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YouTube removes video of Rand Paul naming alleged Ukraine whistleblower on senate floor

Tristan Justice
The Federalist
Thu, 13 Feb 2020 12:00 UTC
youtube
YouTube removed a video clip of Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul reading the question Chief Justice John Roberts suppressed during the Senate impeachment trial naming Eric Ciaramella, a man identified as the whistleblower by Real Clear Investigations.

"It is a chilling and disturbing day in America when giant web companies such as YouTube decide to censure speech," Paul told Politico, which first reported the story. "Now, even protected speech, such as that of a senator on the Senate floor, can be blocked from getting to the American people. This is dangerous and politically biased. Nowhere in my speech did I accuse anyone of being a whistleblower, nor do I know the whistleblower's identity."

YouTube spokesperson Ivy Choi said in a statement to Politico that YouTube has routinely taken down videos that name the alleged whistleblower ruling it in violation of its standards.

Comment: See also:

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House

Best of the Web: The USA's doll house: A vast tapestry of lies and illusions

Edward Curtin
OffGuardian
Sun, 09 Feb 2020 11:16 UTC
This is an updated and revised version of the full cover-story that appeared in the important publication, garrison: The Journal of History and Deep Politics, Issue 003. Issue 004 is due out this week and I urge readers to purchase it. You will read articles there that you will find no place else, brilliant, eye-opening analyses of issues that the MSM will never touch.

doll house
It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn't happening. It didn't matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis."

Harold Pinter's Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech, 2005
While truth-tellers Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning sit inside jail cells and Edward Snowden lives in exile in Russia, the American people hole up in an illusionary dwelling constructed to reduce them to children afraid of the truth. Or is it the dark?

This is not new; it has been so for a very long time, but it has become a more sophisticated haunted doll's house, an electronic one with many bells and whistles and images that move faster than the eye can see. We now inhabit a digital technological nightmare controlled by government and corporate forces intent on dominating every aspect of people's lives.
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USA

Pot, kettle, black: The US Mafia is charging Huawei with racketeering

Danny Crichton
Tech Crunch
Thu, 13 Feb 2020 19:31 UTC
huawei
© AFP / Mohd Rasfan
Ratcheting up its pressure campaign against Huawei and its affiliates, the Department of Justice and the FBI announced today that it has brought 16 charges against Huawei in a sprawling case with major geopolitical implications (you can read the full 56-page indictment here).

Huawei is being charged with conspiracy to violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) statute. The DoJ alleges that Huawei and a number of its affiliates used confidential agreements with American companies over the past two decades to access the trade secrets of those companies, only to then misappropriate that intellectual property and use it to fund Huawei's business.

An example of this activity is provided in the indictment. Described as "Company 1," Huawei is alleged to have stolen source code for Company 1's routers, which it then used in its own products. Given the context, it is highly likely that Company 1 is Cisco, which in the indictment is summarized as "a U.S. technology company headquartered in the Northern District of California."

Comment: Having failed to legitimately compete with Huawei and knowing it cannot coerce it to work on its behalf, the US has resorted to lawfare to thwart its progress; little of which appears to be working, and some of which appears to be backfiring.

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Megaphone

Trump's "peace" plan is apartheid, says South Africa's president

Ali Abunimah
Electronic Intifada
Wed, 12 Feb 2020 12:00 UTC
apartheid south africa israel
Screenshot from the discussion.
On Tuesday I appeared on The Heat, on China's CGTN television, to discuss the so-called Deal of the Century - the "peace" plan recently released by the Trump administration.

Kicking off the discussion, I cited South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa, who slammed the plan at a meeting of the African Union, just before the body rejected it.

"It brought to mind the chronicled history that we as South Africans went through," Ramaphosa said.

"The apartheid regime once imposed the bantustan system on the people of South Africa without consulting them and with all the oppressive elements which that plan had."

Comment: Nelson Mandela's grandson would likely agree with him: Nelson Mandela's grandson slams Israel the "apartheid state"

See also:

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Snakes in Suits

Netanyahu boasts of Israeli lobbying power in the US


Sputnik
Thu, 13 Feb 2020 03:58 UTC
Netanyahu
© REUTERS / NIR ELIAS
Over the last couple of years, Washington and Tel Aviv have became closer in a range of various issues, according to media reports. US President Donald Trump has gained popularity among Tel Aviv power brokers after a series of statements and moves that vividly favor Israel, sending shockwaves of alarm across the globe.

Among one of such stunt is a recent presentation of Trump's much-anticipated peace plan to allegedly bring stability between longstanding rivals Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA). Trump's "deal of the century" was met with delight in Tel Aviv and saw firm rejection by the PA.

One of the Trump ideas suggests the extension of Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank - a prospect that is also rejected by the UN Human Rights Council (OHCHR). The OHCHR recently blacklisted dozens of Israeli business entities that operate in the West Bank. The move sparked a backlash in Israel, prompting Tel Aviv to suspend ties with the UN-spearheaded organization.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted his apparent indignation over the OHCHR action. Netanyahu's tweet, however, attracted wide public attention for something other than the ongoing territorial dispute.


