Puppet MastersS


Cult

Democratic Senator Mark Warner: The driving force behind move to further weaponize US tech giants and silence dissent

Michael Krieger
Libertyblitzkrieg
Tue, 07 Aug 2018 13:11 UTC
Warner Zuckerberg
In a corporatist system of government, wherein there is no meaningful separation between corporate power and state power, corporate censorship is state censorship. Because legalized bribery in the form of corporate lobbying and campaign donations has given wealthy Americans the ability to control the US government's policy and behavior while ordinary Americans have no effective influence whatsoever, the US unquestionably has a corporatist system of government. Large, influential corporations are inseparable from the state, so their use of censorship is inseparable from state censorship.

This is especially true of the vast megacorporations of Silicon Valley, whose extensive ties to US intelligence agencies are well-documented. Once you're assisting with the construction of the US military's drone program, receiving grants from the CIA and NSA for mass surveillance, or having your site's content regulated by NATO's propaganda arm, you don't get to pretend you're a private, independent corporation that is separate from government power. It is possible in the current system to have a normal business worth a few million dollars, but if you want to get to billions of dollars in wealth control in a system where money translates directly to political power, you need to work with existing power structures like the CIA and the Pentagon, or else they'll work with your competitors instead of you.

- From the Caitlin Johnstone post: In A Corporatist System Of Government, Corporate Censorship Is State Censorship
Let's be clear about something up front because it's extremely important. This narrative that three tech giants, Apple, Google and Facebook all decided independently and simultaneously to de-platform Alex Jones without any threats or pressure from U.S. politicians and other powerful forces behind the scenes is pure fantasy. This isn't private companies doing that private company thing, this is Silicon Valley oligarchs making a decision to appease politicians and the status quo system which made them billionaires in order to avoid regulation.

Comment: Government-enforced censorship has indeed reached a chilling new plateau - See:

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Bizarro Earth

Globalists are waiting to enforce a counter-revolution

Patrick J. Buchanan
buchanen.org
Mon, 06 Aug 2018 00:00 UTC
globalists
On meeting with the EU's Jean-Claude Juncker last month, Donald Trump tweeted: "Both the U.S. and the E.U. drop all Tariffs, Barriers and Subsidies! That would finally be Free Market and Fair Trade."

Did Larry Kudlow somehow get access to Trump's phone?

We know not. But, on hearing this, Steve Forbes, Stephen Moore and Arthur Laffer broke into the "Hallelujah" chorus of Handel's "Messiah."

"Amen," they thundered in The New York Times.

Trump should declare "total trade disarmament" to be national policy and make free trade his "legacy" to America. Such a proclamation, they wrote, would assure Trump the "moral high ground" in the global debate and transform him from "evil disrupter of international commerce to potential savior."

For free trade is always and ever a "win-win for trading partners."

To read the Times op-ed is to appreciate that what we are dealing with here is an ideology, a political religion, a creed, a cult.
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Rocket

Top US general displays massive idiocy, says US can't be friendly with Russia and China because of their hypersonic weapons


RT
Wed, 08 Aug 2018 22:50 UTC
hypersonic missile
© Maxim Shemetov / Reuters
Russia and China are not eligible for friendship with the United States because the two nations are developing hypersonic weapons that the US has no defense against, a top American general has declared.

"You can't call them [Russia and China] our friends if they're building weapons that can destroy the United States of America, and, therefore, we have to develop the capability to respond," Air Force General John Hyten, commander of US Strategic Command, said at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama.

Hyten went on to reassure his audience that the Pentagon has close to a dozen programs aimed at developing and defending against hypersonic weapons. He also expressed regret that the US hadn't started working on such weapon systems "five years ago or ten years ago, because then we wouldn't be worried."

Comment: Unfortunately, the only thing that can keep power-crazed bullies in check is genuine power. If they weren't so reactive, they might realize at the very least that it is actually a good idea to be friends with Russia and China precisely because they have better weapons.

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Heart - Black

Apartheid: Israel arrests 6 Palestinian, 2 foreign journalists, in the span of one week

Yumna Patel
Mondoweiss
Tue, 07 Aug 2018 00:00 UTC
Ibrahim Rantisi
© Photo: Twitter/@JIC_PAL
In the middle of the night, just before dawn, Israeli forces raided a village in the central West Bank to arrest a Palestinian - a daily occurence in the occupied Palestinian territory.

The target of Monday's raid on the village of Rantis, which sits right on the Green Line, was Palestinian journalist Ibrahim Rantisi.

The arrest of Rantisi marked the sixth Palestinian journalist to be detained by Israeli forces in a single week, causing alarm among Palestinian media and journalists that Israel's suppression of their work, will soon also become a daily occurrence .

One week ago, Israeli forces detained four journalists under the pretext that they worked for Hamas-affiliated al-Quds TV, which was banned last month from operating in Israel last month by Israel's right-wing defense minister Avigdor Lieberman.

Comment: See also:

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Eye 2

SOTT Focus: The 'Magnitsky Trio' Pushes For War With Russia By Pressing For New 'Crushing' Sanctions

Tom Luongo
Gold, Goats 'N Guns
Fri, 03 Aug 2018 00:00 UTC
From left, Sens. Ben Cardin, D-Md., John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
From left, Sens. Ben Cardin, D-Md., John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
If half of what I have come to understand about the Curious Case of Bill Browder is true, then the "Magnitsky Trio" of Senators John McCain, Lindsay Graham and Ben Cardin are guilty of espionage, at a minimum.

Why? Because they know that Browder's story about Sergei Magnitsky is a lie. And that means that when you tie in the Trump Dossier, Christopher Steele, Fusion GPS, the Skripal poisoning and the rest of this mess, these men are consorting with foreign governments and agencies against the sitting President.

