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Straight-Talking Tulsi's Rising Star Could Mean Setting Sun for the Democratic Party Establishment

Tulsi Gabbard
© Getty Images / Tom Williams
Tulsi Gabbard's blistering criticism of President Trump over his pardon to Saudi Arabia has further elevated her prospect of becoming the standard bearer in the 2020 presidential election, shaking up the Dem Party establishment.

The 37-year-old Hawaiian representative this week blasted Trump for being "Saudi Arabia's b*tch" after he controversially backed the Saudi regime over the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Trump said the US-Saudi relationship was too important to consider a rupture with the oil kingdom's rulers.

Trump's prioritizing of commercial and strategic interests over the brutal killing of a US-resident journalist in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2 was met with widespread disdain among American politicians and media this week. But Gabbard's put down was probably the most scathing and memorable.

Eye 2

All of the Empire's accusations against Russia are lies

(L) Sergei Magnitsky ; (R) William 'Bill' Browder
© HO / HERMITAGE CAPITAL MANAGEMENT / AFP; GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / AFP / Drew Angerer
(L) Sergei Magnitsky ; (D) William 'Bill' Browder
The first accusation, which is the source of the Magnitsky Act sanctions against Russia, was in 2012 under U.S. President Barack Obama, and it alleged that Sergei Magnitsky had been a whistleblower in Russia who was a lawyer who uncovered corruption in Russia's Government and was imprisoned for that and beaten to death there for that. Magnitsky was, in fact, no whistleblower, and no lawyer, but the accountant of American billionaire Bill Browder, who had been charged by the Russian Government (and who then fled Russia) as having tax-defrauded the Russian Government of $230 million. And, Magnitsky's death in prison was due to inadequate medical care of his pancreatitis by the medical personnel there, not (as Browder alleged) to any "beating."

Bullseye

Europe is the loser in Washington's geopolitical games against Russia - Lavrov

NATO exercise
© Reuters / Cezary Aszkielowicz
US and Polish soldiers take part in NATO exercise Anakonda 2018 in Poland.
The blindness of the EU bureaucrats allows the US to instigate dangerous military activity near Russian borders, jeopardizing the security of the whole European continent, Sergey Lavrov, Russia's Foreign Minister, said.

The Ukrainian crisis, which was used as a justification for sanctions against Moscow, is "a result of geopolitical games, played by the US and their allies in several countries, as well as the blindness of the bureaucrats in Brussels," Lavrov, who was visiting Portugal on Saturday, said in an interview with local Publico paper.

The EU leadership "not only sacrificed it's principles and values by turning a blind eye to the armed coup in Kiev, in which a democratically elected president was deposed, but followed Washington's lead and joined the anti-Russian sanctions," he added.

Comment: Countries like Britain are at the forefront of anti-Russian propaganda and seem to be suicidal in their aggression towards Russia, meanwhile other European nations, like Italy and Austria can see through the hysterics and are hoping to form constructive partnerships; will Europe sacrifice itself to the folly of an ailing empire which is incapable of accepting reality?

Also check out SOTT radio's:


Eye 2

20 civilians killed including 9 children in latest US-led airstrike on Syria - Second in two days

jet sky
© AP Photo / Vadim Ghirda
Damascus has repeatedly accused Washington and its allies of carrying out indiscriminate attacks in civilian-populated areas in northeastern Syria often involving the use of banned white phosphrorus and cluster bombs.

US-coalition airstrikes against targets in the terrorist-held city of Hajin, Syria on Saturday have left 20 civilians including nine children dead, Syrian state television has reported.

According to the Ikhbariya television channel, the civilians were killed during an airstrike on a market area in Hajin. Among them were eight women who were related to one another.

Comment: Below is just a selection of some of the recent strikes, most of which seem to be targeting civilians, with women and children featuring prominently amongst the victims:


Beer

Russia will check if Americans really went to the Moon - Roscosmos chief

US moon
© Reuters / NASA
US astronaut Buzz Aldrin salutes the American flag on the surface of the Moon after he and fellow astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first men to land on the Moon.
Have the Americans been on the Moon or it's just a hoax as conspiracy theorists claim? All questions will be answered when the Russian cosmonauts visit the Earth's satellite, Russia's space boss, promised.

"We've set such a task - to go there and check if they were there or not," Dmitry Rogozin joked in response to the popular question about the moon exploration. "The Americans say - they've been there. We'll verify that."

Switching to a more serious tone, he said that no country is currently capable of fulfilling a successful lunar program on its own. Russia expecting to cooperate with the US in exploring the Earth's satellite, Rogozin said as he visited a Russian spacecraft engine manufacturer in Moscow.

Russian cosmonauts will set foot on the Moon for the first time in the early 2030s as part of a 14-day mission, a recently revealed roadmap of the Russian lunar program said.

Comment: See also:


Russian Flag

Russia's strategic game in Libya

Putin/Gaddafi
© Getty Images
Russian President Vladimir Putin • Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi
The strategy of Vladimir Putin, in the difficult Libyan chessboard, has always been particularly silent. The Kremlin, after the fall of Muhammar Gaddafi, moved with caution, aware that the end of the colonel had a disastrous effect on the construction of the Russian strategy in the Mediterranean after the fall of the Soviet Union. But the West, which has made a hell out of that Libya, has not supplanted the other superpowers. After Gaddafi, another leader did not arrive, but the war exploded: civil and not. And in this quagmire, Russia has managed to transform itself into an increasingly dynamic and increasingly necessary actor. Italy knows it very well, since Giuseppe Conte [the now in Office Italian Prime Minister] went to Moscow to drag Russia to his side.

Russia's politics in Libya

Unlike what happened in Syria, Moscow did not immediately (and definitively) choose an ally. Here there was not a Bashar al Assad to defend against the advance of the Islamic State. And there were no gangs of jihadists ready to defeat an allied government or opposing powers eager to overthrow the system of alliances. There was chaos. And in the chaos, Putin preferred to play in a different way, focusing not on one player, but trying to dialogue with everyone. The Kremlin has never hidden the sympathies for Khalifa Haftar, the strong man from Cyrenaica. Evidence of this is also the latest recent trip by the Libyan Marshal to Moscow, where he met Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. The two discussed, you read on the official page of the Libyan National Army, "the strategies to resolve the Libyan crisis and the fight against terrorism".
Khalifa Haftar
© Ipsi
Khalifa Haftar

Question

Merkel's potential successors: How they stand on foreign policy

Merz/Spahn/AKK
© Imago
Friedrich Merz • Jens Spahn • Annegret-Kramp Karrenbauer
On December 8, the Christian Democrats will choose a new leader, who may succeed Angela Merkel as chancellor. A foreign-policy expert analyzes how the candidates would change Germany's geopolitical direction.

Three top candidates have emerged to succeed Angela Merkel as leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) on December 8, and thus plausibly as chancellor in 2021 or even earlier. The rest of Europe and even the world has a stake in this contest. How would each of the potential heirs change Germany's geopolitical direction?

These are the candidates: Annegret-Kramp Karrenbauer, 56, is the party's secretary general. Friedrich Merz, 63, was sidelined by Merkel in the early 2000s but has since been successful in business. And Jens Spahn, 38, is currently Merkel's health minister. A fourth potential candidate decided not to run this time, but could enter the race for chancellor later: Armin Laschet, 57, the premier of North Rhine-Westphalia.

None of the four would represent a fundamental break with German tradition. All four will honor the two main pillars of Christian-Democratic and German foreign policy: a dual commitment to the trans-Atlantic relationship and to the European Union.

Briefcase

FETÖ leader Gülen and 27 suspects indicted for the 2016 assassination of Russian envoy Andrey Karlov

Karlov
© File Photo
Russian Envoy Andrey Karlov, victim of assassination
Turkish prosecutors have completed the investigation into the 2016 assassination of Russian Ambassador to Ankara Andrey Karlov, judicial sources said Friday.

Twenty-eight suspects, including Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ)'s leader Fetullah Gülen, were indicted, said the sources, speaking on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on speaking to the media.

Prominent FETÖ members Şerif Ali Tekalan, Emrullah Uslu and Şahin Söğüt were also included in the indictment. Gülen and Tekalan live in the United States, while some among the suspects were already arrested. The indictment has been submitted to an Ankara court.

The suspects are accused of violating the constitutional order, being a member of an armed terror group, and deliberate killing with the objective of spreading terror. The indictment also concluded that the assassination was an act of provocation targeting Turkey-Russia relations.

Karlov was killed on Dec. 19, 2016 by Mevlüt Mert Altıntaş, an off-duty police officer with links to FETÖ, in an art gallery in the capital Ankara. Altıntaş was killed in a shootout with police in the gallery after the assassination.

Comment: Gülen as the mastermind behind the 2016 coup has not been verified, at least publicly. Indicting Gülen for the assassination of Karlov may be a gamble to actuate his extradition back to Turkey, a demand US presidents have not been willing to fulfill.


Display

FBI to officially launch the National Use-of-Force Data Collection in January, 2019

FBI database
© The Daily Beast
National Use of Force Data Collection
The FBI is pleased to announce the official launch of the National Use-of-Force Data Collection will take place on January 1, 2019. The National Use-of-Force Data Collection, the first of its kind, is an addition to the national data collections in the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program.

Law enforcement officers across the country face complex and dangerous policing environments that may result in the use of force. To date, there has been no mechanism for collecting nationwide statistics related to use-of-force incidents. While some law enforcement agencies and states have proactively developed their own use-of-force data collections for use at both the local and state level, there has yet to be a consistent, aggregated view of such data from a national perspective.


Comment: This mechanism should be mandatory, versus voluntary, for all law enforcement agencies.
More details from FBI:UCR
Three types of use-of-force events and information related to each event will be collected starting in 2017. These events include:
  • When a fatality to a person occurs connected to use of force by a law enforcement officer;
  • When there is serious bodily injury to a person connected to use of force by a law enforcement officer;
  • In the absence of either death or serious bodily injury, when a firearm is discharged by law enforcement at or in the direction of a person.
The definition of serious bodily injury will be based, in part, upon Title 18, United States Code, Section 2246 (4). The term "serious bodily injury" means "bodily injury that involves a substantial risk of death, unconsciousness, protracted and obvious disfigurement, or protracted loss or impairment of the function of a bodily member, organ, or mental faculty."

The National Use-of-Force Data Collection will include the following data elements:

Incident information
  • Date and time of the incident
  • Total number of officers who applied actual force during the incident
  • Number of officers from the reporting agency who applied actual force during the incident
  • Location of the incident (address or latitude/longitude)
  • Location type of the incident (street, business, residence, restaurant, school, etc.)
  • Did the officer(s) approach the subject(s)?
  • Was it an ambush incident?
  • Was a supervisor or a senior officer acting in a supervisory capacity present or consulted at any point during the incident?
  • What was the reason for initial contact between the subject and the officer (response to unlawful or suspicious activity, routine patrol, traffic stop, etc.)?
  • If the initial contact was due to "unlawful or criminal activity," what were the most serious reported offenses committed by the subject prior to or at the time of the incident?
  • If applicable, the reporting agency will enter the National Incident-Based Reporting System or local incident number of the report detailing criminal incident information on the subject and/or assault or homicide of a law enforcement officer
  • If the incident involved multiple law enforcement agencies, the agency will include case numbers for the local use-of-force reports at the other agencies
Subject information
  • Age, sex, race, ethnicity, height, and weight
  • Injury/death of subject(s) (gunshot wound, apparent broken bones, unconsciousness, etc.)
  • Type(s) of force used connected to serious bodily injury or death (firearm, electronic control weapon, explosive device, blunt instrument, etc.)
  • Did the subject(s) resist?
  • Was the threat by the subject(s) directed to the officer or to another party?
  • Type(s) of subject resistance/weapon involvement (threatened officer, threatened others, threatened self, active aggression, firearm, attempt to flee, etc.)
  • Was there an apparent or known impairment in the physical condition of subject? If yes, indicate which (mental health/alcohol/drugs/unknown)
  • At any time during the incident, was the subject(s) armed or believed to be armed with a weapon
Officer information
  • Age, sex, race, ethnicity, height, and weight
  • Years of service as a law enforcement officer (total tenure, number of years)
  • At the time of the incident, was the officer a full-time employee?
  • Was the officer readily identifiable?
  • Was the officer on duty at the time of the incident?
  • Did the officer discharge a firearm?
  • Was the officer injured?
  • What was the officer's injury type (gunshot wound, apparent broken bones, severe laceration, unconsciousness, etc.)



Star of David

Russia is ready to facilitate a fair solution between Palestine and Israel

Lavrov
© AP
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
Russia's proposal to hold a meeting of the leaders of Palestine and Israel in Moscow without preconditions remains in force. The statement is from Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov:
"Russia will continue to contribute to efforts, including those in Egypt, to achieve Palestinian reconciliation between Ramallah and Gaza, of course, we support the need to resume direct dialogue between Palestine and Israel and the proposal we made several years ago to meeting of the leaders of Israel and Palestine in Russia without preconditions remains in place. It is impossible to guarantee sustainable stability in the Mediterranean region, including in Libya, Syria, Iraq and other countries that influence the situation in the Mediterranean, without a fair solution to the old Palestinian regional problem."
The Russian minister also emphasized that the solution to the Palestinian-Israeli problem must be based "on UN resolutions and the Arab Peace Initiative."

According to Lavrov, attempts to review the international legal framework for settlement and replace it with certain "rules" that are not universally recognized will only aggravate an already difficult situation.

The Arab Peace Initiative establishes, among other conditions for achieving peace in the Middle East, the complete withdrawal of the Israelis from all occupied territories since 1967 and the recognition by Israel of the sovereignty of the Palestinian state with the capital in East Jerusalem.

Comment: See also: