Puppet MastersS


Piggy Bank

How the FDIC and SEC's war on crypto triggered a banking crisis

Ellen Brown
Web of Debt
Sat, 29 Apr 2023 00:00 UTC
crypto war
According to an article in American Banker titled "SEC's Gensler Directly Links Crypto and Bank Failures," SEC Chair Gary Gensler has asked for more financial resources to police the crypto market. Gensler testified at an April 18 House Financial Services Committee hearing:
[Crypto companies] have chosen to be noncompliant and not provide investors with confidence and protections, and it undermines the $100 trillion capital markets ...

Silvergate and Signature [banks] were engaged in the crypto business — I mean some would say that they were crypto-​backed ...

Silicon Valley Bank, actually when it failed, saw the country's — the world's — second-leading stable coin had $3 billion involved there, depegged, so it's interesting just how this was all part of this crypto narrative as well.
Cryptocurrency experts Caitlin Long and Nic Carter take the opposite view. They acknowledge the link between crypto and the recent wave of bank failures and the runs and threatened runs they triggered, but Carter and Long make a compelling case that it was the FDIC, the SEC and the Federal Reserve that brought the banks down, by a coordinated, extrajudicial "war on crypto" that blocked that otherwise-legal industry from acquiring the banking services it needs.
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Info

All 9 Supreme Court justices issue rare statement after leftist attacks on conservative justices

Ryan Saavedra
The Daily Wire
Mon, 01 May 2023 00:01 UTC
scotus
© Alex Wong/Getty Images
All nine Supreme Court Justices issued a statement late last week pushing back on attempts from Senate Democrats to implement new ethics oversight measures over the nation's highest court which comes after the political Left has tried to generate controversy surrounding three conservative justices in recent weeks.

The statement from the justices also included a letter from Chief Justice John Roberts to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Richard Durbin (D-IL) saying that he will not attend a hearing that Senate Democrats want to hold.

"Testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee by the Chief Justice of the United States is exceedingly rare, as one might expect in light of separation of powers concerns and the importance of preserving judicial independence," Roberts said.

Comment: See also:

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Info

CIA veteran reveals why he didn't sign Hunter Biden laptop letter

Daniel Chaitin
The Daily Wire
Mon, 01 May 2023 00:01 UTC
hunter joe biden
© Drew Angerer/Getty Images
A retired CIA official is opening up about why he did not sign a letter that suggested the Hunter Biden laptop story could be part of a Russian disinformation operation just weeks before the 2020 election.

Dan Hoffman, the CIA's former Moscow station chief, told Fox News he was "surprised" that no one requested his Russia expertise in discussing the letter before it went public and explained why he did not want his signature attached to it.

"I remember I got the letter, October 18, 2020, and at first glance, it seemed natural to lay the blame at the Kremlin's doorstep. Remember, Vladimir Putin is in the Kremlin and he's well known for cloak-and-dagger espionage operations," Hoffman said. "But at the same time, there was no evidence and the letter noted there was no evidence. And I just felt like we needed to do the forensics. It was a very convoluted story."

Comment: See also:

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Eye 1

Biden CIA chief met with Epstein several times after financier convicted of child sex crime

Madeleine Hubbard
Just the News
Sun, 30 Apr 2023 09:58 UTC
jeffrey epstein
Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns had three meetings with Jeffrey Epstein in 2014, when the top spy official was deputy secretary of state and after Epstein was convicted of child sex exploitation, documents indicate.

Epstein's "black book" of contacts and flight logs shows that Burns first met with Epstein in Washington before Burns visited the convicted sex offender in his Manhattan townhouse, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday.

Burns, who became CIA director under Joe Biden in 2021, met with Epstein while he was preparing to leave his position in the government, CIA spokeswoman Tammy Kupperman Thorp said.

Comment: Since Epsteins 'little black book' was released back in 2015, why is this just coming to light now? Who did Burns piss off?

See also:

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Briefcase

The leaked plan to attack Russians in Syria revealed

Steven Sahiounie
The Duran
Sat, 29 Apr 2023 12:01 UTC
Syrian support
Rallies taking place in support of Russia in Syria
The war in Ukraine was planned to extend to Syria. Leaked secret documents revealed the Ukrainian military were planning to attack Russian troops stationed in Syria in an effort to distract Russia and cause losses and casualties far from the battlefield in eastern Europe.

Jack Teixeira, a young member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, was arrested by the FBI in the investigation of leaked classified military intelligence which were viewed on the Discord chat platform.

Among the documents were details of the planning and assessment of attacks on Russian military capabilities in Syria, to be carried out by the US military partner there, the SDF.
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Quenelle

Iran retaliates to US seizure of oil vessel with capture of Chevron tanker carrying Kuwaiti crude


Financial Times
Fri, 28 Apr 2023 22:52 UTC
US Navy drone boat
© U.S. Coast Guard/APA US Navy drone boat and US coast guard cutter John Scheuerman in the Strait of Hormuz, where about a third of all seaborne oil cargoes pass through the channel each day
US authorities ordered a tanker of Iranian crude oil to redirect towards the US in recent days, in a move officials believe was the trigger for Iran's decision to capture a US-bound tanker on Thursday.

