Puppet MastersS


Attention

Why the media aren't telling the whole story of Libya's floods

There are reasons for Libya's "chaotic", "dysfunctional" response to the disaster. And to identify them, we need to look closer to home.
Floods devastated Derna
© Muhammad J. Elalwany / Anadolu Agency via GettyFloods devastated Derna.
The reality of the West's trademark current foreign policy - marketed for the past two decades under the principle of a "Responsibility to Protect" - is all too visible amid Libya's flood wreckage.

Many thousands are dead or missing in the port of Derna after two dams protecting the city burst this week as they were battered by Storm Daniel. Vast swaths of housing in the region, including in Benghazi, west of Derna, lie in ruins.

The storm itself is seen as further proof of a mounting climate crisis, rapidly changing weather patterns across the globe and making disasters like Derna's flooding more likely.

But the extent of the calamity cannot simply be ascribed to climate change. Though the media coverage studiously obscures this point, Britain's actions 12 years ago - when it trumpeted its humanitarian concern for Libya - are intimately tied to Derna's current suffering.

The failing dams and faltering relief efforts, observers correctly point out, are the result of a power vacuum in Libya. There is no central authority capable of governing the country.

But there are reasons Libya is so ill-equipped to deal with a catastrophe. And the West is deeply implicated.

Avoiding mention of those reasons, as Western coverage is doing, leaves audiences with a false and dangerous impression: that something lacking in Libyans, or maybe Arabs and Africans, makes them inherently incapable of properly running their own affairs.

Megaphone

Russia's pivot to the East is 'irreversible' - business ombudsman

camels
© Getty Images / Buena Vista Images
Russia is steadily reorienting trade and business cooperation toward Asia and away from the "static" West, Presidential Business Rights Commissioner Boris Titov told RIA Novosti on Wednesday.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Titov stated that while the process initially started as a political response to Western sanctions against Moscow, it has since evolved and is now based entirely on economics.

"Until recently, the process of Russia's turn to the East was largely due to political reasons, but today everything has changed dramatically... Now we can say with certainty that this turn is irreversible, and it is based not on political, but primarily economic reasons," the ombudsman said.

Titov claimed that while the Western economy is well-developed, it is already "too heavily invested and sluggish."

Putin

India and Russia to speed up new shipping route

Eastern Economic Forum
© X / @sarbanandsonwal
New Delhi and Moscow are stepping up efforts to begin operations along the Eastern Maritime Corridor (EMC), a shipping route which stretches from Vladivostok in Russia's Far East to the southern Indian port of Chennai, officials announced at the Eastern Economic Forum on Tuesday.

Addressing a special session on the topic in Vladivostok, the Indian minister of ports, shipping and waterways, Sarbananda Sonowal, extended an invitation for an Indo-Russian workshop on the EMC to be held in Chennai from October 30 to discuss "the smooth and swift operationalization" of the corridor.

"India remains firmly committed towards making innovative solutions that will enhance and further foster the strong bilateral relationship between our two great nations. As our teams hedged their effort for an early operationalization of EMC, the visit to Vladivostok, Vostochny, Nakhodka and Kozmino was particularly helpful," Sonowal said, according to an official statement.

The Russian government also expressed its desire to send a delegation to Chennai to explore opportunities with their Indian counterparts, the statement said. Shipping officials from the two countries discussed the modernization of port infrastructure and ways of ensuring cargo volumes.

Propaganda

WH puts squeeze on MSM: Sends letter 'urging' news outlets to 'ramp up scrutiny' of Biden impeachment inquiry

biden frail ramp walker
© AFP via Getty ImagesJoe Biden
President Biden's White House has told America's news organizations — including CNN, the New York Times and Fox News — to "ramp up their scrutiny" of House Republicans "for opening an impeachment inquiry based on lies."

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Tuesday ordered an impeachment inquiry into the president's alleged involvement in his son Hunter Biden's business deals in countries such as China and Ukraine.

"Through our investigations, we have found that President Biden did lie to the American people about his own knowledge of his family's foreign business dealings," the speaker charged, claiming that "these allegations paint a picture of a culture of corruption."

Ian Sams, a spokesperson for the White House Counsel's Office, wrote in a "memo to editorial leadership" at major new outlets that the inquiry has "no evidence that Joe Biden did anything wrong," which "should set off alarm bells for news organizations."

Chess

Poland explains why Ukraine can't join NATO now

duda zelensky
© AFP / Ukrainian Presidential Press ServicePolish President Andrzej Duda talks to his Ukrainian counterpart Vladimir Zelensky
Kiev cannot join the NATO military bloc as long as its conflict with Russia continues, Polish President Andrzej Duda has said.

Speaking at the Krynica Forum in southern Poland on Wednesday, Duda recalled meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart Vladimir Zelensky to discuss Kiev's future in NATO in the months preceding the bloc's summit, held in Vilnius in July.

"From the beginning, we were of course aware that this was a very difficult issue. In particular, it's difficult simply because there's a war going on and we're all well aware that a direct admission of Ukraine as a full member of NATO is out of question at this point," he said, as cited by PAP news agency.

The Polish leader explained that due to Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which stipulates that an attack on one member state triggers a response from the whole alliance, the bloc would have to join the conflict in Ukraine and fight against Russia if Kiev is admitted now.

Calendar

Trump won't stand trial in October: Judge rejects Fani Willis' bid to have all 19 co-defendants in Georgia election case be tried together - warns they could all be split up

group 4
© Bryn Anderson/AP/Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call Inc/Getty Images/redit.com/Superior Court Fulton County/X/KJNFulton County DA Fani Willis • Defense Attorney Sidney Powell
Trump Lawyer Kenneth Chesebro • Fulton County Superior Judge Scott McAfee
A Georgia judge ruled on Thursday that Donald Trump and 16 others will be tried separately from Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro, who are set to go to trial next month in the case that centers on an alleged scheme to overturn the 2020 election results in that state.

Powell and Chesebro had filed demands for a speedy trial, and Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee had set their trial to begin October 23.

The former president and the other defendants asked to be tried separately from the two, with some arguing they would not be ready in time for an October trial.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis was pushing to try all 19 co-defendants together in what she says was a massive conspiracy to take away Joe Biden's election victory in Georgia.

McAfee cited the tight timetable, among other issues, as a factor in his decision to separate Trump and 16 others from Powell and Chesebro.

The judge wrote:
'The precarious ability of the Court to safeguard each defendant's due process rights and ensure adequate pretrial preparation on the current accelerated track weighs heavily, if not decisively, in favor of severance. The courthouse simply contained no courtroom adequately large enough to hold all 19 defendants, their multiple attorneys and support staff, the sheriff's deputies, court personnel, and the State's prosecutorial team.'
He noted that it may be necessary to further divide the remaining co-defendants into smaller groups for trial.

Comment: Accusations are not crimes. Claims are not fraud. Both are common parts to a dispute.


Bulb

50 US lawmakers reintroduce 'CBDC Anti-Surveillance State Act' to protect 'the American way of life'

anti cbdc act
Fifty U.S. lawmakers have reintroduced the CBDC Anti-Surveillance State Act to prohibit the Federal Reserve from issuing a retail Central Bank Digital Currency while protecting innovation and any future development of true digital cash. This is in direct opposition to the Globalists and the WEF agenda that seeks to enslave and remove all personal freedoms and privacy with CCP-style credit scores and surveillance.

U.S. Congressman Tom Emmer (R-MN) who has been a longtime advocate that any Fed-issued digital dollar (central bank digital currency) remain open, permissionless, and private announced on Tuesday that he and 49 other lawmakers have reintroduced the CBDC Anti-Surveillance State Act "to halt the efforts of unelected bureaucrats in Washington D.C. from issuing a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) that dismantles Americans' right to financial privacy."

"If not open, permissionless, and private — like cash — a CBDC is nothing more than a CCP-style surveillance tool that can be weaponized to oppress the American way of life." argues the congressman, "President Biden is willing to compromise the American people's right to financial privacy for a surveillance-style CBDC. I don't believe in compromising Americans' rights," he added.

Passport

Another federal judge declares that DACA is illegal

daca protest illegal migrants children
© Associated Press
The issue likely to be decided by Supreme Court

While a federal judge on Wednesday declared illegal a revised version of a federal policy that prevents the deportation of hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, he declined to order an immediate end to the program and the protections it offers to recipients.

U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen agreed with Texas and eight other states suing to stop the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program. The judge's ruling was ultimately expected to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, sending the program's fate before the high court for a third time.

Comment: Obama's brainchild, DACA, has done as much to sow division and discord in the U.S. as any of his equity policies, all in the pursuit of endless power. Trump did try to do something about the mess:


Bizarro Earth

Mackinder's strategic 'bible' reconsidered

Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski
© CSIS.orgHenry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski in 2016
It is so long since Brzezinski originally formulated the Mackinder notion, that classical diplomacy has become etiolated.

In 1997, Zbig Brzezinski, the original 'driver' behind the making of Afghanistan as a quagmire of 'mud' into which Russia was to be dragged, wrote his celebrated book, The Grand Chessboard. It was a work that 'forever' embedded the Mackinder doctrine of 'he who controls the Asian heartland controls the world' into the U.S. zeitgeist.

Tellingly, its subtitle was American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives. Brzezinski had already written in his book that absent Ukraine, Russia would never become the heartland power; but with Ukraine, Russia can and would. Thus, Mackinder's doctrine, 'He who controls the heartland' dictum, was codified into U.S. 'cannon law' - never to permit a united heartland. And Ukraine became seen as the hinge around which heartland power revolved.

Brzezinski further ordained that this 'Grand Game of Chess' was to be one of pure U.S. primacy: "No, no one else plays", he insisted; it is a game purely for one. Once a chess piece is moved; 'we' (the U.S.) simply turn the board the other way around - and move the other side's chess pieces (for 'them'). There is 'no other' in this game", Brzezinski warned.

Clipboard

Five facts that compel the Biden impeachment inquiry

joe hunter biden irs investigate tax fraud
© Associated Press“I expected everyone was going to act appropriately,” Gary Shapley recalled. “It was just another case.”
Below is my column in The Messenger on the reason why an impeachment inquiry is warranted. I do not believe that a case for impeachment has been made, but there is clearly a need for an investigation into a growing array of allegations facing the President in this corruption scandal.

I also reject the notion that, because a conviction is unlikely in the Democratic-controlled Senate, the House should not go down this road. I rejected the same argument made by some Republicans during the Trump impeachment. The House has a separate constitutional duty in the investigation of potential impeachable offenses and to pass articles of impeachment if those allegations are found to be valid. My objection to the Trump impeachments were first and foremost the failure to fully investigate the underlying allegations and to create a full record to support the articles of impeachment. The Senate has its own constitutional function under the Constitution that it can either choose to fulfill or to ignore. A House impeachment holds both constitutional and historical significance separate from any conviction. That does not mean that grounds for impeachment will be found in this inquiry. While the President deserves a presumption of innocence in this process, the public deserves answers to these questions.

Here is the column: