Puppet Masters
The 20th anniversary of September 11, 2001 is a particularly somber one, not just because of the horrific nature of events of that day reaching its second-decade milestone, but because of how little we seem to have learned in that amount of time.
The fear and trauma generated by the events of 9/11 were used by the U.S. national security state and its civilian allies to great effect to divide the American population, to attack independent reporting as well as independent thought, to gut the anti-war movement, and to normalize the U.S. government's overt and persistent degradation of the country's Constitution. This, of course, is in addition to the illegal U.S. occupations and drone wars in the Middle East and elsewhere that were also born out of this event.
The true beneficiaries of 9/11
As a nation, the U.S. populace has failed to grapple with these realities, and many others, in the two decades since the Twin Towers and WTC Building 7 fell. Far from bringing any benefit to the alleged masterminds of the event, the results of 9/11 instead overwhelmingly favored the ambitions of a powerful faction within the U.S. national security state that had long sought to bring the dissident-elimination efforts it spent decades implementing abroad - from the Phoenix Program in Vietnam to Operation Condor in South America - home to roost.

Zheng Zeguang was due to attend a meeting of the broadly pro-Chinese all-party group on China.
The new ambassador, Zheng Zeguang, was due to attend a meeting of the broadly pro-Chinese all-party group on China, but after a letter from MPs who were subjected to sanctions by China, including the former Conservative party leader Iain Duncan Smith, the Commons Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, has said the meeting is not appropriate.
A similar decision has been endorsed by the Lords Speaker, John McFall.
Comment: State affiliated media outlet China Times had this to say:
UK Parliament's banning of Chinese ambassador from attending events reflects the narrow and parochial mindset of some individuals in the UK. It is a shortsighted, reckless and cowardly move, and the Chinese embassy strongly condemns it.Whilst the West and its allies try to assert the dwindling influence they have left, China is busy setting up viable alternatives to the current system, with countries desiring to work on a mutually beneficial basis: How China's Realpolitik approach to Venezuela, Iran & Afghanistan upends US' geopolitical game
In response, spokesperson of the Chinese embassy in the UK said that China's sanctions on a handful of anti-China parliamentarians of the UK, announced in March, were completely justified and reasonable.
It was a necessary response to these people who spread slanderous rumours and disinformation about China's Xinjiang and to the unilateral sanctions on relevant personnel and institutions in China by the UK side on the pretext of Xinjiang-related issues.
The spokesperson said Chinese embassy strongly condemns the UK parliament's decision.
On issues that are China's core interests, the Chinese side always responds resolutely and never tolerates wrong moves. Our firm position will never be shaken by such tricks on the part of the UK Parliament, said the spokesperson.
In obstructing the Chinese Ambassador from attending an event in the UK Parliament upon invitation as a retaliation, the UK Parliament is disregarding the fundamental interest of the Chinese and British people and ignoring international protocol. This is totally wrong and doomed to failure. We urge the handful of individuals in the UK Parliament to stop playing political tricks, or they will only make things worse for themselves, according to the spokesperson.
See also: John Pilger: The Coming War on China
Zeman reportedly arrived at the hospital at 11:00 local time, accompanied by his wife Ivana. His hospitalisation will probably last a long time, media reports suggest.
Comment: Just going off reports of the last few years, it would appear that Zeman is a man of principle and reason, who's brave enough to question and confront the establishment, all qualities sorely lacking in the vast majority of today's leaders:
- Czech politics in crisis as President Zeman is NOT convinced by intel reports blaming Russia for 2014 explosion, suggests cover up
- Czech senators mull HIGH TREASON lawsuit for President Zeman after he cast doubt on Russian role in 2014 ammo blast
- Putin sends telegram congratulating Zeman on re-election as Czech president and confirms commitment to cooperation
- America's stake in the Czech elections, and President Zeman's policies
- Czech president Zeman on Skripal case: 'I want to see evidence' that Russians did it
Trump said the account written by Woodward and Costa in their book "Peril," which is set to be released Sept. 21, was "concocted by a weak and ineffective General together with two authors who I refused to give an interview to because they write fiction, not fact."
His comments come after The New York Times and CNN, which obtained copies of the book, reported that Milley called his Chinese counterpart in the waning months of the Trump administration to reassure him that Trump did not have plans to attack China as part of a ploy to remain in power.
Comment: Perhaps this could be an attempt to distract from the terrible press the General is currently getting on the botched Afghanistan withdrawal - virtue signalling to the "Resistance".