Comment: Here are some more Tweets that hit the nail on the proverbial head:







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MIB

London attack: West's terrorists bite the hand that feeds (again)

Tony Cartalucci
New Eastern Outlook
Wed, 12 Feb 2020 00:00 UTC
London police
The latest incident in London was so entirely preventable that it is difficult to describe it as anything less than deliberate.

In yet another headline-grabbing terror attack - an armed man in south London left several injured - some seriously - with the suspect himself killed at the scene by police.

Entirely predictable was the fact that the suspect named as Sudesh Amman - was a known terrorist - having been previously arrested, tried, and imprisoned for terror-related offenses, only to be inexplicably released early.

The London Telegraph in its article, "Streatham attack knifeman named as Sudesh Amman who had a previous terror conviction," would report regarding his earlier conviction that:
Alexis Boon, then head of the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command, said at the time of his conviction that Amman had a "fierce interest in violence and martyrdom".

He explained: "His fascination with dying in the name of terrorism was clear in a notepad we recovered from his home. Amman had scrawled his 'life goals' in the notepad and top of the list, above family activities, was dying a martyr and going to 'Jannah' - the afterlife.
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Bad Guys

U.S. Customs Chief admits agents mistreated Iranian Americans at U.S.-Canada border


RFE/RL
Wed, 12 Feb 2020 23:30 UTC
Canadian border
© Reuters / Chris Helgren
The acting head of the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency acknowledged that agents were out of line last month when they detained dozens of Iranian-Americans and Iranians at a border crossing near Canada in Washington State.

While providing January border-crossing statistics in Washington on February 11, Mark Morgan, the agency's acting commissioner, said agents behaved in a way "that was not in line with our direction," when they held more than 60 U.S. citizens of Iranian heritage for up to 10 hours or more for questioning.

It was a rare admission of misconduct from the agency and the first public recognition of the incidents.

Accounts from travelers and advocacy groups reported dozens of people being held over the January 4-5 weekend at an entry point in Blaine, Washington.
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Chess

U.S. Senate advances resolution limiting Trump's actions against Iran


RFE/RL
Thu, 13 Feb 2020 23:23 UTC
trump
© Wim MacNamee/Getty
The Republican-controlled U.S. Senate has advanced a bipartisan measure intended to limit President Donald Trump's ability to take military action against Iran.

Eight Republicans sided with Democrats on a motion to proceed to a final vote on the matter as soon as February 13. The February 12 vote on the procedural motion was 51-45.

The nonbinding resolution would direct Trump to remove U.S. troops engaged in hostilities against Iran unless Congress declares war or passes a specific authorization for the use of military force.
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Health

Pepe Escobar: It's time to reclaim Syria's road to recovery

Pepe Escobar
Asia Times
Thu, 13 Feb 2020 20:57 UTC
syria
© iStockErdogan de facto supports al-Qaeda remnants while facing either humiliating retreat from or total war against Syria
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, neo-Ottoman extraordinaire, is not exactly inclined to commit seppuku, the Japanese act of ritual suicide.

But if not through the perspective of neo-Ottomanism, how to explain the fact he is de facto supporting al-Qaeda remnants in Syria while facing two unsavory options - a humiliating retreat from or total war against the Syrian Arab Army?

Everything about the slowly evolving, messy chessboard in Idlib hinges on highways: the imperative for the government in Damascus to control both the M5 highway between Damascus and Aleppo and the M4 highway between Latakia and Aleppo. Fully reclaiming these two crucial axes will finally turbo-charge the ailing Syrian economy.

Very few players nowadays remember the all-important Sochi memorandum of understanding signed between Russia and Turkey in September 2018.

Comment: See also:

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Arrow Down

Troy Price, head of Iowa Democratic Party, resigns after caucus results debacle

Brianne Pfannenstiel
USA Today
Wed, 12 Feb 2020 20:43 UTC
troy price iowa caucus democrat
© Associated PressTroy Price, chair of Iowa’s Democratic Party stepped down after overseeing a disastrous presidential caucus event
The chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party resigned his position on Wednesday as the organization grapples with the fallout of a botched caucus process that has left the party and state reeling.

"While it is my desire to stay in this role and see this process through to completion, I do believe it is time for the Iowa Democratic Party to begin looking forward, and my presence in my current role makes that more difficult. Therefore, I will resign as chair of the Iowa Democratic Party effective upon the election of my replacement," Troy Price said in a letter to the Iowa Democratic Party's State Central Committee.

Price, an Iowa native, worked as political director for Barack Obama's 2012 Iowa campaign and Hillary Clinton's 2016 Iowa campaign. He served as executive director of the Iowa Democratic Party before being elected its chair in July 2017 and reelected in 2018.

Comment: Unfortunately, Price is having to take the fall for a planned disaster. The voting app, a brainchild of Killary operatives, performed as desired, boosting robo-candidate Buttigieg just enough over the hated Bernie Sanders, while (hopefully) not appearing to rig the process.

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