Puppet MastersS

Dollar Gold

Trump reveals plans for Musk

Donald Trump
© Getty Images / Chip SomodevillaFILE PHOTO: Donald Trump.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has said that if he wins the November election he will set up a "government efficiency" commission headed by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk. Trump outlined his plans during a speech at the New York Economic Club on Thursday.

According to the former US president, the body will be an independent force charged with streamlining federal government.

"I will create a government efficiency commission tasked with conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government and making recommendations for drastic reforms we need to do. It can't go on the way we are now," Trump stated.

He did not specify how exactly the panel would work, but noted that one of its first tasks would be to develop an action plan to "eliminate fraud and improper payments" within the government, which he claimed costs taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars every year.

Comment: Watching Musk go toe to toe with the bureaucracy would be quite the spectacle.


Bad Guys

German chancellor wants to end Ukraine conflict 'faster'

Olaf Scholz
© Getty Images / Maryam MajdGerman Chancellor Olaf Scholz
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has called for a renewed effort to bring an end to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

The leader made the remarks in a televised interview with state broadcaster ZDF aired on Sunday. "I believe that now is the time to discuss how to arrive at peace from this state of war, indeed at a faster pace," he said.

Despite its initial reluctance to pour military aid into Ukraine, Berlin has become one of Kiev's top backers amid the conflict. Germany has supplied the Ukrainian military with assorted hardware, including Leopard 1 and 2 main battle tanks, as well as Marder infantry fighting vehicles.

Scholz's comments about achieving peace in Ukraine as soon as possible come as he continues to struggle with assorted domestic problems. According to a poll published by ZDF separately on Sunday, some 77% of Germans believe Scholz to be a weak leader, while only 17% speak favorably about his leadership qualities.

SOTT Logo Radio

SOTT Focus: NewsReal: Trump-Kennedy Unity Govt? Biggest Evar Threat to Democracy!

Trump RFK Newsreal
© Sott.net
RFK Jr's teaming up with Trump is an unexpected development in the US presidential election campaign. Will it cement a Trump win? Or is the wall-to-wall favorable media coverage for Harris going to secure it for Her 'campaign of joy'? This election has unique features - Kennedy democrats supporting Trump, and Bush era NeoCons supporting Harris - but isn't it 'the same old' when it's 'Israel first' for both 'sides'?

Also on this NewsReal, Joe & Niall discuss the AFD's 'unprecedented electoral victory for the far-right' (lol!) in local German elections, Macron's alchemical transmutation of electoral defeat into 'victory', the uptick in stabby-jihadi attacks, and the extreme weather flips in Europe and North Africa.


Running Time: 01:39:20

Download: MP3 โ€” 91 MB


Attention

Dumb as they come: Scholz and Pistorius

Scholz and Pistorius
© nordbayern.de
For well over a year, we have known that Germany's Minister of Foreign Affairs Annalena Baerbock is a disgrace to the government she serves. The lady is not smart enough to flip hamburgers at McDonalds let alone sit in the federal cabinet and make pronouncements bearing on war and peace. She will never live down her remark that Vladimir Putin must change his course by 360 degrees.

However, I had always thought of Chancellor Olaf Scholz as a wily fox. Of course, I believed that he is an out and out coward, a sell-out to American interests at the expense of his own nation. His silence on the sabotage of the Nord Stream I pipeline was proof positive. But stupid?

What he and his Defense Minister Boris Pistorius were saying these past two days on the sidelines of the Ramstein gathering of donors to the Ukrainian war effort leave little doubt that he is also a damned fool.

I have in mind Scholz's announcement that Germany will now budget for new procurement of air defense capabilities for itself and will join other European countries in their plans to build what might be called an iron dome, if we may borrow from the Israeli lexicon, to describe an impenetrable screen against incoming airborne attack.

If such an announcement might have appeared to be patriotic and an investment in the security of his nation, say, a week ago, the events of the past week have trashed all such thoughts. Following the successful Russian missile attacks on Poltava, on Lviv, on Krivoy Rog and on several other towns in Ukraine where there were large concentrations of NATO officers, high level advisers and instructors, the notion that there is any defense whatsoever against Russian hypersonic missiles was disproved beyond any doubt.

