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John McCain - Ten reasons not to mourn him

Ben Garrison
GrrrGraphics
Mon, 27 Aug 2018 02:38 UTC
McCain
© GrrrGraphics
1. On July 29, 1967, the spoiled brat McCain pulled a prank and wet started his jet as while aboard the USS Forrestal. His mother lovingly called him a 'scamp' and it was well known he was a practical joker and rule breaker. He finished near rock bottom in a class of over 800 at Annapolis because he tried to break every rule in the book there while also making terrible grades. Such a prank befits his character. The huge flame created touched off a bomb on the plane behind him which led to more bombs going off from other parked planes, which then led to the deaths of 134 sailors. McCain did nothing to help during the fire. He was whisked off the carrier and protected because his father and grandfather were Navy admirals. The Deep State Swamp media has since tried to cover this up. They protect their own.

2. He was not a hero. Getting shot down and captured may make him a victim, but not a hero. He probably didn't pay attention during a training class, and so he didn't pull in his arms when he ejected over North Vietnam-and that's why they were broken. His captors knew he was the progeny of four star admirals and if anything gave him special treatment. McCain begged for medical treatment and sang like a bird at the 'Hanoi Hilton' to get it. He gave up vital intelligence that led to the deaths of more aviators.
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Eye 1

Has Bezos' Pentagon contract made him more powerful in D.C. than Trump?

May Jeong
Vanity Fair
Mon, 13 Aug 2018 20:39 UTC
pentagon amazon mashup
The deal for an obscure $10 billion Pentagon contract suggests the extent to which Jeff Bezos is gobbling up the swamp-without the guy in the White House even batting an eye

There's a new scandal quietly unfolding in Washington. It's far bigger than Housing Secretary Ben Carson buying a $31,000 dinette set for his office, or former EPA chief Scott Pruitt deploying an aide to hunt for a deal on a used mattress. It involves the world's richest man, President Trump's favorite general, and a $10 billion defense contract. And it may be a sign of how tech giants and Silicon Valley tycoons will dominate Washington for generations to come.

The controversy involves a plan to move all of the Defense Department's data - classified and unclassified - on to the cloud. The information is currently strewn across some 400 centers, and the Pentagon's top brass believes that consolidating it into one cloud-based system, the way the CIA did in 2013, will make it more secure and accessible. That's why, on July 26, the Defense Department issued a request for proposals called JEDI, short for Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure. Whoever winds up landing the winner-take-all contract will be awarded $10 billion-instantly becoming one of America's biggest federal contractors.


Comment: What could go wrong?


Comment:

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Newspaper

An Army of FBI Whistleblowers are ready to testify against Robert Mueller

Patrick Howley
Big League Politics
Sun, 19 Aug 2018 00:00 UTC
Mueller and Obama
Special counsel Robert Mueller's record as FBI director is coming under fire from a coalition of whistleblowers who previously served under him and are willing to testify about his allegedly illegal activities.

As House Judiciary Committee chairman Rep. Goodlatte prepares to interrogate Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr, husband of Fusion GPS operative Nellie Ohr, and Rep. Jim Jordan of the House Oversight Committee digs into the complex "Operation Crossfire Hurricane" plot that targeted President Donald Trump, members of Congress are growing more aware of the massive problems with Mueller's case and with his own alleged lawbreaking.

These whistleblowers are prepared to testify under oath that Mueller committed perjury and other crimes in his effort to conceal massive off-the-books citizen surveillance programs rolled out in succession by the Bush and Obama administrations.

Comment: See also:

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Magnify

Fed prosecutors are investigating the Trump Organization, never charged with a financial crime

Chris Megerian, David Willman
Los Angeles Times
Fri, 24 Aug 2018 00:00 UTC
trump biz
© Unknown
Even as Donald Trump rose from New York real estate mogul to U.S. president, the innermost workings of his namesake real estate and branding company stayed shielded behind the black-tinted windows of his eponymous Fifth Avenue skyscraper.

Always run more like a family business than a blue-chip corporate empire, the private Trump Organization has operated free from the oversight of independent board members or pesky shareholders. But now that secrecy has cracked.

