Puppet MastersS


Eye 2

Amazon is far more dangerous and powerful than people want to admit

amazon logo


The sneaky thing about Amazon's increased dominance in so many key aspects of our lives is that much of the perniciousness is hidden. No one's going to tell you about all the retailers who have gotten pressured or destroyed via its tactics while you're happily clicking "add to cart" and smiling about 2-day free shipping. In this sense, it can be best compared to the evils of factory farming. Most people just simply have no idea about the immense damage going on behind the scenes as they indulge in incredible convenience and what looks like a good deal.


- From my November 15, 2017 post: Amazon Poses a Serious Threat to Freedom and Free Markets

Today's post should be seen as an update to last year's article referenced above. In the months that have followed, I've been consistently frustrated by the lack of interest when it comes to the dangers presented by Amazon and its richest man in the world ($165 billion as of last count) CEO Jeff Bezos. The following Twitter exchange is a good example of what I mean:


Comment: See also:


Snakes in Suits

Obama threatens to cancel taxpayer-funded speech in Denmark if his contract is released to the public

obama
Representatives for Barack Obama have threatened to cancel the former president's upcoming paid speech at a Denmark university if details of his speaking contract are released to the public.

Obama will participate in a moderated question and answer session on Sept. 28 at the University of Southern Denmark before local business leaders, university students and local dignitaries, according to Business Kolding, the event's organizer.

But the event has already sparked criticism from citizens of Denmark's Kolding Municipality, which is providing 750,000 kroner, or $117,000, in taxpayer funds to support the behind-closed-doors event titled "A Conversation with President Barack Obama."

Kolding currently faces a deficit of 100 million kroner in its next year's budget. The town's mayor, Jørn Pedersen, justified using taxpayer dollars to fund Obama's invite-only talk, claiming the event is effectively a marketing opportunity for the town, according to Danish news outlet JydskeVestkysten.

Comment: The Clinton's have taught him well.


Light Saber

President Trump may declassify the 20 FISA docs Congress wants

Trump
© Getty Images
Trump has come under pressure by DOJ officials who do not want him to declassify the documents

President Trump is expected to declassify the redacted 20 pages of documents from the controversial Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant that have still not been made public, which allowed the FBI to spy on short-term campaign volunteer Carter Page, numerous sources told SaraACarter.com. This comes after nearly a year of stonewalling by the Department of Justice at the demand of lawmakers, who claim that the 20 redacted pages will reveal explosive information about the FBI's handling of the Trump-Russia investigation, according to sources.

However, President Trump, who has been under pressure from some DOJ officials not to release the classified documents, "could always change his mind and it's not a guarantee that it will happen, but the indications are that it more than likely will possibly be before the end of this week," said a U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the subject.

Question

Lebanon, on a tightrope, balances Saudi, Iranian and Western interests - a precarious position

Beirut skyline
© shutterstockExternal machinations converging within Beirut give it a form of power.
If Lebanon needs Syria more than Syria needs Lebanon, I suppose that Lebanon needs America more than America needs Lebanon. Either way, the country's neutrality still protects it from itself.

Facing possible invasion from both Britain and Germany in 1940 and determined to remain neutral, the Irish government in Dublin asked one of its senior ministers to draft a memorandum on how to stay out of the Second World War. "Neutrality is a form of limited warfare," was his eloquent but bleak response.

The Lebanese would agree. For seven years, they have been pleading and praying and parleying to stay out of the Syrian war next door, to ignore Israel's threats, Syria's sisterly embrace, America's warnings, Russia's entreaties and Iran's blandishments. I guess you have to be an especially gifted people to smile obligingly - ingratiatingly, simplistically, bravely, grovelingly, wearily - at all around you and get away with it.

"When Lebanon is without a government for a month, you know the Lebanese are to blame," a friend announced to me over coffee in Beirut this week. "When Lebanon is without a government for three months, you know foreigners are involved." Armies have clanked through Lebanon for thousands of years, of course, but its current suitors are arriving with almost daily frequency. The Lebanese are being embraced by the newly victorious Syria, threatened by Israel, warned by the Americans, cuddled by the Russians and vouchsafed eternal love by the Iranians who pay and arm the Lebanese Hezbollah militia. And all this with an $80bn national debt, 1.5 million Syrian refugees, and electricity cuts - every day, without exception - since 1975.

Comment: With many facets and many players precariously positioned, Lebanon's neutrality depends on a balancing act of political, societal and military needs, demands and complexities.


