Keeping watch on the MSM propaganda …

 

 

I’ve picked two news items today  for a closer look rather than join in the MSM choir writing about Starmer and Labour now being a ‘valid alternative’ to the Tories. There’s also no point in joining the ever so fear-inducing observations in our MSM on the economy and inflation. If you wish you can check out this morning’s print editions in the usual place (link).

The first news item I picked is about PayPal. If you’ve read the Daily Sceptic yesterday you’ll know already that PayPal reinstated Toby Young’s personal account and the accounts of both the Daily Sceptic and the Free Speech Union (link). They also quote from Toby’s article in the Speccie (paywalled link). Reading the DS article in full is highly recommended!

We glean some interesting information from PayPal’s response, quoted by Toby. There’s the excuse for ‘causing an inconvenience’: clearly, someone  was shooting first and then asking questions. There’s  the ‘input from our customers’.  Perhaps the mass cancellations of accounts in the wake of this scandal had san effect? Or was it the news that Tory ‘Big Beast’ MPs wrote to JRM and the Treasury Select Committee? Perhaps MPs threatening to add an amendment to forthcoming legislation, banning payment companies from freezing accounts for political reasons was an ‘incentive’ (paywalled link)? Who knows! Btw – only the DM has a brief report on this scandal (link). The other papers couldn’t be bothered …

And so to the other news item: the sabotage of the three pipelines, two of Nordstream1, one of Nordstream2, in the Baltic Sea near the Danish island of Bornholm. It’s not on the BBC’ newspage this morning, so it probably didn’t happen. There is however one report on The Times’ frontpage, albeit not their leading article.So perhaps it did happen after all …

I’ll get to that report in a moment, first though let’s look at the DT which has three reports, all published yesterday afternoon and evening. Two of these reports were penned by the well-known Remain~ and EU~acolyte Mr James Crisp. In his afternoon article, published at 3.45pm, he already homes in on Putin as culprit:

 “Why Putin would want to blow up Nord Stream 2 and the advantages it gives him – The Russian leader has a record of weaponising fuel supplies and believes his people can endure economic pain longer than Western Europe” (paywalled link)

There’s no proof given by Mr Crisp except by referring to the burning-off of gas earlier this year, near St Petersburg. His second article was published at 10pm. By that time EU countries were clear that this was sabotage. And so Mr Crisp tries to convince us that he was correct earlier:

“Vladimir Putin was on Tuesday accused of sabotage after a series of underwater explosions caused “unprecedented” damage to pipelines built to supply Europe with gas.” (paywalled link)

I’ve left the link in that quote because, surprise surprise, it refers back to Mr Crisp’s own, earlier article. That is incontrovertible proof, that is – correct? Unsurprisingly, The Times is now also convinced. Their report was published at 12.00am this morning, mixing facts with unsupported accusations – unsupported because just opining something is the case isn’t factual reporting. See for yourselves:

“Russia has been accused of blowing up two of its own gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea with the aim of destabilising Europe in the midst of its energy war. The pipelines were torn open by apparent underwater explosions as strong as a minor earthquake, leading to three large gas leaks east of the Danish island of Bornholm. Shockwaves were detected as far as 800 miles away.” (link, paywalled)

Thus: ‘there were explosions – therefore Putin did it’. In the third article in the DT, published yesterday evening at 8.45pm, the author speculates about how this could have been done – by Putin, of course. It is a lovely piece  suitable for a hobby military magazine, full of ‘could have’s’. However, given the subtitle “The apparent sabotage of the pipeline between Russia and Germany may well have been set up months ago” he opines towards the end of his piece:

“Three small devices, 70m under the water, close to the pipelines could have been left months ago, perhaps when the world was looking at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant or the atrocities uncovered in Bucha. Perhaps the mission crept under our attention as we watched the Winter Olympics in China? They may have been sitting there for months, listening for the pre-programmed acoustic signature of a “friendly” vessel transiting close by (but far enough from any blast). Perhaps they were listening for a signal transmitted by an electronic device dropped from an aircraft passing overhead?” (paywalled link)

Crikey – isn’t Putin all powerful! He even knew Bucha would be discovered and stuck those explosives to those piplelines beforehand! Even more prophetic: he did this during the winter olympics when nobody was looking. Are we to understand that NATO was incapable of monitoring the area, that they watched the Olympic Games, rather than monitor the Baltic Sea, that the Baltic States never monitor the seabed of the Baltic? And who is missing from this speculation? The good old USA which had ships on NATO exercise in the area.

Here is a rather interesting titbit, reported in the German paper ‘Der Tagesspiegel’. Of course our own Westminster correspondents don’t read German News nor can they be expected to use machine translators:

“Many questions will now also be addressed to the federal government. Apparently, the US intelligence service CIA warned them weeks ago about possible attacks on the natural gas pipelines. Such a reference from the US foreign intelligence service was received in Berlin in the summer,” (link, in German)

Didn’t the CIA warn the Baltic States as well? It would be strange if they didn’t … Perhaps the German authorities didn’t do anything because these explosions have taken the wind out of the sails of all the protestors who demand NS2 be opened. Perhaps the ‘allies’ “did it”, in order to keep Germany down and in the ‘sanctions camp’? Here’s another strange coinky-dinky: Ms vdL is threatening even more sanctions because ‘Putin did it’ (link).

Well, let me mention another coinky-dinky: the referenda in the Donbas Kherson and Zaporishia have closed. A huge majority of those voting were in favour of joining Russia (link). I’ll not speculate about what this means for the SMO in the Ukraine, or for NATO, when the Duma accedes to these requests. Honi soit and all that to wonder why the pipelines just so happened to be sabotaged as the referenda results came in …

And finally, for the record, I refer to two news items which made my blood boil. One is the leading article in the DT this morning:

“The International Monetary Fund has urged Liz Truss to reverse the decision to abolish the top rate of income tax, in a highly unusual attack on the economic policy of a G7 country.” (paywalled link)

Thank you, IMF – how could Truss possibly disregard such ‘advice’! After all, no other Western country is racked by inflation! The other news item is in ‘iNews’:

“Senior government officials warned the Prime Minister and the Chancellor before Friday’s “mini-Budget” that introducing wide-ranging tax cuts funded by borrowing would trigger market volatility and cause a shock to the economy,” (link)

How sweet: Whitehall mandarins are letting it be known that they told the PM and the Chancellor ‘not to do it’. Are they hoping that a Labour government will more easily be led by them and do as they’re told? Is the IMF also keen to have Starmer in No 10 because they are certain he’ll toe the IMF line? 

I leave you with the link to the cartoon in today’s Times because it’s the best, the most scary image of what a Labour regime will mean. Only a cartoonist can dare to point this out. The Westminster ‘correspondents’ are too frit to do so. The times we live in have just become a bit more ‘interesting’.

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