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Light Saber

Assange lawyer says UK-US treaty prohibits extradition of WikiLeaks publisher

Andrew Blake
Washington Times
Thu, 19 Dec 2019 17:48 UTC
Assange protest support
© REUTERS / Hannah McKa
Attorneys for Julian Assange will fight a U.S. extradition request by reasoning it should be blocked under a bilateral treaty, a lawyer for the WikiLeaks publisher said Thursday.

Defense lawyer Edward Fitzgerald said during a hearing held at London's Westminster Magistrates' Court that Mr. Assange's legal team will argue that a treaty in place between the U.K. and U.S. prohibits individuals from being extradited from one nation to the other for political offenses, multiple British media outlets reported.

"We say that there is in the treaty a ban on being extradited for a political offense and these offenses as framed and in substance are political offenses," Mr. Fitzgerald told the court, according to Reuters.

Comment:

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Snakes in Suits

Bojo will finally pass Brexit but EU divorce is far from 'done', no deal still possible

Alexander Smith
NBC
Thu, 19 Dec 2019 18:30 UTC
Johnson
© Jessica Taylor / AFPBritain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaking in the House of Commons during the first sitting of Parliament since the election on Tuesday.
It was repeated like a mantra throughout the election campaign. Prime Minister Boris Johnson really, really wanted voters to know he was going to "get Brexit done."

This promise helped propel his Conservative Party last week to its most emphatic election victory in three decades.

It means Johnson looks certain to finally pass a Brexit deal in Parliament on Friday after years of political deadlock, a huge symbolic moment that will ensure Britain leaves the European Union next month.

So Brexit will be "done," right?

The most likely answer is no.

Comment: LOL!

No one knows what leaving the EU looks like much less feels like in tangible terms, yet it's the only thing Jack here 'knows' is going to happen!

The whole thing is one big nothing-burger.

See also: The story of the UK general election is not Brexit, it's the coming break up of Britain

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Attention

Wikileaks provides further evidence of OPCW Douma cover up

Dave DeCamp
AntiWar.com
Thu, 19 Dec 2019 17:10 UTC
fake douma gas attack
Fake gas attack in Douma, Syria
WikiLeaks published more documents and emails from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) related to the alleged chemical attack in Douma, Syria on April 7th 2018. The alleged attack was blamed on the Syrian government. Before any real evidence was presented, the US, UK, and France responded to these allegations with an airstrike.

The new leaks provide further evidence that the OPCW suppressed evidence and altered the reports of their investigators who were on the ground in Douma. The sheer number of documents and whistleblowers will make it hard for mainstream media outlets to continue to ignore this scandal.

One of the leaked documents is a memo addressed to OPCW Director-General Fernando Arias from an unknown OPCW inspector who was a member of the fact-finding mission (FFM) sent to Douma. The memo is dated March 14th 2019, two weeks after the OPCW released their final report on the alleged chemical attack.

Comment:

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Binoculars

Moscow's top general: Intensified drills on Russia's doorstep indicate NATO is gearing up for major conflict


RT
Tue, 17 Dec 2019 23:32 UTC
Latvian army soldiers attend the NATO exercise
© REUTERS/Ints KalninsLatvian army soldiers attend the NATO enhanced Forward Presence battle group military drill Integrated Capstone Exercise 2019/1 in Adazi, Latvia February 26, 2019.
The increased intensity and scale of US-led NATO military exercises in the Baltics and Black Sea suggest the alliance is preparing for a major military conflict, said General Valery Gerasimov, chief of the Russian General Staff.

NATO's ramping up of large-scale war games in the Baltics, Poland and the Black Sea region show that it is gearing up for a major confrontation, Gerasimov said on Thursday, briefing foreign military attaches in Moscow.
"The scenario [of the drills] point that NATO is purposefully training its troops to be engaged in a major military conflict."
Gerasimov pointed out that in addition to flexing its military muscles around Russian borders, the US continues to deploy its anti-ballistic missile systems to Europe, which Moscow considers to be an acute threat to its national security.

Furthermore, there is an ongoing smear campaign about a "Russian military threat" aimed at vilifying Moscow, the general said. Any military build-up attempted by Russia, transparent and defensive in nature, is being spun by Western media outlets and governments as a "threat to peace," he added.

Comment: The Kremlin agrees with the assessment of its top military general:
The Kremlin has said that it trusts the opinion of a senior Russian general, who has said that NATO's intensified drills this year are an indication that the military bloc is preparing for a major conflict.

Valery Gerasimov, the chair of the Russian General Staff, shared the wary view that the Russian military have about NATO's maneuvers on Tuesday as he gave a year-end briefing to foreign military attaches in Moscow.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the opinion was based on analyses of data collected by the Russian military and should not be dismissed.

"In this case the professional opinion may be the only correct one, so the presidential administration is in no position to put forward its own military assessment," he said.

Gerasimov said the increased number and scale of military exercises conducted by NATO members this year indicates that the alliance "is purposefully training its troops to be engaged in a major military conflict."


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Black Cat 2

Best of the Web: Why Pelosi Plans to Delay Sending Impeachment Articles to the Senate

Paul Joseph Watson
Summit News
Thu, 19 Dec 2019 12:56 UTC
pelosi impeachment trump
Nancy 'goes right' to outflank Trump at yesterday's House vote on impeachment of the president. It won't work as its ostensibly designed to, but it might in a roundabout way...
Nancy Pelosi has suggested she will delay sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate in order for Democrats to build up more evidence against Trump and delay a swift acquittal.

Last night, the House voted along party lines to impeach Trump, a partisan move that enables Democrats to continually undermine and discredit Trump as the "impeached President."

However, with the effort virtually guaranteed to fall flat in the Senate, Democrats are planning to delay and drag the process in yet another underhanded stunt.

Following the impeachment vote, Pelosi said she would withhold the articles of impeachment until the Senate makes rules that she determines will be "fair" to the prosecution.

Comment: To be clear, they won't be 'gathering evidence' for the purpose of actually strengthening their chances of Trump being impeached (because they have nothing, and they know it). Instead, they will be pretending to 'gather evidence' so that as many headlines as possible with 'Trump impeachment' in them can be generated for as long as possible through 2020, an election year.

What they may also do, in parallel, is cook up something more 'sensational' than 'withholding military aid to Ukraine' as 'evidence' of Trump's 'malfeasance', but its purpose won't be to support the formal legal proceedings, but to convince the minds of the general public in 'trial by media' that Trump really is 'Orange Man Bad'.

This is all designed to influence voters to not vote for Trump next November. Their plan will likely fail, but you never know; populations do succumb to heavy, targeted infowar campaigns of repetitive media lies...

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Caesar

Putin says Trump will survive impeachment proceedings

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Thu, 19 Dec 2019 14:53 UTC
putin
Russian President Vladimir Putin fielded questions at his annual end-of-year news conference in Moscow on Thursday, and while Putin usually talks about domestic issues, in this conference he was bombarded with questions on foreign policy and relations with Washington.
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Bullseye

SOTT Focus: By Impeaching Trump, Democrats Have Made Him More Powerful Than They Could Ever Imagine

Nebojsa Malic
RT
Thu, 19 Dec 2019 11:08 UTC
trump
© REUTERS/Kevin LamarqueUS President Donald Trump departs the White House for a campaign rally while the House debates impeachment, December 18, 2019
From coast to coast, the Resistance is cheering the impeachment of President Donald Trump in the House. They shouldn't be. For in seeking to destroy him, they have only made him more powerful, and undercut themselves.

Let's not mince words: Wednesday's vote was the culmination of efforts that began on November 8, 2016, with Trump's shocking triumph over Hillary Clinton - or maybe even before, on whatever date the FBI actually began investigating the Trump campaign for "Russian collusion" per accusations coming from Democrats.

