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Pentagon chief claims with a straight face that US is trying to de-escalate tensions in Persian Gulf


Sputnik
Thu, 25 Jul 2019 18:32 UTC
oil tankers
© Hamad I Mohammed
Mark Esper, who has recently been sworn in as the new US defence secretary, said Washington sought to de-escalate the situation in the Persian Gulf area.

Last week, the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) said the country was developing an intentional maritime security framework dubbed Operation Sentinel to enhance security in the Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Oman in the wake of various incidents involving tankers in the area.


Comment: Military operations and the presence of aircraft carriers are not the way to de-escalate tensions. Someone needs to tell the SecDef that the presence of the American military does the opposite of what he thinks it does.


"And so that's the purpose of Operation Sentinel, as conceived, was to avoid those situations. So we don't get in a situation where there's a provocation where there's a seizure of a ship and something like that, and then we — and then it escalates. We're trying to de-escalate," Esper told a press conference, as quoted in a transcript published on the Pentagon website late on Wednesday.
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Dominoes

Ready for Brexit & election? BoJo MASSACRES May's cabinet to install hardline Leavers


RT
Thu, 25 Jul 2019 18:19 UTC
theresa may cabinet
© Reuters / Volokin Yevgeny; Henry Nicholls; Hannah McKay; Hannah McKay
(Clockwise from top left) Gavin Williamson, Dominic Raab, Priti Patel & Jacob Rees-Mogg
New UK PM Boris Johnson conducted a cabinet bloodbath on his first day that saw Theresa May's ministers replaced with loyal, true Brexit believers. It has all the hallmarks of a government readying itself for a general election.

In what was less a 'reshuffle' and more a complete overhaul of a Tory government weighed down by the Brexit debacle, Wednesday saw 17 of 30 ministers either sacked or resign as Johnson stamped his authority on day one.

The new figures taking up some of the most powerful positions in Johnson's Conservative cabinet are ostensibly hardline Brexiteers who are comfortable with the thought of parliament being suspended to ram through a no-deal Brexit.

Johnson has hired the services of Dominic Cummings, the mastermind behind Vote Leave's victory in the 2016 EU referendum, as his chief of staff; and the new prime minister appears to have assembled a team intent on delivering Brexit without a deal if need be.
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Sherlock

The Jeffrey Epstein case: A rare opportunity to focus

Michael Krieger
Liberty Blitzkrieg
Tue, 23 Jul 2019 03:07 UTC
Epstein/Trivers/Summers
© Screen Shot/Rick Friedman/Polaris
Jeffrey Epstein with Robert Trivers, Alan Dershowitz, Larry Summers, Harvard 2004
Perhaps, at long last, a serial rapist and pedophile may be brought to justice, more than a dozen years after he was first charged with crimes that have brutalized countless girls and women. But what won't change is this: the cesspool of elites, many of them in New York, who allowed Jeffrey Epstein to flourish with impunity.

For decades, important, influential, "serious" people attended Epstein's dinner parties, rode his private jet, and furthered the fiction that he was some kind of genius hedge-fund billionaire. How do we explain why they looked the other way, or flattered Epstein, even as they must have noticed he was often in the company of a young harem? Easy: They got something in exchange from him, whether it was a free ride on that airborne "Lolita Express," some other form of monetary largesse, entrée into the extravagant celebrity soirées he hosted at his townhouse, or, possibly and harrowingly, a pound or two of female flesh.

~ From the New York Magazine article: Who Was Jeffrey Epstein Calling?
An honest assessment of the current state of American politics and society in general leaves little room for optimism regarding the public's ability to accurately diagnose, much less tackle, our fundamental issues at a root level. A primary reason for this state of affairs boils down to the ease with which the American public is divided against itself and conquered.

Though there are certain issues pretty much everyone can agree on, we simply aren't focusing our collective energy on them or creating the mass movements necessary to address them. Things such as systemic bipartisan corruption, the institutionalization of a two-tier justice system in which the wealthy and powerful are above the law, a broken economy that requires both parents to work and still barely make ends meet, and a military-industrial complex consumed with profits and imperial aggression not national defense. These are just a few of the many issues that should easily unite us against an entrenched power structure, but it is not happening. At least not yet.

Comment: See also:

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Snakes in Suits

Promises by PM Boris Johnson in first Commons speech

Jessica Elgott
The Guardian
Thu, 25 Jul 2019 09:54 UTC
PM Boris Johnson
© AFP/Getty Images
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson
Boris Johnson's first speech as prime minister in the House of Commons touched on a number of policy platforms, many of which had the hallmarks of future election pledges. Here's what the new PM promised:

Brexit and the backstop
"A time limit is not enough. If an agreement is to be reached it must be clearly understood that the way to the deal goes by way of the abolition of the backstop.

