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'Sleepy Joe' Biden finally declares for 2020 presidential race

Mark Moore
New York Post
Thu, 25 Apr 2019 17:54 UTC
trump biden
© Getty
President Donald Trump and Joe Biden
​President Trump marked Joe Biden's entry in the 2020 presidential race by referring to him as "Sleepy Joe" and insulting the former vice president's smarts.

"Welcome to the race Sleepy Joe. I only hope you have the intelligence, long in doubt, to wage a successful primary campaign," Trump wrote on Twitter.

"It will be nasty - you will be dealing with people who truly have some very sick & demented ideas. But if you make it, I will see you at the Starting Gate!" ​he said about the ​20-strong ​field of ​Democratic presidential candidates.

Comment: RT adds:
Although long considered a frontrunner, Biden only formally declared his presidential bid earlier on Thursday. In a video address, Biden made Trump the focus of his campaign, linking the president with white supremacist protesters, and referring to 'Antifa' activists as "a courageous group of Americans."

"If we give Donald Trump eight years in the White House, he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation, who we are, and I cannot stand by and watch that happen," Biden said, describing the election as a "battle for the soul of this nation."


Biden's video, however, outlines no policies of his own. Instead it exclusively highlights his opposition to Trump. However, the former vice president is an establishment Democrat in the mold of Hillary Clinton, rather than a more left-leaning activist like Sen. Bernie Sanders or Sen. Cory Booker - proponents of the "sick and demented ideas" Trump teased about.

Sanders and Booker are just two of the 19 Democratic hopefuls Biden will square off against. Other challengers include senators Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris, as well as Beto O'Rourke and Indiana's Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

Biden enjoys a lead over all of these candidates, and, according to one Politico poll, over Trump himself, by a margin of eight points.

Much can change between now and November 2020, but Biden appears to have survived his first major scandal unscathed, barely dropping in popularity last month after multiple women came forward and accused him of inappropriate groping and, bizarrely, sniffing.
joe_biden
© The Free Thought Project
Biden has long been mocked by the right for his handsy, 'creepy uncle' behavior, and Trump himself joined in earlier this month, tweeting a fan-made meme video featuring Biden groping and sniffing himself.


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War Whore

Imperialism revealed: The U.S. military's 36 code-named operations in Africa

Nick Turse and Sean D. Naylor
Yahoo
Wed, 17 Apr 2019 17:44 UTC
us soldier
Many Americans first became aware of U.S. military operations in Africa in October 2017, after the Islamic State ambushed American troops near Tongo Tongo, Niger, killing four U.S. soldiers and wounding two others.

Just after the attack, U.S. Africa Command said U.S. troops were providing "advice and assistance" to local counterparts. Later, it would become clear that those troops - the 11-man Operational Detachment-Alpha Team 3212 - were working out of the town of Oullam with a larger Nigerian force under the umbrella of Operation Juniper Shield, a wide-ranging counterterrorism effort in northwest Africa.

Until poor weather prevented it, that team was supposed to lend support to another group of American commandos who were trying to kill or capture Islamic State leader Doundoun Cheffou as part of Obsidian Nomad II.

Juniper Shield and Obsidian Nomad II were not isolated efforts but part of a panoply of named military operations and activities U.S. forces have been conducting from dozens of bases across the northern tier of Africa. Many of these operations are taking place in countries that the U.S. government does not recognize as combat zones, but in which U.S. troops are nonetheless fighting and, in several cases, taking casualties.
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Oil Well

Did Berlin's ambassador in Washington write a lobby letter for Putin?

Julian Röpcke
BILD
Thu, 25 Apr 2019 17:09 UTC
The German ambassador United States of America Emily Haber
© Bundesregierung
The German ambassador to the United States of America, Emily Haber
Is the German embassy in Washington, D.C. lobbying for Russia's energy and foreign policy?

In March of this year, Emily Haber, the German ambassador to the US, wrote controversial letters to several Members of Congress. Over two pages, the German top diplomat opposes the tightening of the American sanctions policy against Russia. She asks the Senators addressed in the letter to stop threatening two Russian ventures in Germany with further sanctions.

The letter, in which Haber seems to speak for the German government, says: "We are concerned that Congress is currently considering imposing additional energy sanctions on Russia." These sanctions could "affect Europe's energy security". Germany's and Europe's prosperity require "both LNG (liquid gas, ed.) and Russian pipeline gas", she writes.

Haber emphasizes that Germany wants to have a say before new sanctions are imposed on Russia: "Our countries should liaise closely when it comes to designing energy sanctions that may be imposed on Russia".

