Puppet Masters

Trump names hand-picked panel to supervise, investigate intelligence community

Steven Nelson
Washington Examiner
Wed, 21 Nov 2018 16:21 UTC

With Republicans poised to lose control of investigatory panels in the House of Representatives, President Trump is resurrecting a potentially powerful board capable of intimately reviewing intelligence agency conduct on his direct orders.

The White House announced five appointments to the Presidential Intelligence Advisory Board on Tuesday evening, after selecting a chairman and vice chairwoman earlier this year.

The dormant board created by former President Dwight Eisenhower has no formal powers, but derives significant authority directly from the president, operating as his surrogate to smooth over agency rivalries, investigate misconduct, and evaluate intelligence collection policies.

Experts say Trump could roil the intelligence community by asking his hand-picked panel to draft reports, for example, on alleged surveillance abuses against his 2016 campaign associates, a disputed charge made by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, who are poised to lose subpoena powers.

"The board can do whatever the hell the president wants it to do, and really it's about what the president tasks it with," said University of Notre Dame professor Michael Desch, co-author of the authoritative 2012 history of the board, Privileged and Confidential: The Secret History of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board.

BBC's Panorama propaganda actually destroys plausibility of the Skripal door-handle theory

Rob Slane
The Blogmire
Sun, 25 Nov 2018 16:03 UTC

Having now watched the rest of the BBC Panorama programme, Salisbury Nerve Agent Attack - the Inside Story, I have to say that I'm really very thankful. Thankful that after being subjected to an hour of what can only be described as relentless propaganda, half-baked truths, and fully-baked untruths, I have lived to tell the tale and emerged to come up for air.

One of the worst aspects of this programme was the fact that the BBC is surely well aware that large numbers of people have been sceptical about the Government and Metropolitan Police narrative from the start. Yet you wouldn't know from the show that there was ever any room for doubt, and the number of questions that the nation's public service broadcaster asked which might have represented the views of the many people who have had nagging doubts was less than one.

I want to make one big observation about the programme, which I believe pretty much destroys The Met's narrative, but before I do here are 10 other points.

Comment: See also:

Pakistan cracking down on hard-liners after cleric who protested Asia Bibi detained

RFE/RL
Sat, 24 Nov 2018 15:58 UTC

© Arif Ali / AP
TLP head Khadim Hussain Rizvi speaks to supporters during a protest following the Supreme Court's decision to acquit Asia Bibi of blasphemy, in Lahore on November 2.

Pakistani authorities have launched a crackdown against supporters of a detained radical Islamic cleric whose party had held violent rallies against the acquittal of a Christian woman in a blasphemy case.

Police said on November 24 that they detained more than 300 supporters of Tehrik-e Labaik Pakistan (TLP) in Punjab Province in an effort to "maintain public order" following the detention of the party's leader, Khadim Hussain Rizvi.

Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry said the action was prompted by TLP's refusals to withdraw its call for protests.

"Police has been deployed in all major cities of [Punjab Province] to deal with any untoward incident. There is a complete ban on all type of political gatherings in the province," Punjab Information Minister Fayyaz ul-Hassan Chohan said.

Rizvi led three days of violent rallies across Pakistan earlier this month after the Supreme Court on October 31 acquitted Asia Bibi, who had spent eight years on death row on a blasphemy conviction.

The protests mostly ended after the authorities said Bibi would not leave the country until a petition against her acquittal was reviewed.

Comment: See also:

Conservative 'conspiracy writer' Jerome Corsi negotiating plea deal with Mueller

RT
Fri, 23 Nov 2018 15:23 UTC

Prolific conspiracy theory author Jerome Corsi is negotiating a plea deal with special counsel Robert Mueller, prompting excited speculation by the anti-Trump #Resistance and concerns over pressuring journalists.

Mueller's investigators have reportedly spent months investigating whether Corsi had advance knowledge that WikiLeaks would be publishing emails from the private account of Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta, and shared that knowledge with Roger Stone, described as an "associate" of then-candidate Donald Trump.

Without offering any evidence, US intelligence agencies have claimed that Russian intelligence agents hacked Podesta's emails and used WikiLeaks as a "cutout" to publish them in October 2016. Mueller is investigating allegations by Clinton's camp that Trump "colluded" with Russia to steal the presidential election.

Corsi is reportedly in negotiations to strike a plea deal with Mueller over perjury charges. This has been met with excitement among the president's critics, convinced that this time, Trump will be hounded out of office somehow.

Comment: WaPo adds the following:

In a webcast and interviews, Corsi said he had spoken to prosecutors for 40 hours and feared that he could spend much of the remainder of his life in prison.

After two months of interviews, Corsi, 72, said he felt his brain was "mush."

"Trying to explain yourself to these people is impossible. . . . I guess I couldn't tell the special prosecutor what he wanted to hear," he added.
...
"They said they wanted me to tell the truth, but when I did tell the truth they told me it was preposterous, and they wouldn't accept it," Corsi said.

Maybe Mueller can get the CIA's Alfreda Bikowsky and Gina Haspel to try a little bit of 'enhanced interrogation' on the 'high-value target'. They're experts at getting people to tell them what the CIA wants the to tell them, after all.

For his part, Stone denies Corsi told him about the WikiLeaks release in advance:

Stone said Friday that Corsi never relayed such information.

"Jerry Corsi never told me that John Podesta's emails had been stolen and would be published," he said on WBEN.

On Aug. 21, 2016, Stone tweeted that "it will soon the Podesta's time in the barrel." He has insisted his tweet had nothing to do with any plan by WikiLeaks and that it was based on research Corsi had provided to him about work Podesta and his lobbyist brother Tony had done involving Russia.

"He simply told me of their Russian business deals in banking gas and uranium," Stone said in a text message this week to The Post. "There was NO WikiLeaks context."

Corsi told the Daily Caller that he based his prediction on public sources of information, including the fact that Podesta was not among the Democrats whose emails had been published by WikiLeaks when the group released Democratic National Committee correspondence in July.

He said he concluded that WikiLeaks must be holding back Podesta's correspondence to make a bigger splash later in the campaign.

Ecuador bars Assange's lawyers from visiting client ahead of US court hearing

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Sat, 24 Nov 2018 15:17 UTC

After being cooped up for six years inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, the Department of Justice is finally closing in on Julian Assange, and the government of Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno is doing everything in its power to evict its most infamous tenant. To wit, lawyers for Assange have been refused entry to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, WikiLeaks announced in a tweet, which has only helped to spur fears that Assange will soon be evicted. And what's worse, he's being denied access to legal counsel at a time of desperate need.

WikiLeaks said the Ecuadorian government refused to allow Assange's lawyers, Aitor Martinez and Jen Robinson, to meet with their client this week, which is a huge problem for the whistleblower, because Assange is facing a US court hearing Tuesday, and needs to meet with his legal team to prepare.

Comment: See also:

Incoming Mexican president denies that any deal was reached with Trump on migrant issue

Julia Ainsley and Annie Rose Ramos
NBC News
Sat, 24 Nov 2018 14:26 UTC

American and Mexican officials appeared at odds Saturday over the possibility of a deal that could prevent asylum seekers from reaching the United States.

Two Trump administration officials told NBC News that the deal with Mexico's recently elected government would force asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while U.S. courts process their claims. The officials added that operational and legal details are being worked out, and the deal is still at least few weeks away from going into effect.

But on Saturday afternoon, Jesus Ramirez Cuevas, a spokesman for recently elected Mexican President Andrés Manuel López, denied to NBC News any such agreement and insisted talks of such a deal were premature.

First reported by the Washington Post, the plan is called "Remain in Mexico" and incoming Mexican officials considered it a "short-term solution."

The plan to keep asylum seekers within Mexican borders would be a change from the current system that allows asylum seekers to remain in the U.S. while their cases are being processed in American courts. Its aim is to deter migrants from coming to the United States.

PM May writes 'letter to the nation' begging for support on reviled Brexit deal

RT
Sun, 25 Nov 2018 02:52 UTC

The night before the EU vote, Theresa May has issued a last-ditch plea with the public to support her Brexit deal that has cost her a big chunk of the cabinet due to concessions that many have called 'betrayal'.

With the EU vote looming on the near horizon, Theresa May has released a statement desperately calling for the public to support her compromised Brexit deal. The dramatic letter attempts to ensure that the deal will honor the concerns of those who voted for Brexit, such as allowing the UK to control migration, make its own legislation and end "vast annual payments" to the EU. With limited support in government, May is hoping a direct appeal to the people will help put on the pressure in her favor, but her efforts seem to have backfired.

Comment: It's likely that Ms May will receive a Damehood for her role as chief patsy in the Brexit pantomime:

Also check out SOTT radio's: NewsReal: California Wildfires, Climate Change, And The Impossible Brexit

3 Ukrainian navy ships violate UN convention crossing Russian border near Crimea, ignore orders to leave

RT
Sun, 25 Nov 2018 09:56 UTC

© Courtesy of FSB
Three Ukrainian navy vessels, and a Russian patrol ship off the coast of Crimea on the morning of November 25, 2018.

Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) says three Ukrainian navy vessels, violated its border on Sunday morning, and are heading for Kerch Strait that lies between Crimea and mainland Russia.

"This morning at around 7 a.m. Moscow time, three vessels belonging to Ukrainian armed forces violated the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea... to cross the Russian border," read a statement from Russia's federal security agency FSB, which is responsible for maintaining the country's borders.

It said that the ships are sailing towards the Crimea Bridge, but have made no application to pass under it.

The vessels are undertaking dangerous maneuvers, and are not obeying lawful instructions from the Russian authorities.

Adding that they are taking "all necessary security measures" FSB also made public a series of photos of the Ukrainian vessels being escorted by larger Russian patrol ships.

Comment: With the UK and US providing arms, training and unwavering support to the neo-Nazi led nutjobs in Ukraine, is it any surprise Ukraine is becoming even more belligerent? After all, the US does the same to China, Syria and Russia at any chance it gets:

UK MPs seize documents that could expose Facebook's covert data harvesting

RT
Sun, 25 Nov 2018 09:43 UTC

The UK Parliament has taken hold of documents from Facebook that may shed light on the online giant's carefree approach to user privacy amid claims that it was fully aware of user data loopholes exploited by Cambridge Analytica.

The documents were seized from the founder of US tech startup Six4Three, who was on a business trip to the UK, the Guardian reported, citing MP Damian Collins, chair of the Commons select committee for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). The DCMS is in charge of investigating a siphoning of Facebook user data by UK consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica. The news on the massive data breach broke in March with Facebook later admitting the data of up to 87 million people might have been shared with Cambridge Analytica without their explicit consent.

It is alleged that the data was harvested to target the users in political campaigns, including in former UKIP leader Nigel Farage's Leave.EU campaign.

The UK parliamentary investigators used the former Six4Three top executive's brief stay in London to force him to hand over documents his firm had obtained from a US court in Six4Three's own lawsuit against Facebook.

Comment: See also:

What's being done out in the open today is worse than any conspiracy theory

Caitlin Johnstone
Medium
Wed, 21 Nov 2018 08:02 UTC

Yesterday President Trump posted a statement on the White House website saying his administration will be standing with the House of Saud despite the CIA's assertion that Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman personally ordered the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist who was living and working in the United States.

The statement reads like a long form version of one of Trump's tweets, replete with gratuitous exclamation points and slogans like "America First!" and the lie that Iran is "the world's leading sponsor of terror", which will never be true no matter how many times this administration deliberately repeats it. The world's leading sponsor of terrorism is of course Saudi Arabia, along with Israel and the United States.

Trump's alleged opposition has responded with melodramatic outrage, as though a US president continuing to stand by Saudi Arabia in the face of horrific acts of violence is somehow new and unprecedented and not standard operating procedure for decades. Dismembering a journalist while he's still alive would be a fairly typical Tuesday afternoon for the Saudi government and would not rank anywhere near the top ten most evil things this government has done, but because it involves America and a conspiracy it's a sexy story that everyone laps up. Add in the fact that Trump is more blunt and forthcoming about American depravity and you've got yourself a yarn.

Comment: The mask has been taken off and the sheer lunacy and depravity of the PTB is now out in the open. It has been going on for so long, the Overton window continually shifting ever so gradually, that a mass form of 'normalcy bias' has made people simply shrug at even the most egregious things.

I have a different definition for the "global commons". It is in the definition of "the commons" definition in the link provided below. Here is a...

Buffalo_Ken

Biden the child-killer. Think of the children, vaxxers, think of the children.

hobnyeba

Thanks, all, for great comments and links. Lots to think about.

ReRan

I ran a search on "Archbishop Viganò" for the last week - just 22,500 results and obviously nothing MSM related Even this SOTT article makes it to...

HashAttack2

Great interview with Professor Petrovsky, a very brave soul ! He is clear and concise from a Vaccine researcher /producer point of view and calls...

Gator

Puppet Masters

Trump names hand-picked panel to supervise, investigate intelligence community

BBC's Panorama propaganda actually destroys plausibility of the Skripal door-handle theory

Pakistan cracking down on hard-liners after cleric who protested Asia Bibi detained

Conservative 'conspiracy writer' Jerome Corsi negotiating plea deal with Mueller

Ecuador bars Assange's lawyers from visiting client ahead of US court hearing

Incoming Mexican president denies that any deal was reached with Trump on migrant issue

PM May writes 'letter to the nation' begging for support on reviled Brexit deal

3 Ukrainian navy ships violate UN convention crossing Russian border near Crimea, ignore orders to leave

UK MPs seize documents that could expose Facebook's covert data harvesting

What's being done out in the open today is worse than any conspiracy theory

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