Puppet Masters

NATO member calls for 'security umbrella' to cover Ukraine

RT
Wed, 04 Oct 2023 18:50 UTC

Ukraine must be covered by NATO's security guarantees, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis insisted on Tuesday. He further urged the West, which has ploughed hundreds of billions of dollars into Ukraine, to take a firmer stance on helping Kiev achieve victory over Russia.

"Ukraine must become a NATO member. NATO's transatlantic security umbrella must also protect those countries that were left in the gray zone of geopolitics," Landsbergis said at a security conference in Warsaw, according to the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry.

Kiev's backers in its conflict with Russia "must do everything to keep Ukraine within its 1991 borders on this side," He demanded, while lauding Germany for agreeing to permanently station 4,000 troops in Lithuania. "Efforts to strengthen the eastern flank depend on our will to defend ourselves," he said.

Hybrid war and hybrid peace

Ivan Timofeev
Valdai Club
Tue, 03 Oct 2023 00:00 UTC

Over the past decade the concept of hybrid warfare has firmly established itself in political rhetoric in the West and in Russia. Russian experts have rightly pointed out the vagueness of the concept, its intersection with other concepts (such as irregular wars), as well as the weak scientific base. Nevertheless, the widespread use of the term can hardly be called accidental. There were clearly gaps in the conceptual apparatus of international analytics: the new realities of international relations were not adequately described by existing concepts. The rapid spread of the notion of hybrid warfare has been a spontaneous reaction to such gaps, while the concept really suffers from excessive blurring. It is more suitable for journalism than for science. However, the phenomena that are covered by the concept of hybrid war require reflection and a more rigorous study of this concept. It is also appropriate to ask about the opposite concept - hybrid peace. If there is a hybrid war, is it possible to transform it into a hybrid peace? Is modern diplomacy capable of negotiating a hybrid peace and reaching any sustainable agreements to end hybrid wars?

Comment: Excellent outline of today's diplomatic warfare and the insurmountable difficulties it presents.

Trump handed gag order in fraud case after former president attacks judge's clerk online

Rachel Schilke
Washington Examiner
Tue, 03 Oct 2023 03:26 UTC

The judge overseeing former President Donald Trump's civil fraud case in New York has issued a gag order after Trump posted about the judge's clerk.

According to reports from within the courtroom, Judge Arthur Engoron said:

"Consider this statement a gag order forbidding all parties from posting, emailing, or speaking publicly about any of my staff.

"Personal attacks on members of my court staff are unacceptable, inappropriate, and I will not tolerate them in any circumstances."

Engoron said failure to abide by the gag order would result in "serious sanctions."

In a now-deleted social media post, Trump extended his attacks to Allison Greenfield, Engoron's clerk, while in the courtroom with her. He posted a photograph of Greenfield with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), calling for the case to be dismissed, according to Newsweek.

Comment: Trump has never been, shall we say, 'self-contained'.

Tyrant Justin Trudeau moves to regulate podcasts, analyze and track content and subscribers

Jim Hoft
The Gateway Pundit
Sun, 01 Oct 2023 15:53 UTC

And Elon Musk weighs in

Canadian tyrant Justin Trudeau's government recently moved to its next phase of controlling the population. The Trudeau government will now regulate podcasts and track content and subscribers. This tyrannical order comes after Trudeau restricted access to news in Canada last August.

This should come as no surprise, Trudeau previously froze the bank accounts of protesting truckers in Canada. The Trudeau government announced that being "pro-Trump" was a factor they would use to freeze accounts.

Infamous international podcaster Jordan Peterson responded to the the recent move.

Comment:

Joe Biden is the 'king of censorship'

Betsy McCaughey
The Daily Caller
Sun, 01 Oct 2023 15:16 UTC

President Joe Biden is pitching himself as the savior of democracy. "I will always defend, protect, and fight for our democracy," he said at a campaign event last week in New York City. He's been saying it for four years. It's a blatant lie. He's the king of censorship, silencing his critics like a despot and even trying to defend his censorship regime before the Supreme Court.

At high-dollar fundraising events last week from Manhattan to Silicon Valley, Biden bragged the survival of democracy hinges on his reelection over the MAGA Republicans. He'll reiterate that theme again in Phoenix on Thursday.

But democracy depends on a free marketplace of ideas. Biden is busy destroying that marketplace. He and his staff have masterminded a vast censorship scheme, coercing media platforms such as X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, Facebook and YouTube to take down views that challenge the administration on everything from vaccine safety and gas prices to Biden family mischief.

UKHSA suddenly discovers there is no good evidence on lockdowns

Dr Carl Heneghan and Dr Tom Jefferson
Daily Sceptic
Tue, 03 Oct 2023 12:01 UTC

In the early summer of 2020, masks were introduced in the U.K. Thereafter, there was a mishmash of weird and wonderful measures that didn't prevent further restrictive measures or lockdowns. According to Rishi Sunak's statement to the Spectator, not even Cabinet Ministers were aware of the rationale for this merry-go-round.

As most of the important people making decisions, or at least communicating them, flip-flopped at approximately the same time on both sides of the Atlantic, were we treated to (or should we say, were we victims of) some clockwork change of course?

But why did this take place? Perhaps the question for Trust the Evidence is: on the basis of what new convincing evidence did the flip become a flop? We are unaware of any new high-quality evidence apart from the feardemic the flip-floppers induced.

Comment: See also:

No weapons left for Ukraine in Europe - Politico

RT
Tue, 03 Oct 2023 20:19 UTC

EU countries have given Ukraine all the arms they can without compromising their own defense, Politico has reported, citing a European official. Kiev is facing cuts to both arms supplies and cash injections as "cracks appear" in Western support, according to the outlet.

