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Mummified gerontocrat Sen. Feinstein says she didn't know about mobile phones or the internet

Caitlin Johnstone
caitlinjohnstone.com
Wed, 27 Feb 2019 00:01 UTC
feinstein and children
During a brief exchange with Senator Dianne Feinstein about a controversial viral video in which she was seen telling off a bunch of small children for making demands about climate change legislation, journalist Ryan Grim reports that the senior US lawmaker told him something very peculiar.

"Feinstein told me she was surprised she went viral, because: 'You know what somebody said to me? - I didn't see any of this - they said anybody with a cell phone in their hand can get you on international news in two minutes. I never knew that," Grim tweeted, adding, "She was chair of the Intelligence Committee, and had just come from a hearing."

If Feinstein is telling the truth about this, it's an admission from one of the most powerful politicians in the most powerful government on earth that she literally just found out how mobile phones, social media and the internet work. If she's lying about this, one of the most powerful politicians in the most powerful government on earth just used an "I'm too old and befuddled to understand how these newfangled dongle widgets work" excuse for her behavior. Either way, this doesn't say good things about the sort of person who is at the steering wheel of America's legislative branch today.
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Bad Guys

US wants to drag China into India-Pakistan row


RT
Wed, 27 Feb 2019 11:07 UTC
USA vs China

However, it has neglected the fact that the trade war it wages with the world could backfire.
In order to divert Beijing's attention from the Pacific, Washington would like China entangled in the Indo-Pakistani confrontation, one analyst tells RT. The row between bitter rivals escalated after Indian jets bombed Pakistan.

"The US is interested to have China get involved in a maximum number of conflicts," Aleksey Kupriyanov, a researcher at the Moscow-based Institute of World Economy and International Relations, told RT.

"It will divert Beijing from building up its forces in the Pacific Ocean. Any conflict would slow down Chinese economic growth, which would mean less danger for the US' hegemony in the Pacific."
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Bad Guys

Revolving door of corruption: Nikki Haley's next step could be on board of Boeing


RT
Wed, 27 Feb 2019 11:08 UTC
Nikki Haley
© Reuters / Brendan McDermid
Nikki Haley's next step after UN Ambassador could be with Boeing, after the aerospace and defense giant announced on Tuesday that it has nominated her to join its board of directors.

"Boeing will benefit greatly from her broad perspectives and combined diplomatic, government and business experience to help achieve our aspiration to be the best in aerospace and a global industrial champion," it said in a statement. Commenting on the move, Haley described it as "an honor."

The news was met with amusement and pointed remarks online, with Twitter commenters calling the move "swampy" and saying it was an example of politics and corporations being closely tied, and of a broken political system. Boeing has close ties with the US government, with its CEO Dennis Muilenburg serving on the Export Council, while acting US Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan is a former senior Boeing executive of more than three decades, Reuters reports.
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Gear

U.S. Envoy, Taliban Co-Founder meet in Qatar for peace talks on Afghanistan


RFE/RL
Mon, 25 Feb 2019 00:00 UTC
Zalmay Khalilzad
© Jacquelyn Martin(AP)
U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad
U.S. special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad met with one of the Afghan Taliban's co-founders in Qatar, in what was said to be the highest-level engagement between the two sides as part of Afghanistan's peace process.

"Just finished a working lunch with Mullah [Abdul Ghani Baradar] and his team. First time we''ve met. Now moving on to talks" aimed at finding a negotiated solution to Afghanistan's 17-year war, Khalilzad tweeted on February 25.

Baradar was released in October after spending eight years in Pakistani custody, but until now has remained in Pakistan and has not made any public appearances.

Comment: See also:

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Sherlock

Russia slides towards internal political crisis


Russia Insider
Tue, 26 Feb 2019 12:00 UTC
Russia internal crisis

Screenshot of video posted below
This is a critical look at the situation in Russia. The video is based on an article of one of our readers and additional data.

The Russia of 2019 is in a complicated economic and even political situation. Smoldering conflicts near its borders amid continued pressure from the US and NATO affect the situation in the country negatively. This is manifested in society and in national politics. The approval rating of the Russian government and personally of President Vladimir Putin has been decreasing.

According to VCIOM, a state pollster, in January 2019, Putin's confidence rating was only 32.8%. This is 24% less than in January 2018 when it was 57.2%. At the same time, the confidence rating of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was 7.8%. The approval rating of his cabinet is 37.7% while the disapproval rating is 38.7%. Opposition sources show data, which is far worse for the current Russian leadership.

This tendency is not linked to the foreign policy course of the Kremlin. Rather, it's the result of the recent series of liberal-minded economic reforms, which look similar to the approaches exercised by the Russian government in the mid-1990s. The decision to increase Value Added Tax amid the slowing Russian economy, especially in the industrial sector, and a very unpopular pension reform increasing the retirement age were both factors contributing to the further growth of discontent in the population.

