Puppet MastersS

Snakes in Suits

"Deep State" Bill Dudley keeps on digging his hole: "Explains" what he really meant in scandalous anti-Trump op-ed

Bill Dudley federal reserve
© Victoria Jones/Pool via REUTERSPresident of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Bill Dudley speaks during the Bank of England Markets Forum 2018, at Bloomberg, in central London, Britain, May 24, 2018.
There is a saying, when in a hole, stop digging.

Unfortunately for former Goldman managing director and NY Fed president, Bill "let them eat iPads" Dudley, that is a saying he is not familiar with, and one week after his stunning Bloomberg op-ed in which he advocated the Fed to prevent Trump's 2020 re-election by sending the economy in a recession, resulting in a brutal response from virtually everyone who slammed Dudley's musings as the final proof that the Fed was in fact a political animal, one which is more powerful than the executive branch in its ability to pick and choose presidents, Dudley is out with an "explainer", seeking to "answer" some of the main questions posed by his "provocative" piece.

After reading "What I Meant When I Said 'Don't Enable Trump", let's just say that Dudley fails in explaining why he said is not what he said, and if anything he has successfully doubled down, giving Trump even more ammunition to throw the book at the political Fed for not cutting rates fast enough as the president has been demanding for months, and for eventually taking the blame for the coming economic and market crash.

Briefcase

European Court of Human Rights says Russians were right to arrest Magnitsky for tax evasion, but make claims with no evidence of violent death

EU court
Court says Magnitsky's arrest for tax evasion justified

"The Russians had good reason to arrest Sergei Magnitsky for Hermitage tax evasion" said the European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday, Aug 27, 2019. That is a major admission by a western institution.

The Court decision also describes terrible medical care that everyone acknowledges contributed to the death of the Russian accountant jailed for his collaboration in a major tax evasion crime.

But then it makes a judgment based on no evidence that is hard to explain outside a political Russophobic attack.

European court
"Bruises on wrists and ankles could come from beatings"

Magnitsky who died of pancreatitis and related diseases had bruises on his wrists and ankles. "The Court considers that the injuries could have arguably been received as a result of beatings by prison officers."

"Could have" is not a usual basis for a court decision. Such bruises of course, based on accepted autopsy reports, could not have caused his death. And there is no evidence they were inflicted by prison officers.

But they became the reason for a Court finding that "Taking into account the intentional character of the ill-treatment (not proved), the nature of the injuries (bruises) and the level of suffering (obviously from illness) to which [Magnitsky] was subjected, the Court finds that the act of violence in question amounted to inhuman and degrading treatment."
Except there was no act of violence cited and proved.

MIB

Overstock CEO's wild Maria Butina story contradicts US government narrative

Patrick Byrne
© Steven Ferdman/Getty ImagesFounder and CEO of Overstock.com Patrick Byrne attends Consensus 2019 at the Hilton Midtown on May 15, 2019 in New York City.
Byrne's story of informing for the "deep state" sounds outlandish, but it should be investigated

Former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne came to me months ago with a wild, difficult tale. I told him any story would have to come with a caveat.

"There's not going to be any way to tell this," I told him, "without explaining to readers you're a different sort of dude."

Unable to confirm enough of his story, I ended up hesitating. The tale is now out, and Byrne, whom I've known and liked for almost a decade, is taking a beating in the press. It's unfortunate, and the import of his story is going unnoticed because reporters are focusing instead on Byrne's eccentricities.

Comment: We don't find anything strange about the I.C. seeking out a suitable victim to portray as a Russian agent just to hurt Trump's chances of having a successful meeting with Putin. They're THAT unpatriotic and demented.

See also:


Eye 1

Big Tech & Big Brother meet at Facebook HQ to discuss how to 'secure' US elections

mechanical voting machine
© Reuters / Mike SegarA mechanical voting machine from the early 20th century
Security teams for Facebook, Google, Twitter and Microsoft met with the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the Director of National Intelligence's office to coordinate a strategy to win - er, secure - the 2020 elections.

The tech platforms met with government officials at Facebook's Menlo Park headquarters on Wednesday, the company has confirmed, boasting that Big Tech and Big Brother have developed a "comprehensive strategy" to get control of previous election-related "vulnerabilities" while "analyzing and getting ahead of new threats."

Facebook has scrambled to get in front of the 2020 election after being blamed for Trump's 2016 electoral victory over merely allowing the "Russian trolls" to buy a bunch of ads, most of which appeared after the vote and had nothing to do with the election. But the company insisted last week it had tightened its rules for verifying purchasers of "political" ads, for real this time, after the 2018 contest showed they could still be duped into running obviously-fake ads "paid for by" the Islamic State terror group and Cambridge Analytica.

Chess

Huawei slams US for trying to hack its systems, recruit spies & bully employees

huawei
© Reuters / Aly Song
The US has used "unscrupulous means" to attack Huawei's business in recent months - trying to hack its servers and turn employees into spies using extortion, legal threats and coercion, the Chinese telecom giant has claimed.

Washington "has been using every tool at its disposal - including both judicial and administrative powers, as well as a host of other unscrupulous means - to disrupt the normal business operations of Huawei and its partners," the company said in a statement released on Tuesday, adding that the US had been "leveraging its political and diplomatic influence to lobby other governments to ban Huawei equipment" as well.

Jealous of Huawei's number-two position in the world smartphone market, the US government has used law enforcement to threaten, coerce, and entice current and former employees to become spies for Washington, impersonated Huawei employees for entrapment purposes, launching cyberattacks against company systems, and "obstruct[ed] normal business activities," Huawei declared, accusing the US of interfering with shipments, denying visas, and otherwise waging lawfare against the company.

Eye 2

Best of the Web: US Task Force 'Smoking Gun' is smuggling weapons to terrorists in Syria: Serbia Files (Part 2)


Comment: We reposted Part 1 here (original published here).


arms smuggling syria serbia qatar
US Task Force Smoking Gun has transported hundreds of tons of weapons from Europe to Syria via Qatar on Pentagon-commissioned Kalitta Air flights from Rijeka Airport in Croatia.
New leaked documents expose for the first time a secret US Special Operations Command unit code named Task Force Smoking Gun. It has been deployed in Croatia since 2017 and tasked with diverting tons of arms and ammunition from Europe to Syria.

Recently I anonymously received explosive documents about arms deals between the US Government and the Serbian state owned-arms manufacturer Krusik, including contracts, e-mails, internal memos, photos, delivery schedules, and packing lists of weapons with lot numbers and their buyers. Among the leaked documents I also received scanned passports of arms dealers and government officials from the US. They have visited Krusik to buy weapons for the Pentagon 'Train and Equip' program for militants in Syria.

Satellite

Israeli satellite firm claims to have published first photos of Russian-made S-400 in Turkey

Russian
© Screenshot / Russian Defence Ministry
Turkey has stuck to a 2017 loan agreement with Russia to purchase its S-400 air defence systems despite pressure from the US, which decided to suspend Ankara's participation in the international F-35 programme and threatened to remove it from the project by late March 2020. Russia completed the first part of the supply of S-400 components this July.

Israeli satellite intelligence company ImageSat International has released satellite images of an alleged S-400 air defence system that recently arrived in Turkey from Russia. The firm claimed it is in operational mode and has been deployed in Ankara.

โ€‹The images, posted on the company's Twitter account, show what the company describes as the deployed S-400 launch components and radars. However, as ImageSat International claims, the launchers are not loaded. It suggests that the components arrived in the second shipment from Russia, following the first delivery in July 2019.

Comment: Fort Russ reports on the status and future of the F-35 deal:
If the US refuses to sell or hand over its F-35 fighters to Turkey, or "violates bilateral agreements," Ankara has no choice but to choose an "alternative," said the Turkish parliament.

"Turkey is forced to buy all kinds of equipment and weapons to build its power and ensure the safety of both air and land, our geographical and strategic location forces us to do that," said MP Hassan Turan, member of the Russia-Turkey Interparliamentary Friendship Group.

The legislator goes on to say that Turkey needs to ensure its safety first and foremost, emphasizing that the country "needs to update technology and weapons in its arsenal if it wants to ensure the safety of its airspace independently."

"Today, the most modern and high-tech fighters are the American F-35 and the Russian Su-57... We will not leave our airspace without whim protection from anyone," he adds.

The Turkish legislator's comments came just days after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's appointment that Ankara could be forced to consider other options, such as Russia's Su-35 and Su-57 jets.
See also: Did Trump reveal US top-secret military spy tech by posting Iranian launch site pic?


Snakes in Suits

Bojo loses control of Commons, plans to call a general election, Brexit may be delayed till 2020

may brexit bojo
Parliament headed into another tumultuous day Wednesday, with rebels planning to use their new control of the House to try and force another Brexit delay
Britain may have to wait to leave the European Union.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson lost a key vote in the House of Commons on Tuesday night after lawmakers โ€” including a band of rebels from his own Conservative Party โ€” used an obscure procedural motion to wrest control of the parliamentary agenda from the government in a bid to stop a "no deal" Brexit.

Parliament headed into another tumultuous day Wednesday, with rebels planning to use their new control of the House to try and force a Brexit delay to January from its current Oct. 31 deadline. Meanwhile, the prime minister was expected to try and persuade lawmakers to back a general election in October in order to restore his authority before the deadline.

Tuesday's vote was won by 328 votes to 301, with the 21 Conservatives supporting the motion being kicked out of the party for defying the prime minister. Rebels include party grandees Ken Clarke, the longest continuously sitting British lawmaker in the House of Commons, former Treasury chief Philip Hammond, and Nicholas Soames, the grandson of Winston Churchill โ€” Johnson's political idol and the subject of one of his books.


Comment: MPs are creating lots of drama but parliament is no closer to fulfilling the democratic vote to enact Brexit.


Comment: RT reports:
May can't contain her schadenfreude after Boris rout in parliament

UK lawmakers defeated Boris Johnson in something of a parliamentary coup on Tuesday, paving the way for the removal of his preferred no-deal Brexit strategy. His predecessor Theresa May was snapped grinning widely shortly after.

