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White House staff secretary resigns after both ex-wives accuse him of abuse

Louise Boyle
The Daily Mail
Thu, 08 Feb 2018 12:24 UTC
Robert Porter
© Reuters
Porter, 40, has been described as one of the most important players in Trump's daily Oval Office orbit, and helped him write last week's State of the Union Address
Rob Porter has resigned from his role as White House staff secretary after his first ex-wife told DailyMail.com that he choked and punched her during their marriage.

Colbie Holderness, 37, who is a senior analyst for the U.S. government, spoke on the record to DailyMail.com about her five-year marriage to Porter, detailing physical and mental abuse.

She said he broke down her confidence so badly with his verbal and emotional abuse that she took an extended leave of absence from grad school.

Comment: As expected, CNN is twisting this into a condemnation of President Trump:
But according to CNN reporting, the allegations of domestic abuse were known among senior aides to President Donald Trump for months, even as his stock in the West Wing continued to rise.
However, Trump himself did not learn about the allegations until this week, though the FBI knew of them as early as last year. The Intercept reports:
As the FBI conducted a background check on an incoming senior White House official last year, the bureau learned of the man's history of domestic abuse. Rob Porter, a top aide to President Donald Trump, physically assaulted both of his previous wives, according to the two women. Porter's first wife said she was physically abused for years, providing a photograph she took of herself after she said Porter hit her while on vacation in Florence, Italy - a photo she also shared with the FBI.

During the background interviews for Porter's security clearance related to his senior White House role, FBI agents interviewed the two women. The former wives told the FBI that Porter was abusive during their marriages, according to interviews with the women. For Porter, the FBI interviews marked a collision of his professional ascendancy and his sometimes violent private life.


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Heart - Black

Palestine: Israeli forces kill 3, injure 110 in West Bank


The Muslim News
Wed, 07 Feb 2018 12:00 UTC
Mourning the death of Ahmed Jarrar, who was killed early Tuesday morning by Israeli troops in al-Yamoun, West Bank, on February 6, 2018. Photographer: Ali Jadallah/AA]
© Ali Jadallah/AA
Mourning the death of Ahmed Jarrar, who was killed early Tuesday morning by Israeli troops in al-Yamoun, West Bank, on February 6, 2018.
A Palestinian was killed by Israeli forces after an alleged stabbing attack in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Wednesday, according to Palestinian Health Ministry.

On Tuesday morning before dawn, Israeli troops invaded the village of al-Yamoun and killed Ahmad Nasr Jarrar, 22, whom they suspected of the murder of an Israeli, without filing charges or arresting him for the crime.

Israeli soldiers killed, on Tuesday at night, a young Palestinian man, and injured 110, including 32 who were shot with live ammunition, in Nablus city, in the northern part of the occupied West Bank.

Comment: Israel's crimes against the Palestinians are as a brazen as ever, and they're increasingly showing their true colours all the while a backlash is building:

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War Whore

Ex-Bush official Col. Lawrence Wilkerson on the military-industrial complex: "We are the death merchant of the world"

Ben Norton
Salon.com
Tue, 29 Mar 2016 12:51 UTC
Lockheed Martin
The military-industrial complex "is much more pernicious than Eisenhower ever thought," says the retired US colonel

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson is tired of "the corporate interests that we go abroad to slay monsters for."

As the former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, Wilkerson played an important role in the George W. Bush administration. In the years since, however, the former Bush official has established himself as a prominent critic of U.S. foreign policy.

"I think Smedley Butler was onto something," explained Lawrence Wilkerson, in an extended interview with Salon.

In his day, in the early 20th century, Butler was the highest ranked and most honored official in the history of the U.S. Marine Corps. He helped lead wars throughout the world over a series of decades, before later becoming a vociferous opponent of American imperialism, declaring "war is a racket."

Comment: Dwight D. Eisenhower:
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.


