Puppet Masters
Just a few hours after the embattled U.K. prime minister announced to the House of Commons she would "unexpectedly" delay the critical Brexit vote - facing certain and humiliating defeat - and return to Brussels to seek "assurances" from European Union leaders, the fate of any upcoming votes to ratify the deal is now in limbo.
As ITV's Richard Peston reported, "it appears that UK PM May could keep the current talks with EU going well past January 21st "perhaps right up to Brexit day 29 March, and avoid any parliamentary Brexit vote," effectively eliminating a popular vote of disapproval for her process.

Addressing the French people President Emmanuel Macron declared a 'social and ecomonic state of emergency' following weeks of violence across the country
French president Emmanuel Macron tonight announced a range of dramatic Socialist-style financial concessions to struggling workers so as to end an 'economic and social state of emergency'.
In a TV address lasting 12 minutes, he said a month of rioting and blockades justified a €100 (£90) increase in the minimum wage, taking it to €1498 (£1360).
This will not 'cost anything to the employer', said Mr Macron, and will be accompanied by all taxes and other charges on overtimes being scrapped.
There were also be an end-of-year bonus that employers can pay without being charged by the government, while taxes on those earning less than €2000 (£1800) will also end on January 1.
Comment:
- Watch turmoil unfold in France as Yellow Vest protests enter 4th weekend, with 125,000 protesters and 89,000 additional police - UPDATES
- Yellow Vests Rise Against Neo-liberal King Macron
- French MPs launch vote of no confidence against Macron amid Yellow Vest protests
- France's Yellow Vest movement strikes a victorious blow for working people across the EU
- Catching fire: French yellow vest protests spread to Brussels with calls for resignation of PM Charles Michel
Paris militarized in anticipation of impending coup attempt as govt. warns radicals infiltrating Yellow Vest movement

Google marketers like me are closing the gap between your offline and online worlds—and crushing your soul in the process.
What they fail to mention is our willingness to exchange privacy for convenience didn't start with the advent of virtual assistants. It started in the early 2000s, when people-in return for having access to Google products and seeing more relevant ads-allowed Google to have all their data.
Today, Google provides marketers like me with so much of your personal data that we can infer more about you from it than from any camera or microphone.
Comment: See also:
- The Creepy Line: New documentary on the immense power of Facebook and Google - where your information IS the product
- Even when its users are logged out Google personalizes search results, says report
- Google accused of breaching EU laws, tricking users into consenting to be tracked
- Google sparks privacy concerns after absorbing subsidiary with access to NHS patient data
- 'Colonizing experiment in surveillance capitalism': Google-backed smart city aims to micromanage every aspect of urban life
- Google Didn't Just Ignore Its 'Don't Be Evil' Motto - It is Literally Surveillance Central
We last looked at what Mueller had publicly-and what he didn't have-some 10 months ago, and I remained skeptical that the Trump campaign had in any way colluded with Russia. It's worth another look now, but first let's give away the ending (spoiler alert!): there is still no real evidence of, well, much of anything significant about Russiagate. One thing that is clear is that the investigation seems to be ending. Mueller's office has reportedly even told various defense lawyers that it is "tying up loose ends." The moment to wrap things up is politically right as well: the Democrats will soon take control of the House; time to hand this all off to them.
The flight of the Russian air group was conducted over the Atlantic Ocean, the Barents Sea, the Sea of Norway and the Caribbean Sea. "During some parts of the route, the Tu-160 bombers were escorted by the F16s of the Norwegian Air Force," the ministry said.
Moscow pointed out that the impressive journey was performed "in strict accordance with the international regulations on the use of airspace."
Comment: It could be their paranoidal or belligerent nature that would have them stalking Russian planes like that. Either way, neither Russia nor the host country could perceive these actions as anything but unsettling, and it just goes to show how arrogant the perpetrators are thinking that international norms of conduct don't apply to them:
- Pentagon pledges to continue belligerent operations in South China Sea
- Belligerent Britain to send more troops to Ukraine claiming 'Russia threat'
- US media loses it when Russian 'spy' ship makes annual trip to the Caribbean
- War signals? US Navy Destroyer approaches Syria, buzzed by Russian jets
- 'Making Norway less safe': 50,000 troops engage in largest NATO drills in decades
"Our 'bipartisan' Congressional orientation is cohosted by a corporate lobbyist group. Other members have quietly expressed to me their concern that this wasn't told to us in advance," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted on Thursday. "Lobbyists are here. Goldman Sachs is here. Where's labor? Activists? Frontline community leaders?"
Ocasio-Cortez is in Cambridge, Mass., for the Program for Newly Elected Members of Congress. The program, which started in 1972, is hosted by the Harvard Kennedy School's Institute of Politics in collaboration with the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and Congressional Institute.
"Dozens of heavily armed Israeli soldiers" have made it inside the WAFA headquarters in Ramallah in the occupied West bank on Monday, the agency said.
The IDF fired tears gas inside the building "causing suffocation and difficulty in breathing" among the staff, it added.
The journalists were ordered to stay in a single room as the Israeli troops entered the server room and went through the agency's security footage.
They withdrew after around an hour, taking copies of videos from the CCTV cameras with them, WAFA said.
Comment: A drive by shooting is much more reflective of the Israeli military mindset and capabilities, a bit like their raid on the TV station, dropping tear gas as they went. One can expect the footage will be all over the Israeli news if the findings support their position, if, however, its revealed to be the work of Israeli's, and their seizure was a way to cover up their crimes, then it will never see the light of day.
- Colluding in war crimes: Britain's unreported military alliance with Israel
- UN Commission clears Israel of war crimes for bombing elementary schools
- Israel is the organ harvesting and human trafficking global ringleader, with complicit help from US and Turkey
Down the Drain! Trump backs record $750 billion defense budget request to Congress, says US official
- U.S. President Donald Trump has backed plans to request $750 billion from Congress for defense spending next year, a U.S. official said on Sunday, signaling a Pentagon spending hike at a time of potential belt-tightening elsewhere in the government.
- A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Defense Secretary Jim Mattis had discussed the budget with Trump in recent days and outlined the risks of flat defense spending.
Trump, faced with a budget deficit at a six-year high, told his Cabinet earlier this year to come up with proposals to cut spending by their agencies by 5 percent, but he suggested the military would be largely spared.
The $750 billion would be even more than the $733 billion request that the Pentagon had been expected to make for fiscal year 2020. It is also well above a $700 billion figure Trump cited in October.
An Israeli court ruled that the defence ministry did not owe anything to a Gaza doctor after three of his children were killed in their home by Israeli tank fire during an attack on the small blockaded enclave a decade ago, Kikar Shabbat reported.
Izz al-Din Abu al-Aish became one of the faces of Palestinian suffering during Israel's 2008-9 assault on the besieged Gaza Strip, when three of his daughters and a niece were killed at the exact moment he was giving an interview to Israeli television on 16 January 2009
But what is conspicuously missing from this narrative is a discussion of the possible Russian motives for such a military move. Typically, we are merely told that Russia has broken the European post-Cold War order and borders by "annexing" Crimea and by sending military forces into the Donbass. Anybody with an IQ at room temperature or above by now realizes that both of these claims are total bunk. The ones who indeed broke the post-Cold War international order and borders were the NATO member states when they used military force, in complete illegality, to break-up Yugoslavia. As for the people of Crimea, they had the opportunity to vote about their future in a referendum, very much unlike the inhabitants of Kosovo which had no such opportunity. As for the 08.08.08 war, even the Europeans who eventually, and very reluctantly, agreed that it was, in fact, Saakashvili who started this conflict, not Russia.
But let's set all this aside and assume that the Russian leaders would not hesitate to use military force again if it was to their advantage. Let's assume that, yes, the Russians are up to no good and that they might well try to bite-off some other piece of land somewhere in Europe.
Such an assumption would immediately raise a crucial question: why would the Russians want to do that?
Comment: For those who dangerously, irrationally and ignorantly continue to spread the accusation that is the subject of this article, we can conclude that for many of them - stirring the pot or risking all-out-war with Russia through their respective places in political life - has become something of a pathological raison d'etre or purpose in life. In short, they have become expert at 'creating an enemy' for lack of anything intrinsically positive in them that would impel them to live and act with a semblance of humanity. Such is the pervasive culture of Western politics at this time in Washington, London and elsewhere at this time.













Comment: According to the BBC, May is defending her tactics thusly: