Welcome to Sott.net
Thu, 30 Sep 2021
The World for People who Think

Puppet Masters
Map

Bad Guys

What is behind Gen. Mark Milley's righteous race sermon? Look to the new domestic war on terror

Glenn Greenwald
greenwald.substack.com
Fri, 25 Jun 2021 00:00 UTC
U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley

U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley testifies during a hearing before the House Committee on Armed Services at Rayburn House Office Building June 23, 2021 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.
The overarching ideology of Pentagon officials is larger military budgets and ongoing permanent war posture. Their new war target, explicitly, is domestic "white rage."

For two hundred forty years, American generals have not exactly been defined by adamant public advocacy for left-wing cultural dogma. Yet there appeared to be a great awakening at the Pentagon on Wednesday when Gen. Mark Milley, the highest-ranking military officer in the U.S. as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified at a House hearing. The Chairman vehemently defended the teaching of critical race theory at West Point and, referencing the January 6 Capitol riot, said, "it is important that we train and we understand ... and I want to understand white rage. And I'm white."

In response to conservative criticisms that top military officials should not be weighing in on inflammatory and polarizing cultural debates, liberals were ecstatic to have found such an empathetic, racially aware, and humanitarian general sitting atop the U.S. imperial war machine. Overnight, Gen. Milley became a new hero for U.S. liberalism, a noble military leader which — like former FBI Director Robert Mueller before him — no patriotic, decent American would question let alone mock. Some prominent liberal commentators warned that conservatives are now anti-military and even seek to defund the Pentagon.


Comment: And prey tell us, dear generals (almost all of whom are white), was it 'rage' that spurred you to box in the democratically-elected president of the United States then effect a coup against him?

See also:

      Read More...
Light Sabers

Chinese ambassador to France suggests WHO prioritizes US' Fort Detrick lab in next-stage investigation


Global Times
Mon, 28 Jun 2021 20:44 UTC

Comment: Although this report is 10 days old, it's worth noting for the record China's response to the current 'information blitz' in the West that 'China did it'...


Fort Detrick Maryland

Fort Detrick, Maryland, actual source of the 'Wuhan' Flu?
The US' milking of the virus lab leak theory to attack China is a copycat of the "washing powder" lie that helped it start the Iraq War, and the WHO should prioritize the US' Fort Detrick lab in next-stage investigations on the virus origins tracing, said China's ambassador to France on Thursday.

In an interview with the French newspaper L'Opinion, Ambassador Lu Shaye responded to a series of questions including the centenary anniversary of the Communist Party of China, the pandemic, US, Taiwan, tensions with the EU, and Uygur minorities. Lu said there is a striking similarity between the modus operandi used by Washington to start the war in Iraq in 2003 and the suggestion that China created the virus.

"The same process is being repeated ... of imposing an accusation based on the presumption of guilt, then applying pressure by instrumentalizing and misleading public opinion," he said.

The ambassador gave an example of US President Joe Biden's ordering of its intelligence groups to investigate the lab leak theory. "This is no scientific research at all," said Lu. The US also pictured scenarios of lab leak accidents in an attempt to open the door of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, said Lu, noting that those accusations were based on the lab leak accident of the US lab at Fort Detrick. But Western media has never reported on the US lab.

Comment: China 'kept the virus under control within two months' because it realized the thing was uncontrollable and benign (at least in terms of its mortality rate).

The US/West had other plans...

For more on this, see Sott.net editors Joe Quinn and Niall Bradley discuss 'the Covid-19 pandemic' in its geopolitical context:

NewsReal: China Did it! Or Did They? Whose Pandemic is it Anyway?!

      Read More...
Footprints

Just as the border trip beckoned, two more staffers fled Kamala Harris

Monica Showalter
American Thinker
Fri, 25 Jun 2021 00:00 UTC
Harris
© Reuters/Jonathan Ernst
US VP Kamala Harris has a staffing problem
Kamala Harris has been in politics for eighteen years yet still can't quite figure out how to keep staff.

The departure of two top travel advance women, just as she's heading for the border in a hastily announced trip to get there before President Trump does, suggests that things are getting very bad indeed.

According to a softly cushioned report in the New York Times:
Two top aides who oversee travel for Vice President Kamala Harris are departing, leaving the vice president with her critical support staff in flux as she seeks to ramp up travel ahead of big vaccine and voting rights pushes she is planning through July.

Karly Satkowiak, the director of advance, and Gabrielle DeFranceschi, the deputy director of advance, have both told the vice president's office they plan to leave in the coming weeks, according to three sources familiar with their plans. A spokeswoman for Ms. Harris said the departures were long planned and that both women are currently engaged with finding their replacements.
The Times tries to convey that the whole thing was pre-planned and just a changing of the guard. It's similar in style to former State Department biggie Roberta Jacobson's hasty exit from her border coordinator job, shortly after Harris was named Biden's border czar on March 24. Just a temporary job, they claimed, nothing special. Amazing how they recycle their spin and excuses from one quick staff exit to the next. Nothing to see here, move along.

The details of the Times report, though, suggest a very different story.

Comment: Treating staff poorly is Kamala's signature, even before her grand elevation to VP. Imagine if she actually became president...!!! 'Chaos in Chief'

See also:
Blow for Kamala Harris as aide resigns with scathing letter: 'I've never seen staff treated so poorly', 'no plan for the campaign'

      Read More...
Attention

Trudeau government's move to protect Canadians against hate speech & hate crimes is the road to hell for freedom of expression

Lauren Chen
RT
Sat, 26 Jun 2021 15:42 UTC
Trudeau
© Reuters/Yves Herman
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
Many Canadians consider their country to be a free one, but unfortunately the Trudeau government is moving toward levels of censorship and control over language that should gravely concern those who support freedom of expression.

The shaky grounds of Canadian free speech

For those unfamiliar with Canadian laws, especially Americans, any discussion of possible state censorship in Canada often begins with the question, 'But what about the Constitution?'

Like our Southern neighbors, Canada does indeed have a Constitution with its very own equivalent of the Bill of Rights, called the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And like the Bill of Rights' First Amendment, the Charter does offer protections for freedom of speech and expression.

Comment: And this is why the public should take NOTHING for granted. The devil is in the details and it is knocking on your door.

      Read More...
Better Earth

Russia calls for reform of UN Security Council: Lavrov says West has 'excessive representation' and it should include more nations

Jonny Tickle
RT
Mon, 28 Jun 2021 10:24 UTC
Sergey Lavrov
© AP
Russian FM Sergey Lavrov
The "excessive representation of the West" in decision-making should be limited to create a more balanced world order, with more input from the global east and south, according to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Writing for Moscow daily Kommersant, Lavrov said Western nations had too much power on the United Nations Security Council, and the proposed limitations would democratize international relations.

The Security Council, made up of 15 countries, includes five permanent members: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. There are no permanent representatives from Africa, southern Asia, or South America. The other 10 places are taken up by nations on a rotating basis, with three members invited to join from Africa, two from the Asia-Pacific, one from Eastern Europe, two from Latin America and the Caribbean, and two from Western Europe. According to Lavrov, this setup favors Western nations. Lavrov wrote:
"Efforts to bring more democracy to international relations and affirm a polycentric world order include reforming the UN Security Council by strengthening it with Asian, African, and Latin American countries, and ending the anomaly with the excessive representation of the West in the UN's main body."
The existing instruments allow the West to "lay down the law" and censure any countries that break the unwritten rules of the so-called "rules-based world order," he claimed.

Comment: Lavrov and Putin must feel like they are the only grownups in the global room.

      Read More...
Microscope 2

Last foreign scientist to work at Wuhan lab: 'What people are saying is just not how it is'

Joseph Choi
The Hill
Sun, 27 Jun 2021 11:06 UTC
Danielle Anderson
© Bloomberg
Virologist Danielle Anderson
The last foreign scientist to work at the Wuhan Institute of Virology spoke out for the first time in an interview with Bloomberg published on Sunday, telling the publication, "What people are saying is just not how it is."

Australian virologist Danielle Anderson, an expert in bat-borne viruses, told Bloomberg that working at the lab in Wuhan was a lifelong career goal. Anderson was in Wuhan in 2019 when the COVID-19 virus first began to spread. Anderson told Bloomberg that she was impressed by the biocontainment lab at the institute and said researchers had to undergo 45 hours of training to be certified to work independently in the lab.
"It's not that it was boring, but it was a regular lab that worked in the same way as any other high-containment lab. What people are saying is just not how it is. Training is very, very extensive.

"If people were sick, I assume that I would have been sick — and I wasn't. I was tested for coronavirus in Singapore before I was vaccinated, and had never had it."

Comment: If Fauci and Biden were to 'pick a lab' to blame, best it be one in China - the 'farthest' from the truth.

For self-serving window dressing, see also:

      Read More...
Arrow Down

Team Biden and CNN's criticism of Facebook not censoring Trump before the election is wholly un-American

Micah Curtis
RT
Mon, 28 Jun 2021 14:47 UTC
Trump statement
© File/AFP/Olivier Douliery
A recent article on CNN highlighted the Democrats' concern about Facebook not vetoing content from the Trump campaign in the run-up to the election - and proves they have no respect for free speech.

Over the past eight years or so, censorship by Big Tech has been a consistent - and growing - concern. Many conservative groups have claimed they've been muzzled by platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. In other cases, the silencing has been even more blatant.

Of course, the highest-profile subject of this censorship has been former president Donald Trump, who has essentially been kicked off all the major social media networks. The justification was his alleged role in the January 6 riot at Capitol Hill, but now it appears there were calls from the Biden campaign for him to be censored on Facebook prior to November's election.

According to a recent report from CNN - which attempted to spin the goings-on as Facebook not doing enough about "misinformation" - Biden's backers were pressurizing the platform to remove posts and videos uploaded by the Trump campaign.


Comment: Living in a continually pivotal moment, the removal of information recasts history.


Comment: Close the loop by censoring the censors with non-action, non-acknowledgement, non-vote.

      Read More...
Jet1

US strikes hit Iran-backed militia facilities in Iraq and Syria


The Guardian
Mon, 28 Jun 2021 01:09 UTC
Jet fighter
© US Air Force/AFP/Getty Images
Airstrikes target operational and weapons storage facilities of Iran-backed militia.
The US has launched airstrikes against sites linked to Iranian backed militias in Iraq and Syria, in response to drone attacks against US interests in Iraq.

The attacks mark the second time Joe Biden has authorised attacks against Iranian proxies since he was sworn in as president in January and are the first since hardline Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi was elected earlier this month.

They follow a spate of drone attacks on US bases that officials in Baghdad and Washington believe were launched by Iranian proxy groups, which have been increasingly active over recent months, testing the authority of the Iraqi leadership as well as US willingness to confront them in the lead up to the resumption of talks to restart the nuclear deal.

Pentagon officials said the strikes, carried out on Sunday, targeted operational and weapons storage facilities at two locations. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group that closely monitors the Syrian conflict, reported that at least five Iraqi militiamen were killed.


Comment: The SOHR is a shell organization consisting of a one-man operation based in the UK - a mouthpiece for propaganda.

See: Russia denies accusations of carrying out airstrikes in Idlib, Syria


Comment: Accusations, posturing and denials from all sides have not brought clarity to the attacks:
"We condemn the US air attack that targeted a site last night on the Iraqi-Syrian border, which represents a blatant and unacceptable violation of Iraqi sovereignty and Iraqi national security," a statement from Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi's office said on Monday, stressing that the nation refuses to become the arena for third parties to settle their scores. The military also promised to carry out all the investigations and procedures needed to avoid such incidents in the future.

The US military said in a statement: "As demonstrated by this evening's strikes, President Biden has been clear that he will act to protect US personnel."

While the US military did not elaborate whether anyone was killed or injured in the attacks, Iraqi militia groups have confirmed that at least four members of Kataib Sayyed al-Shuhada militia were killed in the strikes.

Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh warned Washington against "creating crisis" in the region, stating it would ultimately backfire on the US itself. "Certainly, what the United States is doing is disrupting security in the region, and one of the victims of this disruption will be the United States."
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has defended US airstrikes on Iranian-backed militia targets either side of the Iraq/Syria border, claiming they were "necessary" and "appropriate" to send a "clear" message to these groups. Blinken's "message" was likely aimed at Tehran as much as the militias themselves.
Iraq's Shiite-dominated Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) denied on Monday any presence of arms depots at the positions struck by the US Air Force on the country's border with Syria.

"As a result of the airstrike, four soldiers, who were carrying out the routine task of preventing the penetration of IS terrorists (banned in Russia) from Syria to Iraq, have been killed ... They were not involved in any activity against foreign forces in Iraq," the statement obtained by Sputnik read, adding that "there were no depots in the militia positions that were hit by the airstrike".


      Read More...
Brick Wall

Mainstream media ignores claims Joe Biden inadvertently paid for Hunter's sex with a prostitute

Brian Stieglitz
The Daily Mail
Thu, 24 Jun 2021 18:05 UTC
Maddow
© MSNBC
Rachel Maddow, of MSNBC, made no mention on her show last evening about claims Hunter inadvertently used his father’s credit card to pay an escort $25,000
America's biggest liberal news outlets have avoided reporting on the latest Hunter Biden scandal, amid claims he inadvertently used his father's credit card to accidentally overpay an escort $25,000.

The United States' most popular left-leaning publications and news networks - including The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN and MSNBC - have made no mention of the story in the 36 hours since it was broken by the Post, and confirmed by DailyMail.com

On Wednesday evening, CNN host Jake Tapper did mention Hunter on his show - but only while discussing the president's son's paintings with Republican writer Kristin Soltis Anderson.

Comment:

      Read More...
Newspaper

Russian Orthodox Church does not support abortion in any scenario, even when pregnancy caused by rape - Moscow Patriarchate spokesman

Jonny Tickle
RT
Mon, 28 Jun 2021 14:38 UTC
Hilarion Patriarchate
© RIA
Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, Chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, Moscow, Russia.
Human life has an absolute value and rape is not grounds for abortion. That's according to the Russian Orthodox Church, which revealed that the institution's official stance is that termination of pregnancy can never be justified.

Speaking to TV channel Russia 24, Metropolitan Hilarion, the Moscow Patriarchate's official spokesman, said the circumstances of conception are not a good reason to terminate a pregnancy.

"The church's opinion is that even if a girl gets pregnant as a result of rape, this is not a reason to have an abortion," he said.

Comment: There are signs that Russia's attitude to abortion is changing, and, interestingly, it's in line with its Church's own stance, with a recent article highlighting that abortions have halved, from 582,000 in 2013, to 294,450 2018.

Meanwhile in the West some changes to abortion legislation are nearing on the abominable: Also check out SOTT radio's: Objective: Health - Law or Flaw? Let's Talk About Abortion

      Read More...
Amazon Smile
Revolt! T-shirts