Puppet MastersS


Bad Guys

Why Russell Brand is unlikely to face impartial justice

Graham Hryce
RT
Thu, 21 Sep 2023 18:43 UTC
russell brand
© James Manning/PA Images via Getty ImagesRussell Brand leaves the Troubabour Wembley Park theatre in north-west London after performing a comedy set on September 16, 2023
Trial by media and public opinion leaves no room for the accused to defend himself - and that's the whole idea

Last week, the controversial comedian and movie star Russell Brand became the latest high-profile target of the #MeToo movement.

This should not come as a complete surprise, given his celebrity status and sordid history of self-confessed promiscuity. Brand has been a potential target in waiting for some years - and it was probably just a matter of time before the movement zeroed in on him.

The attack on Brand followed the well-rehearsed, standard #MeToo modus operandi. A number of anonymous women, none of whom could ever hope to attain the celebrity status of their male target, have accused Brand of various kinds of sexual misconduct - including, most seriously, rape.

These alleged acts occurred some years ago, and none were reported to the police at the time they supposedly occurred. Nor have these acts been reported to the police even now.

Comment:

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Cow Skull

Pentagon-funded study warns dementia among US officials poses national security threat

Ken Klippenstein
The Intercept
Tue, 12 Sep 2023 15:34 UTC
Mitch McConnell freeze
Sen Mitch McConnell freezes during a press conference
Sens. Mitch McConnell and Dianne Feinstein, who have access to top-secret information, recently had public health episodes.

As the national security workforce ages, dementia impacting U.S. officials poses a threat to national security, according to a first-of-its-kind study by a Pentagon-funded think tank. The report, released this spring, came as several prominent U.S. officials trusted with some of the nation's most highly classified intelligence experienced public lapses, stoking calls for resignations and debate about Washington's aging leadership.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who had a second freezing episode last month, enjoys the most privileged access to classified information of anyone in Congress as a member of the so-called Gang of Eight congressional leadership. Ninety-year-old Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., whose decline has seen her confused about how to vote and experiencing memory lapses — forgetting conversations and not recalling a monthslong absence — was for years a member of the Gang of Eight and remains a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, on which she has served since 2001.

The study, published by the RAND Corporation's National Security Research Division in April, identifies individuals with both current and former access to classified material who develop dementia as threats to national security, citing the possibility that they may unwittingly disclose government secrets.

Comment: Time for them to retire. They've all made enough money.

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Bad Guys

'Biden's phase' of Ukraine war is beginning

M. K. Bhadrakumar
India Punchline
Sun, 17 Sep 2023 00:00 UTC
cruise missiles supplied by UK and France, hit Russia’s Black Sea
Long-range cruise missiles supplied by UK and France, hit Russia’s Black Sea fleet at its home port of Sevastopol, Sept 13, 2023
The ground war in Ukraine has run its course, a new phase is beginning. Even diehard supporters of Ukraine in the western media and think tanks are admitting that a military victory over Russia is impossible and a vacation of the territory under Russian control is way beyond Kiev's capability.

Hence the ingenuity of the Biden Administration to explore Plan B counseling Kiev to be realistic about loss of territory and pragmatically seek dialogue with Moscow. This was the bitter message that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken transmitted to Kiev recently in person.

But President Zelensky's caustic reaction in a subsequent interview with the Economist magazine is revealing. He hit back that the western leaders still talk the good talk, pledging they will stand with Ukraine "as long as it takes" (Biden mantra), but he, Zelensky, has detected a change of mood among some of his partners: "I have this intuition, reading, hearing and seeing their eyes [when they say] 'we'll be always with you.' But I see that he or she is not here, not with us." Certainly, Zelensky is reading the body language right, as in the absence of an overwhelming military success shortly, western support for Ukraine is time-limited.

Comment: Col. Douglas MacGregor's key point and assessment of Washington's position in this war: "God help us all - because this doesn't make sense."

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Bizarro Earth

The United Nations charter is a disgrace


iaindavis.substack.com
Mon, 04 Sep 2023 00:00 UTC
UN disgrace
The United Nations (UN) enables global governance and centralises global political power and authority. No national electorate on Earth has ever given their democratic mandate for the UN to create a global governance regime to serve the interests of private capital. But that is precisely what it has done.

Any nation, or bloc of nations, that bids for dominance within the United Nations' regime is seeking to maximise its, or their, influence. But they can never lead the UN because it represents the interests of a global public-private partnership (G3P) dominated by oligarchs, not nation states or their respective populations.

In the recent BRICS XV Johannesburg II Declaration, the member states collectively announced:
We reiterate our commitment to inclusive multilateralism and upholding international law, including the purposes and principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations (UN) as its indispensable cornerstone, and the central role of the UN in an international system in which sovereign states cooperate.
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Vader

Use prisoners for electricity - Ukrainian MP


RT
Tue, 19 Sep 2023 06:42 UTC
Lukyanivska prison in Kiev, Ukraine.
© Sergei SUPINSKY / AFPFILE PHOTO:
Sergey Grivko has proposed the idea for parliamentary consideration, suggesting inmates could have their sentences shortened.

Ukrainian lawmaker Sergey Grivko has suggested using the country's prison population as a source of electricity. According to the MP from the ruling Servant of the People party, inmates could use bicycle generators in exchange for shortened jail terms.

In a Facebook post, Grivko revealed that he had "one of my creative bills registered" for consideration by the country's parliament, TASS reported on Tuesday. He explained that he was aiming to "motivate 50,000 inmates to generate electricity with the help of bicycle generators."

Comment: The idea that " bicycle generators will fill the country's power grid" is too stupid and unreal even for a cartoon. Have they all gone crazy?
It is a good idea that everyone who enters politics or any other position of power should inevitably have some IQ test and head check first.

See also:

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Footprints

Russian troops withdraw from Norway border in drop since start of Ukraine war: official

Danielle Wallace
Fox News
Sun, 17 Sep 2023 11:03 UTC
Kristoffersen
© Lise Aserud/NTB/AFP/Getty ImagesGen. Eirik Kristoffersen • NATO Military Committee Conference
Oslo, Norway • Sept. 16, 2023
Norwegian chief of defense claims Putin 'knows very well' NATO is not a threat to Russia...

Norway said Russian forces have pulled back from its border in the Arctic, claiming the number of soldiers Moscow has there now is "20% or less" compared to the start of the Ukraine war.

"On our border, our region's border there is maybe 20% or less forces, less than before Feb. 24, 2022," Norwegian Chief of Defense Gen. Eirik Kristoffersen said Saturday.

After a meeting of the chiefs of defense of NATO countries held in Oslo, Kristoffersen claimed at a press conference that Russian President Vladimir Putin "knows very well" that the alliance is not a threat against Russia.
"Neither Norway, nor Sweden, nor Finland, nor Poland are threatening Russia. If he believed that we were threatening Russia, he couldn't have moved on his troops to Ukraine to fight the war there."
Norway, a NATO member since 1949 following the end of World War II, shares a border with Russia in the Arctic by the Kola Peninsula, where most of the Kremlin's nuclear weapons are stationed, as well as its Northern Fleet, which operates Russia's nuclear submarines, according to Reuters.

If Russia believed NATO was a threat, chair of the NATO Military Committee, Adm. Rob Bauer, added, Moscow would have responded "completely different" to Finland's induction into the alliance in April. "They have talked about it, but they haven't in physical terms," he said at the press conference.
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Chart Pie

The BRICS commodity powerhouse: Can it force a new economic 'order'?

Alastair Crooke
Strategic Culture Foundation
Mon, 18 Sep 2023 00:00 UTC
BRICS flags
© India News Network
A quiet 'watershed' moment has passed. It was nothing 'splashy'; many perhaps barely noticed; yet significant it truly was. The G20 did not descend into the expected sordid confrontation, with the G7 states (which Jake Sullivan has called the 'steering committee of the free world') demanding explicit condemnation of Russia over Ukraine, versus the Rest - as happened last year at Bali. No, the G7 unexpectedly 'surrendered' to an ascendant global 'Non-West' - one that cohesively insisted on its collective stance.

The stirrings of insurrection had been evident from the BRICS summit in August - the writing was on the wall. The Non-West would not be corralled or coerced into support for the G7 'line' on Russia. The war in Ukraine was barely mentioned in the final - agreed - declaration; the export of grain (Russian as well as Ukrainian) was treated even-handedly. It was a masterpiece of diplomacy by India.

The G7 evidently decided that the Ukraine 'point-scoring game' was not worth the candle. The former prioritised getting to consensus, rather than crashing the G20 (perhaps 'finally', with a deadlocked declaration).

But for the sake of clarity, it was not the downplaying of Ukraine that marks the 'watershed'. The shift on Ukraine - now consolidated within a wider U.S. Ukraine policy-switch - was very important but not primordial.

The 'primordial' was that the collective Non-West was able to coalesce around their urgent demand for radical reform of the global system.
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Attention

Okinawa governor tells U.N. that U.S. military base threatens peace

KYODO
thejapantimes
Wed, 20 Sep 2023 14:36 UTC
Tamaki
© KYODOOkinawa Gov. Denny Tamaki speaks at a session of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva
The governor of Okinawa Prefecture sought international backing at a U.N. session Monday for his opposition to a plan to relocate a U.S. military base within the prefecture.

But Gov. Denny Tamaki's stance was immediately questioned by a Japanese government official at the venue in Geneva, a split highlighting the contention over the project based on an agreement first reached by Tokyo and Washington in the 1990s.

"I am here today to ask the world to witness the situation in Okinawa," Tamaki told a session of the world body's Human Rights Council, arguing that the concentration of the military bases there threatens peace.

Tamaki, the first Okinawa governor in eight years to address the council, said:
"The reclamation work proceeds despite the fact that it was clearly opposed by Okinawan voters in a democratically held referendum."
He spoke during a part of the session that was allocated for a Japanese nongovernmental organization.
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Magnify

Fire in Transcaucasia - Again

Pepe Escobar
Strategic Culture Foundation
Wed, 20 Sep 2023 18:49 UTC
transcaucasia
The Pashinyan circle - very close to the Soros crowd - had in fact abandoned Nagorno-Karabakh for at least the past three years.

It's fire in Transcaucasia. Literally. All over again.

Azerbaijan went all out against Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh by bombing the regional capital Stepanakert with Israeli surface-to-surface LORA missiles and Israeli Harop kamikaze drones.

The Tor air defense system of the Armenian Armed Forces near the Khankendi-Khojaly road was destroyed by Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drones, and all mobile communications were completely cut off in Nagorno-Karabakh.

This sort of light blitz was compounded with an info war/ soft power offensive: an avalanche of videos nearly in real time extolling the military exploits coupled with a humanitarian subtext - as in we are determined to protect the Armenian population.
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Bullseye

US journalist tells RT that the 'West is a crumbling empire'


RT
Wed, 20 Sep 2023 18:35 UTC
Jason Hinkle The Dive western empire crumbling
© RTPolitical analyst Jackson Hinkle, host of "The Dive with Jackson Hinkle"
There is no hope of stifling the success of a multipolar world, Jackson Hinkle said

History will not look fondly upon the "Nazis and the liberals" who are pushing progressive ideology, such as transgenderism, onto children, political analyst Jackson Hinkle told RT in an interview on Tuesday.

The host of The Dive with Jackson Hinkle stressed that the US and Western Europe are beginning to lose their global influence in an "ever-changing multipolar world" and are becoming a "hollow skeleton of power" and a "crumbling empire."

"Empires are most dangerous when they're rising or falling, and right now that's definitely the case for the United States and the West," Hinkle said, noting that apart from a nuclear war, there is little Washington could do to stop the development of countries like China and Russia.

"There is really no hope of stifling the success of the whole world," he said.
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