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Chess

Top 10 'curious' circumstances behind the rise of ISIS


Mint Press News
Thu, 08 Feb 2018 12:28 UTC
ISIS
Last week, the US said it was working to create "alternative government authorities" on Syrian territory. This latest move, aside from demonstrating once again that the US has no respect for Syria's territorial integrity, indicates we may be seeing more from that group of mercenaries known as Islamic State.

Thus, it seems to be an appropriate time to reflect upon a set of very strange circumstances that led to the rise of this loathsome terrorist group. Here are the top 10 reasons, in no particular order, as to why we should be very suspicious about this group.
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Jet3

UK MoD: "Practice of targeting suspected terrorists" with drones outside of war zones - officials then delete statement claiming 'mistake'

Paul Hutcheon
The Herald
Sun, 04 Feb 2018 12:00 UTC
drone
THE UK Government has been urged to make an urgent statement after an official defence document declared that lethal drone strikes had been used to kill terror suspects outside warzones.

Ministry of Defence (MoD) officials published a report which claimed that the UK has a "practice" of using remotely-piloted aircraft to target terrorists outwith armed conflicts.

However, when the inflammatory claim was brought to the MoD's attention by SNP MP Stewart McDonald, officials then deleted the section and described its inclusion as a mistake.

Comment: It's all in a days work for the criminal cabal masquerading as the elected ruling class in the UK:

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Bad Guys

US wants $1 trillion upgrade of its nuclear arsenal because of perceived 'Russian threat' to European allies

Finian Cunningham
Sputnik
Wed, 07 Feb 2018 17:37 UTC
russia nuke
© Sputnik/ Aleksei Danichev
Provocatively and recklessly, the American Pentagon has recently accused Russia of threatening European allies with nuclear weapons. On the basis of this deplorable accusation, the US is embarking on a $1 trillion upgrade of its nuclear arsenal.

The American nuclear revamp not only puts it in potential violation of disarmament agreements; the move is also destabilizing nuclear forces and increases the risk of catastrophic global war.

If ever Washington's reckless power politics were in doubt, this is surely the touchstone issue.

Comment: The US is running out of ideas; it's attempts to destroy Syria have failed, the emerging multi-polar world is threatening their hegemony, at home the manipulated economy is crashing, and the best solution it can dream up is for more military spending:

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Laptop

Propaganda Alert: Top U.S. official says Russians penetrated U.S. voter systems

Cynthia McFadden, William M. Arkin and Kevin Monahan
NBC News
Thu, 08 Feb 2018 03:12 UTC
Hacking technology computers programming election
© Dado Ruvic / Reuters
The U.S. official in charge of protecting American elections from hacking says the Russians successfully penetrated the voter registration rolls of several U.S. states prior to the 2016 presidential election.

In an exclusive interview with NBC News, Jeanette Manfra, the head of cybersecurity at the Department of Homeland Security, said she couldn't talk about classified information publicly, but in 2016, "We saw a targeting of 21 states and an exceptionally small number of them were actually successfully penetrated."

Jeh Johnson, who was DHS secretary during the Russian intrusions, said, "2016 was a wake-up call and now it's incumbent upon states and the Feds to do something about it before our democracy is attacked again."

Comment: The fear mongering continues. It seems that in the wake of the Nunes memo release, the liberal MSM are ramping up the 'Russian threat' in an effort to distract.

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Bad Guys

Kissinger on attacking North Korea: "A new world that will require new thinking by us"

Alex Lemieux
The Republican Standard
Tue, 06 Feb 2018 10:15 UTC
kissinger trump
Henry Kissinger says chance for 'pre-emptive attack is strong' on North Korea as he advises Trump to work with Russia and China to form international consensus.

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger testified to the Senate Armed Services committee in January about his thoughts on how the Trump Administration and the world at-large should deal with the ever-increasing threat of North Korea's Kim Jong-Un.

Although he agrees with the aggressive statements President Trump has exclaimed at the communist state, he warned Congress against potential military intervention near Russian and Chinese borders without the world's support, according to The Diplomat.

Comment: It seems the 'diplomatic language' North Korea 'doesn't understand' is that it refuses to kowtow to the US. As Kissinger says, it's a "new world" where countries like China and Russia hold more sway than ever before and thus scupper the US' dastardly plans for world domination:

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Hardhat

The Empire's horrifying plot to franchise the White Helmets psyop from South America to Asia

Caitlin Johnstone
Medium
Wed, 07 Feb 2018 10:44 UTC
white helmets syria
I sat down with my coffee this beautiful Australian morning to watch two of my favorite independent media figures jam together in a Corbett Report interview of renowned independent investigative journalist Vanessa Beeley. About two-thirds of the way through, I nearly fell out of my chair.

At 24:30 of the clip, the following bone-chilling conversation takes place about the nature of the establishment media's aggressive protection of the highly publicized "Syrian Civil Defense", also known as the White Helmets:
Beeley: But I think what is interesting, why is this organization being protected to such an extent? I think it's because the imperialist apparatus is defending the concept. We've already seen [White Helmets founder] James Le Mesurier recruiting in Brazil. We know that the White Helmets have appeared in Malaysia and in Venezuela, and in the Philippines. So you know, because this went through my head so many times, these are only 3,000 criminals and thugs that have emerged from the terrorist ranks or the "Free Syrian Army" [air quotes] moderate extremist ranks to become the White Helmets in order to continue to get paid doing the same job but under a different auspice.
Why are they being so heavily protected? But I think it's more to do with the concept. It's more to do with the importance of this concept going forward. As James Le Mesurier said very recently, who would you trust more than the fire brigade or a first response NGO? There you have it. That's the key to why this group is so important.
James Corbett: It is the perfect cover. And it certainly is a template that I'm sure will be used over and over in these types of situations if they can get away with it. So, extremely important.

Comment: Horrifying indeed! With a few exceptions, the world is absolutely unprepared to understand what the White Helmets really are, and you can bet that mainstream media pundits and celebrities will fall for the same scheme in any other countries that may be targeted in the future for regime change.

On Olivia Solon's idiotic first article about the White Helmets, see:

Manufacturing Dissent: The Guardian sez Russia Behind 'Online Conspiracy Theory About White Helmets'

On Le Mesurier:

James Le Mesurier: Priming global news networks with "compassionate and humanitarian impulses" aligned to his White Helmets creation in Syria?

And on the White Helmets themselves:

Eva Bartlett: How the MSM whitewashed al-Qaeda and White Helmets in Syria

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Black Magic

People must divest themselves from Congress and their merchants of death

Medea Benjamin - Elliot Swain
CounterPunch
Tue, 06 Feb 2018 10:28 UTC
norway military death mask
In recent budget negotiations, Senate Democrats agreed to a boost in military spending that exceeded the cap for fiscal 2018 by $70 billion, bringing the total request to an enormous $716 billion. Inevitably, this means more Pentagon contracts will be awarded to private corporations that use endless war to line their pockets. Democrats capitulated to this massive increase without so much as a scuffle. But the move hardly comes as a surprise, given how much money flows from weapons makers to the coffers of congressional campaigns for both parties.

While the majority of the weapons money goes to Republicans, Democratic Senators Tim Kaine and Bill Nelson appear in the top ten recipients of campaign contributions-in both chambers and parties-from military contractors in 2017 and 2018. Northrop Grumman gave $785,000 to Democratic candidates since 2017.Hillary Clinton took over $1 million from the industry in 2016. Even progressive darlings like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders take money from weapons manufacturers, and Sanders supported Boeing's disastrous F-35 because his home state had a financial stake in the program.

If neither major political party will stand up to this status quo, what can be done?

Comment: War is a racket. Although, divesting through various institutions as mentioned may still not be enough, it is at least, a start.

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