Three people briefed on the situation said the US had intervened to summon a ship loaded with Iranian crude, originally destined for China, as Washington looks to step up enforcement of sanctions on Tehran.

Iran's navy unsuccessfully tried to pursue the tanker after it began its latest journey. The people said the US Department of Justice seized the tanker, the Suez Rajan, under a court order with co-operation from at least one company involved with the vessel.
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Pirates

Ukrainian Finance Minister calls for at least 18 billion euros from EU


Al Mayadeen
Sun, 30 Apr 2023 22:42 UTC
Ukrainian Finance Minister Sergii Marchenko
Ukrainian Finance Minister Sergii Marchenko speaks at an interview after attending a series of meetings with finance officials from around the world at the International Monetary Fund, Washington, D.C., US, 15 April 2023.
Ukrainian Finance Minister asks for at least 18 billion euros of aid from the European Union in 2024 to make up for he Ukrainian government's budget deficits.

Ukraine needs at least 18 billion euros of aid from the European Union (EU) in 2024, Ukrainian Finance Minister Sergii Marchenko announced on Saturday.

"Of course, it depends on the military campaign, but I think it could be no less than the €18 billion as we (received) for this year," Marchenko stated prior to an unofficial meeting with EU Finance Ministers in Sweden.

Comment: See also: Wave of top Ukrainian officials resign, huge corruption scandal reveals Western aid embezzled

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Attention

The insider outsider

Rod Dreher
Rod Dreher's Diary
Fri, 28 Apr 2023 00:00 UTC
Carlson
© 'Tucker Carlson Tonight'Tucker Carlson's first post-'Tucker Carlson Tonight' appearance
The meaning of Tucker Carlson for the present and future of US politics...

I know at least some of y'all must be wo' slap out from my focus on Tucker Carlson this week, but I really do think this is a moment of serious symbolic importance — even if you are no fan of Carlson's. Let me explain.

First, have a look at the 2 min, 15 sec video message Tucker put out on Twitter a day or so ago. In just over 24 hours, as I write this, it has been viewed by over 21 million people. As usual these days, Twitter won't let me embed in Substack, but if you follow the link, you can see it. In it, Tucker doesn't mention Fox, but he points out that the Cathedral includes both progressives and conservatives. That is to say, the commoners may strongly disagree, but the elites are more united than people think. Here's Mollie Hemingway trying to enlighten:
tweet
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Stop

BBC chief quits amid furor over role in Boris Johnson loan

Jill Lawless
AP
Fri, 28 Apr 2023 00:00 UTC
screen
© Jordan Pettitt/PA via APA screen showing a news report through the windows of the BBC, after chairman Richard Sharp announced he was quitting as BBC chairman • London April 28, 2023
The chairman of the BBC quit Friday after a report found that he failed to disclose a potential conflict of interest over his role in arranging a loan more than two years ago for Boris Johnson, as scandals from the former prime minister's turbulent term continue to rattle U.K. public life.

The publicly funded national broadcaster has been under political pressure after it was revealed that Richard Sharp helped arrange the line of credit weeks before he was appointed to the BBC post on the government's recommendation.

The guarantor for the 800,000-pound ($1 million) line of credit was businessman Sam Blyth, a distant cousin of Johnson's who founded a chain of private schools in Canada. The deal was facilitated by Sharp, a former Goldman Sachs banker and Conservative Party donor, who arranged a meeting between Blyth and the U.K.'s top civil servant to discuss Blyth's offer of financial help. It's unclear who actually loaned the money.

Johnson was then Conservative Party leader as well as British prime minister.

A report on the episode by senior lawyer Adam Heppinstall published Friday found Sharp "failed to disclose potential perceived conflicts of interest."
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Magnify

How the FBI helps Ukrainian intelligence hunt 'disinformation' on social media

Lee Fang
Lee Fang
Fri, 28 Apr 2023 00:00 UTC
Fang and vitiuk
© Lee FangIlia Vitiuk, chief of the SSU Cyber Security Department
Timothy Langen, Exec. Asst. Director of the FBI's Criminal, Cyber, Response Services Branch
RSA Conference in San Francisco, April 26th, 2023
The Federal Bureau of Investigation pressures Facebook to take down alleged Russian "disinformation" at the behest of Ukrainian intelligence, according to a senior Ukrainian official who corresponds regularly with the FBI. The same official said that Ukrainian authorities define "disinformation" broadly, flagging many social media accounts and posts that he suggested may simply contradict the Ukrainian government's narrative.

llia Vitiuk, head of the Department of Cyber Information Security in the Security Service of Ukraine, said:
"Once we have a trace or evidence of disinformation campaigns via Facebook or other resources that are from the U.S., we pass this information to the FBI, along with writing directly to Facebook. We asked FBI for support to help us with Meta, to help us with others, and sometimes we get good results with that. We say, 'Okay, this was the person who was probably Russia's influence.'"
Vitiuk, in an interview, said that he is a proponent of free speech and understands concerns around social media censorship. But he also admitted that he and his colleagues take a deliberately expansive view of what counts as "Russian disinformation."
"When people ask me, 'How do you differentiate whether it is fake or true?' Indeed it is very difficult in such an informational flow. I say, 'Everything that is against our country, consider it a fake, even if it's not.' Right now, for our victory, it is important to have that kind of understanding, not to be fooled."
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