Helm

Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic: Why has Zelensky purged the Ukrainian government?

Zelensky
© Artur Widak/Getty ImagesUkraine President Vladimir Zelensky
Over half of the country's ministers have been dismissed. Why did Vladimir Zelensky decide to gut his team during an ongoing conflict?

A series of high-level resignations has taken place in the Ukrainian government and the Office of the President of Ukraine. Several ministers, including long-standing figures like Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Olga Stefanishyna and Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba, have left their posts.

Zelensky also fired Rostislav Shurma, the Deputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, who was known for his "10-10-10" tax reform initiative and discussions about eliminating cash to combat corruption.

The head of the parliamentary faction of Zelensky's Servant of the People party, David Arakhamia, announced that other significant resignations would soon follow. As a result of these purges, over 50% of the cabinet will be reshuffled.

RT explores what lies behind these changes in Ukraine's highest echelons of power and why Zelensky chose to go down this road.

What changes can we expect in the Ukrainian government?

Footprints

Orban names first step to peace in Ukraine

orban
© Alessandro Bremec/NurPhoto/Getty ImagesHungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban โ€ข 50TH Ambrosetti Forum โ€ข Villa D'Este, Cernobbio, Italy
Moscow and Kiev should agree to a ceasefire before drafting a detailed peace plan, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said. Speaking at an international economic conference in Cernobbio, Italy on Friday, he stressed that both sides would have to eventually come to the negotiating table.

For any attempts at mediation to bear fruit, there needs to be communication with both Russia and Ukraine, Orban said.
"If we wait for a peace plan that is accepted by both sides, there will never be peace - because the first step is not a peace plan. The first step is a ceasefire. You need communication first, then a ceasefire, and then you can negotiate a peace plan."
In June, Switzerland hosted a Ukraine peace conference, to which Russia was not invited. The event was mostly centered around Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky's 'peace formula,' which stipulates that Russia must withdraw its forces from all territory claimed by Ukraine, a plan Moscow has already dismissed as "detached from reality."

After Hungary took over the rotating presidency of the EU in June, Orban visited Kiev, Moscow, Beijing and Washington as part of his "peace mission" tour. His trip to Moscow and meeting with Russia President Vladimir Putin drew criticism in Brussels, and EU officials distanced themselves from the endeavor.

Star of David

Meta's policy on Zionism exposed: Cyberwell scrambles after Israel ties revealed

Zucker
© MintPress NewsCyberWell โ€ข Meta Chairman, CEO, Controling Shareholder Mark Zuckerberg
On July 10, it was announced that social media giant Meta would broaden the scope of its censorship and suppression of content related to the Gaza genocide. Under the new policy, Facebook and Instagram posts containing "derogatory or threatening references to 'Zionists' in cases where the term is used to refer to Jews or Israelis" will be proscribed. Unsurprisingly, a welter of Zionist lobby organizations - many of which aggressively lobbied Meta to adopt these changes - cheered the move. Emboldened, the same entities are now calling for all social media platforms to follow suit.

The Times of Israel noted that "nearly 150 advocacy groups and experts provided input that led to Meta's policy update." This prominently included Tel Aviv-based CyberWell, mundanely described by the outlet as "a nonprofit that has been documenting the swell of online antisemitism and Holocaust denial since Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza." These malign activities have had a devastating impact on what Western audiences see and hear about the Gaza genocide on their social media feeds.

In January, CyberWell published an extensive report on how it was seeking to censor many prominent X accounts that expressed doubts about the official narrative of October 7, including the widely disseminated, proven-to-be-false libel that Hamas fighters beheaded dozens of infants. Users in the firing line included popular anonymous Zei Squirrel, Al Jazeera, The Grayzone chief Max Blumenthal, and famous rapper Lowkey, of MintPress News. CyberWell claimed such legitimate skepticism was comparable to Holocaust denial.

Target

'The Axis of Resistance' prepares to get revenge on Israel

Flag wave group
© Karar Essa/Anadolu/Getty ImagesThousands take part in a mourning event to mark Arbaeen in Iraq's southern city of Karbala โ€ข August 24, 2024
Military action in Palestine unites Arab countries of the Middle East in righteous anger towards their common enemy.