Newspaper

SOTT Focus: Explosive Jerusalem Post Report Confirming IDF Gave Weapons to Islamists in Syria Vanishes

idf terrorists rebels syria
© IDFThis is the image the Jerusalem Post published with the now-deleted article, along with this caption: "IDF gives urgent treatment to Syria refugees, June 30, 2018..." Refugee, or terrorist?
The IDF has confirmed that it provided weapons to Islamist rebels in Syria's Golan Heights, the Jerusalem Post reported. However, the article was removed without explanation hours after being published.

The report, 'IDF confirms: Israel provided light-weapons to Syrian rebels,' claimed that the Israeli military acknowledged for the first time that it had provided money, weapons and ammunition to militants operating near the border with Israel.

The article was removed shortly after being published, but a version of the article can still be read using Google cache. The IDF told RT that it would not comment on the story, and the Jerusalem Post has not responded to an inquiry asking why the article was pulled.


Comment: The initial admission by the IDF is the surprise, not the subsequent squelching of the article.

More from RT:
IDF has forced the Jerusalem Post to remove its explosive report on the Israeli military giving weapons to the Syrian rebels, the newspaper's managing editor confirmed to RT.

"We were told by the army's military censor to remove that part of the story," David Brinn, the managing editor of the Jerusalem Post told RT as he replied to a request for comment. The report, 'IDF confirms: Israel provided light-weapons to Syrian rebels,' which claimed that the Israeli military acknowledged for the first time that it had provided money, weapons and ammunition to the Syrian militants, was removed just hours after being published without any explanation.

According to Brinn, the story was removed "for security reasons evidently." The IDF told RT that it would not comment on the issue.
Here's the removed JP article:
IDF confirms: Israel provided light-weapons to Syrian rebels

Bashar Assad claimed that Israel had been providing arms to terror groups and its forces had regularly seized arms and munitions with inscriptions in Hebrew.

By Anna Ahronheim - September 4, 2018 - 18:00 The Israeli army has admitted, for the first time, that it provided large amounts of cash, weapons and ammunition to Syrian rebels in the Golan Heights.

While the IDF maintains that it was not intervening in Syria's civil war, on Monday it confirmed that as part of Operation Good Neighbor Israel had been regularly supplying Syrian rebels near its border with light weapons and ammunition in order to defend themselves from attacks and a substantial amount of cash to buy additional arms.

Through Operation Good Neighbor, which was launched in 2016, the Israeli military had provided over 1,524 tons of food, 250 tons of clothes, 947,520 liters of fuel, 21 generators, 24,900 palettes of medical equipment and medicine.

Reports first surfaced of Israel providing arms and cash to rebel groups several years ago, with the regime of Bashar Assad claiming that Israel had been providing arms to terror groups and its forces had regularly seized arms and munitions with inscriptions in Hebrew.

According to reports Israel had been arming at least seven different rebel groups in Syria's Golan Heights, including the Fursan al-Joulan rebel group which had around 400 fighters and had been given an estimated $5,000 per month by Israel.

"Israel stood by our side in a heroic way," the group's spokesperson, Moatasem al-Golani, told the The Wall Street Journal in a January 2017 report. "We wouldn't have survived without Israel's assistance."

The army believes that the decision to provide weapons and cash to the rebel groups along the border with Israel's Golan Heights was the right decision.

Israel's aim in providing the weapons and cash to rebel groups throughout Operation Good Neighbor which shut down once the Assad regime retook control of the Golan Heights in July, was to keep troops belonging to Hezbollah and Iran away from Israel's Golan Heights.

The Syrian army, backed by Russian air power and Iranian backed Shiite militia fighters, have been recapturing large swathes of territory and is now believed to have control over 70% of the war-torn country.

While Syrian troops have once again been deployed to the border with Israel, in order to prevent an escalation between the two enemy countries, Russian military police have been deployed along the Golan Heights border along with UN Peacekeepers.

Israel has warned against Iran's entrenchment in Syria and has stressed time and again that Syrian soil can not serve as a forward operating base by Iran and that the war-torn country cannot be a waystation for arms smuggling to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

While Israel's military had been carrying out operation against Iranian targets in Syria for several years, it's extent only became public after an Israeli Air Force F-16 which was taking part in retaliatory strikes was downed by Syrian air defenses in February.

Last year Former Israel Air Force head Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amir Eshel stated that the IAF carried out 100 airstrikes in Syria over the past five years.

On Monday the military announced that in the past year and half alone, Israel has carried out 202 strikes against Iranian and Hezbollah targets in Syria.
So al-Qaeda attacked the US on 9/11. The US then blew up Muslim countries to 'seek and destroy' al-Qaeda. Israel funds, feeds and arms al-Qaeda...

Get the picture now?


Dollars

Lavrov: US dollar has become Washington's pressure lever to punish countries

Dollars/other money
© Vladimir Trefilov/Sputnik
The United States is manipulating its currency, the dollar, and uses it as a tool to exert pressure when it wants to punish someone, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.

In an interview with Russian Channel One, he said that "Washington immediately stops servicing any banking operations in dollars in relation to both the country that they want to punish and any countries that continue relations with it."

He added that "for decades, everyone hoped that the United States would scrupulously fulfill its duties as the issuer of the world's main reserve currency. What is now happening to the dollar? Washington is manipulating the dollar at its discretion," the foreign minister said.


Cut

Paraguay cancels embassy move to Jerusalem, Israel retaliates by closing its embassy in Paraguay

Activists protest outside the Paraguayan foreign ministry,
© Norberto Duarte / AFPActivists protest outside the Paraguayan foreign ministry, after the government decided in May to move its embassy to Jerusalem
Paraguay will return its embassy in Israel to Tel Aviv, after the country's previous government relocated it to Jerusalem in May. In a tit-for-tat response, Israel announced it would close its embassy in Paraguay.

National chancellor Luis Alberto Castiglioni announced the move on Wednesday, calling the decision by former President Horacio Cartes "visceral and without justification." Cartes, a right-winger, made the decision to move the embassy to Jerusalem in May, and was present for its inauguration.

It was one of the last decisions Cartes made before President Mario Abdo Benitez took office last month, and followed the controversial decisions of the US and Guatemala to move their embassies to Jerusalem.

Comment: See also:


Document

Mueller to accept written answers from Trump in failing Russiagate 'investigation'

Robert Mueller
© SAUL LOEB / AFPFBI Special Counsel Robert Mueller
Special counsel Robert Mueller will accept written answers from President Trump on questions about whether his campaign conspired with Russia's election interference, Mueller's office told Trump's lawyers in a letter, the NYT reports.

But on another significant aspect of the investigation, whether the president tried to obstruct the inquiry itself, Mueller and his investigators understood that issues of executive privilege could complicate their pursuit of a presidential interview and did not ask for written responses on that matter, according to the letter, which was sent on Friday.

Sherlock

Investigation by OPCW finds Amesbury victims poisoned by the same agent as Skripals

amesbury poisoning
© Henry Nicholls / ReutersForensic investigators in protective suits examine evidence near the scene of the Amesbury poisoning
The Organisation for the prevention of chemical weapons has concluded that the chemical agent that poisoned a couple in Amesbury in June was the same one used to poison Sergei and Yulia Skripal in March.

The OPCW's findings, released in a report on Tuesday, confirm British authorities' suspicions that Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess were exposed to 'Novichok,' a nerve agent supposedly manufactured in the former Soviet Union.

The same kind of agent was used to poison former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury in March. The poisoning ignited a diplomatic spat between the UK and Russia, with the British government blaming Moscow. No concrete, publicly-available evidence has been produced to link the case to Russia.

British authorities have attempted to tie the incidents together, with the premise that the perpetrators left behind some of the "military-grade nerve agent" when they targeted the Skripals.

Megaphone

UK PM dismisses need for "further consideration" into 14 deaths of people 'linked' to Russia

Boris Berezovsky
© Ben Cawthra / Global Look PressRussian Oligarch Boris Berezovsky speaking to the media Aug. 31, 2012 - London
A government review hasn't found any grounds to continue investigating 14 deaths labelled 'suspicious' and connected to Russia by the British press, UK Prime Minister Theresa May has stated.

The Prime Minister was taking questions in the House of Commons following her emergency statement on the Skripal poisonings. Tory MP John Whittingdale asked: "there have been a number of other deaths in Britain, in the last few years, of Russians or of people with close connections with Russia, can she say whether those cases are now being actively re-examined?"

In response, May stated that the cases in question "have indeed been reconsidered, they have looked at all the evidence in relation to those matters. I understand that a letter will shortly be going to the chairman of the home affairs select committee setting out the outcome of that. But I understand that there is no cause for further consideration of those cases."

Comment: See also: And check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: Facebook and Cambridge Analytica - Trump Dumped - Skripal Saga