As Lee Stranahan pointed out recently on Fault Lines, Cardin invited Browder to testify to Congress in 2017 to push through last year's sanctions bill, a more stringent version of the expiring Magnitsky Act of 2011, which has since been used to ratchet up pressure on Russia.

Comment: See also:

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Chess

Like it worked up to now? US to impose new sanctions on Russia over Skripal poisoning


RT
Wed, 08 Aug 2018 20:34 UTC
police line Salisbury novichok poison
The US is imposing new sanctions on Russia over the poisoning of double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the UK. The measures are scheduled to go into effect on or around August 22, according to the State Department.

"The United States...determined under the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act of 1991 (CBW Act) that the government of the Russian Federation has used chemical or biological weapons in violation of international law, or has used lethal chemical or biological weapons against its own nationals," State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement on Wednesday.

Comment: Any country that doesn't play international geopolitics the way the USA likes get accused of "bombing and/or gassing their own people". From Saddam, to Qaddafi to Assad, and now Russia joins the illustrious club. It's almost a badge of honor.

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Bad Guys

EU's subordinance to US dollar hegemony makes it too weak to truly oppose sanctions against Iran


RT
Wed, 08 Aug 2018 18:41 UTC
Jean-Claude Juncker
© APEU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker
The sight of European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker stumbling at the NATO summit in Brussels last month, when he had to be held up by others, is a powerful symbol of the EU's status on the world stage.

Donald Trump's decision to activate sanctions against European companies that trade with Iran, and the EU's response to it, demonstrate that the 28-nation bloc is little but a bumbling old fool in international politics.

There is no doubt that EU leaders are furious with Trump for ripping up their beloved Iran deal. Their fury is only aggravated by their inner knowledge that there is nothing they can do about it. French leaders like Emmanuel Macron and his finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, may bewail the fact that Europe is not "sovereign," using the EU's impotence in the face of US unilateralism as an argument for more European integration. However, this is the very policy that they have been pursuing for a quarter of a century, and which has brought them to the impasse in which they now find themselves.
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Snakes in Suits

Wikileaks: US Senate Intelligence Committee calls for Julian Assange to testify


RT
Wed, 08 Aug 2018 13:52 UTC
Julian Assange
© Getty ImagesJulian Assange
The US Senate Intelligence Committee has requested that persecuted WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange testify before committee staff. The committee is investigating alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election.

In a letter delivered to Assange at his residence in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, committee chairman Richard Burr (R-North Carolina) requested that Assange make himself available for a closed interview "at a mutually agreeable time and location."

WikiLeaks' legal team said that they "are considering the offer but testimony must conform to a high ethical standard."


Comment: Assange has only truth to tell. He will not play any games or sides and, as such, the character and resolve of this man will be self-evident. Whether his cooperation and forthright testimony has any affect on his future, we will have to wait and see as there is terrible push against him. Time for his advocates and supporters to come forth.

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Snakes in Suits

Trump and Palestine: The shock of the century

Marwan Bishara
Aljazeera
Mon, 06 Aug 2018 00:00 UTC
Palestinians trump banner
© Abu Mustafa/ReutersPalestinian demonstrators during a protest in Gaza Strip.
The "deal of the century" that President Trump has promised will resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict may be easily dismissed in terms of its substance, considering the extremist views of its authors, but it will have to be dealt with eventually - one way or another.

For the past 18 months, the president's senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, along with his cohorts, Ambassador to Israel David Friedman and Middle East Special Envoy Jason Greenblatt, have been preparing the grounds for a great bargain between Israel and "moderate" Arab regimes, notably Egypt and Saudi Arabia - one that would end the Palestinian problem, allow for normalisation of relations, and pave the way for a new strategic alignment against a surging Iran.

Judging by their smirks and statements, Kushner and Company have succeeded in tightening the noose around Palestine in complicity with Egyptian and Saudi leaders and are now waiting for the right time to unleash a diplomatic blitzkrieg.

But how could such a trio of staunch supporters of Israeli settlement expansion come up with a deal that merits the moniker "deal of the century?" One that is comprehensive and acceptable to both Israel and the Arabs, who insist on a two states solution that includes East Jerusalem?

The answer lies in the timing, packaging and delivery.

Comment: From this speculation, the Palestinians are to be allotted bits and leftovers and offered the conditions under threat and duress. They need a world-class champion to demand a real deal, along with the backing of massive global opinion to counterbalance the Israeli club of shysters who are systematically eliminating all advocates, resources and support for the Palestinians, such as UNRWA and BDS. See also:

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Briefcase

Manafort Trial: Defense lawyers attack credibility of star witness

Mike Eckel
RFE/RL
Tue, 07 Aug 2018 23:59 UTC
PaulManafortRickGates
© Joshua Roberts/ReutersPaul Manafort • Rick Gates
The defense lawyer for President Donald Trump's ex-campaign chairman Paul Manafort in a searing cross-examination has sought to undermine the credibility of the U.S. government's star witness by accusing Rick Gates of stealing millions not only from Manafort but also possibly from Trump's inauguration committee.

Kevin Downing's cross-examination of Gates came on August 7, the second day of Gates' testimony in Manafort's bank fraud and tax evasion trial, which is playing out in a U.S. district court in Alexandria, Virginia, just outside Washington.

Gates has testified that while working as Manafort's longtime deputy, he and Manafort committed various financial crimes, mostly stemming from the lucrative work Manafort did between 2010 and 2014 for Ukrainian politicians, including then-President Viktor Yanukovych.

Gates was charged along with Manafort in late 2017, the first charges to come out of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into the interactions between Trump associates and Russian officials and agents.

He pleaded guilty earlier this year to conspiracy charges and has been cooperating with prosecutors in hopes of getting a reduced prison sentence.

Comment: See also:

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