Puppet MastersS


Explosion

US and UK planning terrorist attacks on Russian bases in Syria


RT
Sat, 28 Dec 2024 06:32 UTC
warplanes
© Russian Defense Ministry/SputnikRussian fighter jets
Washington and London aim to use Islamic State fighters to carry out the assaults, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has warned.

The US and UK are planning terrorist attacks on Russian bases in Syria in order to prevent the situation in the country from stabilizing, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has said.

Since the fall of Syrian President Bashar Assad's government earlier this month, Washington and London have set a goal of "maintaining chaos in the Middle East" in order to achieve a lasting dominance over the region, the agency said in a statement on Saturday.

However, Russia's military presence on the Mediterranean coast of Syria has been hampering their plans. The statement stressed:
"In order to remove this 'obstacle,' British intelligence services are developing plans to organize a series of terrorist attacks on Russian military facilities in Syria.

"According to available information, representatives of the British intelligence service MI6 and the America's CIA recently tasked Syria-based IS commanders under their control with carrying out a series of attacks on Russian military bases. To do out this dirty work, the terrorists received attack UAVs.

"The role of the perpetrators of those assaults will be assigned to the fighters of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), who were released from prisons after the regime change in the country."

Comment: The US and UK are not fooling anyone, except perhaps themselves.

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Banana

Germany defenseless against Oreshnik missile - Bild


RT
Sat, 28 Dec 2024 10:24 UTC
German air defense system
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Defense Minister Boris Pistorius pose in front of a German-made IRIS T SLM air defense system on September 4, 2024, in Todendorf, Germany.

Germany's air defenses are not capable of effectively shielding the country from Russia's new hypersonic Oreshnik missile, Bild has reported, citing an internal analysis prepared by the Foreign Ministry.

The intermediate-range ballistic rocket, which can carry multiple types of warhead, including nuclear ones, was first used on November 21, when it struck Ukraine's Yuzhmash military industrial facility in the city of Dnepr. Commenting on the attack, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed the Oreshnik travels at ten times the speed of sound and cannot be intercepted by any existing air defenses.

In its article on Friday, Bild reported that Germany's Foreign Ministry had commissioned an internal study of Berlin and Kiev's air defense capabilities in the face of a potential ballistic missile threat. In a move seemingly encroaching on Defense Ministry turf, the diplomats drew on the expertise of a liaison officer and several air defense specialists within the military.

Comment: Germans current leaders are not acting in the interest of their people. Antagonizing Russia and arming Ukraine has not helped moving towards a peaceful settlement and Russia will not forget that Germany again waged war against it.

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Fire

Here's how the US burned millions 'fighting propaganda'

Rachel Marsden
RT
Thu, 26 Dec 2024 20:09 UTC
Meeting
© Celal Gunes/Anadolu Agency/Getty ImagesMeeting in Progress
Fed to the tune of $61 million a year, the Global Engagement Center was a failed attempt at narrative control.

If the nosy grandma peering out the window were a government entity, it would be the Global Engagement Center. The priciest hall monitor in history has just been given a pink slip.

The Global Engagement Center, created by then President Barack Obama's executive order in 2016, was supposed to help fight terrorist messaging. But the neocon majority in Congress successfully pushed for it to become more involved in fighting "Russian election interference" - or, more like flooding voters' brains with the idea of it.

Its speech and narrative policing under the guise of combating fake news ultimately became so intolerable that its spending was just cut from the latest budget bill and its operations have now been shut down.

The center's demise also may or may not have had something to do with the fact that it was exceptionally lazy and stupid, even as far as government initiatives go. American taxpayers have been paying $61 million a year for this entity to crank out a grand total of about eight reports over as many years. Yep, that's about $61 million per report, one of which was called "Gendered Disinformation."
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Arrow Up

Ex-NATO boss made head of Bilderberg Group


RT
Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:41 UTC
Stoltenberg
© Omar Havana/Getty ImagesFormer NATO Sec. Gen. Jens Stoltenberg
Jens Stoltenberg has been appointed as a co-chairman, according to the organization's website.