See also:
- Milley says civil war in Afghanistan 'likely' after US withdrawal, could lead to 'reconstruction of al Qaeda'
- 130 retired generals, admirals demand resignations from Milley and Austin over Afghanistan disaster
- Nearly 90 retired Generals and Admirals call for Gen. Milley and Lloyd Austin to resign
- 'If I was going to do a coup, it wouldn't be with him': Trump attacks 'woke' general Milley who suspected a 'nazi' coup attempt
- What is behind Gen. Mark Milley's righteous race sermon? Look to the new domestic war on terror
- 'Milley got the job because he knows how to suck up - he's not just a pig, he's stupid' -Tucker Carlson unloads on Gen. Mark Milley
- Milley drops objection to change in military's sexual assault policy
The value of tough US sanctions against Venezuela's oil sector will substantially decline if China steps in to fill the void, energy observers say, citing Bloomberg's September report that China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), once a major investor in Venezuela, is sending engineers and commercial staff to the South American state.
Venezuelan Oil Sector: China is Stepping In
Venezuela's oil industry was subjected to crippling restrictions by the Trump administration. Trump started to tighten the screws on the country's energy sector in 2017 by prohibiting the trading of Venezuelan bonds in US markets. Two years later, the US slapped sanctions on the country's energy giant Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA). The move came shortly after the US-backed attempted coup of 23 January 2019 aimed at toppling Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro. Washington also went after key trading houses and individuals that propped up Venezuela's oil exports.
Comment: See also:
- Pepe Escobar: How Russia-China are stage-managing the Taliban
- The United States rejoining the Iran nuclear deal is a good thing, right? Well, not necessarily
- Trump reaps the whirlwind with China/Iran mega deal
- Galloway: UK denying Maduro access to Venezuelan gold is not only theft, it's the death of London's reputation

Vice President Kamala Harris received (maybe?) her second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine on January 26, 2021 at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.
Vice President Kamala Harris raised eyebrows on Sunday with her tweet urging Americans to help protect already vaccinated people in order to end the COVID-19 pandemic.
"By vaccinating the unvaccinated, increasing our testing and masking, and protecting the vaccinated, we can end this pandemic. That's exactly what we are committed to doing," Harris tweeted.
There has been widespread confusion over vaccine rhetoric from the Biden administration, as a push to protect the vaccinated has become a common talking point, despite the vaccines already providing strong protection for those who've gotten them.
Former FBI special agent Terry Albury is one of the very few people within the bureau, who challenged racial profiling, surveillance, and abusive informant recruitment practices.
Albury, who is a Black man, was prosecuted under the Espionage Act during President Donald Trump's administration after he provided documents to the Intercept. He accepted a plea deal and was sentenced to about four years in federal prison.
A New York Times Magazine profile by journalist Janet Reitman detailed Albury's life and career as an FBI special agent and what led to his disclosures. Albury told Reitman:
"There is this mythology surrounding the war on terrorism, and the FBI, that has given agents the power to ruin the lives of completely innocent people based solely on what part of the world they came from, or what religion they practice, or the color of their skin. And I did that. I helped destroy people, for 17 years."Albury was the only Black agent in the regional office for most of the time that he worked for the FBI's terrorism squad in Minnesota. He was a special agent in the FBI's Minneapolis Field Office from 2012 to August 28, 2017.
It was on February 19, 2016, that Albury shared screen shots of documents from a "counter-radicalization program known as Shared Responsibility Committees" (SRCs).
Biden was meeting with officials in Boise, Idaho, to discuss the wildfires raging across the western United States when he turned his attention to George Geissler of the National Association of State Foresters.
"Can I ask you a question?" Biden asked.
"Of course," Geissler answered.
"One of the things that I've been working on with some others is — " Biden said before the audio and video coverage stopped without warning.
The livestream — which also included translation by an American Sign Language interpreter — was replaced by a message that said "THANK YOU FOR JOINING," according to a clip posted on Twitter by the research arm of the Republican National Committee.
The incident marked the latest example of the White House cutting short its online coverage of Biden, 78, who's publicly admitted being a "gaffe machine" throughout his long political career.
In a filing on the Hong Kong stock exchange on Tuesday, Evergrande which was busy trying to convince angry Chinese mobs that they will get their money and/or apartments and that it has no plans of default, the company all but conceded that a bankruptcy is imminent when it said it has hired notable bankruptcy advisors Houlihan Lokey and Admiralty Harbour Capital as joint FAs to "assess the firm's capital structure", a well-known euphemism of "prepare to file for bankruptcy." And just so there was no doubt as to what is coming next, the company said if it's unable to repay debts on time or get creditors to agree to extensions or alternative arrangements, it may lead to cross-default.
It quickly went downhill from there, with the company saying that it expects "significant continuing decline" in contract sales in September, resulting in "continuous deterioration" of cash collection, according to the statement. That will place "tremendous pressure" on the group's cashflow and liquidity.
Finally, guaranteeing that a default is just a matter of days if not less, the company admitted that it has failed to make "material progress" on the sale of stakes in China Evergrande New Energy Vehicle Group Ltd. and Evergrande Property Services Group Ltd., while the sale of its office building in Hong Kong hasn't been completed within the expected timetable.
In short a total disaster, and all this is happening a tens of thousands of Chinese are starting to feel insurrectiony - the real thing, not that January 6 tourist trap - and if they suffer losses, and in a company with $300BN in debt they will suffer major losses, their protests which have been largely peaceful to date will turn quite violent.
Comment: Folding under pressure, Evergrande could be a lynchpin to further disaster in China's economy:
Embattled Chinese property giant Evergrande on Tuesday conceded it is under "tremendous pressure", a day after insisting it will avoid a bankruptcy that many fear could have a huge impact on the world's number-two economy.See also: Chinese regulators summon Evergrande property developer execs, warn debt poses systemic risk
The group was downgraded by two credit rating agencies last week while its shares tumbled below their 2009 listing price, as a battery of bad headlines and speculation of its imminent collapse ran out across Chinese social media.
Shares in the firm fell nine percent Tuesday, and are down almost 80 percent since the start of the year.
An estimate by Capital Economics says that Evergrande has some 1.4 million properties that it has committed to complete — around 1.3 trillion yuan (US$200 billion) in pre-sale liabilities, as of the end of June.
Its plight has raised fears of a contagion across the debt-laden Chinese property sector — which accounts for more than a quarter of the economy — with a knock on for banks and investors.
Mark Williams, chief Asia economist at Capital economics, offered comment:"Evergrande's collapse would be the biggest test that China's financial system has faced in years, yet markets don't seem concerned about the potential for financial contagion at the moment. That would change in the event of large-scale default. The most likely endgame is now a managed restructuring in which other developers take over Evergrande's uncompleted projects in exchange for a share of its land bank."Evergrande has already sold stakes in some of its wide-ranging assets and offered steep discounts to offload apartments, but still reported a 29 percent slide in profit for the first half of the year.
The developer was founded in 1996 by Xu Jiayin, who went on to become China's richest man during the country's property boom of the 1990s. He poured money into mass developments in new cities, raising US$9 billion in its 2009 IPO in Hong Kong.
Evergrande started to falter under the new "three red lines" imposed on developers in a state crackdown in August 2020 — forcing the group to offload properties at increasingly steep discounts.
In two telephone interviews on September 6, Jacoby revealed that the planning of his medical evacuation flight to Russia began in Shannon, Ireland, on August 19, 2020, the day before Navalny fell ill on a flight between Tomsk and Moscow on the morning of August 20, 2020.
Jacoby also testified that Maria Pevchikh, one of Navalny's staff, had been the first to mention Novichok when they were talking together at the intensive care unit of Omsk Emergency Hospital Number 1, where Navalny was being treated, after his flight had been diverted for an emergency landing at Omsk. Later, Jacoby added, Pevchikh and Yulia Navalnaya, Navalny's wife, had asked him — and he had agreed with them — to conceal their backpack containing water bottles from Navalny's hotel room in Tomsk on to the German medevac aircraft, making it appear to be his own luggage and thereby avoid Russian detection at Omsk airport.
In a fresh interview for almost ninety minutes on Thursday evening, September 9, conducted in German, Jacoby did not claim his earlier interviews had been misquoted or misinterpreted. Instead, he revealed how close he has been to Navalnaya, corresponding by email with her after Navalny arrived in Germany for treatment.
Jacoby also issued the first personal attack by a German doctor or German government official on the medical expertise and truthfulness of the Russian doctors treating Navalny at Omsk. "The doctors in Omsk told us a cock and bull story [die Ärzte in Omsk haben mir einen Bären aufgebunden]," Jacoby now says, claiming they didn't tell him the full truth. He adds that handwritten records of Navalny's clinical tests he was shown by the Omsk hospital doctors "were unprofessional and could easily have been faked." Jacoby did not acknowledge the papers he was shown were handwritten in English because the Omsk Hospital doctors believed Jacoby could not understand computer printouts in Russian.













Comment: The analogy between 9/11 and the medical tyranny we are now witnessing is an accurate one. It is, for many, quite unimaginable and/or too frightening to consider the very high level of malevolence that must exist by elements of our government - to consider and accept in their assessment of reality. And yet that is exactly what is required in order to protect one's self - mind, body and soul - from the crushing agendas that are held by a very dangerous number of powerful individuals.