Welcome to Sott.net
Sat, 02 Oct 2021
The World for People who Think

Puppet Masters
Map

Windsock

Kamala Harris declares: 'Lack of climate adaptation and climate resilience' as 'root causes' of migrant surge; critics unconvinced


RT
Tue, 04 May 2021 17:55 UTC
Harris
© Reuters/Kevin Lamarque
Vice President Kamala Harris
Vice President Kamala Harris again addressed the migrant surge at the US' southern border, this time citing a 'lack of climate adaptation' and 'resilience' as some root causes of the problem. Her critics weren't convinced.

Speaking at the Washington Conference on the Americas on Tuesday, Harris acknowledged the recent surge at the US-Mexico border, saying people are leaving their homes at "an alarming rate."
"We want to help people find hope at home. And so we are focused on addressing both the acute factors and the root causes of migration. And I believe this is an important distinction. We must focus on both. Catastrophes like hurricanes, the drought, and the extreme food insecurity are driving people to illegally cross the border."
Then she turned to the "root causes" which she named as
"corruption, violence, and poverty, as well as the lack of economic opportunity, the lack of climate adaptation and climate resilience, the lack of good governance."
Since being charged with heading the handling of the crisis at the border, Harris has faced criticism for her lack of physical trips and direct addresses on the matter. Conservatives were instantly skeptical of her effort to connect the current border crisis with climate change.

Comment: Washington is where the 'fault' 'lies'.


      Read More...
Star of David

Netanyahu again fails to form government, returns mandate to President Rivlin

Daria Bedenko
Sputnik
Wed, 05 May 2021 21:18 UTC
Netanyahu
© 124 News
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has failed to form a government coalition three times in the past two years. Now, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin has three days to decide the fate of the mandate to form the government.

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin announced on Tuesday that the period of 28 days to form a government coalition allotted to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expired at midnight, with the PM returning the mandate to the president shortly before the deadline passed.
"Shortly before midnight, Netanyahu informed Beit HaNasi [official residence of the president of Israel] that he was unable to form a government and returned the mandate to the president. Tomorrow morning, Wednesday 5 May/23 Iyyar, Beit HaNasi will contact the parties in the Knesset regarding the process of forming a government."
This is the third time Netanyahu has failed to form a government in two years.

Comment: If Netayahu had a plan up his sleeve, he would have used it by now.
Israel's president picks Yair Lapid to form new government
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin has told Yair Lapid to form a new government as the nation has been locked in political limbo after having four Knesset elections in just two years.

According to the announcement, the Yesh Atid party leader has the best chance of forming a coalition.
"It is clear that Knesset member Yair Lapid has a chance to form a government that will earn the confidence of the Knesset, though the difficulties be many."
Lapid now has 28 days to form a Cabinet. If he fails to secure the backing of 61 of 120 lawmakers for a new coalition, the parliament will have to be dissolved again, pushing the country to yet another round of elections.

If Lapid manages to form the government, he could dethrone Netanyahu, who has been the country's prime minsiter since 2009.

Seen as Netanyahu's strongest rival, Yair Lapid has been chairing the biggest opposition faction in the Knesset since the present government was sworn in.


      Read More...
Propaganda

Corporate news outlets again 'confirm' the same false story, while many refuse to correct it

Glenn Greenwald
greenwald.substack.com
Mon, 03 May 2021 00:00 UTC
Giuliani
© Jeff Kowalsky/AFP/Getty Images
Attorney Rudy Giuliani appeared before Michigan House Oversight Committee
Lansing Michigan • December 2, 2020
One of the primary plagues of corporate journalism, which I have documented more times than I can count, just reared its ugly head again to deceive millions of people with fake news. When one large news outlet publishes a false story based on whispers from anonymous security state agents with the CIA or FBI, other news outlets quickly purport that they have "independently confirmed" the false story, in order to bolster its credibility (oh, it must be true since other outlets have also confirmed it).

This is an obvious scam — they have not "independently confirmed" anything but rather merely acted as servants to the same lying security state agents who planted the original false story — but they do it over and over, creating the deceitful perception that a fake story has been "confirmed" by multiple outlets, thus bolstering its credibility in the public mind. It was the favored tactic for spreading debunked Russiagate frauds and is still used. One of the most vivid examples occurred in December, 2017, when CNN falsely reported what it hyped as "a major bombshell": that Donald Trump, Jr. had advance access to the WikiLeaks archive. Within an hour, NBC News' Ken Dilanian and CBS News both claimed they had "independently confirmed" this fairy tale. When it turned out that it was a complete lie, all based on a false date on an email to Trump Jr., these outlets embarrassingly corrected it hours later and then simply moved on as if it never happened, never explaining how multiple outlets could possibly have all "independently confirmed" the same blatant falsehood.

On Thursday night, The Washington Post, citing anonymous sources (of course), claimed that the FBI gave a "defensive briefing" to Rudy Giuliani in 2019, before he traveled to Ukraine, that he was being targeted by a Russian disinformation campaign to hurt Joe Biden's candidacy, yet he ignored the FBI's warnings and went anyway. The Post also claimed that the right-wing news outlet OANN was similarly briefed. The claim about Giuliani not only predictably ricocheted all over social media and cable news — where, as usual, it was uncritically treated as Truth — but it was shortly thereafter "independently confirmed" by both NBC News' de facto CIA spokesman Ken Dilanian along with The New York Times.
      Read More...
X

Bucking Biden's push for 'equity,' US states are outlawing critical race theory in schools and public agencies


RT
Wed, 05 May 2021 02:57 UTC
equity protest
© Reuters/Caitlin Ochs
Protesters in Portland, Oregon march for reforms to justice system
President Joe Biden may have revoked his predecessor's ban on critical race theory and embraced its concept of "equity," but several US states have adopted laws against the doctrine, setting up a showdown with the White House.

On Tuesday, Arkansas passed legislation banning critical race theory (CRT) "indoctrination" in public agencies and prohibiting the state from promoting collective guilt, segregation, racial stereotyping or scapegoating.

Idaho was the first state to ban public schools from promoting CRT last month, followed by Oklahoma. Similar proposals are currently being considered by state lawmakers in Texas and Tennessee.

Comment: See also:

      Read More...
Cult

It doesn't matter if it isn't true: No matter how many times it's debunked, Western anti-Russian propaganda is immune to facts

Glenn Diesen
RT
Wed, 05 May 2021 17:45 UTC
Anti-Trump protest
© Reuters / EDUARDO MUNOZ
Anti-Trump protest Times Square, New York, USA.
For most people, propaganda has simply come to mean deception and lies. However, throughout history, the dark arts of media manipulation have long been known to be a far more powerful tool than falsehoods and dishonesty alone.

The concept of propaganda was seen by its pioneers, New York-born Walter Lippmann and Austro-Hungarian press agent Edward Bernays, as something of an exact science. Lippman cautioned that democracies have an inclination to use it to manufacture the consent of the public, while Bernays dubbed the growing discipline 'public relations,' in order to avoid the negative connotations.

As the world has become more complex, people have relied more and more on stereotypes and simplifications to help them interpret and filter events around them. Propaganda manipulates this desire for simplicity - handing people easy answers rather than winning them over with rational arguments. Society then rallies around these stereotypes and squashes dissents with 'herd mentality', an irrational set of psychological behaviors where individuals are swept along with a group, overriding their own rational assessments.

Comment: More on the background and development of propaganda as a system of control:

      Read More...
Blackbox

State Department denies reports of prisoner swap with Iran

Morgan Chalfant
The HIll
Sun, 02 May 2021 16:24 UTC
iran flag
© Getty Images
The State Department on Sunday denied reports of a prisoner swap deal between the United States and Iran.

"Reports that a prisoner swap deal has been reached are not true," State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement. "As we have said, we always raise the cases of Americans detained or missing in Iran. We will not stop until we are able to reunite them with their families."

Iran state television reported Sunday that Iran had agreed to free four American prisoners in exchange for four Iranians being held in the U.S. and the release of billions in frozen Iranian dollars, according to The Associated Press and Reuters.

White House chief of staff Ron Klain also denied the reports during an appearance on CBS's "Face the Nation."
      Read More...
Control Panel

Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) and the dangers of programmable money explained


Zerohedge
Wed, 05 May 2021 05:45 UTC
fedcoin
Dominic Frisby with Money, Markets & Other Matters talks about the war on cash and central bank digital currency, known as CBDC. He questions if CBDCs are "the final step into the brave new world - Orwellian great reset dystopia - we seem to be heading towards" or are they "the onramp to the Bitcoin motorway." He said the answer is "both."

Frisby points out the biggest issue with CBDCs is that digital money is "programmable," which means the issuer, such as the Federal Reserve or the Bank of England, can build specific rules into it. He said cash grants users freedom and power.

Programmable money, such as CBDCs, means the user has even less control over their money. Frisby said almost any kind of rule could be coded into CBDCs. He provides an example of China mulling over the idea of expiry dates for its digital money. This means those holding the programmable money have to spend the money by a specific time or it disappears from their account.

Comment: See also:

      Read More...
Eye 1

Biden administration wants to use third-party 'extremism' researchers to spy on Americans


RT
Mon, 03 May 2021 17:49 UTC
Proud Boys
© Reuters / Leah Millis
Members of the the 'Proud Boys' march to the US Capitol Building in Washington, DC, January 6, 2021
The Department of Homeland security lacks the authority to spy on right-wing dissidents, but the Biden administration has reportedly found a workaround: using third-party researchers to snoop on so-called "domestic terrorists."

In the aftermath of the pro-Trump riot on Capitol Hill in January, the Biden administration, with the support of sympathetic media outlets and pundits, focused the intelligence-gathering powers of the state inwards.

Biden added members to a domestic extremism team on the National Security Council, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) declared homegrown "extremists" a "national priority area," the FBI called for expanded domestic surveillance, and a top Justice Department official last week asked Congress for new powers to prosecute so-called "extremists." In all cases, the same targets are identified: right-wing dissidents - including militia groups like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys - who took part in the Capitol riot.

A CNN report on Monday gave a glimpse into what the coming war on domestic dissent could look like. Homeland Security and intelligence agencies, rather than waiting for new powers and heightened funding, are considering outsourcing some surveillance work to research groups and NGOs.
      Read More...
Radar

Biden's anti-Eurasian green delusion and America's race to irrelevance

Matthew Ehret
Strategic Culture Foundation
Thu, 29 Apr 2021 00:00 UTC
Joe Biden
The gods have certainly made those elites managing the west mad, but whether or not the entire world will have to pay the price of their insanity yet remains to be seen.

Many people couldn't help but laugh when Biden told the Boris Johnson on March 26 that the USA and it's NATO allies should create "an infrastructure plan to rival the Belt and Road Initiative" post haste. What would such a program look like? How would it be funded when the USA is so embarrassingly bankrupt? Who among the nations of the world would ever consider buying a ticket onto such a sinking ship?

It took a few weeks for details to finally emerge, but by the end of the April 22-23 Climate Summit hosted by Biden, John Kerry and Anthony Blinken, it has become abysmally clear what delusions possessed the poor president.

After having announced a 52% carbon reduction policy below 2005 levels by 2050, Biden swiftly committed the USA to what he called the most comprehensive infrastructure plan in history with a $2 trillion Green New Deal-like infrastructure program designed to revive the policy of America's 32nd president Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Mirroring FDR's Civilian Conservation Corps, Biden has even planned a Civilian Climate Corps, along with a Green Climate Bank to parallel FDR's Reconstruction Finance Corporation.

The catch? Biden's version was written by the same financial technocrats that FDR went to war with 80 years ago and unlike FDR's version, the modern green version of the New Deal will have the effect of destroying the productive industrial powers and living standards of the nation once green grids are built.
      Read More...
Newspaper

'Small' Afghanistan attacks will have no significant impact on US troop pullout, Pentagon says, amidst uptick in violence against Afghans


Reuters
Tue, 04 May 2021 19:29 UTC
Taliban
© AFP / Javed Tanveer
FILE PHOTO: Afghan Taliban militants and residents stand on a armoured Humvee vehicle of the Afghan National Army (ANA) as they celebrate a ceasefire, Kandahar, Afghanistan, June 17, 2018
Taliban insurgents attacked an army outpost in Afghanistan's southwestern Farah province killing at least seven soldiers, local officials said on Monday, as the country braces for violence after May 1, a previously agreed deadline for foreign troop withdrawal.

In a video message to media, Farah Governor Taj Mohammad Jahid said the Taliban had blown up an army outpost after digging a 400-metre (0.25 miles) tunnel to access it from a nearby house. He added that one soldier had also been captured by the insurgents.

Two local officials, one speaking on condition of anonymity, said dozens of military including elite commando forces had been killed. Provincial council member Khayer Mohammad Noorzai said that around 30 had died in the attack and that the base was in the hands of the Taliban.

Comment: See also: US begins 'withdrawal' from Afghanistan... by sending MORE troops & gear for 'temporary force protection'

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