Trump look positively refined.

A Tale of Two Cities: Weimar and Washington
The Weimar Republic, which replaced rule by the German emperor in the aftermath of World War I, was a liberal democracy in the 19th-century sense, which means it had a constitution that guaranteed individual and group rights, multi-party systems, and free elections at regular intervals. It took its name from the city of Weimar, where the constitution was drawn up in a national assembly convened in 1919. From the start, Weimar was plagued by a failure to create a sustainable political culture because of the high level of polarization and violence instigated by both the major and fringe parties, even though the relatively moderate Social Democrats were normally dominant.

[...]

Hitler benefited from the political paralysis of Weimar, which had forced his Reich chancellor predecessors to rule by presidential decree to bypass the logjam in parliament, but he could not actually legislate in that fashion and did not have a free ride. There was considerable resistance to his policies. All of that changed, however, when the seat of parliament in Berlin, the Reichstag, was burned down on Feb. 27, 1933. It was an act of terrorism that shocked the nation, and it was eventually attributed to an addled Dutch communist named Marinus van der Lubbe, though it was almost certainly carried out by the Nazis themselves. Hitler convinced President Hindenburg to sign a "Reichstag Fire Decree" on the following day, canceling the constitutional guarantees of habeas corpus and freedom of the press, the freedom to organize and assemble, and the privacy of communications. It authorized police search and seizure without any judicial warrant. It was no coincidence that the fire took place two weeks before parliamentary elections in which the Nazis, who beat and otherwise intimidated opponents and "monitored" the polling stations, won nearly 44% of the votes. The opposition, including the technically illegal communists, took 42% and Hitler was denied his majority, but he arrested socialist opponents, barred the communists, and was eventually able to form a government with his parliamentary allies.


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Cell Phone

Mummified gerontocrat Sen. Feinstein says she didn't know about mobile phones or the internet

Caitlin Johnstone
caitlinjohnstone.com
Wed, 27 Feb 2019 00:01 UTC
feinstein and children
During a brief exchange with Senator Dianne Feinstein about a controversial viral video in which she was seen telling off a bunch of small children for making demands about climate change legislation, journalist Ryan Grim reports that the senior US lawmaker told him something very peculiar.

"Feinstein told me she was surprised she went viral, because: 'You know what somebody said to me? - I didn't see any of this - they said anybody with a cell phone in their hand can get you on international news in two minutes. I never knew that," Grim tweeted, adding, "She was chair of the Intelligence Committee, and had just come from a hearing."

If Feinstein is telling the truth about this, it's an admission from one of the most powerful politicians in the most powerful government on earth that she literally just found out how mobile phones, social media and the internet work. If she's lying about this, one of the most powerful politicians in the most powerful government on earth just used an "I'm too old and befuddled to understand how these newfangled dongle widgets work" excuse for her behavior. Either way, this doesn't say good things about the sort of person who is at the steering wheel of America's legislative branch today.
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Bad Guys

US wants to drag China into India-Pakistan row


RT
Wed, 27 Feb 2019 11:07 UTC
USA vs China
However, it has neglected the fact that the trade war it wages with the world could backfire.
In order to divert Beijing's attention from the Pacific, Washington would like China entangled in the Indo-Pakistani confrontation, one analyst tells RT. The row between bitter rivals escalated after Indian jets bombed Pakistan.

"The US is interested to have China get involved in a maximum number of conflicts," Aleksey Kupriyanov, a researcher at the Moscow-based Institute of World Economy and International Relations, told RT.

"It will divert Beijing from building up its forces in the Pacific Ocean. Any conflict would slow down Chinese economic growth, which would mean less danger for the US' hegemony in the Pacific."
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Bad Guys

Revolving door of corruption: Nikki Haley's next step could be on board of Boeing


RT
Wed, 27 Feb 2019 11:08 UTC
Nikki Haley
© Reuters / Brendan McDermid
Nikki Haley's next step after UN Ambassador could be with Boeing, after the aerospace and defense giant announced on Tuesday that it has nominated her to join its board of directors.

"Boeing will benefit greatly from her broad perspectives and combined diplomatic, government and business experience to help achieve our aspiration to be the best in aerospace and a global industrial champion," it said in a statement. Commenting on the move, Haley described it as "an honor."

The news was met with amusement and pointed remarks online, with Twitter commenters calling the move "swampy" and saying it was an example of politics and corporations being closely tied, and of a broken political system. Boeing has close ties with the US government, with its CEO Dennis Muilenburg serving on the Export Council, while acting US Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan is a former senior Boeing executive of more than three decades, Reuters reports.
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Gear

U.S. Envoy, Taliban Co-Founder meet in Qatar for peace talks on Afghanistan


RFE/RL
Mon, 25 Feb 2019 00:00 UTC
Zalmay Khalilzad
© Jacquelyn Martin(AP)U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad
U.S. special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad met with one of the Afghan Taliban's co-founders in Qatar, in what was said to be the highest-level engagement between the two sides as part of Afghanistan's peace process.

"Just finished a working lunch with Mullah [Abdul Ghani Baradar] and his team. First time we''ve met. Now moving on to talks" aimed at finding a negotiated solution to Afghanistan's 17-year war, Khalilzad tweeted on February 25.

Baradar was released in October after spending eight years in Pakistani custody, but until now has remained in Pakistan and has not made any public appearances.

Comment: See also:

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Sherlock

Russia slides towards internal political crisis


Russia Insider
Tue, 26 Feb 2019 12:00 UTC
Russia internal crisis
Screenshot of video posted below
This is a critical look at the situation in Russia. The video is based on an article of one of our readers and additional data.

The Russia of 2019 is in a complicated economic and even political situation. Smoldering conflicts near its borders amid continued pressure from the US and NATO affect the situation in the country negatively. This is manifested in society and in national politics. The approval rating of the Russian government and personally of President Vladimir Putin has been decreasing.

According to VCIOM, a state pollster, in January 2019, Putin's confidence rating was only 32.8%. This is 24% less than in January 2018 when it was 57.2%. At the same time, the confidence rating of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was 7.8%. The approval rating of his cabinet is 37.7% while the disapproval rating is 38.7%. Opposition sources show data, which is far worse for the current Russian leadership.

This tendency is not linked to the foreign policy course of the Kremlin. Rather, it's the result of the recent series of liberal-minded economic reforms, which look similar to the approaches exercised by the Russian government in the mid-1990s. The decision to increase Value Added Tax amid the slowing Russian economy, especially in the industrial sector, and a very unpopular pension reform increasing the retirement age were both factors contributing to the further growth of discontent in the population.

Comment: The grass is always greener on the other side... Considering all that the Russian administration has had to contend with, it's a credit to some of those in power that Russia is doing as well as it is. Although, obviously, as with anywhere, there is always work to be done: And check out SOTT radio's:

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Attention

Twitter backtracks on 'Russian bots' claims, media ignores updated info


RT
Wed, 27 Feb 2019 09:50 UTC
treasure trolls
© Global Look Press / dpa/ Johannes Schmitt-Tegge
Twitter quietly revised its public database of 'Russian bot' accounts earlier this month, removing 228 accounts it previously said were "connected to Russia"- but the admission has gone almost completely unnoticed by the media.

Bloomberg reported on the "burst of activity" from the bot accounts and claimed that Russia's "social-media trolling operation" was "stepping up its Twitter presence to new heights."

Fast-forward to 2019 and Twitter has removed 228 of these accounts from the database, saying they had "initially misidentified" them as being linked to Russia, but nobody in the media seems to have noticed.

In fact, Bloomberg is the only major US outlet which bothered to correct the story to reflect reality, admitting that Twitter's changes to the dataset "invalidate central portions" of its original report and that there was "no surge" in this so-called Russian bot activity at the time in question. Oops!


Comment: See also:

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