Puppet MastersS


Bad Guys

NewsGuard decides Mail Online is 'trustworthy' after executive asks nicely


RT
Sat, 02 Feb 2019 11:38 UTC
Newsguard Daily Mail
NewsGuard, a US software startup which pledges to rate the trustworthiness of news websites has backtracked and decided that Mail Online, home of the infamous sidebar of shame, is trustworthy after all.

It's being reported that NewsGuard made the change not after further exhaustive examination of Mail Online's clickbait style content but because an executive from the online news site asked them to.

Bosses at the Mail were apparently outraged at being given a red label warning readers that "this website generally fails to maintain basic standards of accuracy and accountability." A NewsGuard editor's note said that a senior Daily Mail executive wrote them "a long, point by point letter summarising the complaints and the views that he expressed in the discussions we had with him."

Comment: Also see:

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Propaganda

Fake News: NORAD busts Newsweek's claim that 'nuke-capable Russia bombers' were in US airspace

Bryan MacDonald
RT
Sat, 02 Feb 2019 11:38 UTC
Tu-160 long-range bomber
© Sputnik / Maksim TumanovA Tu-160 long-range bomber plane.
The race to the bottom in American media seems to be speeding up. A week after Robert Mueller felt obliged to rebuke Buzzfeed for an incorrect story, the US and Canadian militaries have had to call out more false reportage.

If there were an award for the news outlet making the "fakest" fake news, the rebooted 'Newsweek' would be leading contender. At least if its coverage of Russia is any guide.

In the past few years, the imposters who've inherited the name of the once venerable magazine have delivered some real gems. Two that immediately spring to mind are a ridiculous 2015 assertion that Eastern Ukrainian rebels were building a dirty bomb and 2017's batsh*t crazy declaration that Vladimir Putin is preparing for World War Three.
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Arrow Up

What the Venezuelan constitution says about changing the President

Eric Zuesse
Strategic Culture
Sun, 03 Mar 2019 12:00 UTC
venezuela flag
Venezuela's Constitution simply does not permit what US President Trump is demanding, which is overthrowing and replacing the elected Venezuelan President by the second-in-line-of succession. What Trump demands is comparable in Venezuela to, in America, removing Trump and skipping over the Vice President and appointing Nancy Pelosi as America's President, and it also violates the Venezuelan Constitution's requirement that the Supreme Judicial Tribunal must first approve before there can be ANY change of the President without an election by the voters.

Here are the relevant Constitutional provisions:

Comment: See also: Also check out SOTT radio's: NewsReal: US Regime Change Operation in Venezuela - This Time It's Legit?

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Snakes in Suits

Shameless millionaire Macron says he'd be a Yellow Vest too, if it got him a raise


RT
Fri, 01 Feb 2019 09:10 UTC
yellow vest
© REUTERS/Stephane MaheProtesters wearing yellow vest hold a banner that reads: "Let's box Macron"
Protesters in France finally have the sympathies of multi-millionaire Emmanuel Macron. The leader nicknamed "President of the Rich" says he could be a Yellow Vest too, if it means getting paid more.

On Thursday, Macron, a man who reportedly earned millions as an investment banker and has recently been making televised statements to the poorest citizens from rooms dripping with gold, tried a different tactic to align himself with the French grassroots movement demanding his resignation.

In an interview with several French media (BFM TV, Paris Match, Le Figaro) he claimed:

Comment: It should scare him because Macron represents everything wrong with France. See also: And check out SOTT radio's:

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Star of David

In the 'largest land grab since 1948' Israel will expel 36,000 Palestinians from Negev

Whitney Webb
Mint Press News
Sat, 02 Feb 2019 11:38 UTC
Israel home demolition land grab Palestine
© Tsafrir Abayov | APA Bedouin boy carries timber after demolished his home in the village of El Araqib near the southern Israeli city of Beersheba in 2010.
According to an Israeli media report, the Israeli government has completed work on a massive, far-reaching plan that would expel an estimated 36,000 Palestinians from "unrecognized" villages in the Negev Desert. If the plan is approved by the Knesset, Israel's legislative body, its implementation could begin as soon as this year and would take four years to complete. News of the plan was first published by Israel Hayom - Israel's largest Hebrew-language newspaper, funded by Sheldon Adelson, the top donor to both U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The plan - compiled by Uri Ariel, Israel's Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, and his staff - features the seizure of an estimated 260,00 dunams (64,247 acres) from Palestine's Bedouins. The size of the territory in question and the high number of Palestinians set to be affected has led some to call the plan the largest "land grab" of Palestinian-inhabited land since 1948, when the state of Israel was founded.

Israel Hayom's report stated that, per the new plan, the Palestinian villages would be demolished and the ruins of their homes would then become the sites of "national projects," infrastructure projects, and "security" installations after the forcible "transfer" of the land's current inhabitants to other "state-approved" settlements such as Tel Sheva, Abu Talul and Umm Batin. The report noted that a major motivation behind the plan's creation was the transfer of an arms-industry factory from another part of Israel to the Negev, as well as the expansion of the "Trans-Israel Highway" system.
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No Entry

Don't be a pro bono CIA propagandist and pretend to oppose interventionism

Caitlin Johnstone
Medium
Sat, 02 Feb 2019 07:34 UTC
woman covering mouth
In a recent interview with The Corbett Report, the Ron Paul Institute's Daniel McAdams spoke disdainfully of those ostensibly anti-interventionist libertarians who picked this moment of all times to loudly and aggressively condemn Venezuela's president Maduro, just as the US power establishment is ramping up its campaign to topple the Venezuelan government.

