Puppet Masters
In an interview with the Financial Times ahead of the G20 meeting in Japan, the Russian President gave his view of : "...the so-called liberal idea, which has outlived its purpose."
The shock in the headlines was palpable, how could anyone question the dominance of liberalism? Liberals will accept anything (literally, that is the point) but they turn distinctly authoritarian when their beliefs are questioned.

The ex-commissar of the Caracas Metropolitan Police, Ivan Simonovis met with Elliott Abrams June 27, 2019
Maduro said the former adviser had always been an agent of the US Central Intelligence Agency.
"The assassin [Ivan] Simonovis was received as a hero in Washington, as a CIA agent who has been his whole life, he is a murderer, a criminal, a murderous murderer [...]," Maduro said.
Simonovis was under house arrest, from which he escaped on 16 May last. The former aide spoke about the escape plan to escape his home, where he served the prison sentence.
A host of reputed Western media outlets turned a deaf ear to Nils Melzer and his op-ed in which he said Julian Assange was exposed to enormous psychological trauma and isolation while in the Ecuadorian Embassy, and afterwards in the UK high-security prison.
Some of them said it wasn't high enough on their news agenda, some of them said it wasn't within their core area of interest.
Comment: So press freedom and the protection of journalists is not a "core interest" of these outlets? That pretty much tells one everything about the true nature of the Western media
Comment:
- UN Expert: Assange deliberately subjected to prolonged cruel and inhuman psychological torture
- UN Special Rapporteur on Torture exposes anti-Assange smear campaign waged by Ecuador, Sweden, the UK and the US
- BBC, Sky News deep-six their interviews with UN expert on the torture of Julian Assange
- UN Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer has become one of Assange's most vocal advocates
- Nils Melzer: Unmasking the Torture of Julian Assange
The payments mechanism was established by the European Union to keep trading with Tehran despite US sanctions in order to keep the nuclear deal with Iran alive.
The US re-imposed sanctions against the Islamic Republic following Washington's withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
The US has been mounting pressure on Iran and anyone breaking its sanctions against the country, threatening to punish any company that continues doing business with the Islamic Republic, including the purchasing of Iranian oil.
No matter how many times I read 1984, the feeling of total helplessness and despair that weaves itself throughout Orwell's masterpiece never fails to take me by surprise. Although usually referred to as a 'dystopian futuristic novel', it is actually a horror story on a scale far greater than anything that has emerged from the minds of prolific writers like Stephen King or Dean Koontz. The reason is simple. The nightmare world that the protagonist Winston Smith inhabits, a place called Oceania, is all too easily imaginable. Man, as opposed to some imaginary clown or demon, is the evil monster.
In the very first pages of the book, Orwell demonstrates an uncanny ability to foresee future trends in technology. Describing the protagonist Winston Smith's frugal London flat, he mentions an instrument called a 'telescreen', which sounds strikingly similar to the handheld 'smartphone' that is enthusiastically used by billions of people around the world today.
Titled "The Beginner's Guide to Protesting (#GooglersUnite)," the document instructs burgeoning activists in everything from protest chants to proper protesting attire. Its stated purpose is to "ensure that everyone feels comfortable and pumped about Resist@Google.com marches/protests" - suggesting that such activism was not only encouraged by Google but also backed by the company, using company resources.
While it's unclear how extensively the document was circulated inside Google, the use of company email to organize protests and the fact that ready-to-print protest signs were stored on company servers appear to directly contradict Google's protestations that the company is ideologically neutral. It clearly refers to multiple protests - employees are advised to "debrief afterwards with resist@google.com" to discuss what could be "improved for next time."
Comment: Love him or hate him James O'Keefe's Project Veritas is performing an important civic services in bringing to light the real views of various members of the elite to light, namely a deep, abiding contempt for the general public. That would be you. Some examples
- Project Veritas expose: Google whistleblower exposes efforts to influence 2020 election against Trump - UPDATE
- Project Veritas: YouTube artificially manipulates searches in favor of liberal media
- Project Veritas: NYT's video editor brags about slanting Trump coverage, Comey connection
- Project Veritas Deep State exposé Part 4: IRS officials - 'You should give increased scrutiny to conservative groups.. I don't give a s**t if that's a crime'
- James O'Keefe of Project Veritas drops first video in Deep State Series: State Dept. official and Socialist Stuart Karaffa vows to "F*ck Sh*t Up" on Trump
- YouTube removes Project Veritas video on Pinterest's 'censorship of conservative views'
- Damage control? Project Veritas Founder & President James O'Keefe no longer allowed access to his Twitter account
- Vimeo bans media watchdog Project Veritas after it accused Google of anti-Trump bias
Why did YouTube competitor Vimeo also ban Project Veritas' Google expose?
Donald Trump, circa 2016?
Nope. That denunciation of John Bolton interventionism came from Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii during Wednesday night's Democratic debate. At 38, she was the youngest candidate on stage.
Gabbard proceeded to rip both the "president and his chickenhawk cabinet (who) have led us to the brink of war with Iran."
In a fiery exchange, Congressman Tim Ryan of Ohio countered that America cannot disengage from Afghanistan: "When we weren't in there they started flying planes into our buildings."
In an FT interview in the Kremlin on the eve of the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, the Russian president said "the liberal idea" had "outlived its purpose" as the public turned against immigration, open borders and multiculturalism. Mr Putin's evisceration of liberalism - the dominant western ideology since the end of the second world war in 1945 - chimes with anti-establishment leaders from US president Donald Trump to Hungary's Viktor Orban, Matteo Salvini in Italy, and the Brexit insurgency in the UK.
"[Liberals] cannot simply dictate anything to anyone just like they have been attempting to do over the recent decades," he said. Mr Putin branded Chancellor Angela Merkel's decision to admit more than 1m refugees to Germany, mainly from war-ravaged Syria, as a "cardinal mistake".

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (left) hug during their meeting before a session of the Heads of State Council of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.
A particular theme stood out: They discussed how the connecting role of Persia in the Ancient Silk Road is about to be replicated by Iran in the New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). And that is non-negotiable. Especially after the Russia-China strategic partnership, less than a month before the Moscow summit, offered explicit support for Tehran signaling that regime change simply won't be accepted, diplomatic sources say.
Putin and Xi solidified the roadmap at the St Petersburg Economic Forum. And the Greater Eurasia interconnection continued to be woven immediately after at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Bishkek, with two essential interlocutors: India, a fellow BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) and SCO member, and SCO observer Iran.
Comment: See also:
- The economic entrails at the heart of the 'deal of the century'
- Starvation sanctions are worse than overt warfare
- Explaining Russia's position on Idlib
- Pepe Escobar: The Pentagon's obsession with China, and Putin's strategy
- Russia's Arctic passage will ease China's reliance on Malacca Strait chokepoint and help navigate US belligerence
- 'Can't wish away' India-Russia defence ties say sources before Pompeo visits Modi
The moderators didn't raise any other candidates' past "liabilities," although plenty of them have what one might consider "baggage," yet they chose to devise a specific question for Gabbard based on comments she made more than 15 years ago, well before she underwent the political and personal evolution that now forms the philosophical foundation for her campaign.
It's nothing new for NBC News, however, which on the day of her formal announcement speech in February published a pathetic hit piece claiming that Gabbard was supported by the nefarious Russian "botnet," using analysis derived from the discredited "cybersecurity firm" New Knowledge. The article was confabulated nonsense and said more about the editors and reporters who produced it than Gabbard, who obviously bears no responsibility for what unknown foreign trolls may do online.













Comment: The full interview: