Last Week Today Episode 169 Show Notes for Monday, October 7th, 2024
WW3 in the Middle East, Canada’s House of Commons at a Standstill, The US Port Strike is Over (For Now), Julian Assange is Free & FBI Capital Rally Proof
WW3 in the Middle East.
It’s been a wild week in the Middle East as Israel's efforts to subdue Hamas seems to have led inexorably to last week’s remote detonations of Palestinian cell-phones, pagers and walkie-talkies and this week’s Israeli attack against Iran, Gaza and Lebanon.
The Israeli government is in the wrong in this war. But the legacy media keeps telling war stories almost as if they were getting personal press releases from Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
As noted on the October 7th, 2024 NBC News “Live updates: Israel marks the Oct. 7 anniversary, strikes Lebanon and Gaza,” Israel is marking the one year anniversary of the Hamas' Oct. 7 terror attacks — the deadliest in the country's history:
Today there is no sign of an end to the anguish and destruction in a Middle East consumed by a widening conflict that has killed tens of thousands.
As outlined in the October 7th, 2024 New York Times, “Live Update: Israel Mounts Heavy Attack on Southern Lebanon,” Israel is fighting on multiple fronts in Southern Lebanon and in Gaza.
The October 6th, 2024 Center for Strategic and International Studies post, “Escalating to War between Israel, Hezbollah, and Iran,” notes a “serious risk of all-out war between Israel, Hezbollah, and Iran” in the near future.
According to the post:
… both the scale and geographic scope of violence have dramatically increased (in the region).
The number of strikes and the geography of the conflict are likely to grow and include a larger swath of Lebanon and Israel as well as potentially Iran, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.
The battle is becoming more ambiguous and confusing and the ability of any government to control the carnage, is slowly slipping away.
The September 28th, 2024 Radio Free Europe post, “Hassan Nasrallah's Death A 'Major Loss' For Hezbollah And Ally Iran,” notes that the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, killed in Israeli air strikes on Beirut on September 27th, 2024 will be difficult to replace because of his longevity and personal connections.
He’s not the first Middle Eastern leader targeted for assassination's by the Israeli government. Last week’s remote detonations of Palestinian cell-phones, pagers and walkie-talkies was targeted specifically at Hezbollah leaders and their communication networks.
A more concerning issue might just be the increasing acceptance by our rulers that leaders are legitimate targets of war, or even in peacetime if you don’t like their policies.
This is something we seem to have forgotten since the 1648 Peace of Westphalia was signed by European leaders.
At the very least, if we kill all the leaders, there will be no one left to make peace with.
Some say that war is needed for the Great Reset to proceed and for the change over from the fast collapsing western infrastructure based around the “petrodollar” to take place.
But war isn’t required for the actual “reset.”
It’s only needed to hide the incompetence of our current leaders and allow them to continue to rule. Keeping the demonstrably incompetent existing leaders in power seems to be a bad solution to the current situation.
Since the politicians are hamstrung by the central bankers who fund the politicians and also want to retain their power and influence, maybe the real solution is to just send a few bankers to jail.
Also in the News this Week
Canada’s House of Commons at a Standstill
Business in Canada’s House of Commons has come to a halt over allegations of Liberal Corruption.
As outlined in the October 3rd, 2024 Global News post, “House of Commons grinds to halt over allegations of Liberal ‘corruption’,” the House of Commons has been unable to function since September 26th, when House Speaker Greg Fergus ruled that the government “clearly did not fully comply” with an order from the House to provide documents related to a now-defunct foundation responsible for doling out a billion dollars for green technology projects.
As outlined in the June 4th, 2024 CBC News post, “Ottawa abolishes green fund in response to scathing AG report,” the Liberal government abolished Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC), a Canadian government agency that aimed to promote sustainable development by investing in clean technologies, after Canada’s Auditor General released a scathing report about the organization’s management last spring.