Former NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who was at the helm the bloc for the past decade, has officially joined the secretive Bilderberg Group as co-chairman of the annual closed-door meetings involving the world's most powerful and wealthy individuals.

The elite club was founded in 1954, officially to improve dialogue between Europe and the US. Every year, some 130 political leaders and experts from industry, finance, intelligence, labor, academia and the media are invited to the gathering.

The forums are generally not announced in advance and are held beneath a veil of secrecy, with attendees forbidden from disclosing any information derived from discussions. This has sparked a number of conspiracy theories as to the nature of the group's activities and its influence on global events.

According to an update on the group's website, Stoltenberg, who attended his first Bilderberg summit in 2002, has now been made the head of the group's "steering committee," which decides the agenda and who gets to participate.

Comment: See also: Ex-NATO boss lands new job (Munich Security Conference)

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Dollars

Dollar share of global currency reserves at 29-year low — IMF


RT
Fri, 27 Dec 2024 08:04 UTC
Sweeping
© D-Keine/Getty ImagesThe money sweep
Countries have stepped up efforts to move away from the greenback, data shows.

The share of the US dollar in global foreign exchange reserves has dropped to its lowest in nearly 30 years, according to the latest data published by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The statistics tracked by the Washington-based institution show that the greenback's share in official reserves dropped by 0.85% between July and September this year, and now stands at 57.4% - its lowest level since 1995. The IMF does not provide statistics for earlier years.

The IMF flagged the trend in June, when it noted in an official blog that the dollar's decline was occurring amid diversification efforts by countries around the world. For instance, while data shows that the greenback's share has been steadily dropping for the past three quarters, the share of "nontraditional" currencies has been gaining ground.
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Warning

Musk issues US bankruptcy warning


RT
Fri, 27 Dec 2024 17:29 UTC
Musk
© Anna Moneymaker/Getty ImagesElon Musk • Capitol Hill
The country must fix its rising national debt problem, the billionaire has said.

The US government will "go de facto bankrupt" unless it reins in its rising debt, Elon Musk has warned. The billionaire is set to co-lead a new department tasked with curbing spending under President-elect Donald Trump.

Musk was reacting to a post by Kalshi, a financial service that allows users to bet on future events and which makes a prediction on how likely these events are to happen. It hailed the fact that the market estimated at 36% the chance of annual federal spending being cut by at least $250 billion under Trump. Kalshi flagged the future Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which Musk is set to co-chair with fellow billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy, as the entity that would help slash expenditure.

The US gross federal debt surpassed the $36 trillion benchmark in November, a development that Musk called "terrifying" at the time.

Comment: Financial solvency should be the bedrock of a nation. The US is in quicksand.

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Arrow Down

A fishy story of cable sabotage in the Baltic Sea


Strategic Culture Foundation
Fri, 27 Dec 2024 20:26 UTC
Baltic Sea Cables Cut
© Strategic Culture Foundation
This week saw yet another incident of alleged submarine cable sabotage in the Baltic Sea. A power line running along the seabed from Finland to Estonia was reportedly disrupted. Western news media have fingered a tanker carrying Russian crude oil as being responsible, with the implication that the damage was caused deliberately.

In recent weeks, there have been other incidents of alleged sabotage of telecommunication cables under the Baltic Sea. On November 17, a data link between Finland and Lithuania was damaged. The next day, on November 18, another internet line lying on the seabed from Finland to Germany was reportedly cut. Both cables were said to have been wrecked by external force.

Germany's defense minister Boris Pistorius and other Russophobic politicians have insinuated that the alleged sabotage is a form of "hybrid warfare" being waged by Russia and possibly with China's help in the case of the November incidents.

Moscow and Beijing have categorically denied any involvement in interfering with subsea infrastructure in the Baltic region. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the accusations against Russia of aggravated damage as "absurd" and, he noted, typically made without any verifiable evidence.

Conveniently, following the latest incident this week, NATO head Mark Rutte is assuring Finland, Sweden, and the Baltic states that the alliance is responding to their calls for more security by increasing the alliance's military forces for patrolling the sea lanes.

Any independent criminal investigator would easily find credible answers to the question of Cui Bono (Who Gains?).
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Vader

Best of the Web: Black Money, Black Flags: How USAID Paved the Way for Syria's Militant Takeover

Alexander Rubinstein
MintPress News
Thu, 26 Dec 2024 17:18 UTC
HTS syria al jolani USAID overthrow jihadists
© MintPress News
As the designated terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) establishes its proto-government in Idlib, notoriously corrupt NGOs are stepping in to fill the gaps in public services, with some even defecting to work alongside the group.

The United States, which spent two decades and $5.4 trillion overthrowing governments hostile to al-Qaeda, now finds itself in a paradoxical position. Modern al-Qaeda has carved out its own quasi-state in Syria, yet remains on the U.S. list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. To characterize this as a foreign policy misstep would be reductive; the U.S. has actively facilitated HTS's conquest of parts of Syria while maintaining its official terrorist designation.

For the past five years, HTS, an al-Qaeda offshoot, has sought to rehabilitate its image. Its leader, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani — a former high-ranking member of both ISIS and al-Qaeda — has led a calculated charm offensive, attempting to rebrand the group from one focused on violence and minority persecution to a more palatable local governance entity.
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Attention

Medvedev on the sinking of the Russian cargo ship

Dmitry Medvedev
medvedev_telegram
Fri, 27 Dec 2024 16:54 UTC
Ursa Major Cargo Ship
© news-pravda.comUrsa Major Cargo Ship.
More than 20 years ago, one of my American colleagues issued a curious phrase about the events in Iraq: «Punish France, ignore Germany, forgive Russia ».

Why did I remember that? But why: this linguistic triad is perfect for the situation that will develop (and it will ever work out for sure) in connection with the end of the hybrid war of the West against Russia. And then our country may well:

a) forgive those weak countries that succumbed to the pressure of the Anglo-Saxons and took at least passive part in the anti-Russian western thrash (mainly a number of countries in Asia and Latin America);

b) ignore USA. Everything is simple here: friendship with us in the next 100 years is not expected, but to fight with America on a false basis - direct conflict will obviously develop into a world nuclear war;

c) punish Europe. Here I will say in more detail, for the current Old World does not cause me any emotions, except for the deepest disgust. It was Europe, which turned into an evil crazy old woman, that became the main stronghold of Russophobia in the world. It is a lying Europe that is guilty of disrupting the Istanbul talks. It was brainless Europe with frenzy that unleashed a mediocre sanctions campaign, which brought its citizens tremendous losses. It was bloodthirsty Europe that fed all the most rabid demons of the war, ignoring the losses of the parties to the conflict.
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Briefcase

Matt Gaetz to sue House Ethics Committee to stop release of probe findings on sexual misconduct

Isabel Keane
Mew York Post
Mon, 23 Dec 2024 21:28 UTC
matt gaetz lawsuit ethics committee
© REUTERSGaetz speaks ahead of a visit by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump during the AmericaFest 2024 conference sponsored by conservative group Turning Point in Phoenix, Arizona, on Dec. 22, 2024.
Former Rep. Matt Gaetz filed a lawsuit Monday against the House Ethics Committee seeking an emergency temporary restraining order to try and stop the release of its damning investigation into his alleged sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, arguing its release would prompt "immediate and widespread" media coverage.

Gaetz filed the lawsuit after denying allegations published in a leaked draft of the report ahead of its official release in full.

He railed against the committee's intentions to release its report "after explicitly acknowledging it lacks jurisdiction over former members, its failure to follow constitutional notions of due process, and failure to adhere to its own procedural rules and precedent represents an unprecedented overreach that threatens fundamental constitutional rights and established procedural protections."

Comment: The scandal surrounding Gaetz is a wild tale, being pumped up by a massive amount of innuendo and outright lies. His chief accuser is in prison for just such lies. If the Ethics Committee actually had any real on Gaetz, he would have been charged and jailed a long time ago.

Gaetz' first interview on Tucker Carlson Tonight in 2021:


A thread on Florida's charming Mr. Greenberg, who set this dumpster fire in motion:


Read the consolidated thread here (see actual X thread for receipts). It's a page turner!

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