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Fri, 15 Oct 2021
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Trump and Barr fooled them all

Brian Cates
The Epoch Times
Sun, 14 Jun 2020 13:26 UTC
FBI agents
Commentary

President Donald Trump faced a seemingly insurmountable problem. Again.

After having gone through a fake impeachment, the CCP virus pandemic — which was coupled with a never-before-attempted economic shutdown — the Trump administration was suddenly faced with an escalating series of simultaneous riots in cities across the nation.

Peaceful protests across the country following the death in police custody of a black man named George Floyd in Minneapolis quickly turned into a series of violent nationwide riots.

It turned out much of this rioting seen across America was orchestrated by anarchist groups that are loosely referred to by the name "Antifa."

Trump and Attorney General William Barr on May 31 announced that the U.S. government would be designating Antifa as a terrorist group and that all federal law enforcement agencies were now coordinating their efforts through the 56 FBI Joint Terrorism Task Forces to "identify criminal organizers and instigators."

While the Democrats and the media anticipated getting the optics they so desperately craved — of Trump sending in soldiers with bayonets fixed, charging at the "peaceful protesters" — what they got instead was the sudden appearance of a bunch of federal tactical units from the FBI, the Secret Service, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the U.S. Marshals Service, the Bureau of Prisons, and other agencies, in full gear, many with no rifles, and certainly no bayonets.
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War Whore

A discredited fanatic's last hurrah

Daniel Larison
The American Conservative
Fri, 19 Jun 2020 17:18 UTC
bolton
© Reuters / Jonathan Drake
Matt Purple is right when he says that John Bolton's new book is just "career CPR by a war-happy Washington insider." One of the things that has stood out in the many reports and reviews of the book this week is how little new information Bolton reveals. An insider account should at the very least contain a lot of things that people couldn't have already picked up from reading the news or watching television, and according to the initial reports the book doesn't provide that. For instance, Bolton "reveals" that the North Korea negotiations were just a P.R. stunt and the president had no interest in a real agreement, but anyone paying the slightest attention could see that from the outside. The few newsworthy details that have come out, such as Trump's willingness to interfere with law enforcement as a favor to foreign governments and his endorsement of the Uighur detention camps in Xinjiang, also show how indifferent Bolton was to the president's abuses of power and indulgence of authoritarian governments. Bolton was content to let the president do whatever he wanted as long as he got to push for more aggressive policies and new wars, and it was only when he realized that he wasn't getting his war with Iran that his attitude began to change. Then he saved up whatever he knew about the inner workings of the Trump White House so that he could get a payday instead of doing his duty to the country. No one is discredited more by Bolton's book than Bolton himself.

Every book Bolton has written seems to be an elaborate exercise in score-settling more than anything else. The thesis of every Bolton book seems to be that he alone was competent and everyone around him was a fool, and he insists on this even when the evidence of his own policy failures mounts from North Korea to Venezuela. Bolton is not a reliable witness and has a record of manipulating and distorting intelligence to push for the policies he wants, so we should treat his account as the polemical and self-serving work that it is. It may contain some evidence that will be useful in reconstructing the history of the Trump administration, but it should be used very carefully with the understanding that Bolton acts and argues in bad faith.

Comment: See also:

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Handcuffs

Key Mueller witness gets 10 years in prison on child sex trafficking charges

Daniel Payne
Just the News
Sat, 27 Jun 2020 12:17 UTC
Robert Mueller
© Pool/Getty
The witness has already been in prison for a year

Akey witness in special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia-Trump campaign collusion probe, on Friday received a 10-year prison sentence on child sex charges.

The witness, George Nader, who also acted as an adviser for President Trump's White House transition team following the 2016 election, was handed the sentence by Judge Leonie Brinkema at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Nader, who has already served a year in prison, admitted to bringing a 14-year-old boy from the Czech Republic to the United States in 2000 for sex trafficking. As part of the sentence, he is also ordered to pay that victim $150,000.

His lawyers, who lobbied for the 10-year term rather than a longer stay in prison, expressed "a real fear that [Nader] will not outlive the sentence" due to health problems as well as the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Nader in court said he was "dearly, deeply sorry" for the crimes.
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Gold Seal

Caitlin Johnstone: It is the US intelligence's job to lie to you. NYT's Afghan bounty story is CIA press release disguised as news

Caitlin Johnstone
RT
Sat, 27 Jun 2020 20:52 UTC
US troops
© Reuters / Ahmad Nadeem
Whenever one sees a news headline ending in "US Intelligence Says", one should always mentally replace everything that comes before it with "Blah blah blah we're probably lying."

"Russia Secretly Offered Afghan Militants Bounties to Kill Troops, US Intelligence Says", blares the latest viral headline from the New York Times. NYT's unnamed sources allege that the GRU "secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing coalition forces in Afghanistan — including targeting American troops", and that the Trump administration has known this for months.

To be clear, this is journalistic malpractice. Mainstream media outlets which publish anonymous intelligence claims with no proof are just publishing CIA press releases disguised as news. They're just telling you to believe what sociopathic intelligence agencies want you to believe under the false guise of impartial and responsible reporting. This practice has become ubiquitous throughout mainstream news publications, but that doesn't make it any less immoral.

Comment: The White House denies Trump received any such briefing from the intel community:



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Airplane

Russian Maj. Gen. Konashenkov to be called for MH17 trial for the defense

John Helmer
johnhelmer.net
Wed, 24 Jun 2020 20:48 UTC
konashenkov
One of the most prominent generals in the Russian Army is to be called to testify in the Dutch government's trial of the shooting-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 when district court judge Hendrik Steenhuis rules next week on whether to accept or refuse his evidence as a witness for the defence.

According to the request filed in court this week, the evidence is of the Ukrainian Army's fingerprints on the BUK missile which Dutch prosecutors allege was the weapon used to destroy the aircraft on July 17, 2014, killing 298 passengers and crew.

Without proof of the weapon, the Dutch prosecution has no case against the four soldiers — three Russians, one Ukrainian — accused of deploying the missile and preparing the attack against the aircraft. If Ukrainian Army fingerprints are verified on the weapon when the crime was committed, the Dutch case, and the worldwide media campaign against Russia, collapse.

Major-General Igor Konashenkov (lead image), the spokesman for the Defence Ministry in Moscow, has been called to testify. If Judge Steenhuis refuses to allow him, in a ruling promised for July 3, the trial will cease to follow Dutch law, and become a Dutch Government propaganda show.

No Dutch or international reporter has published the record of the request for a ruling on General Konashenkov's testimony. It was made on June 23 by Sabine ten Doesschate, the junior lawyer on the defence team representing Lieutenant-Colonel Oleg Pulatov, one of the four accused in the case. Two other Russian Army officers and one eastern Ukrainian have also been charged; they refuse to participate in the Dutch proceeding. Read more on the courtroom proceedings here.

Comment: See also:

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Bullseye

Ryanair calls UK's travel quarantine policies 'more idiotic rubbish', calls for restrictions to be scrapped entirely

Siddharth Vikram Philip
Bloomberg
Sat, 27 Jun 2020 13:00 UTC
Ryanair
© Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg
A passenger aircraft, operated by Ryanair Holdings Plc, stands on the tarmac at London Luton Airport in Luton.
Ryanair Holdings Plc dismissed the U.K.'s plan to relax quarantine requirements for people arriving from France, Greece and Spain as "more idiotic rubbish" and called for the restrictions to be scrapped entirely.

The government plans next week to publish a full list of the countries with which it will establish so-called air bridges -- exempting incoming travelers from self-isolating for two weeks. It hopes the measures will restore a semblance of normality to an airline industry that's been devastated by the Covid-19 pandemic and is shedding thousands of jobs.

The biggest airlines operating in the U.K. are suing to overturn the quarantine policy. Industry officials say the government is unable to enforce the restrictions and they're likely to destroy demand in the crucial summer travel season.

Comment: See also: UK gov threatens to close beaches, reimpose lockdown

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Vader

Ugh: Liz Cheney tweets photo of geriatric neocon dad in facemask: 'Real men wear masks'

Vincent Barone
New York Post
Sat, 27 Jun 2020 20:35 UTC
dick cheney mask
© Liz Cheney/Twitter
A photo op for warmonger Dick Cheney
Former Vice President Dick Cheney is accessorizing his cowboy hats with coronavirus face masks — and joining the taunting hashtag #realmenwearmasks.

Cheney's daughter, Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, tweeted a photo of her father Friday donning a standard-issue paper face covering.

"Dick Cheney says WEAR A MASK," she wrote in the caption.

The high-ranking House Republican was seemingly joining in on the online jab at President Trump and fellow GOP members who shun masks.

The president has refused to wear a face mask in public, against the advice of his health experts.

Comment: The avalanche of mockery was almost immediate:
Former VP Dick Cheney hit trending status online after appearing in a photo urging the use of face masks, earning praise from the anti-Trump #Resistance as critics recalled his infamous 'hunting accident' and lies about Iraqi WMD.





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Bad Guys

Europe, US, China, Russia, the failing economy, populism: Angela Merkel interview in full

Philip Oltermann
The Guardian
Sat, 27 Jun 2020 16:00 UTC
Merkel
© Thomas Koehler/photothek.de
Angela Merkel was speaking to the Guardian and five other European newspapers.
As the rotating presidency of the EU council passes to Germany on 1 July, the country's chancellor, Angela Merkel, sat down for an interview with the Guardian and five other European newspapers - Germany's Süddeutsche Zeitung, France's Le Monde, Spain's La Vanguardia, Italy's La Stampa and Poland's Polityka - to talk about Europe's economic response to the coronavirus pandemic, her stance on the Brexit negotiations, and global challenges posed by the US, Russia and China.

Germany's European council presidency is taking place during an unprecedented crisis. There is a lot of pressure; Germany is expected to sort things out. How nervous are you?

My first council presidency as chancellor was in 2007. The European constitutional treaty had just been rejected in France and the Netherlands, and we had set ourselves the task of shaping a new treaty. We succeeded in that. Then came the international financial crisis, turbulence for the euro and the refugee issue - so difficult times are nothing new. And time and again it has been shown that Europe is not yet sufficiently resistant to crises. In the euro crisis, we lacked the tools for an appropriate response. The movements of refugees in 2015 showed up the deficiencies of the EU asylum system.

Comment: Baseless accusations against nations, Russia, in this instance, is hardly endearing. Bryan MacDonald for RT reports:
Loyalty to US has led Germany & rest of EU into 'dead end' & they need to escape - top Russian Foreign Affairs official

At a time when some of the states of Central and Western Europe are reassessing their place in the world - amid the rise of China, US political flux, Covid-19 and Brexit - Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel has spoken about the need for "constructive" dialogue with Russia.

Novikov was responding to comments Merkel made on Friday during an interview with selected liberal European newspapers such as the Guardian and Le Monde, indicating she would continue to "strive for cooperation" with Moscow.

"Germany, like the other key states of the European Union, is now in a dual position: Angela Merkel has priorities in both the energy sector and in general security," said Novikov, the first deputy chairman of the Russian parliament's committee on foreign affairs.

"She is interested in developing normal relations with Russia, but because of Euro-Atlantic solidarity, they [that is, Germany and its EU partners] have reached a dead end, and, sooner or later, it will be necessary to get out of it."

Germany and Russia are Europe's two largest countries by population, and also have its two biggest economies, when measured by purchasing-power parity, according to current International Monetary Fund estimates.

Keeping the two from finding common ground and getting too close has long been an existential matter for so-called 'Atlanticists.' In 2015, George Friedman, founder of the geopolitical intelligence consultancy Stratfor - once dubbed "the shadow CIA" - admitted in an address to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs think tank that "the primordial interest of the United States, over which for a century we have fought wars... has been the relationship between Germany and Russia."


He explained that this was because "united, they are the only force which could threaten us" and cautioned that the US needed "to make sure that that doesn't happen." And his reasoning? The combination of Russian resources and manpower with German capital and technology "scares the hell out of the United States," he said.


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Light Saber

Cuomo, De Blasio exceeded authority by restricting religious services but condoning protests - Federal ruling

Mairead McArdle
National Review
Fri, 26 Jun 2020 17:48 UTC
de blasio cuomo new york
© Andrew Kelly/Reuters
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio deliver remarks at a news conference regarding the state's first confirmed case of coronavirus in New York City, March 2, 2020.
A federal judge on Friday ruled that New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo violated the Constitution by restricting religious services to stem the spread of the coronavirus while simultaneously condoning mass protests that took place across the state.

U.S. District Judge Gary Sharpe granted a preliminary injunction blocking New York from enforcing its stringent coronavirus restrictions on religious services. The state's current restrictions require houses of worship to operate at 25 percent capacity and later at 33 percent capacity when New York enters Phase Four of its re-opening plan.

De Blasio issued "simultaneous pro-protest/anti-religious gathering messages" and "actively encouraged participation in protests and openly discouraged religious gatherings and threatened religious worshipers," the judge said in his order.
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Health

Trump administration asks Supreme Court to invalidate Obamacare law, violates the Constitution

John Solomon
Just the News
Fri, 26 Jun 2020 10:26 UTC
trumpSupremeCt.
© nasdaq.com/The Hill/KJN
US President Donald Trump and Supreme Court
In a dramatic election-year request, the Trump administration Thursday night asked the Supreme Court to strike down the entirety of the Obamacare law, saying it wrongly limits consumer choices, raises Americans costs and violates the Constitution.

In a closely-watched filing, the Justice Department told the justices that the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate violated the Constitution, and if that provision is struck down, the rest of the law must be terminated. "The entire ACA thus must fall with the individual mandate, though the scope of relief entered in this case should be limited to provisions shown to injure the plaintiffs," the administration's brief argued.

In identifying harm to American consumers, the DOJ cited two of the law's least popular impacts among critics: rising costs and fewer insurance choices. The government argued:
"The individual plaintiffs have shown that they are injured by at least some ACA provisions — namely, various provisions regulating health-insurance plans that limit the 14 range and terms of plans the individual plaintiffs may obtain and that increase their costs of obtaining coverage."

Comment: You can read the entire brief here. File SCOTUS-ACABrief.pdf





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