According to the CBC News post:
… one in every six (organization) that received funding (through SDTC) were ineligible (for funding under SDTC rules). The auditor’s report also found 90 cases where conflict-of-interest polices were violated.
A month later, the ethics commissioner concluded that the former chair of the foundation failed to recuse herself from decisions that benefited organizations to which she had ties.
As outlined in the October 4th, 2024 CBC News post, “RCMP says it has documents at the centre of a debate bogging down the Commons,” the RCMP is also investigating SDTC and possess a “redacted” copy of the same documents requested by the House.
Speaker Fergus believes that the “unredacted” documents will contain clarification on whether or not the ruling minority Liberal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau committed a crime and turned SDTC into a “green slush fund” for Liberal party members.
At this point, the Justin Trudeau Liberal government seems to have only a few options left:
They could hand over the requested documents to House speaker Greg Fergus.
They could do nothing and continue the shut down.
They could formally “prorogue” parliament as Stephen Harpur did in 2009, when the House ordered the government to disclose unredacted documents related to Canada’s role in the torture of Afghan detainees. A few weeks after opposition parties passed a motion demanding the documents be produced, Harper prorogued Parliament for several months, preventing the House committee from pursuing the issue.
They could call an election.
Of course, there are a lot of things to dislike in the current Liberal policy portfolio, a lot of “backroom deals” going on and a lot of previous unresolved scandals clouding legitimate debates in the House of Commons.
Mark Carney’s new role in the Liberal party, Justin Trudeau’s ongoing support for the UN and it’ policies, Chinese influence in the Canadian political process and Bill C-293 are questions of policy where Liberal government positions do not possess the support of the electorate.
So where do we go next? Stay tuned.
The US Port Strike is Over (For Now).
The US Port Strike is over, having been resolved at the last minute through a temporary negotiated agreement.
But as noted in the October 4th, 2024 CBS News post, “Dockworkers suspend strike after reaching tentative deal until Jan. 15,” the strike is only postponed, not averted.
The deal between the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) and the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX), a shipping industry group representing terminal operators and ocean carriers and extends the “master contract” between the two organizations until January 15th, 2024.
While salaries and benefits have been agreed upon, the real battles, over healthcare and the introduction of automated technologies, such as container cranes and automated guided vehicles to reduce the need for human labor, are still to come.
Automation in particular, is expected to eventually lead to massive job losses amongst the longshoreman and the union certainly doesn’t want that.
But the ILA executive are mostly Democrats and no one wants to make Kamala Harris look any worse than she already looks. So the big battle has been postponed until the next president, likely Republican Donald Trump, takes the hot seat in January 2025.
Julian Assange Speaks
Julian Assange has finally made a public statement after spending over a decade in jail for practicing journalism and informing the public of what he found.
As outlined in the June 25th, 2024 Al Jazeera post, “WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange released from prison after US plea deal,” Assange, accepted a guilty plea to one count of conspiracy to obtain and disclose classified US national defense documents, according to a filing in the US District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands in June 2024.
He was freed from the UK’s high-security Belmarsh prison on June 24th and taken to the airport, from where he flew out of the country. Assange appeared at a court in Saipan, a US Pacific territory the next day where he was sentenced to 62 months of the time already served.
But since his release, he’s made no public statement on his situation, until now.
As outlined in the October 1st, 2024 Liberty Vault on YouTube post, “The CIA Tried to Kill Me,” Assange did not feel justice would ever be served in his case. So he chose freedom over remaining in jail for the rest his life.
As noted in the October 2nd, 2024 RFI post, “European rights body finds prosecution of WikiLeaks' Assange 'politically motivated,” the parliamentary arm of the Council of Europe rights body has said the prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was "politically motivated" and has had a "chilling" effect on the whole media landscape.
FBI Capital Rally Proof
And finally tonight, we have the October 5th, 2024 Mongo Minds on Bitchute post, “FBI Capital Rally Proof.”
We also talk a little bit about Alex Jones.
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