Puppet Masters

Maduro will visit Iran to sign energy agreements

RFE/RL
Tue, 02 Jun 2020 06:44 UTC

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro says he will visit Iran shortly to sign cooperation agreements in energy and other sectors after Iran sent five fuel tankers to the South American country.

"I am obliged to go to personally thank the people," Maduro said on June 1 in an address broadcast on state television. He did not provide a date for his visit to the Islamic Republic.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Musavi said earlier that Tehran will continue to export fuel to Venezuela if the country requests more supplies.

Both Iran and Venezuela are under U.S. sanctions and Washington has sought to deter such shipments.

"Iran practices its free trade rights with Venezuela and we are ready to send more ships if Caracas demands more supplies from Iran," Musavi told a weekly news conference on June 1 that was broadcast live on state television.

Comment: Update for this article: All five Iranian gasoline tankers have successfully delivered their cargo to Venezuela.

See also:

Violence against foreign journalists covering George Floyd protests draws scrutiny from US allies

CBS News
Tue, 02 Jun 2020 18:12 UTC

Australia is investigating a U.S. police attack on two Australian journalists outside the White House with a view to launching a formal complaint, the foreign minister said Tuesday. The reporter and her cameraman were covering a protest outside the White House — part of the groundswell of public anger over the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.

"We have asked the Australian embassy in Washington D.C. to investigate this incident," Marise Payne said after the journalists were shoved, punched and hit with a baton live on television. "I want to get further advice on how we would go about registering Australia's strong concerns with the responsible local authorities in Washington."

Australia's 7News reporter Amelia Brace told her network that both she and her cameraman Tim Myers were left "pretty bruised, but okay" after their encounter with police in riot gear outside the White House.

Comment: RT reports on other journalists being harassed :

© Sputnik / Nicole Roussell
Nicole Roussell, reporting for Sputnik on the George Floyd riots, was injured by a rubber bullet
The police shot a US journalist working for Russian news outlet Sputnik with "rubber bullets" as she was covering protests near the White House on Tuesday, the outlet has reported.

Nicole Roussell said she got caught up in police violence in Washington DC when officers deployed anti-riot weapons against the protesting crowd. "I ran closer to get footage of what was happening and the police quickly began shooting what I think were a combination of stinger grenades and rubber bullets," she said.

The police shot projectiles at her despite her wearing a press badge and identifying herself as a journalist, she added. Other journalists and protesters were treated the same way, Roussell said.

'Most of you are weak': Trump tells governors to 'DOMINATE' rioters in scathing phone call as riots across the country continue - UPDATES

David Jackson and Michael Collins
USA TODAY
Mon, 01 Jun 2020 18:28 UTC

President Donald Trump went on an extended rant against the nation's governors Monday, calling them "weak" for failing to quell the violence in the nation's cities.

"Most of you are weak," Trump told governors on a conference call. "You have to arrest people."

"You have to dominate," Trump said, according to audio of the meeting obtained by CBS News. "If you don't dominate, you're wasting your time. They're going to run over you, you're going to look like a bunch of jerks. You have to dominate."

Attorney General Bill Barr, who was also on the Monday call, told governors they have to "dominate" the streets and control, not react to crowds, and urged them to "go after troublemakers."

Comment: Meanwhile, amid riots in DC residents are panicking after an explosion was heard, and mobs of protesters descended on the White House, and the historic St John's Church nearby was set alight by arsonists.

Trump called his presidential opponent Joe Biden 'clueless' over his campaign's decision to help fund efforts to bail out Minneapolis protesters who were arrested.

The governor of Minnesota has admitted to using intelligence support from the Pentagon in trying to crack down on the riots. Seems like it's not very far from troops being on the streets at this point.

In Louisville, Kentucky, police and protesters engaged in back and forth shooting after the city's imposed curfew, leading to a protester being killed. A journalist in DC who writes for the Gateway Pundit, Cassandra Fairbanks, had to arm herself in her home with her 9-year-old daughter after it was attacked by rioters outside.

Update (2 June): Police and National Guard troops pushed back protesters in DC using tear gas to clear a way for Trump to visit St. Johns church. A short time later, Trump gave a speech calling himself a "law and order" president and that he was "dispatching thousands and thousands of heavily armed soldiers, military personnel and law enforcement officers to stop the rioting, looting, vandalism, assaults and the wanton destruction of property."

DC residents went to Twitter to put up videos of the National Guard policing the streets of DC:

During Trump's address to the nation, he threatened to deploy the military anywhere around the country where state leaders failed to restore order, calling the rioters "domestic terrorists."

