Puppet MastersS


Document

Biden interviewed by special counsel about classified documents

biden
© Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesUS President Joe Biden • Washington DC campaign rally
President Biden was interviewed as part of an investigation into his handling of classified documents by Special Counsel Robert Hur, the White House counsel's office said. The investigation is being led by Hur, who was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to oversee the probe.

Spokesperson Ian Sams told Fox News:
"The voluntary interview was conducted at the White House over two days, Sunday and Monday, and concluded Monday. As we have said from the beginning, the President and the White House are cooperating with this investigation, and as it has been appropriate, we have provided relevant updates publicly, being as transparent as we can consistent with protecting and preserving the integrity of the investigation.

"We would refer other questions to the Justice Department at this time."

Comment: The interview occurred as war broke out in the Middle East between Israel and Hamas. Biden was speaking with foreign leaders about the matter and meeting with his national security team.

Comment: Biden recites a statement offering unequivocal support for Israel.


Star of David

Zelensky fears Israel will distract from Western aid to Kiev

NATO
© Ukrainian presidential press service/AFPUkrainian President Vlodymyr Zelensky • NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg
NATO Headquarters
The Ukrainian president has visited NATO headquarters, concerned that the flow of Western help could be imperiled...

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has voiced concerns that the security crisis in the Middle East could draw international attention away from his country. He blamed Russia for the Hamas incursion into southern Israel last week.

In an interview with France 2 on Tuesday, he warned:
"If international attention shifts away from Ukraine, one way or another, it will have consequences. The fate of Ukraine depends on the unity of the rest of the world."
He expressed hope that Washington would ensure continued assistance.

Zelensky was visiting Romania on Tuesday, where he met Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu. Speaking during a joint press conference, the president reiterated his claim that Moscow was to blame for the attack by the Palestinian militant movement. Russia "helped Hamas and is behind Hamas," he proclaimed without offering any specific evidence, referring instead to "signals" on social media.

Earlier in the week, Zelensky stated that according to Ukrainian intelligence services:
"Russia was interested in triggering a war in the Middle East" to "undermine world unity" and "destroy freedom in Europe."

Target

Here we go loop-de-loop

loopy
© Unknown/KJN
"Palestine is not Ukraine. If America intervenes directly, all American locations in the region will become legitimate targets of the resistance axis and will face our attacks. And on this day there will be no red line left."
— Hezbollah Official Statement
You know, of course, that the CIA's job is to detect sinister doings in other countries, especially as they might affect our own country. Looks like they missed something lately in the spook-filled space between Iran and Israel. Do you suppose they're too busy running Facebook? And their domestic companion, the FBI, has been working overtime for years now, between their mighty labors concocting RussiaGate and the current program to root out election deniers and other seditious riffraff — while millions of sketchy mutts from here, there, and everywhere in the world scuttle over our border with Mexico and decant across our fruited plains — with assistance, you understand, from our own border officials — and, yet, no questions asked. Here's a free phone and an auto-refilling debit card. Have a nice day in Skokie, Plattsburgh, or wherever! And don't forget to send in your court appearance forms by the 2030 deadline!

So, it came as a big surprise when southern Israel was overrun by Hamas dudes in tricked-out pickup trucks and para-gliders on Saturday, who carried home hundreds of nubile young women to have sport with, after slaughtering hundreds more people of all ages, like rampaging bronze age Philistines. That fresh enormity is, shall we say, quite a ways from resolution at this time. I'll tell you what will be an even bigger surprise, though: when some organized unit of those aforesaid mutts of unknown origin who snuck across our border sets off something like a dirty bomb in New York, Los Angeles, or Washington DC. Or takes over a nuclear power station. Or... well, I wouldn't want to put any ideas in a bad actor's head. But you get the picture, I'm sure.

