Puppet MastersS


Green Light

Trump gives go-ahead for sanctions over ICC Afghanistan war crimes case - nothing to hide?


RFE/RL
Thu, 11 Jun 2020 16:01 UTC
Intl. Criminal Court
© ICC-CPIInternational Criminal Court, The Hague
President Donald Trump has issued an executive order authorizing economic sanctions and travel restrictions against employees of the International Criminal Court (ICC) who are directly involved in investigating U.S. troops and intelligence officials for possible war crimes in Afghanistan.

After Trump signed the executive order on June 11, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Washington would not allow Americans to be threatened by "a kangaroo court."

Attorney General Bill Barr accused "foreign powers like Russia" of manipulating The Hague-based court "in pursuit of their own agenda."

The United States is among dozens of countries that are not parties to the Rome treaty that established the ICC in 2002 to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in areas where perpetrators might not otherwise face justice.

In a statement, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany called the actions of the court
"an attack on the rights of the American people and threaten to infringe upon our national sovereignty.

The court "has been an unaccountable and ineffective international bureaucracy that targets and threatens United States personnel as well as personnel of our allies and partners."
McEnany alleged that the court continues to pursue politically motivated investigations against the U.S. and its partners, including Israel, and that "adversary nations are manipulating" the ICC.

Comment: By not being a member of the Rome treaty, the US saves scrutiny and judgement from a source it can't/shouldn't control. Instead, it levels remonstrances at the ICC without repercussion. To be fair, the ICC is not all that effective nor the US innocent.

See also:

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Mr. Potato

Georgia's fugitive president shares tips on police reform with US, fails to mention prison rapes, protest crackdowns on his watch


RT
Fri, 12 Jun 2020 18:31 UTC
Mikheil Saakashvili, Tbilisi protests
© Reuters(L) Georgia's former President Mikheil Saakashvili in Kiev. Reuters / Valentyn Ogirenko; (R) Police use water cannons and tear gas during clashes with protesters in Tbilisi May 26, 2011
A self-aggrandizing piece penned by Georgia's ex-President Mikheil Saakashvili offers Americans some common sense tips on how to reform the police based on a cherry-picked description of what he did at home.

The article published by Foreign Policy on Thursday explains how Saakashvili, in his own words, took control of a failed state in 2003 and overhauled its rotten police system into a highly popular institution, winning himself the title of the "world's best reformer" from the World Bank in the process.

Comment: For more on Saakashvili's sordid history see:

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Clipboard

Trump finalizing executive order calling on police to use 'force with compassion'

Morgan Chalfant
The Hill
Thu, 11 Jun 2020 17:23 UTC
trump
© Reuters / Kevin Lamarque
President Trump said Thursday that his administration is working on an executive order that will encourage police to meet "professional standards" for the use of force in the line of duty.

"We're working to finalize an executive order that will encourage police departments nationwide to meet the most current professional standards for the use of force, including tactics for de-escalation," Trump said during a roundtable with law enforcement, faith leaders and small business owners in Dallas.

Trump said the order would encourage police to use "force with compassion." He also defended his call for law enforcement to "dominate the streets" in order to quell protests after the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who was killed in police custody on May 25. Protests nationwide have been largely peaceful, with some incidents of looting in larger cities.

"And that means force, but force with compassion. But if you're going to have to really do a job, if somebody's really bad, you're going to have to do it with real strength, real power," Trump said.

"I said we have to dominate the streets," he continued. "And I was criticized for that statement. ... Well, guess what, you know who dominated the streets? People who you don't want to dominate the streets."

The White House previously signaled Trump was considering an executive order to address police reform, while lawmakers from both parties are working on legislation to address the issue. Democrats released their reform bill on Monday, and Republicans plan to unveil their own next week.
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Black Magic

The farce grinds on: MH17 trial includes Ukraine Secret Service telephone tapes, witness tampering, hatred for Russians

John Helmer
Dances with Bears
Fri, 12 Jun 2020 16:28 UTC
Mh17 trial cartoon gasoline on fire
© AFBranco/John Helmer
Dutch prosecutors wind up presentation of Kiev's MH17 show trial

"I give you the floor", Judge Hendrik Steenhuis announced to Prosecutor Thjs Berger, as he opened the June 10 session of the MH17 murder trial, the sixth day of the hearing at the Schiphol Judicial Complex in The Netherlands. The judge was referring to a court of law, not a stage show. "Ladies and gentlemen," Berger began, certain it was a show he was opening. By the conclusion of his and Prosecutor Ward Ferdinandusse's presentations, it was clear the show the Dutch are putting on in Amsterdam has been scripted entirely in Kiev.