Pandering Biden stumbles again; says cops could shoot 'unarmed people with knives' in leg instead of heart

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Mon, 01 Jun 2020 17:36 UTC

Joe Biden showed up at a black church on Monday to pander for votes, in what Bloomberg descriebd as a "subdued and sometimes meandering speech" as violent protests over the death of George Floyd grip the nation.

Speaking to an audience at the Bethel AME Church in Wilmington, Delaware, the former Vice President said he would establish a police oversight board in his first 100 days as president, while promising that his coronavirus relief efforts would "deal with institutional racism."

Biden, who told black voters last month that if they don't vote for him "you ain't black," said "I've never taken for granted" the black vote, adding "I've never ever done that. It has to be earned, earned every single time."

He also stumbled at times during his "sometimes meandering" speech, offering the following suggestion on police training:

This is not a revolution. It's a blueprint for locking down the nation

John W. Whitehead
The Rutherford Institute
Mon, 01 Jun 2020 00:00 UTC

"When it gets down to having to use violence, then you are playing the system's game. The establishment will irritate you — pull your beard, flick your face — to make you fight. Because once they've got you violent, then they know how to handle you."
— John Lennon

Brace yourselves.

There is something being concocted in the dens of power, far beyond the public eye, and it doesn't bode well for the future of this country.

Anytime you have an entire nation so mesmerized by political theater and public spectacle that they are oblivious to all else, you'd better beware.

Anytime you have a government that operates in the shadows, speaks in a language of force, and rules by fiat, you'd better beware.

And anytime you have a government so far removed from its people as to ensure that they are never seen, heard or heeded by those elected to represent them, you'd better beware.

What is unfolding before us is not a revolution.

The looting, the burning, the rioting, the violence: this is an anti-revolution.

Tucker Carlson: 'Our Leaders Dither as Our Cities Burn'

Tucker Carlson
Fox News
Tue, 02 Jun 2020 00:00 UTC

The nation went up in flames this weekend. No one in charge stood up to save America. Our leaders dithered. They cowered. They openly sided with the destroyers. In many cases, they egged them on.

Later, they will deny doing any of this. They are denying it now. But you know the truth because you saw it happen.

This is how nations collapse. When no one in authority keeps the order, and when someone in our professional class encourage violence, American citizens are forced to defend themselves. They have no choice. No one else is going to defend them -- they know that now.

It's possible that more people will be hurt in coming days -- that would be a tragedy. But in an environment like this, more violence could very well lead to a cascade of new tragedies, to something far bigger and more destructive than anything we have seen so far.

So, this isn't over. It might simply be the beginning. We pray it isn't.

It's hard to think clearly about anything that's going on right now. The chaos, the destruction, the relentless lying from above -- it's all too much. Americans are bewildered, and they are afraid. But most of all, they are filled with rage, angrier than they have ever been.

The worst people in our society have taken control. They did nothing to build this country. Now, they are tearing it down. They are rushing us toward mass suicide.

Comment: Don't miss:

Sweden's triumph: Staying free in a lockdown world

Mike Whitney
The Unz Review
Mon, 01 Jun 2020 00:00 UTC

Why is the media so preoccupied with Sweden? And why is the media so determined to prove that Sweden's approach to the coronavirus is wrong? Are we supposed to believe that the same MSM that promoted every bloody coup, intervention and war for the last 30 years has suddenly become a selfless advocate for elderly Swedes fighting off a lethal infection?

That's baloney. The reason the media publishes roughly 15 articles blasting Sweden for every one article voicing support is because the media has a stake in the outcome. The media wants to dispel the idea that there is any alternative to the authoritarian lockdown approach. Thus, the Swedish model - that leaves parts of the economy open and trusts people to follow the government's "distancing" guidelines — has to be obliterated. That's what's really going on. The media has no interest in a smallish north European country of 10.4 million people. What they care about is the example that Sweden is setting for other countries around the world. If those other countries follow suit and settle on an approach that is based on science and trust rather than politics and coercion, then the elitist plan to prolong the crisis and restructure the economy begins to unravel. So, Sweden must be annihilated. It's that simple.

Comment: The following articles are further support of the idea that Sweden was, and is, a more or less sole voice for sanity and common sense in a world that has lost all perspective on the virus.

Medicare chief blasts Cuomo for deflecting blame onto White House for knowingly sending coronavirus patients to nursing homes

Charles Creitz
Fox News
Tue, 02 Jun 2020 10:20 UTC

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Seema Verma fired back at New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo Wednesday after he claimed last week to be following "what the Republican administration said to do" when he ordered nursing homes to admit coronavirus patients who had been discharged from hospitals.

Verma told "The Brian Kilmeade Show" on Fox News Radio that neither she nor Trump instructed governors to place infected patients back in their original nursing home setting.

"President Trump took very early actions when it came to nursing homes," Verma said. "We prohibited visitors [and] put out guidance to both nursing homes and states."

Comment: Cuomo can deflect blame all he likes, because the facts are clear: he himself stated that nursing homes were "the optimum feeding ground for this virus" and yet he sent infected patients there anyway. Meanwhile other states, such as Louisiana, barred hospitals from sending coronavirus patients to nursing homes for 30 days, so he had options, but for some reason chose the worst possible one.

An arrested Middle East - The 'New Strategy for Securing the Realm' dissipates

Alastair Crooke
Strategic Culture Foundation
Mon, 01 Jun 2020 00:00 UTC

Some eight years ago, I wrote about the outbreak of popular stirring in the Middle East, then labelled the 'Arab Awakening'. Multiple popular discontents were welling: demands for radical change proliferated, but above all, there was anger - anger at mountainous inequalities in wealth; blatant injustices and political marginalisation; and at a corrupt and rapacious élite. The moment had seemed potent, but no change resulted. Why? And what are the portents, as the Corona era covers the region once again with dark clouds of economic gloom and renewed discontent?

The U.S. was conflicted, as these earlier rumblings of thunder spread from hilltop to hilltop. Some in the CIA, had perceived popular movements - such as the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) (although Islamist) as the useful solvent that could wash away lingering stale Ottoman residues, to usher in a shiny westernised modernity. Many over excited Europeans imagined (wrongly), that the popular Awakenings were made in their own image. They weren't.

The facile interpretation of the Awakening as a liberal democratic 'impulse' was at best, an exaggeration, if not a pure fantasy. I wrote then (in 2012):

"What genuine popular impulse there was at the outset ... has now been subsumed, and absorbed into three major political projects associated, rather with a push to reassert [Sunni] primacy across the region: a Muslim Brotherhood project, a Saudi-Salafist project, and a militant Salafist project [which subsequently was to evolve into ISIS]".

Comment: See also:

Susan Rice goes full conspiracy rant on CNN: 'Russians behind race protest mayhem!'

Tyler Durden
Zerohedge
Mon, 01 Jun 2020 10:36 UTC

"This is fucking lunacy — conspiratorial madness of the worst kind — but it's delivered by a Serious Obama Official and a Respected Mainstream Newscaster so it's all fine," Intercept journalist Glenn Greenwald fired off in response to a CNN segment blaming "foreign interference" for the still raging George Floyd protests and riots.

"This is Infowars-level junk. Should Twitter put a 'False' label on this? Or maybe a hammer and sickle emoji?" he added. Indeed after three years of national Russiagate obsession was promptly memory-holed given it died a fiery death with the great nothing-burger that was the Mueller investigation, Obama's former National Security Advisor and later ambassador to the UN Susan Rice appeared on CNN's The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer to blame it all on the... you guessed it: Russians!

Comment: Susan Rice: A political hack who is willing to incessantly lie to the public in order to secure her dangerous clan's pursuit of power for its own sake:

This article is irrelevant. Hunter Biden was scheduled to be executed through hanging on Friday Oct. 15 at GITMO. Wake Up SOTT.net! [Link]

rbeltz48

The Duke gave the credit for the Royal family's decades-long interest in the environment to his late grandfather, the Duke of Edinburgh, who he...

LadyRad

Harry Truman met Luce shortly after leaving office and told him to his face; "Mr. Luce, a man like you must have trouble sleeping at nights...

bobpinto

Trick Or Treat II: [Link]

parzival

The Impact of CO2, H2O and Other “Greenhouse Gases” on Equilibrium Earth Temperatures” by Coe, Fabinski and Weigleb, in the International Journal...

parzival

Puppet Masters

Maduro will visit Iran to sign energy agreements

Violence against foreign journalists covering George Floyd protests draws scrutiny from US allies

'Most of you are weak': Trump tells governors to 'DOMINATE' rioters in scathing phone call as riots across the country continue - UPDATES

Pandering Biden stumbles again; says cops could shoot 'unarmed people with knives' in leg instead of heart

This is not a revolution. It's a blueprint for locking down the nation

Tucker Carlson: 'Our Leaders Dither as Our Cities Burn'

Sweden's triumph: Staying free in a lockdown world

Medicare chief blasts Cuomo for deflecting blame onto White House for knowingly sending coronavirus patients to nursing homes

An arrested Middle East - The 'New Strategy for Securing the Realm' dissipates

Susan Rice goes full conspiracy rant on CNN: 'Russians behind race protest mayhem!'

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