All those paths, from "emoluments" and "Hamilton electors," via the ill-fated Mueller Report into "Russiagate," to the "whistleblower" complaint about the Ukraine phone call, they all converged on this inevitable conclusion. The actual "high crimes or misdemeanors" never mattered - or materialized, really - all anyone needed to do is repeat the mantra, Orange Man Bad.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-California) wore black and intoned about sadness and solemnity of the day for the American Republic and its importance for "our democracy." It was a bonfire of hypocrisies, as the party that has spent years denouncing everything about America - its flag, anthem, founders, and even the political system - now claiming to be defending it all from the "clear and present danger" Trump somehow represented.

Even now, it is unclear what they sought to accomplish. There is no indication that the Republican-majority Senate will actually vote to convict the president and remove him from office - and the Democrats know this. Nor is being impeached going to somehow disqualify Trump from being on the ballot in 2020, no matter what some "Republican" commentators on MSNBC and CNN may argue.

Comment: Other analysts are in agreement: Political analyst on Impeachment: Trump will emerge stronger and more forceful in his personal popularity in America

As to the question, "Why are the Democrats shooting themselves in the foot with this impeachment charade?", the answer lies here:

Dems' Push to Impeach Trump is Merely the Latest Chapter of US Civil War 2.0
Considering that the Democrats have absolutely nothing to gain by trying to impeach Trump, another possible motive must be considered, which is that the Democrats are desperately trying to protect themselves. Unknown to many, high-level Democrats, intelligence officers, and former White House officials have been under investigation for many months by Attorney General Will Barr and federal prosecutor John Durham. The reason has little to do with Ukraine, and everything to do with Trump's promise to "drain the swamp."

In a nutshell, Barr and Dunham will soon be releasing their highly anticipated attorney general's report, which will determine whether the FBI had submitted false documents for obtaining a FISA warrant to spy on the Trump administration in 2016. The word 'treason' is even being whispered on Capitol Hill. The investigation involves a mind boggling array of top characters who played a role in creating the Steele Dossier (home of the famous pee tape), a largely debunked 'intelligence' document that ultimately failed to prove a link between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.
Putin: Trump impeachment 'far-fetched,' Senate will acquit
Russian President Vladimir Putin called the U.S. impeachment process "far-fetched" Thursday, making a seemingly obvious prediction that Donald Trump will be acquitted in the Senate.

Putin said Thursday at his annual news conference in Moscow that the move is a continuation of the Democrats' fight against Trump.

"The party that lost the (2016) election, the Democratic Party, is trying to achieve results by other means," Putin said.

He likened Trump's impeachment to the earlier U.S. probe into collusion with Russia, which Putin downplayed as being groundless.

Putin noted that the impeachment motion "is yet to pass the Senate where the Republicans have a majority." He added that "they will be unlikely to remove a representative of their own party from office on what seems to me an absolutely far-fetched reason."
See also,

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Bizarro Earth

Are Israel and Iran preparing for war?

Darius Shahtahmasebi
RT
Thu, 19 Dec 2019 07:19 UTC
israel
© Reuters / ISNA/WANAl; REUTERS/Amir Cohen
While much of the international and domestic US media focuses on the Trump impeachment scandal, there are many signs that a major conflict could break out in the Middle East. Will Christmas go off with a monumental bang?

Iran can move in and out of the media focus as other stories and scandals begin to steal the spotlight, but in the background the pressure being mounted against Tehran is heating up on multiple fronts.

For example, the US recently rolled out a fresh load of sanctions against Iranian companies, including its largest airline, accusing it of "weapons of mass destruction proliferation," as well as the transportation of lethal aid to Yemen. The move seems to be squeezing Iran's economy ever closer to a total state of collapse, as the airline will likely be prohibited from using airports in countries fearful of facing the wrath of the Trump administration.