Star of David

Israel will suffer much more damage from this war than it might be expecting

Hezbollah funeral israel shelling
© AP Photo / Hussein MallaHezbollah fighters mourn, as they attend the funeral procession of their two comrades who were killed by Israeli shelling, in Kherbet Selem village, south Lebanon, Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2023.
What can Hezbollah demonstrate in the event of a full-fledged war with Israel?

On October 7 the world was shocked by another flare-up of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and, this time, a very serious one. Not only did Hamas fire rockets at Israel, but it also penetrated Israeli territory. The operation, called Al-Aqsa Flood, has been unprecedented in terms of audacity and planning. Over a thousand Israelis have been killed, it's estimated, and more than 3,500 wounded, territories were captured, military personnel and civilians were taken hostage. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the start of a full-scale war, promising to leave the Gaza Strip in ruins.

The current events were a result of the biggest failure of Israel's state security system in recent history. They have severely shaken the belief in the "omnipresence" of the Mossad (Israel's intelligence service) and the invincibility of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). For many hours, the Israeli army was utterly helpless as Palestinian armed groups attacked the country. Israeli intelligence also failed to prevent the catastrophe in any way. Meanwhile, even the day chosen by Hamas for the start of the operation was quite symbolic - the 50th anniversary of the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

Comment: Hezbollah has been preparing for a confrontation with Israel since its founding in the 80s. After four decades, has their moment finally come?


Star of David

Israeli army says it does not have 'confirmation' about allegations that 'Hamas beheaded babies'

israel
© Metin Yuksel Kaya- Anadolu AgencyIsraeli Army continues the deployment of armored vehicles and artillery to the Gaza border
The Israeli army has no information confirming allegations that "Hamas beheaded babies," Israeli army spokesperson unit told Anadolu on Tuesday.

It was alleged that Hamas's armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, "beheaded many Israeli babies" on the Israeli side during the early Saturday morning attack launched from Gaza.

When Anadolu contacted the Israeli army spokesperson unit over the phone and asked about the allegations, she said "We have seen the news, but we do not have any details or confirmation about that."

Comment:



Arrow Down

Israel-Hamas 'war' - another excuse to shut down free speech

Dome of the Rock
© Off-Guardian
As a brand new war-narrative unfolds, there's already efforts underway to parlay the conflict into tighter controls on free speech and freedom of expression, both in person and on the internet.

The headlines have been filled with nothing but Israel and Hamas since the "surprise attack" on Saturday, with the predictable back and forth of historical grievances and accusations of racism, punctuated by unsubstantiated claims of atrocities.

"Atrocity Propaganda" is nothing new. It is the opening salvo of every war as state combatants try to win the public to their side.

For example, the totally unsubstantiated claim that Hamas "threw forty Jewish babies out of their cribs and beheaded them", which was doing the rounds yesterday. As far as atrocity propaganda goes the claim is startling in its unoriginality (Nayirah anyone?)

There's a lot of that right now, lurid claims of graphic and pointless violence directed against the innocent, most of which survives just long enough to cause some outrage before being "debunked" or walked-back.

Part of that is the general "fog of war", heightened by the advent of social media. When a lot of people can talk a lot more is said (good and bad).

But there's another interpretation: That fake war stories are being intentionally seeded onto social media and then "debunked" to discredit platforms and appear to justify digital censorship.

Fire

Ministry confirms Israel's deployment of white phosphorous bombs against Gaza

israeli strike in Al-Karama Gaza
The health ministry in the Gaza Strip, which has come under an all-out Israeli war, has confirmed the regime's deployment of banned white phosphorous munitions against a densely populated neighborhood in the coastal sliver.

"Israeli warplanes use internationally #prohibited_white_phosphorus, destroying al-Karama neighborhood," the official Palestinian Wafa news agency wrote on X on Wednesday, referring to a neighborhood lying in the north of the Palestinian territory.

Calling up an unprecedented 300,000 reservists, the Israeli regime has declared a "long" war on Gaza in response to Operation al-Aqsa Storm.