The plea agreement in federal court this week by Michael Cohen, who spent 10 years as executive vice president and special counsel at the Trump Organization and later served as Trump's personal attorney, showed that federal prosecutors had excavated invoices, receipts, tax records, emails and other internal documents from Trump's business.

Federal prosecutors also made clear their willingness to squeeze friends of the president. They reportedly got David Pecker, a longtime Trump ally who heads the company that publishes The National Enquirer tabloid, to provide evidence in the Cohen case in exchange for immunity from criminal charges.

Comment: The justice system should equally focus on the Mueller investigation's deals, arm twists, threats and coercion tactics employed to gather and manipulate evidence to bring about a Trump prosecution. Mueller's aim is to 'get Trump' at all costs.

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USA

2020 to be 'more fair': Dems strip superdelegates of excess power in 'historic' reform


RT
Sun, 26 Aug 2018 05:06 UTC
Bernie Sanders
© Vanity Fair
Senator Bernie Sanders
Amid unabated speculation that Bernie Sanders eventually might have had a better chance than Clinton at beating Trump, the DNC has finally decided to limit the superdelegates' power, so as to make the 2020 nomination more 'fair.'

Following a four-hour debate at the Democratic National Committee's (DNC) gathering in Chicago, the fate of the superdelegates, who had the power to vote for whomever they want to nominate in a presidential primary, was sealed.
"The reforms passed by the full DNC require superdelegates to refrain from voting on the first presidential nominating ballot unless a candidate has enough votes from pledged delegates (based on the outcomes of primaries and caucuses) that superdelegates wouldn't overturn the will of the people," the DNC said in a statement on Saturday.

Comment: Bernie Sanders, by default, has 'made a difference' in the rigged process that resulted in Clinton as the nominee. Good so far. What about the rest of the corruption and scandal within the DNC?

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Attention

Herman Van Rompuy: A no-deal Brexit will break up UK

Michael Savage
The Guardian
Sat, 25 Aug 2018 15:09 UTC
Herman Van Rompuy
© BBC.com/Getty Images
Former European council President Herman Van Rompuy
Ex-president of European council says failure to reach a solution could increase pressure for Scottish independence

Crashing out of the EU without a deal would risk breaking up the United Kingdom, the former president of the European council has warned.

Herman Van Rompuy, the former Belgian prime minister who was council president until 2014, told the Observer that he believed the threat of a no-deal Brexit was a new "operation fear" tactic being used by the government. But he said it would not work with the EU and warned that such an outcome would end up creating new pressures over Scottish independence.
"The no-deal issue is not just a problem for the UK or Brussels," he said. "It is also an existential threat to the UK itself. One can imagine that a no deal will have a big impact and cause concern in some of the regions. Speaking of Scotland, it could have consequences for them and others."
He added: "We could end up with a situation in which the EU27 becomes more united and a United Kingdom less united. This talk about a 'no deal' is the kind of nationalist rhetoric that belongs to another era."

Comment: UK never seems to quite know what it wants and then fumbles around to get it.
See also:

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Bomb

Steele Dossier pushers cower after Lanny Davis' bombshell

Chuck Ross
The Daily Caller
Thu, 23 Aug 2018 12:44 UTC
Michael Cohen
© Getty Images
Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen
For nearly 20 months, the allegations made in the infamous Steele dossier have hung like a cloud over the Trump administration and several of his former advisers.

The salacious 35-page document has become Exhibit A in President Donald Trump critics' conspiracy theory that the campaign colluded with the Russian government to influence the 2016 election. Numerous news outlets, pundits and lawmakers have also pushed the theory.

But the dossier arguably suffered its heaviest blow on Wednesday after Clinton-connected lawyer Lanny Davis emphatically denied one of the document's most intriguing allegations.

Davis said the dossier's claims that his client, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, traveled to Prague in August 2016 as part of a conspiracy with the Kremlin are "100 percent" false.

