Puppet Masters
If Russia and China really wanted to subvert the national security of the United States, they would seek to plunge Washington into a completely new, open-ended war with no practical resolution in sight on another continent far away from either of them where the United States itself had absolutely no major strategic interests at all, apart from fantasies of domination and greed.
Such a war would also serve the purpose of burning up an increasing share of the defense budget that otherwise could be spent on modernizing the US armed forces.
Repeated congressional testimony over the past two years by Service chiefs confirms that these forces remain woefully aging and out of date despite record size defense budgets. This is testimony to the incompetence, corruption and sheer wastefulness of the military-industrial-congressional-complex (MICC).
Australian Cardinal George Pell, 77, is almost certain to face prison after a jury found him guilty of one charge of sexual penetration of a child and four charges of an indecent act with or in the presence of a child in the late 1990s.
The conviction of Pell, the Vatican treasurer and a close adviser to Pope Francis, will send shockwaves through the church, which is already reeling from accusations of sexual abuse committed by priests worldwide.
Comment: See also:
- Vatican's third in line Cardinal George Pell convicted for sexually abusing choir boys
- Thousands of paedophiles arrive at Vatican for sex abuse conference
- Vatican confirms it has a secret set of rules for priests who father children
- Vatican knew of promoted Argentine bishop's "naked selfies"
- Duterte urges Vatican to allow its 'useless' priests to have boyfriends
- Former Vatican ambassador blasts Pope's silence, 'slander' over cover-up claims
- Pennsylvania Attorney General: Vatican helped cover up dozens of sex crimes against children
- Former Vatican ambassador says Pope Francis knew of abusive priest, calls for resignation
The Facebook pages of InTheNow, Soapbox, Back Then and Waste-Ed - all operated by the Germany-based company Maffick Media, which is 51 percent owned by RT's video agency Ruptly - were made accessible again as of Monday evening.
All the accounts were previously suspended by Facebook, which issued no warning before taking action against the pages, even though their administration had not violated any of the social media giant's existing regulations.
Comment: See also:
- Maffick Media CEO, Host Slam Facebook's Unprovoked 'Censorship' After CNN Runs Hit-piece: 'End of Free Speech'
- Cyber-Gestapo: CNN asked Facebook to censor Russia-backed video company at behest of Atlanticist 'think-tank' German Marshall Fund
- Lavrov: Russia refrains from 'tooth for a tooth' retaliation as Facebook bans Russian-linked media
The New York Times accused the Russian leader of "nuclear saber-rattling" while Radio Free Europe headlined: 'Putin threatens to target the US with missiles'. Many other news outlets conveyed the same depiction of Russia somehow escalating bellicose tensions, based on Putin's annual state-of-the-nation address this week.
Buried beneath the sensational headlines was a little more context that hints at the gross distortion being propagated by the Western media.
The New York Times disdained Putin was speaking with an "aggressive tone" and "doubling down on threats against the United States".
Comment: See also:
- The new abnormal, the 'Doomsday Clock' and the demise of the INF Treaty
- US killing INF treaty further hampers any hopes of peace
- Washington's departure from INF treaty plays Russian roulette with European lives
- US killed INF treaty so it could freely 'encircle Russia and China'
- Cold War is on: Russia suspends INF Treaty in 'mirror response' to US halting the agreement, greenlights creation of hypersonic mid-range missile
"[Maurer] informed us that there had been improper handling of the republic's accounts, with attempts to make illegal payments, and we are trying to freeze all those accounts belonging to the republic," Guaido said as broadcast by Mexico's Televisa TV channel.
Guaido has not provided any details regarding the assets' freeze.
Comment:

Supporters of Lebanon's Hezbollah party parade to mark the last day of Ashura ceremony in Beirut, Lebanon October 1, 2017.
A large majority of the public, and certainly almost everyone who remembers that 2006 invasion, would revolt from my being prosecuted on those grounds. The very absurdity of it is a sure measure that Sajid Javid has simply gone too far in naming Hezbollah - the legitimate political party representing in parliament the majority rural population in Southern Lebanon - as a terrorist organisation.
Comment:
- A gift for Netanyahoo: George Galloway slams 'foolish' UK decision to label Hezbollah political party 'terrorists'
- Israeli FM Lieberman whines: "Hezbollah has taken over Lebanon"
- IDF operation against Hezbollah tunnels is all popcorn - Bibi needs a distraction from bribery case against him and his wife
- VIDEO: Forget everything you thought you knew about Hezbollah
Syrian state television reported the visit on Monday, showing footage of Assad meeting with Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported that the two had agreed to "continue cooperation at all levels for the interests of the two friendly nations."
Comment: Humanitarianists and Israel-firsters are having aneurysms right about now.
8 years of proxy war, 15 years of black-ops and psy-ops, all probably costing well over a trillion dollars. And half a million dead Syrians. And a culture shock in Europe from millions of refugees.
And yet Assad's still there defending his country from the combined forces of the greatest (though also the most effeminate) war machine ever amassed on Earth.
We salute you.

Pierre Omidyar is pictured during an interview on technical innovation published by The Henry Ford, a Dearborn-based museum.
Jesse Brown, a Canadian journalist who participated in the meeting, complained that the first thing he noticed about it "was that one major public 'stakeholder' wasn't represented: the public." Inside what amounted to a smoke-filled room that was off limits to most Canadian citizens, Ben Scott - a former Obama administration official who also served in Hillary Clinton's State Department - presided over the discussions. Today, as the director of policy and advocacy for the Omidyar Network, Scott works for one of the most quietly influential billionaires in helping to shape the media landscape and define the craft of journalism itself.
Iraq's former prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, told a local TV station on Sunday that the administration of ex-US President Barack Obama had played a crucial role in the creation of Daesh* by allowing the terrorist group to occupy Iraqi territories, PressTV reported.
Maliki, who served as prime minister between 2006 and 2014, reportedly said that the United States had provided Iraq with intelligence and aerial images, locating with great precision positions of Daesh terrorists, who had lined up behind Iraqi borders in Syria.
Comment: ISIS would barely exist were it not for the West and its allies:
- 'Mysterious helicopters' have rescued and supplied ISIS and al-Qaeda time and time again
- Syrian army finds ISIS warehouses full of US-made lethal weapons
Comment: And he's not the only official stating the obvious:
- US Colluded with ISIL in Afghanistan, says former Afghan president Hamid Karzai
- Zakharova: ISIS & Al-Nusra terrorists given protection in US-controlled Syrian 'refugee camp'
- 700 Hostages Taken by ISIS Under US Military Watch? America's Spiteful Efforts to Prevent Syria's Recovery
- Leaked audio: Sec of State Kerry confirms US used ISIS to remove Syria's Assad
In an early-morning tweet Monday, Trump went after the "BlacKkKlansman" writer-director for remarks he made about the current administration while accepting his first Oscar for the movie's screenplay, calling Lee's speech a "racist hit" on him.
"Be nice if Spike Lee could read his notes, or better yet not have to use notes at all, when doing his racist hit on your President, who has done more for African Americans (Criminal Justice Reform, Lowest Unemployment numbers in History, Tax Cuts,etc.) than almost any other Pres!" he tweeted.













Comment: Though there remains the likelihood that the US will invade Venezuela, it seems more 'up their alley' to intervene clandestinely, or indirectly by arming and/or funding an insurgency, similar to what they did in Syria.