The Hague District Court and the Dutch Ministry of Justice and Security are broadcasting the MH17 trial sessions at this livestream link. They do not allow a permanent archive recording or a transcript. The Russian broadcasting system, through Ruptly, broadcasts each session of the trial in permanent form; watch the June 10 session here. The press are currently excluded from the courtroom. To date, the worldwide audience for the archive video recording is less than 4,000.

Steenhuis has adjourned for the opening of the defence presentation on June 22.
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NPC

Kamala Harris: Trump throwing white supremacists a 'welcome home party' with Tulsa rally

John Bowden
The Hill
Thu, 11 Jun 2020 16:21 UTC
kamala harris
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) torched President Trump on Thursday over the president's plan to hold a campaign rally in Tulsa, Okla., on Juneteenth.

In a tweet, Harris linked to a Los Angeles Times story that noted that Trump's June 19 rally would take place in a city that was the site of a racist riot and massacre in 1921.


Comment: So because of an incident that happened almost a century ago, a city is tarnished forever and so is anyone who might hold a political rally in that city. Kamala Harris is practically the epitome of the delusional and intolerant Left.


"This isn't just a wink to white supremacists — he's throwing them a welcome home party," the senator tweeted.
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Eye 2

Flashback Kamala Harris prosecuted a mentally ill woman shot by SF police. The jury didn't buy it

Laura Rosenhall
The Mercury News
Wed, 11 Sep 2019 15:06 UTC
kamala harris
© Stephen Maturen/Getty Images
When San Francisco police broke down a door inside a group home for mentally disabled people in 2008 and shot a 56-year-old resident, then-District Attorney Kamala Harris didn't charge the officers with a crime. Instead she prosecuted the schizophrenic woman who was severely injured in the shooting.

Harris charged Teresa Sheehan with assaulting the officers, alleging she came at them with a kitchen knife after they forced their way into her room. But the jury was not convinced. It deadlocked in favor of acquitting Sheehan on the assault charges, and found her not guilty of threatening to kill a social worker who had called the police for help to get Sheehan into a psychiatric hospital.

"Somebody used very poor judgement in deciding to bring these charges," said Laurie Levenson, a criminal law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.

"If (Harris) actually looked at it and said, 'This is a righteous case, I want to go after a mentally ill woman who was shot,' then you question that decision. If she didn't know about it, then you question her management skills."
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Candle

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani says Taliban prisoner release will be completed soon, peace talks to restart afterward


RFE/RL
Fri, 12 Jun 2020 15:50 UTC
Afghan Mohammad Ashraf Ghani
© ARG (RFE/RL)Afghan president Mohammad Ashraf Ghani
The Afghan government plans to complete a Taliban prisoner release to pave the way for peace talks with the militant group, President Ashraf Ghani said on June 11.

"My colleagues and I have made the decision to release an additional 2,000 prisoners within a very short period. We will announce the date soon," Ghani told the Atlantic Council's South Asia Center and the U.S. Institute for Peace via video link.

In February, the United States and the Taliban signed an agreement aimed at ending the 18-year war in Afghanistan -- the longest military conflict in U.S. history.

The deal lays out a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country in return for security commitments from the Taliban.

Comment: These developments a measure of how badly Trump wants out of Afghanistan. 'Bringing the Troops Home' would be a big campaign selling point.

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Airplane

Russia did not hand over satellite images, MH17 court told, the US and China also

John Helmer
Dances With Bears
Wed, 10 Jun 2020 05:30 UTC
three strikes
A Dutch Government prosecutor has told the court trying charges of murder against the Russian state, three Russian soldiers and a Ukrainian in the shooting-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 that satellite images were requested from the US, Russia and China. The Russian reply, announced yesterday in court by prosecutor Thijs Berger, was that the Russian satellite images were "not stored". The Chinese reply, he added, was that there had been a Chinese satellite above eastern Ukraine at the time of the MH17 downing, but it was "not operational". All three governments - the US, Russia, and China - refused to provide satellite images.

Thijs Berger is one of the three state prosecutors presenting the state case in the courtroom at Schiphol, which resumed open hearings on June 8. The prosecutors are expected to take several days summarizing their sources of evidence, the methods of their investigation, and the results to date. The presiding judge, Hendrik Steenhuis, announced on Monday that this is a preliminary or pre-trial procedure to enable the court to decide whether further investigations are required before the trial of the four defendants can commence.

The Dutch defence lawyers, appointed to represent the single Russian defendant Oleg Pulatov, will follow with their comments on the prosecution's case to date, and argue for Steenhuis to rule on requiring the production of additional evidence; additional time for the defence to analyse the prosecution file; and possibly summary dismissal of the charges, if the prosecution summary falls short of establishing evidence that meets the criminal law standard, required by Dutch law - proof beyond reasonable doubt.

Comment: See also:

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MIB

Former MI6's Sir Dearlove joins anti-China counter-gang operation to misinform the world about COVID-19 origins

Matthew Ehret
Strategic Culture Foundation
Wed, 10 Jun 2020 00:00 UTC
Sir Richard Dearlove
Former MI6 chief Sir Richard Dearlove's new role as anti-China provocateur gives us the opportunity to look into the mind of empire and see how our society is being played to acquiesce to an agenda that will ultimately lead to WW III. By adding his voice to those Anglo-American fanatics blaming China for creating COVID-19 in a lab and intentionally spreading it around the world, Sir Dearlove has demonstrated a classic case of "gang/counter-gang operations" practiced by the British Empire for centuries.

The Origins of Gang/Counter-gang Operations

British agent Frank Kitson produced an insidious little 1960 handbook called Gangs and Counter-gangs based on his work coordinating special operations against the 1955 Mau Mau uprising in Kenya which threatened to break this valuable African region free of British colonialism. Kitson's handbook was a modern adaption of a centuries-old practice according to the needs of putting down independence and civil rights movements that threatened to undo the age of empires.

During his work in Kenya, Kitson recognized that when outnumbered and faced with organized independence movements, it is just not very effective for thinly spread colonialists to try to put them down by force directly and much wiser to change the rules of the game by a slight of hand. The formula for changing the game is to cultivate one or more opposition groups to whatever force is posing a threat to the empire... and then cultivate a counter-gang to that opposition group to create a new set of conflicts within your target population (Hence the name "gang/counter-gang"). While the target society becomes polarized by the two warring (yet ultimately controlled) opposition movements, the genuine independence movement simply gets diffused and lost in the chaos.
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Control Panel

Best of the Web: FBI spread claim Trump worked with Russia, declassified document shows

Steven Nelson
New York Post
Thu, 11 Jun 2020 14:58 UTC
Former FBI Director James Comey
© J. Scott Applewhite/APFormer FBI Director James Comey
A newly declassified document reveals FBI officials circulated sensational claims that President Trump "worked with" Russia in 2016 and that his campaign was offered "financial compensation" to drop US sanctions, but didn't disclose that the claims came from an opposition researcher for the Democrats.

The claims were made by former British spy Christopher Steele and detailed by the FBI in a classified annex to an intelligence community assessment on Russia's role in the 2016 election. CBS News first reported Thursday that the document was partially declassified by intelligence director John Ratcliffe.

Steele was paid by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign to find dirt on Trump. He leaned on a network of sources to compile a dossier of allegations including unverified rumors.

An investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller later found no evidence that Trump colluded with Russia including on the distribution of hacked Democratic emails.

Comment: Yet more evidence that the whole "Russiagate" circus was a sham from beginning to end. But don't expect any of what's being revealed to make it through the hystericized numbskulls who continue to bleat "Orange Man Bad!!".

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