The former British prime minister could hardly contain her mirth from the Conservative back benches as she watched her successor face wave after wave of criticism from both sides of the House of Commons on Tuesday, her first day back in the chamber since stepping down.

theresa may
© UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor/Handout
Father of the House Ken Clarke, who was seated next to May, accused Johnson of fighting for a hasty election after his Brexit strategy was exposed, in which he was caught attempting "to set conditions which make no-deal inevitable, to make sure as much blame as possible is attached to the EU and to this House for that consequence and then as quickly as he can fight a flag-waving general election before the consequences of no-deal become too obvious to the public."

Clarke and May shared a laugh as Johnson claimed he was a "lifelong fan" of Clarke's before insisting that neither he, his party nor the opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn want a general election. A short time later, a visibly amused May was spotted grinning ear-to-ear as she left the House that evening.

The collective consciousness on Twitter, some of whom seemingly disagree with Johnson, couldn't help but live vicariously through May. "Can't have been easy putting a brave face on it after her successor suffered such a bruising defeat," one commenter quipped.


"Caption competition not required..!" another added. A third person asked: "Has anyone ever seen Theresa May ever look quite this happy?"
More from RT:
'Parliament surrenders to EU': UK front pages react to bombshell Brexit vote

As usual, the partisan nature of the UK press meant that each outlet had its own slant on events but every paper got across the point that it was a bad day for Boris Johnson.

"Parliament surrenders to the EU," screamed the Daily Express with a front page that suggested it was also a very bad day for Britain. "On another shameful day in our so-called democracy rebel MPs vote to betray Brexit as Corbyn vows to block PM's snap election," it added.

The Sun ran with "Over to you Britain," along with a photo of an irate-looking Johnson gesturing across the floor of parliament.

The Guardian said: "Humiliation for Johnson as Tory rebels turn against him," while the Times led with "PM loses historic vote" as Johnson became the first prime minister to lose his first vote in the Commons for over 100 years.

In the aftermath of the vote, Johnson said he will table a motion for a general election because he won't accept it. That provided the focus for the Daily Telegraph, Johnson's former employers, which ran with "Johnson demands election."

Awkwardly, the Daily Mirror and the i newspaper both ran with "Boris loses control," so one of them will have to go home and change.

And finally, the Metro said: "Now the MPs take control" above a sub-headline reading: "Boris blow as Tories join bid to block no-deal."
brexit papers
brexit papers
brexit papers
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brexit papers
See also: Brexit breakdown: UK MPs to block no-deal, Bojo threatens an election, Tory purge?


Chess

Iran announces new scaling back of nuclear deal commitments

Rouhani
© AFP / Iranian Presidency / Mohammad BernoIranian President Hassan Rouhani (R) with officials from Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation
Tehran has announced a decision to further scale down its commitments to the 2015 nuclear deal. The move comes just as the US ramped up sanctions against Iran and is seen as a response to the EU's inability to counter Washington.

The new scaling down of the commitments to the agreement, officially known as the JCPOA, is the third one Iran has made this year. More details of the move are expected to be announced later this week.

"We will take all necessary steps to protect the Iranian nation's rights and interests ... Our third step involves the development of centrifuges. We will take this step on Friday," Rouhani said in a televised speech on Wednesday.

Tehran has been threatening to take the third step by September 6 if the EU fails to protect the Iranian economy from American sanctions. The step is expected to be "stronger" than the previous two, which included exceeding the stockpile of enriched uranium beyond the 300kg limit, as well as going beyond the 3.67 percent enrichment threshold.

Bulb

Ukraine's parliament cancels immunity for lawmakers

Volodymyr Zelenskiy
© Mikhall Palinchak /Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy gives a thumbs up during a parliamentary session in Kyiv on September 3.
Ukraine's parliament has voted in favor of cancelling immunity from prosecution for lawmakers, a step toward President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's pledge to stamp out corruption.

In a vote on September 3, 373 deputies voted for the bill, while three abstained and 28 were absent.

Zelenskiy, who attended the parliamentary session, downplayed fears that the move would expose lawmakers to persecution by those in power, saying before the vote that the cancellation of immunity would not mean that lawmakers would be responsible for political decisions.

Comment: The Zelenskiy government might be making some inroads toward sane structual changes in government. There was also this recent report from RFE/RL:

Ukraine Implements Tool To Help Prevent Company 'Raiding'
Ukraine's newly installed government has tweaked the state-run registry of legal entities to publish information on a daily basis, a change that the chief coordinator of the Cabinet of Ministers says will help prevent the theft of businesses known as "raiding."

In a September 2 Facebook post, Minister of the Cabinet of Ministers Dmytro Dubilet emphasized the measure because "raiding occurs when company ownership or directors quickly change when the true owners aren't aware of it."

Due to weak property rights and crooked judges, corporate raiding in Ukraine is seen as a huge impediment to foreign investment.
That said, if actual sanity is to emerge in Ukraine, it will need to work hard on healing the wounds its made in the Donbass.