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Fri, 05 Nov 2021
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Snakes in Suits

Brussels is terrified at the rise of the Euroskeptics

Euroskeptic Marine Le Pen
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been under fire from the European Union for years for his opposition to German Chancellor Angela Merkel's open immigration policy.

A policy which she herself has had to pull back on. And no matter how far Merkel has changed her stance and acceded to the reality of the damage her policy has created, Orban is still guilty of the sin of non-compliance.

Actually, he's guilty of a whole lot more than that. Because Orban has not only stepped on the third-rail of European politics he's stomped up and down while taking a massive dump on it.

Eye 1

Creepy Joe Biden to run for White House, says Dem lawmaker

joe_biden
© The Free Thought Project
Former Vice President Joe Biden will run for president in 2020, a senior Democratic lawmaker told The Hill on Tuesday, a move that will shake up the crowded Democratic primary field and make him the clear front-runner for his party's nomination against President Trump.

"I'm giving it a shot," Biden said matter-of-factly during a phone call with a House Democratic lawmaker within the past week - a conversation the congressman recounted to The Hill and interpreted as a sure sign that Biden will run in 2020.

In the brief phone call, the former vice president asked if he could bounce some campaign strategy ideas off the lawmaker and invited the lawmaker to sit down with him in person in the near future. Biden also said he hoped to have the lawmaker's support, something the lawmaker did not commit to.

Comment: Also see:


TV

US repeatedly caught lying about Venezuela, yet Pompeo accuses RT of 'disinformation'

Mike Pompeo
© Reuters / Attila Kisbenedek
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
The US has been calling for regime change in Venezuela for months. In that time, US officials have been caught skewing the facts on the ground and pushing disinformation to the media - but the real bad guy? RT, of course.

That's according to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who spoke to the media on Monday to give "an update" on the situation in Venezuela.

Nevermind that the US has declared its support for unelected opposition leader Juan Guaido and repeatedly called for the overthrow of current President Nicolas Maduro, who is supported by millions of citizens. In Pompeo's curious interpretation, it is not Washington's thwarting of international law and attempts to engineer a military coup in full view of the world that is the problem, it is Russia that "has created this crisis" by providing "political cover" to Maduro and pressuring other countries to "disregard the democratic legitimacy" of Guaido - who was, by the way, never actually elected by anyone.

For failing to adhere to the Washington-approved narrative, Pompeo branded RT a "disinformation organ" - an ironic definition considering it is US officials that have been caught outright lying about events in Venezuela since the Trump administration declared support for Guaido in January.

Comment: While we have reached an era where US-led coups have become so formulaic that even the lesser informed citizen can recognize the pattern when they see it, outlets like RT provide invaluable insight on the machinations going on within the US, that you simply can't get from American media. It should be even clearer now why the US has spent so much of the public's time and money on smearing, harrassing and censoring outlets like RT, Sputnik, PressTV, etc. Also check out SOTT radio's: NewsReal: US Regime Change Operation in Venezuela - This Time It's Legit?


Eye 1

Daesh urges supporters to stage attacks worldwide as stronghold in Baghuz besieged by US airstrikes and Kurdish troops

daesh
© Sputnik / HİKMET DURGUN
Militants with the Daesh terrorist group, besieged by the Kurdish SDF in their last stronghold of Baghuz, Syria, have called on their supporters from all across the world to stage attacks in their defence, AP reported, citing an audio recording allegedly released by the terrorists.

Earlier in the day, the US-supported Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said that it had eliminated almost 40 members of the Daesh* terrorist organisation in the southeastern Syrian village of Baghuz but lost three militias during the ensuing clashes.

"Battles continue on several fronts, the [SDF] command confirmed that 38 IS [Daesh] militants were eliminated... The terrorists conducted two rocket attacks. We have 10 injured people and three killed", Mustafa Bali, the head of the SDF press service, wrote on Twitter.

Comment: Sputnik reports that some of the jihadi brides remain as reluctant to give up as their terrorist husbands:
Jihadi Brides Yell Daesh Slogans Amid Battle for Last Stronghold in Syria

As the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) continue its offensive on the Syrian city of Baghouz, one of Daesh's last bastions in the country, more jihadi brides with kids are reportedly being transported to refugee camps.

A video allegedly showing Daesh brides still loyal to the self-proclaimed caliphate yelling abusive words and saluting the terror group has emerged on the internet.

The clip shows several women dressed from head to toe in black, sitting with their children, in a truck taking them to a refugee camp from the Syrian city of Baghouz, the last stronghold of the terror group.

The women are heard shouting "baqiya", presumably from Daesh's slogan "baqiya wa tatamaddad", which is translated as "remaining and expanding", verbally abusing journalists and throwing water and bottles at the camera filming them.

Over the weekend, the Daily Mail reported that foreign jihadi brides had been isolated from other female refugees in the al-Hol camp in northeast Syria, since they tried to assault the "infidels" for not abiding by the laws of the self-proclaimed caliphate.


Whereas other video shows that some - hailing from as far afield as Brazil, Canada, Germany, Trinidad, France, Russia - are now eager to return 'home' because life in the refugee camps wasn't comfortable; they couldn't even 'access google' on their phones:





Violin

The real foreign policy president of the US is the insane John Bolton - and he's playing Trump like a fiddle

Bolton

National Security Advisor and distinguished maniacJohn Bolton
Bolton let's Trump have all the spotlight, flatters him, plays the loyal servant, but meanwhile he's carefully isolating him from all non-Bolton people and opinions

Curt Mills reports on Bolton's extensive and expanding influence in the Trump administration:
But in the meantime, in return for his occasional, minor humiliation, Bolton enjoys wide-ranging authority to craft the national security policy of the United States, behind the scenes. He's the contra Mattis; instead of resigning in moral protest, Bolton wears the mask of obsequiousness, while subtly nudging a reluctant president toward a more tough-minded line.
We have seen how Bolton has been able to delay and even partially undo one of the president's initial decisions in Syria (all the while emphasizing that the president's decision was being faithfully carried out), and his fingerprints are all over the demise of the INF Treaty. Now we are starting to see the same thing happen with North Korea policy.