"All of a sudden now there are millions of Venezuela experts in America, and many of them could not point Venezuela out on a map five days ago," McAdams said. "And everyone has to have this disclaimer, 'Well, I know it's probably worse than North Korea, but the US government shouldn't get involved.' It's cowardice, because once the war starts, they can say 'Hey I never called for US intervention!' No, but you're a conveyor belt for propaganda. You're a conveyor belt to get the machine ginned up for war. And so you've got to stand up and take responsibility."


McAdams has for years consistently operated in the hub of one of America's most forceful and effective branches of opposition to US interventionism, and he is absolutely correct here. On both sides of America's political divide, the primary objections you will see to this administration's campaign to delegitimize and topple the Venezuelan government are prefaced with a strong condemnation of Maduro followed by some feeble equivocations voicing vague objections to Trump's actions, if that.

Comment: See also:

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Arrow Down

AP & Snopes stop 'fact-checking' for Facebook as NewsGuard's blacklist model pushes ahead


RT
Sat, 02 Feb 2019 07:50 UTC
fake news poster
© Global Look / Joel Goodman
Two of Facebook's US "fact-checkers" tasked with keeping fake news from proliferating have chosen to quit doing the job for the social media giant while issuing cryptic statements concerning their continuing relationship.

Snopes and the Associated Press have both ended their fact-checking partnerships with Facebook, releasing carefully-worded statements that leave open the possibility of future collaboration while making it clear the checking of facts will fall to whoever is left - Politifact, FactCheck.org, AFP, and the Atlantic Council, which lurks in the background, keeping the platform safe for democracy.

Snopes, the rumor oracle that became famous for settling the truth of urban legends, issued a statement announcing it had "elected not to renew [its] partnership" with Facebook, citing the costs and "ramifications" of offering third-party fact-checking while stressing it hopes to "discuss other approaches to combating misinformation."

"Forgoing an economic opportunity is not a decision that we or any other journalistic enterprise can take lightly," Snopes admits. Like many in the mainstream media these days, the site is adorned with fundraising banners and claims to be cash-strapped. The company received $100,000 from Facebook for its fact-checking services last year, a sum founder David Mikkelson stressed it did not ask for. Regarding the split, Mikkelson told TechCrunch that the partnership "wasn't working well for us as an organization," citing a lack of data on the effectiveness of the fact-checking program.

Comment: See also:

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Gingerbread

Democrats start eating their own in preparation of the 2020 Presidential campaign

Tom Luongo
Gold, Goats 'N Guns
Sun, 27 Jan 2019 00:00 UTC
Hillary Putin
Ideological possession always ends in pogroms. When the leadership of the most powerful organization in the world is at stake nothing is off limits, especially for power-hungry Democrats.

This is why we're now seeing a concerted effort to smear Bernie Sanders just after he announced his Presidential campaign for 2020. The Democrats blame him for splitting the party in 2016 which allowed Trump to win.

This, of course, is nonsense. Trump took up Bernie's mantle of championing Hillary's 'deplorables' and repackaged it as MAGA. Simply good marketing. And since she didn't have a campaign and was seen as one of the architects of the policies which brought those people out for Bernie, handicapping the election was really easy.

The response was predictable. The American left lost its collective mind in November 2016.

Comment: Horrible, entertaining, saddening, hilarious; US politics are all these things and much more as a modicum of common sense attempts to prevail against ideological possession, the pathologically power hungry, extreme confusion - and a portion of the population that is ready to hang the collective political class of Washington DC.

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Hammer

Former IDF chief Benny Gantz and Israel's crazed drive to become a modern-day Sparta

Jonathan Cook
jonathan-cook.net
Sun, 27 Jan 2019 00:00 UTC
Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz
© Israeli Defense Forces via FlickrLt. Gen. Benny Gantz, center, with soldiers, 2012.
The former army chief may present a challenge to Benjamin Netanyahu, but his campaign's exultation of destruction and oppression is chilling.

With April's elections looming, Benjamin Netanyahu has good reason to fear Benny Gantz, his former army chief. Gantz has launched a new party, named Israeli Resilience, just as the net of corruption indictments is closing around the prime minister.

Already, at this early stage of campaigning, some 31 per cent of the Israeli public prefer Gantz to head the next government over Netanyahu, who is only months away from becoming the longest-serving leader in Israel's history.

Gantz is being feted as the new hope, a chance to change direction after a series of governments under Netanyahu's leadership have over the past decade shifted Israel ever further to the right.

Comment: Wonderful. So instead of a pathological Prime Minister who's driven to destroy Palestinians, subjugate its neighbors and is faced with a lot of corruption charges, Israel will just have a a pathological Prime Minister who's driven to destroy Palestinians, subjugate its neighbors - who's not facing corruption charges; a near guarantee of a chaotic future for Palestinians, Iran, Syria, Lebanon and Israel itself.

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Propaganda

Deadline for Venezuela, extension for Brexit: Jeremy Hunt's disingenuous concept of democracy


RT
Thu, 31 Jan 2019 00:00 UTC
Mike Pompeo, Jeremy Hunt
© REUTERS / Yuri GripasUS Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (R) shakes hands with Britain's Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt before their meeting at the State Department in Washington.
The UK may need 'some extra time' on Brexit while Venezuela must arrange new elections within eight days, under threat of internationally enacted regime change, according to the British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt.

"I think it is true that if we ended up approving a deal in the days before March 29 then we might need some extra time to pass critical legislation," Hunt told the BBC on Thursday. He was referring to the intractable "Irish backstop" issue that has dogged Brexit negotiations for months, as the ruling Conservative party attempts to avoid creating a permanent customs union with the EU through an open border with the Republic of Ireland.

Comment: EU parliament has recognized Guaido as Venezuelan interim president

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