"We cannot keep on giving from our own stockpiles," the European source said as quoted on Monday. There may still be robust political support, but "we've given everything that will not endanger our own security."

The comment was made to Politico as part of its coverage of last week's International Industries Defense Forum in Kiev, during which the hosts went on a "charm offensive directed at weapons-makers," as explained in the report.

In a separate story on Tuesday, the outlet said that support for funding the Ukrainian government was "showing more cracks than ever."

Germany preparing to send thousands of troops to Russian border state

RT
Tue, 03 Oct 2023 20:19 UTC

© Getty Images / Sean Gallup
Soldiers of the Bundeswehr prepare Panzerhaubitze PZH 2000 155mm self-propelled howitzers for transport to Lithuania

Germany and Lithuania are working on creating a road map for the deployment of a brigade of German soldiers to the Baltic state, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius announced in an interview with the news outlet ERR on Monday.

The minister announced several weeks ago that Berlin planned to send as many as 4,000 troops to Lithuania, which already houses around 1,500 German troops as part of a NATO battlegroup.

In the recent interview, he explained that the move was being done in order to show "solidarity and responsibility in the East Wing."

Pistorius said that there was still a lot to do before the soldiers could be deployed, but stated that Germany and Lithuania expect to have a road map and a clear picture on how to proceed by the end of November or early December.

Leaked US strategy on Ukraine sees corruption as the real threat

Nahal Toosi
Politico
Mon, 02 Oct 2023 05:00 UTC

© Evan Vucci/AP
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and US President Joe Biden
The Sniff Test • Oval Office • Sept. 21, 2023

Biden administration officials are far more worried about corruption in Ukraine than they publicly admit, a confidential U.S. strategy document obtained by POLITICO suggests.

The "sensitive but unclassified" version of the long-term U.S. plan lays out numerous steps Washington is taking to help Kyiv root out malfeasance and otherwise reform an array of Ukrainian sectors. It stresses that corruption could cause Western allies to abandon Ukraine's fight against Russia's invasion, and that Kyiv cannot put off the anti-graft effort.

"Perceptions of high-level corruption" the confidential version of the document warns, could "undermine the Ukrainian public's and foreign leaders' confidence in the war-time government."

Comment: Corrupt US calls out corrupt Ukraine. This is going well.

That's starker than the analysis available in the little-noticed public version of the 22-page document, which the State Department appears to have posted on its website with no fanfare about a month ago.

The confidential version of the "Integrated Country Strategy" is about three times as long and contains many more details about U.S. objectives in Ukraine, from privatizing its banks to helping more schools teach English to encouraging its military to adopt NATO protocols. Many goals are designed to reduce the corruption that bedevils the country.

Musk mocks Zelensky over aid demands

RT
Mon, 02 Oct 2023 08:42 UTC

Ukraine was previously angered by the billionaire's refusal to allow the use of Starlink for a planned attack on Crimea...

SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has ridiculed Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky over his demands for more financial support from the US and its allies amid the conflict with Russia.

Posting on his X (formerly Twitter) social media platform on Sunday, Musk shared the popular 'stressed guy' meme with Zelensky's face photoshopped onto it and with a caption reading: "When it's been five minutes and you haven't asked for a billion dollars in aid."

The post had already gained more than 25 million views and over 350,000 likes at the time of writing.

The 'stressed guy' meme features an image of a male student whose neck and forehead are bulging with veins while he sits beside a girl in a classroom. The picture is commonly shared for humorous descriptions of frustrating or uncomfortable situations.

Musk's post comes after Zelensky attempted to drum up more support from the US during a visit to Washington in September. According to US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the Ukrainian president told him that "if we don't get the aid, we will lose the war."

Comment: Z doesn't know when to quit. Musk does.

Quote of the Day

State power has its own limits defined by the fact that it is authority that reaches people from outside. State power cannot oversee and dictate the creative states of the soul and mind, the inner states of love, freedom and goodwill. The state cannot demand from its citizens faith, prayer, love, goodness and conviction. It cannot regulate scientific, religious and artistic creation. It should not intervene in moral, family and daily private life, and only when extremely necessary should it impinge on people's economic initiative and creativity.

- Ivan Ilyin

We had that thing in Europe this summer and everyone survived as well.

Martina

Comment: Yeah, never mind Canada is celebrating Nazis, it's Russia's fault! +1 Maybe those good Jewish folks and their orgs can bring about regime...

Gator

...meanwhile, the indoctrination continues. [Link]

Shangri

Comment: Trump has never been, shall we say, 'self-contained +1 Bingo

Gator

Well it's 16:25 EDT in New York. No reports of drooling hordes of radio-controlled 5G vaxx zombies as yet. :)

Highland Fleet Lute

Puppet Masters

NATO member calls for 'security umbrella' to cover Ukraine

Hybrid war and hybrid peace

Trump handed gag order in fraud case after former president attacks judge's clerk online

Tyrant Justin Trudeau moves to regulate podcasts, analyze and track content and subscribers

Joe Biden is the 'king of censorship'

UKHSA suddenly discovers there is no good evidence on lockdowns

No weapons left for Ukraine in Europe - Politico

Germany preparing to send thousands of troops to Russian border state

Leaked US strategy on Ukraine sees corruption as the real threat

Musk mocks Zelensky over aid demands

Latest News

Picture of the Day

Quote of the Day

Recent Comments

Quantum Quirk

Contact Us