Gaza's Hamas and Islamic Jihad resistance movements initiated the operation on Saturday, killing hundreds of Israeli forces and illegal settlers and taking many others among them hostage. The resistance fighters say they waged the operation against the occupying regime in response to its decades-long campaign of bloodshed and destruction against Palestinians.

Comment: Reports from WAFA:






Star of David

The Israel-Palestine war is Washington's fault

Rubble
© Mohammed ABED/AFPPalestinians search for survivors after an Israeli airstrike on buildings in the refugee camp of Jabalia in the Gaza Strip.
The US has continually sidelined Palestinian grievances and buried any chance for a two-state solution - and with it, any chance for peace...

The administration of US President Joe Biden, together with decades of failed American policy decisions in West Asia, set the stage for the eruption of the horrifying violence we see today in Palestine and Israel. By sidelining the Palestinian cause for statehood and instead seeking a symbolic normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia, Washington also overlooked its own regional strategy.

In the early hours of Saturday morning, the armed wing of Hamas, the Qassam Brigades, launched an unprecedented military operation against Israel. Scenes instantly flooded social media of Palestinian [Hamas] fighters gunning down Israelis in cities such as Ashkelon, blowing up military vehicles, and killing and capturing hundreds of Israeli soldiers. It was a surprise offensive the likes of which hadn't been seen in over 50 years. It also represented a colossal failure for the Israeli government, military, and intelligence and security services, causing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to declare war on the Gaza Strip.

Attention

The road to Ukraine's ruin and possibly a Russian quagmire

Chaos
© UnknownUkrainian Chaos
There is a growing danger that Ukraine's now imminent rout on the battlefield at the hands of a far better-trained and better-equipped Russian force will lead to a period not unlike the Ruin that occurred in the latter half of the 17th century on Ukrainian territory and temporarily split Cossackdom into two several entities divided between Poland and Russia. The great Ruin involved a series of wars conducted by foreign powers — most notably Poland and Russia, but also the Ottoman Empire and Crimean Tatar Khanate — and internecine fighting and social unrest, which decimated a good part of Cossack territories, including many of those now being destroyed by NATO-Russia Ukrainian war.

With the failure of Ukraine's counter-offensive, high attrition and increasingly low morale among its fighting forces, declining political and military support from the West, the coming onset of winter and a possible, massive Russian offensive, the stage is being set for potential catastrophe. An all too possible path to a new Ruin could now be open and take the following course: the Ukrainian army's collapse, a subsequent coup in Kiev, resulting in civil war, chaos and, as I have written before, the possible formation of Ukrainian guerrilla resistance forces fighting Moscow's occupation.

Comment: Excellent assessment by Dr. Hahn.


Nuke

Scott Ritter: Russia throws down the nuclear gauntlet

PUtin
© Sputnik/TassRussian President Vladimir Putin
In an appearance at the plenary session of the Valdai Discussion Club on October 5, 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia had successfully tested the Burevestnik "nuclear-powered global-range cruise missile."

This effectively brought to fruition a journey he had announced back in a speech delivered on March 1, 2018 when he unveiled a series of new Russian strategic weapons designed as a response to America's continued nullification of arms control agreements regarding missile defense.

In his 2008 address, Putin outlined the efforts undertaken by Russia over the years to get the US to scale back missile defense programs Russia viewed as representing an existential threat to its survival. "You didn't listen to our country then," Putin concluded. "Listen to us now."

Chief among Russia's concerns was that continued US pursuit of missile defense capabilities, when coupled with an American nuclear posture that envisioned the possibility of pre-emptive nuclear war, could create the conditions in which US nuclear war planners could believe that an American first strike designed to neutralize Russia's strategic nuclear capability, when combined with a missile defense shield the US believed could shoot down most, if not all, of any Russian missiles that might survive such an attack, might actually be viable.

Comment: There should be no question in anyone's mind who is the gatekeeper. Hopefully, it is not put to a test.