Puppet MastersS


Map

Syrian Kurds won't reveal number of US bases nor volume of supplied US arms


Sputnik
Sun, 29 Oct 2017 14:38 UTC
Syrian Kurd fighters
© AP Photo/ APTV
In the wake of the recently-announced liberation of the Syrian city of Raqqa, many analysts have been wondering about the scale of US support to the mostly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which headed the operation, and the number of military facilities the US has set up in northern Syria. Kurds, however, refused to reveal any details.

Amid ongoing reports that the US continues to arm the Syrian Kurds, even after the announced retaking of Raqqa from Daesh, Nuri Mahmud, an official representative of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), the primary component of the US-backed SDF force which conducted the operation, confirmed that the US has been supplying them with arms since the liberation of Kobani in 2015.

Mahmud, however, refused to reveal the scale of the arms provided by the US, only noting that "it is relatively humble and not enough in comparison with the weaponry it supplied to the Iraqi army for the liberation of Mosul."
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Vader

In attempt to preempt Catalonia's bid for independence, Spain invokes military rule

Alex Lantier and Alejandro López
World Socialist Web Site
Sat, 28 Oct 2017 00:00 UTC
Catalonia independence
The Spanish Senate formally voted 214-47 on Friday to authorize the implementation of Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution, suspending parliamentary rule in Catalonia. It handed Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy full powers to suspend the Catalan regional government, proceed with punitive measures outlined in Rajoy's October 21 speech, and impose an unelected Catalan government answerable only to Madrid.

As Article 155 was being debated in the Senate, where Rajoy's right-wing Popular Party (PP) has an absolute majority, the Catalan parliament anticipated the outcome of the debate and voted to declare independence. Thousands of protesters surrounded Catalan government buildings in Barcelona Friday night amid calls to defend the newly-declared republic.

Yesterday's events mark a historic collapse of democratic forms of rule in Western Europe and a return to authoritarianism with far-reaching implications. The Spanish political set-up created 39 years ago, in the so-called Transition from the 1939-1978 fascist regime established by General Francisco Franco, has burst asunder. With the full support of the European Union and Washington, Madrid aims to police 7 million Catalans through unilateral decrees, backed by the police and army, while holding in reserve the invocation of Article 116 to impose a nationwide state of emergency.
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Star of David

The Russia influence story is colliding with the Israel influence story

Philip Weiss
Mondoweiss
Sat, 28 Oct 2017 02:45 UTC
Paul Singer Israeli lobby
Paul Singer
The news from Washington is that two years ago Republican megadonor Paul Singer paid for the hiring of an opposition research firm to dig up dirt on Donald Trump- and this firm ultimately produced the famous Russia file that said that Russia had compromising information on Donald Trump (from loans to prostitutes) and could therefore play him. But when Trump won the election, Singer turned around and supported Trump.

Here's the sequence. The Free Beacon, a pro-Israel website funded by Singer, hired the firm, called Fusion GPS in 2015 to dig up stuff on Trump. Then in May 2016, when Trump had gotten the Republican nomination, the Free Beacon told the firm to stop investigating Russian ties.

And the Clinton campaign picked the firm up, and the famous file was produced.

The Free Beacon informed the House Intelligence Committee of its role yesterday, because that committee is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign.

So Paul Singer was once part of the Never Trump movement, and a backer of Marco Rubio. But after the election, the hedge fund manager gave $1 million to the Trump inaugural committee and began making regular trips to the White House. In fact, he was one of the three pro-Israel Jewish billionaires, along with Sheldon Adelson and Bernard Marcus, who seem to have influenced Trump's recent decertification of the Iran Deal.

Comment: Paul Singer is a slime with fingers in many pies. His speciality is bankrupting whole countries through enforced bond defaults and then picking over the carcass.

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Snakes in Suits

Westminster sexual harassment scandal: Tory MP had aide buy sex toys, another 'sexts' teen job applicant

Chloe Farand
The Independent
Sun, 29 Oct 2017 09:50 UTC
Westminster sexual harassment scandal: Tory MP had aide to buy sex toys, another 'sexts' teenage job applicant Mark Garnier Stephen Crabb
© PATory MP Mark Garnier admits making aide buy him and constituent assistant sex toys
International Trade Minister Mark Garnier has admitted calling his secretary "sugar tits" and making her buy sex toys for him.

The 53-year-old MP for Wyre Forest said he was "not going to be dishonest" after Commons Secretary Caroline Edmondson told The Mail on Sunday Mr Garnier gave her money and waited outside a sex shop in Soho while she went inside to buy two vibrators.

Ms Edmondson claimed that the Under Secretary of State told her one of the sex toys was for his wife and the other was for a female assistant in his West Midlands constituency.

Comment: Those entrusted to manage public affairs profess they 'won't be dishonest' about their 'foolish' highly inappropriate antics though they only admit admit it once they've been caught out (or thrown to the lions). The problem is endemic and isn't going away any time soon so we can expect only more revelations as people continue to speak out and the dying establishment jostle for control of their puppets and the public:

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Red Pill

Best of the Web: Former Qatari PM publicly admits to collusion and coordination between 4 countries, led by US, to destabilize Syria and support terrorists

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Sat, 28 Oct 2017 10:00 UTC
kerry qatari pm
A 2013 London press conference: Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr Al Thani with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. A 2014 Hillary Clinton email confirmed Qatar as a state-sponsor of ISIS during that same time period.
A television interview of a top Qatari official confessing the truth behind the origins of the war in Syria is going viral across Arabic social media during the same week a leaked top secret NSA document was published which confirms that the armed opposition in Syria was under the direct command of foreign governments from the early years of the conflict.

And according to a well-known Syria analyst and economic adviser with close contacts in the Syrian government, the explosive interview constitutes a high level "public admission to collusion and coordination between four countries to destabilize an independent state, [including] possible support for Nusra/al-Qaeda."Importantly, "this admission will help build case for what Damascus sees as an attack on its security & sovereignty. It will form basis for compensation claims."

As the war in Syria continues slowly winding down, it seems new source material comes out on an almost a weekly basis in the form of testimonials of top officials involved in destabilizing Syria, and even occasional leaked emails and documents which further detail covert regime change operations against the Assad government. Though much of this content serves to confirm what has already long been known by those who have never accepted the simplistic propaganda which has dominated mainstream media, details continue to fall in place, providing future historians with a clearer picture of the true nature of the war.
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Eye 1

Facebook unveils political ad 'transparency' ahead of Russia testimony


RT
Sat, 28 Oct 2017 22:40 UTC
facebook
© Jaap Arriens / Global Look Press
Facebook is joining Twitter in bowing to lawmakers demands for more information on political ads on social media platforms. The move comes as Silicon Valley prepares to testify before the Senate as part of Washington's Russia investigation.

Rob Goldman, VP of Ads at Facebook, announced Friday that the company will soon allow users to view any ads a specific account is running on Facebook, Instagram and Messenger, even if the user was not in the targeted audience for the ad.

During the test, Facebook will only allow users to see active ads, but the company will immediately begin archiving political ads related to federal elections.

Comment: Further reading: Fake News: The Russians have taken over Facebook!

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Snakes in Suits

What's up with CNN's undisclosed ties to Fusion GPS?

Chuck Ross & Peter Hasson
Daily Caller
Sat, 28 Oct 2017 22:40 UTC
CNN blindness
CNN's reporting on the Trump-Russia dossier has left out at least one crucial fact: the close ties between the network and the opposition research firm at the center of the dossier controversy.

CNN's reporting on the dossier, led by justice correspondent Evan Perez, has been favorable to the firm, Fusion GPS, and hyped the dossier's credibility. Left out of Perez's reporting, which has relied largely on unnamed sources, is his personal closeness to Fusion GPS' operatives. Fusion has repeatedly been described in Senate testimonies as a smear-for-hire operation that manufactures misleading or false media narratives for its clients.

Glenn Simpson, the Fusion co-founder most often associated with the dossier, is used to working on stories with Perez. As reporters at The Wall Street Journal, Perez and Simpson regularly co-authored stories on national security.
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Pistol

Smoking gun email: Obama, DOJ blocked conservative groups from settlement funds

Alex Pappas
Fox News
Wed, 25 Oct 2017 00:00 UTC
HolderGoodlatteSessions
© unknownHolder • Goodlatte • Sessions
The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee claims he obtained a "smoking gun" email that proves the Obama Justice Department prevented settlement payouts from going to conservative-leaning organizations, even as liberal groups were awarded money and DOJ officials denied "picking and choosing" recipients.

"It is not every day in congressional investigations that we find a smoking gun," Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said Tuesday. "Here, we have it."

While Eric Holder was U.S. attorney general, the Justice Department allowed prosecutors to strike agreements compelling big companies to give money to outside groups not connected to their cases to meet settlement burdens. Republican lawmakers long have decried those payments as a "slush fund" that boosted liberal groups, and the Trump DOJ ended the practice earlier this year.

But internal Justice Department emails released Tuesday by Goodlatte indicated that not only were officials involved in determining what organizations would get the money, but also Justice Department officials may have intervened to make sure the settlements didn't go to conservative groups.

Comment: Another bucket of swamp water evaporating.

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Red Flag

Clinton's fake Russian dossier - symptomatic of bigger problem

Mark Keen
Media Equalizer
Wed, 25 Oct 2017 15:55 UTC
Hilldossier cover
© Unknown
Washington and the US shook today at the explosive revelation that the Hillary Clinton Campaign, the Democratic National Committee, and an unnamed GOP agent funded the creation of a salacious and fake Trump-Russia dossier used to start an FBI Russia collusion probe into Candidate Trump and then President Trump. Questions swirl as to who the GOP funder might be: Jeb Bush's campaign was one of the first clients of FusionGPS. Was it Jeb's campaign?

It's one thing to conduct opposition research on a candidate but it's quite another to manufacture false information and then direct foreign operatives to leverage existing intelligence and diplomatic channels to funnel the information into the United States as credible.

RussiaTrumpchart
© unknown
After the dossier was created by a former British MI6 Agent, Christopher Steel, it was passed on to a British ambassador, Sir Andrew Wood, as authentically containing real intelligence. The British ambassador then discussed the dossier with Senator John McCain and gave assurances that the author was trustworthy. Whether officially sanctioned or not, by credentialing the author, the British government, one of America's closest allies, gave weight to the dossier. Senator John McCain then passed the information to the FBI. The FBI then began an investigation on Candidate Trump, and, after the election, paid the British agent directly to continue research into Mr. Trump.

Comment: Deep State, DNC or Killary and cohorts...this paid-for ploy has involved thousands of people, taken up massive time and energy and, under false pretenses and relentless accusations, defamed the Russian and US governments. There should be hell to pay.

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Headphones

November DoD drill: Solar storm-based national blackout scenario during Antifa protests

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Fri, 27 Oct 2017 10:50 UTC
EMP& power lines
© Unknown
According to The National Association for Amateur Radio (ARRL), elements of the US Department of Defense (DOD) will simulate a "communications interoperability" training exercise across the United States on November 04-06. The announcement released on October 24 has not been widely distributed to the media, because the drill is simulating a total grid collapse and could spark public fear.

Explained by Army MARS Program Manager Paul English,
"This exercise will begin with a national massive coronal mass ejection event which will impact the national power grid as well as all forms of traditional communication, including landline telephone, cellphone, satellite, and Internet connectivity,"
In July, we warned about the US government quietly preparing for a massive coronal mass ejection with the passage of an Executive Order - "Coordinating Efforts to Prepare the Nation for Space Weather Events".

Comment: Four things going on here:
  1. ARRL and DOD are teaming up to test out emergency communications viability in a CME; and
  2. ANTIFA is holding a nationwide day of rage; and/or
  3. US govt is secretly going to paralyze communications systems nationwide to cripple the nation (paranoia); and/or
  4. The US is really prepping for a NK EMP attack.
There's everything from 'co-incidences' to conspiracy projections and doomsday scenarios. Interpretations gone wild?

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