Comment: The US and its allies are already waging an economic and hybrid war against Iran, meanwhile those allied with peace are doing their utmost to counter these acts of terrorism:

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Stock Up

Political analyst on Impeachment: Trump will emerge stronger and more forceful in his personal popularity in America


Sputnik
Thu, 19 Dec 2019 10:43 UTC
On late Wednesday, nearly all of the members of the Democratic Party in the US House of Representatives, where they constitute the majority, supported the impeachment of Donald Trump. The impeachment was supported in a 230-197 vote, with one abstention.
trump
© Reuters / Loren Elliott"Ultimately, the end result of the impeachment will either be the re-election of President Trump and the defeat of the Democrats in the 2020 election, or else it will lead to a Civil War in America unlike anything seen since the founding of America."
Scott Bennett, an independent political analyst , expressed his opinion on the possibility of President Donald Trump's impeachment.

Sputnik: What is your opinion about the results of the congressional vote?

Scott Bennett: The Democrats in the House of Representatives are realising, albeit too late, that impeachment of President Trump is going to have an enormously destructive backlash against the Democrat party all over America in the upcoming election in 2020. Polls and public surveys are showing clearly that President Trump's approval ratings are rising, despite the hysteria and propaganda the Democrats are trying to spread throughout the country through their supporters in the media at CNN, the New York Times, Washington Post, and other mainstream channels. This shows that the vast majority of Americans are beginning to clearly see and understand that the entire impeachment event has been theatre and political gamesmanship, but sadly is also an attempt to overthrow a sitting president, frustrate and stop his agenda, and violate and nullify the votes of every American who voted for Donald Trump.

Comment: From the article, Dems' Push to Impeach Trump is Merely the Latest Chapter of US Civil War 2.0
Considering that the Democrats have absolutely nothing to gain by trying to impeach Trump, another possible motive must be considered, which is that the Democrats are desperately trying to protect themselves. Unknown to many, high-level Democrats, intelligence officers, and former White House officials have been under investigation for many months by Attorney General Will Barr and federal prosecutor John Durham. The reason has little to do with Ukraine, and everything to do with Trump's promise to "drain the swamp."

In a nutshell, Barr and Dunham will soon be releasing their highly anticipated attorney general's report, which will determine whether the FBI had submitted false documents for obtaining a FISA warrant to spy on the Trump administration in 2016. The word 'treason' is even being whispered on Capitol Hill. The investigation involves a mind boggling array of top characters who played a role in creating the Steele Dossier (home of the famous pee tape), a largely debunked 'intelligence' document that ultimately failed to prove a link between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.


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Star of David

Human Rights Watch: Israel has suspended core Palestinian rights for half a century

Maureen Clare Murphy
The Electronic Intifada
Tue, 17 Dec 2019 08:30 UTC
freedom palestinians
© Mahmoud AjjourAPA images“Peaceful opposition to the occupation could land you in jail,” according to Human Rights Watch’s Omar Shakir
Israel has denied Palestinians living under military occupation their fundamental civil rights for more than five decades, according to a report published by Human Rights Watch today.

Sweeping military orders imposed immediately after Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967 remain in place today, except for East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed in violation of international law.

"The Israeli army has deprived generations of Palestinians in the West Bank of their basic civil rights, including the rights to free assembly, association and expression, regularly drawing on military orders issued in the first days of the occupation," the report states.

"The suspension of core rights more than half a century later with no end in sight violates Israel's core responsibilities under the law of occupation."

Israeli settlers in the West Bank enjoy basic rights denied to Palestinians living in the same territory.

"Israeli officials openly speak of their intent to permanently rule over Palestinians in the West Bank," according to Human Rights Watch.

"Whatever the political arrangements, nothing can justify the continued enforcement of these restrictions and the entrenched two-tiered discriminatory system in the West Bank today."

Comment: Israel has been committing crimes against the Palestinians that the above report does not even mention, since its creation as a state. With powerful weapons and powerful allies at their disposal to whitewash their crimes, the successive Israeli governments have committed the worst acts imaginable against a population of people who all they ever wanted was their freedom to Be and live in the lands of their ancestors.

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