"For our part we are ready to negotiate in good faith an alternative, with provisions to ensure that the Irish border issues are dealt with where they should always have been: in the negotiations on the future agreement between the UK and the EU."
This is a very tight corner for Johnson to have painted himself into. He is demanding the complete removal of the backstop and for all arrangements for the Irish border to be negotiated during the transition period as part of the future relationship.

Only on Wednesday, the Irish taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, said: "I got the impression that he wasn't just talking about deleting the backstop, he was talking about a whole new deal... That is not going to happen. Any suggestion that there can be a whole new deal negotiated in weeks or months is totally not in the real world."
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Radar

The secret Black Hawk Operation in DC: Who and what is behind it?


Sputnik
Thu, 25 Jul 2019 17:21 UTC
UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter
© AFP/Massoud Hossaini
UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter
The US Army has been quietly conducting a secret flight operation in and around Washington DC for months, judging from recently released fiscal documents. US military experts have outlined the possible goals of the clandestine mission and the agencies behind it.

On 22 July, Bloomberg revealed that at least 10 Black Hawk helicopters are involved in conducting "a classified flight mission" in the National Capital Region (NPR), citing a $2.5 billion Army reprogramming request.

According to the document, the Pentagon asked the US Congress to allocate an additional $1.55 million for aircraft maintenance, aircrews, travel, and a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) capability in support of the mission.
"Soldiers from assault helicopter company and aviation maintenance units will be supporting the mission with 10 UH-60s and maintenance capabilities for four months", the document says, arguing that "without additional funding, the Army will not be able to perform this classified mission".
The task of the aforementioned flight mission, which, according to Bloomberg, kicked off "early in the fiscal year" that started on 1 October 2018, remains shrouded in secrecy
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Folder

Epstein visited Clinton White House multiple times during the early '90s

Emily Shugerman, Suzi Parker
The Daily Beast
Thu, 25 Jul 2019 03:24 UTC
Clinton/Epstein
© Sarah Rogers/The Daily Beast/Getty
Former US President Bill Clinton • Jeffrey Epstein
A Daily Beast investigation has uncovered ties between Epstein and the Clinton administration that date back to the president's earliest days in the White House.

Days after Jeffrey Epstein's arrest on sex-trafficking charges in New York, Bill Clinton distanced himself from the high-flying financier and convicted sex offender. The former president owned up to just six encounters with Epstein, starting in 2002: Four flights on the billionaire's private jet, a single trip to his Harlem office, and one "brief visit" to his New York apartment, all with staff and security detail in tow.

Now, a Daily Beast investigation has uncovered ties between Epstein and the Clinton administration that date back to the president's earliest days in the White House, casting doubt on the oft-circulated narrative that the two only began associating after Clinton left office.

As early as 1993, records show, Epstein donated $10,000 to the White House Historical Association and attended a donors' reception hosted by Bill and Hillary Clinton. Around the same time, according to a source familiar with the connection, Epstein visited presidential aide Mark Middleton several times at The White House. Two years later, businesswoman Lynn Forester de Rothschild wrote a personal letter to Clinton thanking him for their talk about the financier.

"President Clinton knows nothing about the terrible crimes Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida some years ago, or those with which he has been recently charged in New York," Clinton's spokesperson, Angel Ureña, told The Daily Beast. "Any suggestion to the contrary, is both factually inaccurate and irresponsible." Representatives for Epstein, de Rothschild and Middleton did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
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Rocket

Rocket launch: N. Korea test-fires 2 short-range missiles mere weeks after Trump-Kim meeting


RT
Wed, 24 Jul 2019 22:16 UTC
Kim Jong-un
© Business Insider
Korean Leader Kim Jong-un
The American and South Korean militaries are analyzing the details of the latest test launch by North Korea, in which a couple of short-range ballistic missiles were fired towards the Sea of Japan.

Pyongyang fired the projectiles using a transporter erector launcher (TEL) about 20 minutes apart from the Wonson area early Thursday morning, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, noting that the short-range missiles flew for around 430 kilometers at an altitude of around 50 kilometers before falling into the Sea of Japan. The South Korean military said it maintains "readiness posture."

The US has yet to comment on the launch, which could potentially undermine the American-N. Korean negotiations on the denuclearization of the peninsula, even though President Trump said earlier that such low-profile tests did not bother him much.

The missile test was the first in months and was held just weeks after US President Donald Trump met his N. Korean counterpart Kim Jong-un in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between the two Koreas and agreed to resume stalled nuclear talks.

In May, Pyongyang held a series of short-range missile launches, which US officials claim N. Korea has repeated on Thursday. JCS, however, insists that more analysis is needed to verify if the missiles fired Thursday had ballistic capabilities. On Tuesday, Chairman Kim inspected the country's new submarine and its combat weapons systems, which some experts suspect could be capable of launching ballistic missiles.
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Star of David

Systematic genocide: Gaza farmers subjected to herbicide warfare

Maureen Clare Murphy
The Electronic Intifada
Tue, 23 Jul 2019 00:00 UTC
Israeli herbicide Gaza
© Forensic Architecture
Thousands of acres of Gaza farmland have been damaged by Israel’s aerial spraying of herbicide.
Israel's military propagandists are at it again. A video recently tweeted by COGAT, the bureaucratic arm of Israel's military occupation, celebrates its efforts to teach Palestinian farmers in the West Bank about hybrid fruits and vegetables. What the military doesn't boast of in its cheerful short video is its systematic poisoning of besieged Gaza's most fertile agricultural land.

Since 2014, the Israeli military has used crop-dusting planes to spray herbicide along Gaza's eastern boundary. It has long razed agricultural and residential land along the so-called "buffer zone" to increase its soldiers' field of vision. The unannounced spraying of herbicide takes place inside Israel when winds blow the toxins into Gaza.

In 2016, Israel's defense ministry admitted to the practice in response to a freedom of information request. "It confirmed that the substances sprayed contained three herbicides," according to a new report by London-based research group Forensic Architecture:


Comment: See also:

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Boat

In bold defiance: US warship sails through Taiwan Strait day after China calls it a regional security threat


RT
Thu, 25 Jul 2019 00:06 UTC
USS Antietam
© Facebook/CG 54
USS Antietam
A guided-missile cruiser has sailed through the Taiwan Strait just a day after the Chinese military criticized Washington for "adding complexity to regional security" and warned it to stay clear of the island.

The transit of USS Antietam (CG-54) through the narrow waterway "demonstrates the US commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific," Commander Clay Doss, a spokesman for the US Navy's Seventh Fleet, said, stressing that the US will continue to conduct their 'freedom of navigation' voyages, which Beijing has repeatedly condemned.

The Chinese military warned the US to stay clear of Taiwan on Wednesday, vowing to use force, if necessary, to prevent any attempts to split the island from the mainland. "The PLA will resolutely defeat anyone attempting to separate Taiwan from China and safeguard national unity at all costs," the newly released white paper on national defense stressed."The US is strengthening its Asia-Pacific military alliances and reinforcing military deployment and intervention, adding complexity to regional security."
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Toys

Mueller hearing was a 'very big mistake' for anti-Trump #Resistance, but will they soldier on?


RT
Thu, 25 Jul 2019 17:51 UTC
mueller testimony report congress

Robert Mueller testifies before Congress on his report
President Donald Trump's Democratic opponents have shot themselves in the foot by forcing Robert Mueller to testify publicly, not realizing he already done his best to make the probe look credible, journalist Aaron Maté told RT.

The testimony by former special counsel Robert Mueller only further highlighted the flimsiness of the Trump-Russia collusion narrative, which after more than two years of investigation ultimately turned up no evidence of conspiracy.

"Democrats made a very big mistake in calling this hearing today," Maté said. "They didn't realize the investigation was baseless and that Mueller and his team actually did their best to make this investigation look credible."

Comment: Lliberal media pundits weighed in as they picked through the debris:
Robert Mueller's testimony to Congress failed to live up to the expectations of many Russiagate-peddling pundits, with one notable exception being MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, who had glowing praise for the former special counsel.

Even among the news outlets that championed the Russiagate narrative, Mueller's Q&A with the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday received less than stellar reviews.

CNN's Chris Cillizza lamented that "Mueller was less than convincing or forceful," and that in many instances his testimony had "made things muddier."

Another CNN contributor argued that Mueller's testimony has "provided Republicans good reason to argue that the investigation was a two-year, multimillion-dollar waste of time."

Mueller didn't fare much better over at MSNBC. One of the network's national security analysts, Jeremy Bash, remarked that he had "kind of sucked the life out of the report," describing Mueller's performance as "boring" and "kind-of evasive."

NBC's Chuck Todd was similarly unimpressed, arguing that the testimony was a "disaster" in terms of optics for the Russiagate-promoting Democrats.

headlines Mueller testimony congress
© RT
In contrast to these fickle party poopers, there was one celebrated talking head who stayed true to Russiagate's unbending dogma.

Rachel Maddow, the MSNBC host who perfected the art of Russia-baiting, characterized the hearings as "landmark" and "historic." (In fairness to Maddow, she also acknowledged that Mueller "definitely seemed older than his 74 years.")

"All in all, just look at today as a whole, it was a remarkable day," Maddow beamed. "I know the Trump White House and conservative media are trying to, like, chin up tonight, make it seem like they had a great day today... they did not have a great day today."


Thus proving Maddow's complete detachment from reality.


Commenting after Mueller finished his testimony, US President Donald Trump slammed media outlets which promoted the now-debunked theory that his presidential campaign had "colluded" with the Kremlin in 2016.

"This whole thing has been collusion - with the media, with other countries... This has been a disaster for the Democrats," he said.


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