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Scheme to pay off Trump accusers emerges, one woman was offered $750,000

Lisa Bloom
© CNN
California woman's rights Attorney Lisa Bloom operated behind a scheme to compensate Trump accusers and potential accusers using money from donors and tabloid media outlets during the final months of the 2016 presidential race, in an effort which intensified as the election neared, report John Solomon and Alison Spann of The Hill.
Lisa Bloom's efforts included offering to sell alleged victims' stories to TV outlets in return for a commission for herself, arranging a donor to pay off one Trump accuser's mortgage and attempting to secure a six-figure payment for another woman who ultimately declined to come forward after being offered as much as $750,000, the clients told The Hill. -The Hill
The various accounts of Bloom's scheme were detailed in documents, emails and text messages reviewed by The Hill, and come on the heels of Bill O'Reilly's claim that there is a secret tape of a women who was offered $200,000 to file sexual harassment charges against Trump. It is unknown whether or not O'Reilly's claim is related to Bloom's activities.

Comment: When working for Weinstein, Bloom was "part of a team that would gather compromising information on sexual assault victims", in order to kill negative stories regarding her employer. Maybe she just has "selective" virtue... Tucker Carlson covered the Hill's breaking story on his program:

This bit from the Hill's piece is revealing:
The woman who ultimately declined to come forward with Bloom told The Hill that she stayed silent for an entire year afterward because she did not want to call attention to her family.

She said she supported Trump in 2016, and that he she held no resentment about the early 1990s advance because Trump stopped it as soon as she asked him.

She said she remains friends with many people associated with the president to this day, including one of his best personal friends and a lawyer who works for one of the firms representing Trump.

The woman said, however, no one associated with the Trump White House or the president forced her to come forward or made any offers to induce her to talk to The Hill. She said she agreed to do so only after she became disgusted to learn this past October that Bloom had agreed to work in defense of Weinstein.

"I couldn't understand how she could say she was for people like me and then represent someone like him. And then all the money stuff I knew about. I just became frustrated," she said.
See also:


Bad Guys

Russian MoD says US instructors use al-Hasakah camp to train former ISIS members for fighting Syrian army

US combat vehicles
The US-led coalition uses the al-Hasakah refugee camp as a base for training former members of ISIS, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda) and other groups, the Russian center for reconciliation of the warring parties in Syria said on December 16.

US-trained terrorists join new units of the group called "the New Syrian Army" to be sent to southern Syria for fighting against the Syrian Arab Army, according to the statement.

Quenelle - Golden

Nasrallah on Trump's Jerusalem move: 'This is the beginning of the end for Israel' (VIDEO)

Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah

Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah
The following is the last part of a speech by Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayed Hassan Nasrallah on December 11, 2017, at a mass protest in Beirut to denouncing US President Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Nasrallah's videos are now banned on YouTube thanks to Google's global mass-censorship campaign of anything that doesn't conform to the Official World View.

Thankfully, for now, there's still Vimeo...


Below is a transcript, provided by sayed7asan.blogspot.com

Transcript

[...] (Against the decision of Trump), the least (degree of faith) here would be that the Palestinian Authority, the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (who will meet) in Istanbul in two days decree the end of the peace process. The Arab peace initiative should no longer be on the table. They have to tell the Americans: "It's over. There is nothing left on the table. If you cancel this decision, we will come back to discuss around the table." Even at the political and tactical levels, it is a strong, influential and effective logic, though of course we do not believe for a moment in (the efficiency or the legitimacy of) the way of negotiations.

Comment: See also: Hezbollah leader Nasrallah says fight for Jerusalem is now top priority


Attention

Austrian chancellor Kurz joins eastern and central European countries rejecting mandatory refugee quotas

Sebastian Kurz
© AFP
Austria's incoming right-wing chancellor Sebastian Kurz joined eastern and central European countries on Friday in backing EU President Donald Tusk's rejection of mandatory refugee quotas.

Tusk called the troubled scheme "ineffective" and "highly divisive", in a letter to EU leaders before a summit in Brussels that entered its second day Friday.

Eastern European states like Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, which have refused to take part, agree with Tusk but other including Germany and Greece do not.

"Tusk is right when he says that mandatory migrant quotas in the EU haven't worked," said Kurz, 31, who is expected to replace centre-left Chancellor Christian Kern next week.

Comment: Poland and Czech Republic won't change stance on migration during EU summit


Attention

Erdogan warns Muslims may lose Mecca if they fail to hold on to Jerusalem

Grand mosque in Mecca
© Suhaib Salem / Reuters
Muslims pray at the Grand mosque during the annual Haj pilgrimage in Mecca, Saudi Arabia
Muslims may lose Mecca and other holy sites if the US decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israeli capital isn't reversed, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned

"If we lose Jerusalem then we won't be able to protect Medina. If we lose Medina - we will lose Mecca and Kaaba," Erdogan said in a speech at an award ceremony in Istanbul.

Erdogan has been one of the most vocal critics of President Trump's controversial decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The Turkish president has slammed other nations for their "weak" response to the US move.


On Saturday, Erdogan urged the UN Security Council to annul Trump's decision. If the UNSC fails to act on the issue, Turkey will do everything necessary within legal frameworks to fight the US recognition, he promised.

Comment: See also: 'Jerusalem is a red line for Muslims and we will fight to the end': Erdogan warns Trump Turkey can cut ties with Israel


Monkey Wrench

Drug-pricing blame game: Under threat of regulation, profiteers blame each other for high drug prices

drugs
© Digicomphoto / Getty Images
Insurance companies receive steep rebates from pharmaceutical companies that are pushing up the price of prescription drugs. However, insurers are not passing the savings down to their customers in the form of lower premiums and out-of-pocket costs.

At least, that's what the drug manufacturing industry claims. If you ask the insurance industry, it's drug manufacturers that are to blame for the sky-high drug prices that have enraged the public - and forced insurers to raise premiums and deductibles in recent years.

Footprints

If ISIS lost, Russia says US-led coalition should leave Syria

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad
© AFP
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (centre left) and Russian President Vladimir Putin (centre right) visit Syria’s Hmeimim military base on December 11
The United States no longer has reason to be in Syria and the US public is being misinformed by its military, claimed Russia's Ministry of Defense in a press conference.

"It turns out that the Pentagon is deliberately deceiving the international and US public, including the supreme commander-in-chief, or there are no more grounds and even formal pretexts for the US troops' presence in Syria," Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Igor Konashenkov said on Friday, a state news agency reported.

Moscow maintained that recent US statements by President Donald Trump of having "won" in Syria and Iraq means the United States and its 70-nation coalition to defeat ISIS should leave Syria.

"We've won in Syria, we've won in Iraq, but they spread to other areas and we're getting them as fast as they spread," Trump said Tuesday during a ceremony to sign defense policy legislation.

Attention

Forget Russiagate, the REAL scandal is Israelgate

Israeligate
© Steemit
Almost exactly a year ago, just as the "Russia hacked the election!" delirium was taking shape, I pooh-poohed the idea that "Russiagate" (as it has come to be known) would persist for very long. Once the Trump administration started plowing ahead with its agenda, I argued, the Dems would toss Hillary aside and move on with politics as usual.

Russiagate fading away as Democrats come to terms with the 2016 election? Really, James?

Now I've made some inaccurate predictions before (OK, a lot of inaccurate predictions), but that one takes the cake in terms of how wrong I ended up being.

If you want a demonstration of this point, just type "russia collusion" or "russia interference" into your search engine of choice and feast on the millions and millions of nothingburgers that have been produced this past year chasing this non-story. It would almost be comical how stupid these stories were if it wasn't for the fact that they have real world consequences.

Remember when the evil Russkies hacked the Vermont electrical grid?! Of course you do. But do you remember when the MSM presstitutes immediately amended their fear porn story to admit that the grid had not, in fact, been hacked at all? Of course you don't, because the headlines are reported breathlessly and the "corrections" are issued quietly.

And do you remember when the dastardly Russians hacked into the voting systems of 39 states before the 2016 presidential election? Yeah, that didn't actually happen, either.

And remember when the Russians went international and took their well-known operation to control people's minds through Facebook ads across the pond to England, where they successfully pulled off "Operation Brexit?" Well the results are in, and the latest headlines tell of the startling breadth and scope of this mass mind-control experiment: "Facebook says Russian-linked accounts spent just 97 cents on ads over Brexit."

And remember when ABC's Brian Ross reported that candidate Trump directed Flynn to make contact with Moscow? Well one stock market crash later the suspended Brian Ross would like you to know that he meant president-elect Trump. (Meh, close enough!)

And remember when CNN dropped its bombshell story about how Wikileaks, those known Russian collaborators (*citation needed), were caught sharing their leaks in advance with Team Trump last year (BOOM!)? Well, guess what? More fake news.

Cheeseburger

Haley fails to make case about Yemeni missiles: Ignores Saudi War crimes

Haley nothing burger

US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, tries to serve up a big fat nothing burger to a truth-starved press. Don't eat it folks; it's all empty calories!
Yesterday the U.S. ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley went to the Defense Intelligence Agency for a little show. She claimed to expose Iran as an illegal source of weapons used by Yemeni forces in their fight against Saudi aggressors.

It reminded of the times when Vice President Dick Cheney visited the CIA to tell its analysts what they were supposed to write about "Saddam's weapons of mass destruction".

Haley covered the advice she was giving to the DIA at a press conference. Her props were alleged missile parts recovered somewhere at some unknown time. She claimed that these were provided by the Saudis and the UAE and showed debris of missiles fired from Yemen. Haley further claimed that Iran had delivered such missiles to Yemen in breach of UN resolution 2231 that restricts such transfers.

There are several possible explanations of where the Houthi and their then allied Yemeni army might have acquired such missiles. But even if one accepts that Iran delivered these, it is unknown when such deliveries might have taken place. It could have happened years before the UN resolution restricted such deliveries. Haley's show proved nothing with regards to any breach.

Comment: More on this story: Nikki "Tricky" Haley attempts to deceive press over Iranian missile threat


Vader

Starving the country into submission: Saudi-led coalition is deliberately targeting Yemeni food supplies

houthis yemen
© AFP / Getty
Houthi fighters at the site of a Saudi-led coalition airstrike in Sana’a, Yemen, on 5 December.
At 11.30pm, 10 nautical miles off Yemen's western Red Sea coast, seven fishermen were near the end of the four hours it had taken to haul their nets bulging with the day's catch into their fibreglass boat. Suddenly, away from the illumination of the vessel's large spotlight, one of the men spotted a black silhouette coming towards them.

Moments later a helicopter began circling overhead. The fishermen were well within the 30 nautical mile boundary they had been warned not to cross by leaflets airdropped on land by the Saudi-led coalition. But, without warning, gunfire erupted from the helicopter.

Osam Mouafa grabbed his friend, Abdullah, dragging him into a corner, curling himself into a protective ball as bullets flew through the boat. Shot in both knees, with a third bullet having grazed his thigh, Osam began to feel water rising around him. "The boat became like a sieve," he said, sitting next to the wooden stick he now needs to walk.

Comment: The Saudi war in Yemen: A Western-sponsored genocide