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Revelations in the bubble: Trump's presidency brings to light 7 undeniable facts about the swamp

Doug "Uncola" Lynn
The Burning Platform
Sun, 09 Feb 2020 00:00 UTC
SOTU TrumpPencePelosi
© Unknown
SOTU Address: President Donald Trump • VP Mike Pence • Speaker Nancy Pelosi
Barely into the New Year, 2020 vision has brought many revelations into better focus, making several ongoing observations perfectly clear. Although there are those who've been watching the dots of The Matrix assemble into the big picture for decades now, the election of Donald Trump has increasingly exposed what was hidden in plain sight for so long.

The awakening for many Americans could be compared to that of actor Jim Carrey's character in the 1998 film The Truman Show. In that narrative, the unsuspecting star of a global reality television program came to the realization his entire worldview was formed within a bubble; a literal bubble that generated bubblevision in Carrey's character as all of those around (and above) him performed right on cue.

Truly, it feels like that now in America. The times have become surreal.
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X

Not just Vindman, Trump scrubs 70 Obama holdovers from the NSC

Paul Bedard
Washington Examiner
Mon, 10 Feb 2020 08:14 UTC
TrumpVindman
© commigineews/Wiggin.com/Drew Angerer/Getty Images
US President Donald Trump • Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman
President Trump is making good on his promises to "drain the swamp" and cut Obama-era holdovers from his staffs, especially the critical and recently controversial National Security Council. Officials confirmed that Trump and national security adviser Robert O'Brien have cut 70 positions inherited from former President Barack Obama, who had fattened the staff to 200. Many were loaners from other agencies and have been sent back. Others left government work. The NSC, which is the president's personal staff, was rocked when a "whistleblower" leveled charges that led to Trump's impeachment.

Comment: The Gateway Pundit, 9/2/2020: Major cuts to NSC
On Friday President Trump fired the two Vindman twins from their National Security Council positions in the Trump White House. This comes after Alexander Vindman admitted to working behind President Trump's back in Ukraine. Army Lt. Col Alexander Vindman was escorted off the White House grounds and dismissed from the National Security Council Friday afternoon.

O'Brien is not finished yet. The National Security Advisor is expected to announce major cuts in the NSC staff this week. CNN reported:
O'Brien has largely been downsizing the NSC by attrition and getting staffers detailed to the council from other departments to return earlier than planned to their home agencies, but one of the sources told CNN it looks like the final phase will involve more direct firings and cuts.

"So it's bloated. We're going to bring it back to a size that's manageable and efficient. And look, the folks who are there, they really need to want to serve the President," O'Brien told Fox News' Laura Ingraham Tuesday night."What I said when I came to the NSC is that I would drastically downsize it," he added. "Another week or two, I think we'll have met our goal," he said.
It is widely known that the alleged anti-Trump whistleblower Eric Ciaramella is an NSC spy in the White House. If he is still in the White House he should be the first one removed.


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Attention

Mayor Buttigieg worked with the CIA in Afghanistan as an intelligence analyst for USEUCOM, ATFC Kabul HQ, NSA, DIA

Alex Rubinstein
The Gray Zone
Fri, 07 Feb 2020 00:00 UTC
Buttigieg
© Unknown
Mayor Pete Buttigieg in Afghanistan. Not necessarily a spook, but thinks like one?
While Buttigieg's campaign denies allegations he was a CIA asset, military records reveal Mayor Pete was in a unit that worked with the spy agency in Afghanistan.

After The Grayzone published an article about Pete Buttigieg's roster of endorsements from CIA veterans and coup plotters, and another about his mysterious trip to Somaliland alongside a friend who now works for a US government regime-change agency, Pete Buttigieg's presidential campaign issued a public statement denying that he ever worked for the CIA.

"We hate to break the news to Twitter, but no, Pete was not in the CIA," Buttigieg's national press secretary Chris Meagher derisively told The Daily Beast, which directly referenced both Grayzone reports. "As for the Somaliland trip, it was not related to his work anywhere."

The Daily Beast article appeared in response not only to factual reporting by The Grayzone, but to a wave of allegations spread online through hashtags like #CIAPete which accused Buttigieg of being a CIA asset.
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Question

Should Trump have fired these witnesses? Absolutely!

Steve Byas
The New American
Sat, 08 Feb 2020 00:00 UTC
Sondland/Vindman
© Drew Angerer/Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images
Fired: Gordon Sondland • Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman
President Donald Trump fired Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman and Gordon Sondland from their respective positions on the National Security Council and as ambassador to the European Union on Friday. Despite media howls to the contrary, it was an action he absolutely needed to take. The only problem is that he did not do so months ago.

During the impeachment hearings in the House of Representatives, Vindman and Sondland gave damaging testimony against Trump. Two days after being acquitted in the Senate of the impeachment charges leveled by the Democratic Party-controlled House, Trump ousted both individuals. He also ridded the White House of Vindman's brother, Lt. Colonel Yevgeny Vindman, who was a lawyer in the White House. Yevgeny Vindman has been reassigned to the Army.

Comment: See also:

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X

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer quitting as CDU leader; back to the drawing board for Merkel

Philip Oltermann
The Guardian
Mon, 10 Feb 2020 05:36 UTC
Annagret/Angela
© Matthias Rietschel/Reuters
Annagret Kramp-Karrenbauer • German Chancellor Angela Merkel
Angela Merkel's designated successor has announced she is not planning to run for the German chancellorship at the next federal election and plans to step down as leader of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), German media reported on Monday morning.

The surprise announcement comes in the middle of a major row over the centre-right party's "firewall" against the far-right, after CDU delegates in eastern Germany defied the party headquarter's ban on cooperating with the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, 57, won the contest to succeed Merkel as leader of the CDU in December 2018 and was seen as the candidate most likely to continue the current German chancellor's centrist course. But "AKK", as she has come to be known in German media, has struggled to build a profile in Merkel's shadow, even after doubling up as defence minister last July.

Questions over her control over an increasingly divided CDU returned to the fore last week, when politicians from the party's branch in Thuringia voted with the AfD to oust the state's premier Bodo Ramelow, from the leftwing Die Linke party.
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Question

On the brink of war with Iran: US claimed it had 'intelligence' to blame Iran (Iraqi PMUs) for attack on K1 base


21st Century Wire
Sun, 09 Feb 2020 00:00 UTC
Back on December 27, 2019, the Trump Administration claimed it had 'intelligence' that the attack on its "K1" joint base in Iraq which killed a US contractor - was carried out by supposed "Iranian militias" (in reality, these would have been Iraqi PMUs) on the orders of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani. At the time Iraqi authorities said it was likely an ISIS cell, but the US ignored them, instead claiming to have irrefutable intelligence that Iran was responsible, and proceeded to launch a US attack two days later hitting multiple Iraqi PMU facilities - triggering a chain of events that drew the region dangerously close to a full-scale war between the US and Iran. Once again, history repeats itself.

UKC News co-hosts Mike Robinson and Patrick Henningsen discuss the implications of this latest development. Watch:


Comment: Someone lied. Who wants the US to engage a war with Iran? Who's intel ranks highest priority with the US? (It isn't Iraq's!) Who most wanted Soleimani out of the picture?

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Pocket Knife

Man carrying a knife detained outside White House, planned to 'assassinate' Trump


RT
Sun, 09 Feb 2020 19:47 UTC
White House
© Reuters/Leah Mills
A man carrying a knife has been detained outside the White House in Washington, DC. He told the US Secret Service that he'd brought the weapon to "assassinate" Donald Trump.

The suspect himself approached a security officer who was patrolling outside the presidential residence Saturday afternoon, and told him of his plan. "I have a knife to do it with," he said, according to a police report seen by AP.

Police identified the man as 25-year-old Roger Hedgpeth, who was arrested on charges of making threats to cause bodily harm. The man had a 3.5-inch (around 9-cm) knife on him as well as an empty pistol holster.

After the arrest, Hedgpeth was taken to a hospital for a mental health evaluation. It turned out that he was a "critically missing/endangered person as well as a mental health consumer" from Brandon, Florida. It's currently unclear how long he was missing and how was he able to cover the 1,500 km separating Brandon and Washington, DC.
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Sanders: Trump, unclear on the difference between communism/socialism, benefited from the latter


RT
Sun, 09 Feb 2020 23:20 UTC
Sanders
© Reuters/Brendan McDermid
Democratic US presidential candidate, Senator Bernie Sanders
One of Democratic presidential nomination frontrunners, Sen. Bernie Sanders, laughed at Donald Trump calling him a 'communist' and explained how the US President, who doesn't seem to know the difference, profited from 'socialism.'

Chris Wallace, the host of Fox News Sunday, asked the Vermont Senator, who identifies as a social democrat, an ubiquitous question about him being slammed by his opponents as a communist. The program played a clip of Trump saying that he thinks "he is a communist."
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Footprints

Rethinking participation in Yemen, Sudan withdraws its troops


Sputnik
Sun, 09 Feb 2020 22:00 UTC
SudanTroops
© AP/Wael Qubady
Sudanese troops in Aden, Yemen
Sudan is reconsidering its participation in the armed conflict in Yemen and gradually reducing its forces there, Information Minister Faisal Mohamed Salih has said.

"Currently, there is a revision of the whole war in Yemen, even among the coalition's principal countries, and there is an opinion that military activities will not solve the problem, and will likely to compound it", Salih said on Sunday at the ongoing summit of the African Union in Addis Ababa.

According to the Minister, it was not easy for Khartoum to suddenly decide to withdraw its troops, so it is gradually reducing the number of its forces per an agreement with the coalition. "We think that the current efforts will soon lead to a decrease in combat activities, which will be replaced by negotiations", he said.

In December, Sudan's Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok announced that his country had cut the number of its troops participating in the conflict from 15,000 to 5,000.
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NPC

Yesterday's gone: Iowa was the Democrats' Waterloo

Matt Taibbi
Rolling Stone
Sat, 08 Feb 2020 17:15 UTC
voter democrat caucus iowa
© Charlie Neibergall/AP/Shutterstock
A local resident holds a Presidential Preference Card during an Iowa Democratic caucus at Hoover High School in Des Moines, Iowa.
In a fiasco for the ages, the blue party face-plants in Iowa

Monday, February 3rd, just before 9 p.m., the airport Holiday Inn, Des Moines, Iowa. A crowd of supporters and volunteers for Sen. Bernie Sanders is buzzing. After four years of being shat upon by party officials and media allies alike (CNN and MSNBC are seen in Sanders crowds as Goebbels-ian arms of the Democratic National Committee), Vermont's anti-corporate crusader has defied odds and soared in polls. All that remains is the schadenfreude orgasm of a victory speech.

A young animal-rights lawyer named Colin Grace is explaining how he got turned on to Bernie. "Honestly, it started by looking into some of the causes of 2008," he laughs. "Well, then I found weed and became a libertarian."

A nearby supporter with long hair under a standard issue Spin Doctors wool weed-smoking hat perks up. "Dude, should we all smoke right now?" smiles a fortysomething named David, patting his chest pockets. "I've got the most enormous J."

Comment: Caitlin Johnson dissects the reality behind the Democrat Party's apparent bumbling in Iowa, and why getting Bernie was a priority:

The Myth of Incompetence: DNC Scandals Are a Feature, Not a Bug
[...]The flaw in this expectation is its premise that Democratic Party elites care if their party wins in November. They do not.

Put yourself in the shoes of one of the leading movers and shakers within the Democratic Party for a minute. Pretend you're getting a nice paycheck, pretend you're getting great healthcare benefits, pretend you get plenty of prestige and exclusive access and invitations to classy parties. And pretend you're the type of person who's willing to manipulate and deceive and kiss up and kick down and do whatever it takes to get to the top of such a structure.

Now ask yourself, if you were such a person in such a situation, would you care if voters pick Donald Trump or Pete Buttigeig in November? Would it affect your cushy lifestyle in any way whatsoever? Would you lose your job, your prestige or your influence? No party elites lost those things in 2016. Why would you expect this time to be any different?

But you might be at risk of losing your cushy lifestyle if a forcefully anti-elitist progressive movement gets off the ground and takes control of your party. So you'd stand everything to gain by doing everything you can to prevent that from happening, and, because you don't care if Trump gets re-elected, you'd stand absolutely nothing to lose.


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