Snakes in Suits

Trump-obsessed Democrats scramble to keep 'Russian-collusion' conspiracy theory alive and weaponized

Robert Mueller
© Alex Wong/Getty Images
Then-FBI Director Robert Mueller in Washington on June 25, 2008. Special Counsel Mueller is reportedly close to finishing his investigation.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the lionized hero on whom the President's detractors have pinned their hopes and dreams for nearly two years, is reportedly very close to issuing his final report. No one on the outside actually knows yet what exactly Mueller and his team of partisan lawyers will write, but those who have been predicting daily that the Mueller report would demonstrate that "illegal collusion" with Russia was the real reason Hillary lost the election are now falling all over themselves to lower expectations and hedge their bets.

In typical fashion, they cannot accept that the report might fall short of their dreams because the evidence did not support the conclusions they wanted to hear. Instead, their latest avenue of spin is to minimize Mueller's authority and efforts and to promise that the Committee chairs in the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, driven by ego and a thirst for power, will now mount their own aggressive alternative investigations digging into every aspect of the President's personal, business, and public life.

Newspaper

Malaysia frees Indonesian woman accused of Kim Jong Nam's poisoning

Siti Aisyah
© Mast Irham/EPA
Siti Aisyah arrives from Malaysia at Halim Perdana Kusuma airport in Jakarta on Monday, after charges against her in Kim Jong-nam’s murder case were dropped.
An Indonesian woman accused in the 2017 chemical poison murder of the North Korean leader's half-brother was freed on Monday after a Malaysian court dropped the charge in a case that drew suspicions of being a political assassination.

As the court announced its decision, Siti Aisyah, 26, turned to her Vietnamese co-defendant, Doan Thi Huong, 30, in the dock and the two women, who had been facing the death penalty together, embraced in tears.

They had been accused of poisoning Kim Jong Nam, the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, with liquid VX, a banned chemical weapon, at Kuala Lumpur airport in February 2017.

Comment: See also:


No Entry

Facebook briefly takes down Elizabeth Warren's ads on breaking up Facebook

Sen. Elizabeth Warren
© REUTERS/Sergio Flores
Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Elizabeth Warren (MA)
Democratic presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren might have felt vindicated in her crusade against the monopoly of tech giants like Facebook and Google, after the former took down her ads calling for their dismemberment.

Warren made a full-blown offensive against a number of the most prominent digital giants a key part of her 2020 campaign agenda. Blasting the vast power that conglomerates such as Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple have accumulated, Warren has unveiled plans to "unwind tech mergers" by introducing legislation that would bar the platforms from offering a marketplace and selling their services on that same marketplace.

That, however, did not stop Warren from using the platform provided by one of her adversaries, Facebook, to place her campaign ad urging her supporters to join her quest in disbanding it, along with Amazon and Google.

Comment: See also:


Propaganda

NBC report lies about construction at North Korea's Sohae launch facility

north Korea nuclear site
© Digital Globe/CSIS/Beyond Parallel
In the aftermath of the Hanoi Summit, President Trump has been barraged with attempts to undermine his confidence in the good faith of Kim Jong Un and his intentions to deal fairly with the United States in the negotiation process concerning denuclearization and de-escalation of tensions on the Korean Peninsula. One of the primary causes of concern has been a series of reports from NBC News claiming that "commercial" satellite footage shows that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) has been engaging in fresh construction at their Sohae Launch Facility in preparation for an alleged missile launch or test.

Not only is the use of the term "commercial" misleading in nature, but analysis of the photos indicates that the activity at the Sohae facility is related to deconstruction. The reports are driven by a number of entities with connections to the Central Intelligence Agency and a number of other special interests which call into credibility both the veracity of the reports and the journalistic integrity of NBC News.

Comment:


Sherlock

Is Norway's oil & gas selloff a mistake?

norway oil gas
© Global Look Press / Jin Liangkuai
Another big step has been taken to end the hydrocarbon era, if the decision by Norway's sovereign wealth fund to dump oil stocks and investments is a sign on the wall.

After the news broke, "fossil free" non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and others declared the Norwegian SWF Government Pension Fund (or "Oil Fund") decision to divest as a major victory for the Green Movement. Norway's official reaction is, however, that the pension fund has chosen to divest its oil and gas related stocks the coming years due to financial considerations.

No links have been made to environmental or climate change issues in the decision making process. Still, there are signals that oil companies are facing a steep uphill battle, if the Norwegian decision is translated into policy in the next couple of months.

Norway's "Oil Fund", holding assets of around $1 trillion worldwide, is seen by institutional investors as a beacon. Still, the Norwegian decision needs to be assessed on its merits, and not on political statements or NGO assessments, forgetting the fact that the full financial structure of the fund has been, and partly is still, based on Norway's enormous oil and gas revenues. At the same time, Norway's decision-making process also seems to be influenced by national elections.

Comment: A curious move indeed, and it seems one will need to keep an eye on developments to see if there are reasons other than 'global warming' hysteria that have influenced their decision: