Puppet Masters
Trudeau family criticized for overdoing it on their traditional Indian outfits.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's trip to India was a "colossal failure of diplomacy and leadership skills," says the senior assistant editor at the Times of India, in New Delhi, Aarti Tikoo Singh.

Damaged buildings are pictured during the fighting with Islamic State's fighters in the old city of Raqqa, Syria, August 19, 2017
Syrian civilians experience the most suffering in the areas controlled by the US-led international coalition and the armed opposition groups Washington is backing, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said Wednesday.
"At the moment, the most difficult circumstances for the civilian population of Syria exist in the areas controlled by the US-led coalition and the groups of the armed opposition it is controlling," Konashenkov said.
According to the spokesman, the situation in these areas was not transparent to Damascus or to the international observers, despite the declared victory over Daesh terrorist group.
READ MORE: US-Led Coalition: No Value in Russia's Proposal for UN Commission on Raqqa

Americans have long been disenchanted with Congressional politics. A glance at the Gallup Congress approval chart through the years will show that it rarely climbed over the 20 percent threshold since 2010.
The new poll, published by the Associated Press-NORC Center on Monday, revealed that a total of 85 percent of Americans believe the Congress's job is below par. The attitude to the Republican-controlled legislature does not change much across party lines. The number of Democrats that held an unfavorable view of Congress, 89 percent, is only seven percentage points higher than that of Republicans, at 82 percent.
While the figures are a bit more reassuring when it comes to the members of Congress, the immediate representatives of those surveyed, they are still hardly anything to brag about.
Firstly there was the flurry of further indictments from Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
Though none of these indictments actually takes the Russiagate collusion case which Mueller is supposed to be investigating any further forward - the indictment against the 13 Russians who worked at the St. Petersburg based Internet Research Agency actually resulted in an admission that there was no collusion between the Russians who had been indicted and any member of the Trump campaign - such is the intensity of the commitment of the media to the Russiagate narrative that they were treated as big news, when in truth they are no such thing.
Secondly we have had the Memorandum the Democrats in the House Intelligence Committee put together in response to the GOP Memorandum which was published earlier.

A Syrian Red Crescent volunteer Eastern Ghouta, Syria, 20 February 2018
Presenter Mishal Husain for BBC Radio 4's Today program pushed the foreign secretary on reports that British ally Saudi Arabia was "backing" the main militant group in the area. Husain asked: "The Saudis are reportedly backing the most prominent rebel group in Ghouta, Jaish al Islam. Have you talked to the Saudis about that?"
"We certainly do and one of the tragedies of this whole conflict as you will remember...," Johnson said, before aborting any attempted explanation and simply adding: "To be fair I don't think the Saudis would concede that they're involved in military action."
Comment: Of course Saudi Arabia is not going to concede that they are somewhat covertly sponsoring terrorism in Syria. That has nothing to do with the fact that everyone knows what they are up to!
"When we have completed our mission here in Syria, it involves not only kicking ISIS [Daesh] out of the areas which they occupied, but also includes consolidation of gains and the stability that allows us to move forward with a political resolution," Votel told the US House of Representatives Armed Services Committee.
Votel confirmed that the reason for the US military being in Syria is to defeat Daesh.
"The principal thing will be to ensure that ISIS [Daesh] does not reemerge."
Comment: If the US Empire does not want Daesh to reemerge, they should stop funding, training and arming terrorists as part of their geoplitical maneuverings. It's that simple.
In a bombshell update one week later, it was revealed that among the casualties were hundreds of Russian mercenaries working on behalf of the Assad regime, and hired by the Wagner PMC (Private Military Group) - a shadowy organization often referred to as Russia's answer to Blackwater. Adding to the mystery, is that the Wagner Group is believed to be funded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a rich businessman close to President Vladimir Putin and also known as "Putin's Chef." Prigozhin was recently sanctioned by the US due to his links to the eastern Ukraine separatists.
Unnamed US intelligence sources quoted by the Washington Post said Prigozhin was in close contact with the Kremlin in the run-up to the Feb 7 assault on the Syrian Democratic Forces base in Deir Ezzor region.

Facebook examples, social media ads from the group of 13 individuals under indictment.
Neoconservative pundit Max Boot decries
"the second-worst foreign attack on America," after 9/11, one that "may be even more corrosive."According to liberal Jonathan Alter, the Russians have launched "an attack that-but for the loss of life-is as bad as Pearl Harbor." Democratic Representative Jerrold Nadler concurs, explaining to MSNBC:
"They didn't kill anyone but they're destroying our democratic process.... Not in the amount of violence, but in the seriousness, it is very much on par."
Comment: One upshot of the 'nothing burger bits crisis' is the crackdown on free enterprise - another freedom lost - as there is now a demand for social media sites to document and report who is buying ads. As per Asia Times:
In November, 2017, Congress unveiled legislation that would force Facebook, Google, and other social media giants to disclose who buys online advertising, thereby closing a loophole that Russia supposedly exploited during the election.We also might remind ourselves of who and what is really swaying the news to a particular bias and end-point, emanating from the bastions of MSM.
Answer: When there is no intention of initiating a criminal case against the accused. In the case of the 13 Russian trolls who have just been indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, there is neither the intention nor the ability to prosecute a case against them. (They are all foreign nationals who will not face extradition.)
But, if that's the case, than why would Mueller waste time and money compiling a 37-page document alleging all-manner of nefarious conduct when he knew for certain that the alleged perpetrators would never be prosecuted? Why?
Isn't it because the indictments are not really a vehicle for criminal prosecution, but a vehicle for political grandstanding? Isn't that the real purpose of the indictments, to add another layer of dirt to the mountain of unreliable, uncorroborated, unproven allegations of Russian meddling. Mueller is not acting in his capacity as Special Counsel, he is acting in his role of deep state hatchet-man whose job is to gather scalps by any means necessary.











Comment: Social Justin Warrior Trudeau's moronic blunders continue to embarrass Canadians and drives home the point Canadian Conservatives were making during the run up to his election - that Trudeau is not ready to be Prime Minister. It's proving questionable that he'll ever be ready.
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