Davis' comments received little attention from the both the mainstream press and the entities that have pushed the dossier. "We have no comment on Mr. Davis's statements," said Matt Mittenhal, a spokesman for BuzzFeed News, which published the dossier on Jan. 10, 2017.

Comment: Davis is Clinton-connected. How unbiased to have him represent Cohen.

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Attention

New US anti-Russia sanctions restrict loans, arms exports and dual-use goods


RT
Fri, 24 Aug 2018 13:28 UTC
US DEPT OF STATE
© Joshua Roberts/Reuters
A new batch of US sanctions against Russia will prohibit issuing loans to Moscow, as well as exports of weapons and dual-use products. The sanctions package is expected to come into force on August 27. The unpublished document by the State Department was uploaded to the Federal Register website on Friday for "public inspection."

The new restrictions have been imposed on the pretext of alleged Russian involvement in poisoning of the Skripals in the UK back in March, which London promptly pinned on Moscow but is yet to produce any evidence to back up its claims.

The notice from the US Federal Register squarely accuses Moscow of using "chemical weapons in violation of international law or lethal chemical weapons against its own nationals," and imposes new restrictions on Russia.

The sanctions package includes:
...the prohibition of foreign assistance to Russia under the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, except for "urgent humanitarian assistance." It also prohibits exports of weapons and dual-use products to Moscow. The sanctions also deny Russia "any credit, credit guarantees, or other financial assistance by any department, agency, or instrumentality of the United States Government, including the Export-Import Bank of the United States."

Comment: The US is waging an all-out economic war to save itself.

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Snakes in Suits

Republicans block a Senate bid to end support for Saudi killing of Yemen kids


Sputnik
Sat, 25 Aug 2018 23:22 UTC
Homeless kids Yemen
© AP
Homeless children in Yemen
According to the United Nations, at least 22 children and four women were killed on Thursday attempting to escape fighting between Saudi-led militants and Yemen's Houthi opposition faction in the Hudaydah governorate's al-Durayhimi district.

The Thursday massacre is the second airstrike in two weeks in which dozens of civilians - including many children - have been killed. Saudi strikes used US-built weapons to destroy a school bus traveling through northern Yemen, killing 51 people, including 40 children on August 9.

"This is the second time in two weeks that an airstrike by the Saudi-led Coalition has resulted in dozens of civilian casualties," United Nations humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock said Friday, according to Npr.org.

"I had hoped that the outrage that followed the Saada attack in Yemen two weeks ago would be a turning point in the conflict. Yesterday's reported attacks in Al-Durayhimi, killing 26 children, indicate that it was not," Henrietta Fore of UNICEF stated Friday.

Comment: Outrage at these horrific incidents is certainly justified. What isn't justified is the US Congress turning a blind eye and deaf ear to US culpability in massive numbers of civilian deaths: by Saudi forces supported with arms and military assistance from the US, the barricades impacting food supplies and assistance, and barring medical treatment for the massive cholera epidemic. That, after war for three years running, someone in Congress is finally wringing a handkerchief...well that's a start. Restrictions on US funding Saudi support...not good enough.

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Question

Ex-ambassador McFaul: Weird that RT reports on 'threats' to South African farmers


RT
Fri, 24 Aug 2018 21:00 UTC
South African protest farmers
© Daily Mail
Former US envoy to Russia Michael McFaul said it was "weird" that RT was covering what he described as "threats" - in quotation marks - to white farmers in South Africa, retweeting a conspiracy linking RT's coverage to Fox News.

South Africa summoned the US chargé d'affaires in Pretoria on Thursday, after US President Donald Trump tweeted his concern over reports that South African authorities were planning to seize land from white farmers without compensation. Trump credited Fox News' Tucker Carlson for bringing up the issue.

On Thursday evening, Andrew S. Weiss, a vice president at the Carnegie Endowment's Russia and Eurasia Program, channeled Captain Renault from Casablanca to declare his shock about RT "pushing a storyline that's similar" to Carlson, pointing to a story about an Afrikaner family looking to relocate to Russia.


Comment: Many sources are reporting on the long campaign of violence against South Africa's white farmers that has inflamed both political and racial tensions.
See also:

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