Comment: The grass is always greener on the other side... Considering all that the Russian administration has had to contend with, it's a credit to some of those in power that Russia is doing as well as it is. Although, obviously, as with anywhere, there is always work to be done: And check out SOTT radio's:

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Attention

Twitter backtracks on 'Russian bots' claims, media ignores updated info


RT
Wed, 27 Feb 2019 09:50 UTC
treasure trolls
© Global Look Press / dpa/ Johannes Schmitt-Tegge
Twitter quietly revised its public database of 'Russian bot' accounts earlier this month, removing 228 accounts it previously said were "connected to Russia"- but the admission has gone almost completely unnoticed by the media.

Bloomberg reported on the "burst of activity" from the bot accounts and claimed that Russia's "social-media trolling operation" was "stepping up its Twitter presence to new heights."

Fast-forward to 2019 and Twitter has removed 228 of these accounts from the database, saying they had "initially misidentified" them as being linked to Russia, but nobody in the media seems to have noticed.

In fact, Bloomberg is the only major US outlet which bothered to correct the story to reflect reality, admitting that Twitter's changes to the dataset "invalidate central portions" of its original report and that there was "no surge" in this so-called Russian bot activity at the time in question. Oops!


Comment: See also:

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Fire

What if every debate about US interventionism was about Godzilla instead

Caitlin Johnstone
Medium
Mon, 25 Feb 2019 08:00 UTC
godzilla
Person A: Wow, things are looking really bad in Venezuela right now.

Person B: Yeah.

Person A: All that poverty and unrest!

Person B: I know, it's terrible.

Person A: You know what we should do?

Person B: Please don't say send in Godzilla.

Person A: What? Why not??

Person B: Because he always makes things worse! You know that! Every time we send in Godzilla to try and solve problems in the world, he just ends up trampling all over the city, knocking down buildings and killing thousands of people with his atomic heat beam.
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Bizarro Earth

Is Donald Trump a peace president surrounded by an entire class of war-loving technocrats?

Daniel McCarthy
The American Conservative
Mon, 25 Feb 2019 00:00 UTC
Trump hawk dove
Perhaps, but he also shows the limits of having advisors who don't want restraint.

"Merchants of death" was a sobriquet once applied to the arms industry, notably by the journalists F.C. Hanighen and H.C. Engelbrecht in the title of a book they published in 1934. Today the real merchants of death are not the arms dealers but those who sell the idea of war within America's policy elite, both inside and outside of government. They possess a monopoly on respectability, and politicians who thirst for respect from the real governing class need little incentive to adopt the ideas of the smart set. Those who don't play along get the treatment meted out to Ron Paul or Tulsi Gabbard-or Donald Trump.

Trump does not crave respectability. He supplies whatever desire for approval he feels from his own reservoir of self-esteem. This makes him seem arrogant and perversely proud of his ignorance, so far as his enemies see it, but in fact it means he is largely immune to the ideological virus to which virtually all other politicians are susceptible. Trump knows that the foreign policy establishment is bankrupt. And that's what makes him a president who can actually give peace a chance.
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Snakes in Suits

Theresa May to suggest delaying Brexit if her own deal and 'no-deal' gets rejected by MPs


RT
Tue, 26 Feb 2019 12:56 UTC
Theresa May
© REUTERS/Peter Nicholls
Theresa May to propose delaying Brexit if her own deal and ‘no-deal’ rejected by MPs
Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May is seen outside of Downing Street in London, Britain, February 26, 2019.
Prime Minister Theresa May has announced that if her deal or a no-deal Brexit is rejected by MPs in the House of Commons then her government will propose delaying the UK's exit from the European Union.

In a statement to parliament, to update politicians on Brexit negotiations with the EU, the prime minister promised to give MPs a vote on whether to accept a no-deal scenario, if her government loses a meaningful vote on her agreement by March 13.

May told the House, in the event parliamentarians reject a no-deal Brexit then they will have an opportunity to vote on extending Article 50, to delay the UK's withdrawal from the EU for a "short" period of time.
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X

US sending 'spoiled food' and 'expired medicine' as humanitarian aid - Venezuelan ambassador


RT
Tue, 26 Feb 2019 21:57 UTC
USAID
© Reuters/Marco Bello
Venezuela's ambassador to Russia discussed his government's rejection of American 'foreign aid', pointing out that aside from coming with dangerous strings attached, the so called 'aid' is unfit for consumption.

"We don't perceive what the United States and its satellites offer as humanitarian aid," Ambassador Carlos Rafael Faria Tortosa explained in an interview with Russian media.

He added that International Committee of the Red Cross agreed with his position, referring to recent incidents of opposition figures using fake Red Cross credentials at the Colombian border.
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