Puppet MastersS


Footprints

Biden admits to influencing Israel's invasion timing


RT
Sun, 22 Oct 2023 13:15 UTC
biden
© AP/Evan VucciUS President Joe Biden in a meeting with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu
Tel Aviv, Israel • October 18, 2023
The US president said that he wants the IDF's Gaza operation postponed to secure the release of more hostages...

US President Joe Biden told reporters on Friday that he wants Israel to postpone its invasion of Gaza to allow more time for hostages to be released. The White House immediately backtracked and insisted that Biden has no input into Israel's plans.

As he boarded Air Force One on Friday night en route to his Delaware beach house, Biden was asked whether he was urging Israel to delay sending troops into Gaza. "Yes," the president replied, as he climbed the stairs of the airplane.

Less than an hour later, White House Communications Director Ben LaBolt told reporters that Biden had misinterpreted the question, and was not attempting to sway Israel's decision-making.

According to a pool report, LaBold said:
"The president was far away. He didn't hear the full question. The question sounded like 'Would you like to see more hostages released?' He wasn't commenting on anything else."
The exchange came hours after Hamas militants released two American hostages in what they called a "humanitarian" gesture. The two women, a mother and daughter from Chicago, were freed with the aid of Qatari mediators, who say they're still liaising between Hamas and Israel in an effort to free more captives.

Comment: Concern has risen over a two-front war that could trigger Iran.
The administration of US President Joe Biden is trying to dissuade Israel from a large-scale attack on Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based Islamist military group, fearing that it would throw the entire Middle East into turmoil, the New York Times reported on Friday, citing sources.

Washington is concerned that if Israel were to launch a major attack not only on Hamas but also on Hezbollah, it would struggle in a two-front war. It also reportedly worries that such an action could draw the US into the conflict along with Iran, which has close ties with the Lebanon-based group.

The report says that US officials have tried to stay in touch with Hezbollah and Iran using the mediation of Arab countries while advising Israel to "take care that their actions in the north against Hezbollah and in the south in Gaza do not give Hezbollah an easy pretext to enter the war."

According to the New York Times, these concerns were made clear during meetings held by Biden and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken with Israeli officials.

While Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged cross-border strikes in recent days, both parties have so far refrained from fully committing their forces. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has described Hezbollah as "10 times stronger than Hamas" and warned that the country's military should be prepared to engage it. NYT sources described Gallant as a Hezbollah hawk, who has advocated a preemptive strike on the group, a stance which was not shared by other Israeli officials.

Meanwhile, on Sunday, Hezbollah's deputy leader, Naim Qassem, said that the group is "in the heart of the battle" between Israel and Hamas, explaining that it is seeking to "weaken the Israeli enemy and let them know that we are ready" for a possible major escalation.


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Arrow Up

US budget deficit balloons to $1.7 trillion — largest outside COVID era


New York Post
Fri, 20 Oct 2023 07:08 UTC
Joe and Tony
© Al Drago/CNP/SplashNews.comThe Deficit • US President Joe Biden • Secretary of State Antony Blinken
The US government on Friday posted a $1.695 trillion budget deficit in fiscal 2023, a 23% jump from the prior year as revenues fell and outlays for Social Security, Medicare and record-high interest costs on the federal debt rose.

The Treasury Department said the deficit was the largest since a COVID-fueled $2.78 trillion gap in 2021. It marks a major return to ballooning deficits after back-to-back declines during President Biden's first two years in office.

The deficit comes as Biden is asking Congress for $100 billion in new foreign aid and security spending, including $60 billion for Ukraine and $14 billion for Israel, along with funding for US border security and the Indo-Pacific region.

The big deficit, which exceeded all pre-COVID deficits, including those brought about by Republican tax cuts passed under Donald Trump and from the financial crisis years, is likely to enflame Biden's fiscal battles with Republicans in the House of Representatives, whose demands for spending cuts pushed the US to the brink of default in early June over the debt ceiling.
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Briefcase

Supreme Court takes up landmark government censorship case

Jason Cohen
Daily Caller
Fri, 20 Oct 2023 04:50 UTC
biden
© Tom Brenner/Getty ImagesUS President Joe Biden
The Supreme Court on Friday took up Missouri v. Biden, the free speech case challenging the Biden administration's efforts to censor content on social media, while issuing a pause on a preliminary injunction granted by a lower court.

Republican attorneys general from Missouri and Louisiana sued the Biden administration over its communications with social media companies related to the suppression of online speech, arguing it violated the First Amendment. District of Louisiana Judge Terry A. Doughty issued an injunction in July blocking certain parts of President Joe Biden's administration from colluding with social media platforms to censor content online. The Supreme Court paused the injunction, but agreed to take up the case, according to the court order.

Justice Samuel Alito wrote in his opinion, dissenting from the decision to stay the injunction:
"A majority of the Court, without undertaking a full review of the record and without dissenting any explanation, suspends the effect of that injunction until the Court completes its review of this case, an event that may not occur until late in the spring of next year. Government censorship of private speech is antithetical to our democratic form of government, and therefore today's decision is highly disturbing."
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Star of David

AP erases Israeli pledge to attack Gaza like 'Axis Power' as officials threaten Palestinians with 'Dresden' doctrine

Wyatt Reed
The Grayzone
Sat, 21 Oct 2023 00:00 UTC
destruction
© Collage MakerDresden and Gaza
As Israeli officials proudly compare their bombardment of the Gaza Strip to the Allied firebombing of Dresden, the Associated Press has quietly removed a section noting US alarm over the historical comparison.

The Associated Press has quietly deleted a reference to official Israeli threats to subject the Gaza Strip to a Dresden-style firebombing campaign — the latest move in legacy media outlets' ongoing push to downplay the impacts of Tel Aviv's siege of over two million Palestinians.

The AP article previously stated:
"Four U.S. officials familiar with the discussions said American diplomats became increasingly alarmed by comments from their Israeli counterparts regarding their intention to deny water, food, medicine, electricity and fuel into Gaza, as well as the inevitability of civilian casualties."
The AP originally wrote:
"Members of the Israeli security and political establishment told the U.S. diplomats that the eradication of Hamas would require methods used in the defeat of the Axis powers in World War II. Israeli officials have publicly made similar comparisons."
The offending passages have since been deleted without explanation — a textbook violation of journalistic ethics. The decision is all the more baffling given that Israeli officials have made no secret of their desire to treat Palestinian civilians the same way Western Allies treated the Germans at the end of World War II.
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Briefcase

Sidney Powell pleads guilty over efforts to overturn Trump's loss in Georgia and agrees to cooperate

Kate Brumback
AP
Thu, 19 Oct 2023 00:00 UTC
SPowell
© Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA-EFE/ShutterstockLawyer Sidney Powell
Lawyer Sidney Powell pleaded guilty to reduced charges Thursday over efforts to overturn Donald Trump's loss in the 2020 election in Georgia, becoming the second defendant in the sprawling case to reach a deal with prosecutors.

Powell, who was charged alongside Trump and 17 others with violating the state's anti-racketeering law, entered the plea just a day before jury selection was set to start in her trial. She pleaded guilty to six misdemeanors accusing her of conspiring to intentionally interfere with the performance of election duties.

As part of the deal, she will serve six years of probation, will be fined $6,000 and will have to write an apology letter to Georgia and its residents. She also recorded a statement for prosecutors and agreed to testify truthfully against her co-defendants at future trials.

Powell was initially charged with racketeering and six other counts as part of a wide-ranging scheme to keep the Republican president in power after he lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden. Prosecutors say she also participated in an unauthorized breach of elections equipment in a rural Georgia county elections office.

The plea deal makes Powell the most prominent known person to be working with prosecutors investigating Trump's efforts to overturn the election. Her cooperation in the case and participation in strategy talks threaten to expose the former president and offer insight on what he was saying and doing in the critical period after the election.

Comment: Prosecutor back-patting suggests Powell was railroaded into this decision.

See also:

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Star of David

Impunity: SANA reports Israel attack 'incapacitates' Syria's main airports


RT
Sun, 22 Oct 2023 19:59 UTC
israel bomb syria airport aleppo
© QalaatM/XSyria: Israel bombed Aleppo international airport, October 14, 2023, putting it out of service less than 24 hours after flights resumed (following airstrikes 3 days ago).
The aerial strike left one airport worker dead in Damascus, while the Aleppo airport is also out of service after the attack

An Israeli air strike on two of Syria's main airports left one person dead and another injured, the Syrian state-run media outlet SANA has reported. Both airports have been put out of operation.

According to SANA, citing Syrian military officials, "at about 05:25 am on Sunday, the Israeli enemy simultaneously carried out an aerial act of aggression with waves of missiles from the direction of the Mediterranean Sea west of Lattakia and from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan targeting Damascus and Aleppo international airports."

The Transport Ministry said in a statement that a civil worker from the Meteorology Department at Damascus International Airport lost his life in the attack, as quoted by the media outlet.

Comment:


Israel will whine and complain that they want to prevent Iran from becoming involved in their private slaughter of the Palestinians. "Right to defend ourselves" and such.


Full text:
"Watch the moment, runway of #Damascus Intl Airport was bombed by #Israel Air Force to not let two #Iranian Aircraft land today. The first aircraft was an Airbus A340-313 of #MahanAir with Commander of #IRGC Quds Force onboard and the second was #Iranian government Airbus A321-231 with Foreign Minister of #Iranian Regime, Amir Abdullahian onboard."


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Star of David

Flashback Israeli forces using DIME weapons to target civilians


Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor
Mon, 04 Aug 2014 19:46 UTC
Israel DIMEpalestine genocide
© Bel Trew/X2014: 8-year-old Dahlia, Gaza
The number of victims of the Israeli attack on the besieged Gaza Strip has killed more than 1,800 and injured more than 9,300. During the four weeks of Israel's attack, a number of doctors have expressed their disapproval of the nature of casualties, with a group that met with the Euro-Mid Observer in Gaza reporting "extraordinarily dangerous" injuries. The doctors reported having to deal with numerous casualties who arrived with severed legs with signs of intense heat at the point of amputation without trace of shrapnel fragments. They further stated that they noticed deep burns that in certain cases reached the bone as well as tissue causing serious hemorrhaging in the affected limb.

Mira Bashara, Researcher at Euro-Med Monitor's Legal Department stated that it is believed that the weapons causing such injuries are known as "DIME" (Dense Inert Metal Explosive), a type of experimental weapon that explodes with a mixture of poison used in deadly waves directly upon the bombed area.

Doctors have confirmed that particles of this weapon cannot be detected by X-ray, thereby making it forbidden according to the Euro-Med Monitor under Protocol One of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons regarding undetectable shrapnel of 1980 of which Israel is a signatory and therefore must comply with.

Comment: Unbelievably, the numbers currently coming out of Gaza (October 2023), are even worse than this litany of Israeli savagery.

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Star of David

Flashback Best of the Web: Is Gaza a testing ground for experimental weapons?

Jonathan Cook
Electronic Intifada
Tue, 13 Jan 2009 19:34 UTC
A morgue in Gaza
© Wissam Nassar/MaanImagesA morgue in Gaza
Since Israel has barred journalists and international observers from entering the Gaza Strip it has been difficult to determine if Israel is using weapons illegal under international law.

Concerns about Israel's use of non-conventional and experimental weapons in the Gaza Strip are growing, with evasive comments from spokesmen and reluctance to allow independent journalists inside the tiny enclave only fueling speculation.

The most prominent controversy is over the use of shells containing white phosphorus, which causes horrific burns when it comes into contact with skin. Under international law, phosphorus is allowed as a smokescreen to protect soldiers but treated as a chemical weapon when used against civilians.

The Israeli army maintains that it is using only weapons authorized in international law, though human rights groups have severely criticized Israel for firing phosphorus shells over densely populated areas of Gaza.

But there might be other unconventional weapons Israel is using out of sight of the watching world.

Comment: No surprise! Once again, Israel targets Palestinians with DIME weapons

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Pocket Knife

Flashback Best of the Web: "Our sons are plundered of their organs" - Bombshell Swedish investigative report into suspected Israeli harvesting of Palestinians' organs

Donald Bostrom
Aftonbladet.se
Mon, 24 Aug 2009 15:24 UTC
You could call me a "matchmaker," said
Levy Izhak Rosenbaum
Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, organ trafficker
Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, from Brooklyn, USA, in a secret recording with an FBI-agent whom he believed to be a client. Ten days later, at the end of July this year, Rosenbaum was arrested and a vast, Sopranos-like, imbroglio of money-laundering and illegal organ-trade was revealed. Rosenbaum's matchmaking had nothing to do with romance. It was all about buying and selling kidneys from Israel on the black market. Rosenbaum says that he buys the kidneys for $10,000, from poor people. He then proceeds to sell the organs to desperate patients in the States for $160,000. The accusations have shaken the American transplantation business. If they are true it means that organ trafficking is documented for the first time in the US, experts tell the New Jersey Real-Time News.

On the question of how many organs he has sold Rosenbaum replies: "Quite a lot. And I have never failed," he boasts. The business has been running for quite some time. Francis Delmonici, professor of transplant surgery at Harvard and member of the National Kidney Foundation's Board of Directors, tells the same newspaper that organ-trafficking, similar to the one reported from Israel, is carried out in other places of the world as well. 5 - 6,000 operations a year, about ten per cent of the world's kidney transplants are carried out illegally, according to Delmonici.

Comment: Needless to say, when this story broke 14 years ago, the only thing that resulted was an international 'scandal' Israel whipped up that resulted in it being dismissed away as 'anti-semitic blood libel'.

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Attention

The War on Horror (or Whatever)

CJ Hopkins
Substack
Sun, 22 Oct 2023 16:29 UTC
War on Horror
© Substack
Welcome back to the War on Terror. I hope you had a nice 7-year break.

Yes, that's right, once again, Democracy is under attack by the Axis of Pure Unadulterated Evil! It's time to switch off your critical faculties, wrap yourself in the American flag, or the Israeli flag, or the Ukrainian flag, or, better yet, all three flags, and stand with the Forces of Freedom and Goodness as they exercise their God-given right to defend the world from the Children of Darkness, and the Putin-Nazis, and Hate, and Rape, and Baby Murderers, and Baby Rapers, and Baby-Raper sympathizers!

For those of us who are old enough to remember 9/11 and its aftermath, it's déjà vu all over again. Except we already had The War on Terror. So, I don't know what we're calling it this time. Maybe it's The War on Horror, or "Horrific Horror," as President Biden put it.

Or maybe we should call it The War on Whatever. After all, it's all the same war.

No. That isn't going to sell. No one is going to fight a War on Whatever. We need something utterly meaningless but catchy. Something that will shut people's minds off and keep them from asking inconvenient questions, like a corporate slogan or thought-terminating cliche.

Let's go with The War on Horror. Here's how The War on Horror began ...
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