During Arbaeen, Iraqis traditionally dress in black. This Shiite religious ritual marks the end of 40 days of mourning for Imam Hussain, the grandson of Islamic Prophet Muhammad, who died in the Battle of Karbala in 680 AD.

A key event of Arbaeen is the 80km pilgrimage from the city of Najaf to the holy city of Karbala, where the mausoleum of Imam Hussain is located. Along the way, over 20 million pilgrims from Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Bahrain, Palestine, Pakistan, India, Africa and many other countries may receive free food, medical care, and accommodation. However, in recent years, Arbaeen has also become a political platform - it allows millions of Muslims to speak out about pressing issues. And of course, this primarily concerns Palestine.

On the way to Karbala, we pass a small Palestinian town, where this year there is a photo exhibition dedicated to the massacre in Gaza. There, we find Sunni scholars and Palestinians who describe the horrors which they and their families have experienced. Journalists from over a dozen Middle Eastern media outlets cover the story.

Comment: Retribution Is Coming...!


Arrow Down

Election upheaval and Volkswagen woes show Germany's ruinous price for being Uncle Sam's lapdog

Volkswagen Logo
© Public Domain
Germany was hit with a double whammy this week as proof of the ruinous price its people are paying for their feckless government's role as the United States lapdog.

First, there was the political bombshell of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's coalition parties receiving a drubbing in elections. Then there was the shocking economic news that Volkswagen, the country's flagship automaker, is planning to close down factories as a result of crippling production costs.

The reverberations are shaking the political and economic foundations not just of Germany but the entire European Union.

Both of these body blows to Germany stem from the same root cause: the Scholz government's slavish following of U.S. foreign policy. (To be fair, the lackey syndrome pre-dates Scholz and was manifest too under his predecessor Angela Merkel. And again to be fair, it is not just a German condition. The whole of Europe is a lapdog to Uncle Sam - and paying a painful price for that dubious role.)

The Alternative for Germany (AfD) came first in the state election for Thuringia in what was seen as an embarrassing thrashing for Scholz's Social Democrat Party and its coalition partners. The AfD made big gains, albeit coming second to the Christian Democrat Union, in elections for neighboring Saxony.

A lot of hysteria has accompanied the election breakthrough for the AfD which is invariably described as "far-right" and compared with the historic Nazi party. Tempering that hysteria, however, is the fact that the new leftwing party BSW also made impressive gains in the elections.

A more accurate reading of the results would be that the German people have used the elections to express deep disillusionment and anger at the established parties on a range of issues, including economic hardship, uncontrolled immigration and a strong anti-war sentiment.

NPC

Swiss, Muslim politician shoots Icon of Mary and Jesus, posts pictures of it on Instagram

Sanija Ameti
Sanija Ameti, a leading Swiss politician and co-chair of the liberal movement Operation Libero, came under the spotlight for a post on her Instagram profile. The content, which sparked outrage and criticism from many people, showed Ameti intent on firing a gun at an image of the Virgin Mary with baby Jesus. The incident sparked a heated debate, and the politician later apologised for the incident.

The post Instagram: 'Unintentional provocation' ?

In the now removed post, Ameti had published two pictures. The first depicted her aiming a gun, accompanied by the words 'Abschalten' (German for 'turn off' or 'detach'). However, the content that really triggered the storm was the second shot, which showed the target of the shot: a sacred image of the Madonna and Child, which was part of an art catalogue.

According to her own statements, the choice of the image as a target had no religious or provocative intentions. "I needed a visible image for the 10-metre shot," Ameti explained. "I did not pay attention to the content of the images. This was a mistake, and I am deeply sorry if anyone was offended."

Comment: One has to wonder about the psychological state of such a politician. Although, given the behaviour of politicians elsewhere in the West, she obviously fits in: Regarding Ameti, in 2021 the BBC reported her comments about Switzerland's burka ban:
Sanija Ameti, a member of Switzerland's Muslim community, told the BBC that the campaign - and the depiction of Muslim women in the posters - had been upsetting.

"So many Muslims in Switzerland will feel insulted and not part of this society, and pushed into a corner where they don't belong. We don't look like these women in the pictures, we just don't," she said.