Comment:

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Bad Guys

Amnesty International says US-led coalition killed over 1600 civilians in Raqqa, calls for US govt to end denial


Sputnik
Thu, 25 Apr 2019 16:20 UTC
raqqa
© AFP
Syrians walk along a destroyed street in Raqqa, February 18, 2018.
An 18-month-long long investigation has revealed that the US-led coalition killed more than 1,600 civilians during its campaign to capture the Syrian city of Raqqa, rights watchdog Amnesty International said in a press release on Thursday.

The investigation, conducted by Amnesty and Airwars, "gives a brutally vivid account of more than 1,600 civilian lives lost as a direct result of thousands of US, UK and French air strikes and tens of thousands of US artillery strikes in the Coalition's military campaign in Raqqa from June to October 2017," the release said.

The rights group called on the US-led coalition to end its two years of denial and acknowledge the devastation caused by its campaign against the Daesh terrorist group in Syria.

"Coalition forces razed Raqqa, but they cannot erase the truth. Amnesty International and Airwars call upon the Coalition forces to end their denial about the shocking scale of civilian deaths and destruction caused by their offensive in Raqqa," said Chris Woods, the director of Airwars.

The two groups said their investigation documented incidents that amount to violations of international humanitarian law.
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Bad Guys

Business as usual: Wall Street investors slink back to Saudi Investment summit despite recent spate of beheadings


RT
Thu, 25 Apr 2019 11:56 UTC
Janadriyah Cultural Festival Riyadh
© Reuters / Faisal Al Nasser
Saudi men perform a traditional dance during Janadriyah Cultural Festival on the outskirts of Riyadh
Global finance leaders, who boycotted the Saudi investment summit last year over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, have returned to Riyadh despite the beheadings of dozens of people this week.

Big investors, particularly from Wall Street, joined panels at the two-day financial forum which began on Wednesday in Riyadh.

Larry Fink, CEO of US investment corporation BlackRock, told the conference that his company had bought some of Saudi state-owned oil giant Aramco's bonds and was looking for other "opportunities" in the kingdom.

"This is an economy that we have a lot of confidence in, I think the future is bright," he said, adding: "We are excited about the role that we can continue to play here."

Fink added: "The changes here in the kingdom in the last two years are pretty amazing."

He was joined by HSBC CEO John Flint, co-president of JPMorgan Chase Daniel Pinto, and others. Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon reportedly visited Riyadh earlier this month, just days before the bank helped arrange a multibillion dollar bond sale for Aramco.

Comment: Some investors are sticking to their principals: Hedge fund returns $300million investment from Saudi Arabia following murder of Jamal Khashoggi

See also:

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Take 2

'Lured into war'? Iranian FM warns Trump could be duped into crisis by hawkish 'B-team'


RT
Thu, 25 Apr 2019 17:12 UTC
bolton pompeo trump zarif
© Reuters / Leah Mills / Carlo Allegri
US President Donald Trump may not want war, Iran's foreign minister, Javad Zarif, has said, but that won't stop the hawks in his administration and Israel from "luring" him into one, possibly with a false flag attack.

"Those who have designed the policies that are being pursued do not simply want a negotiated solution," Zarif told Reuters in an interview, suggesting that the president's virulently anti-Iran neocon "B-team" - Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Advisor John Bolton, and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu - might try "to plot an accident" to create an opening to attack Iran.
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Bullseye

Former AG Michael Mukasey slams CNN: 'You're misleading a lot of people' with Russia collusion theories

Trent Baker
Breitbart
Wed, 24 Apr 2019 17:07 UTC
mukasey and cuomo
In a Tuesday one-on-one interview on CNN's "Cuomo Prime Time," former Attorney General Michael Mukasey and host Chris Cuomo debated FBI special counsel Robert Mueller's findings from his almost two-year investigation into alleged Russian collusion in the 2016 presidential election.

The former attorney general under President George W. Bush called out Cuomo and CNN for "misleading a lot of people" with their collusion theories without full knowledge of the report.

Mukasey asserted that President Donald Trump was "being investigated for a crime that didn't happen and that he certainly didn't commit."
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Bad Guys

US can't compete with new Russian weapons, will rely on nukes if it 'has to'


RT
Thu, 25 Apr 2019 16:17 UTC
laser-guided bomb field test
© REUTERS/US Navy/Handout
A laser-guided bomb fired from a U.S. Marine Corps F-35B fighter jet strikes a fixed ground tank test target during a guided weapons release test at Edwards Air Force Base, California
Despite a defense budget bigger than the next 7 countries combined, the US says Russia is pulling ahead in a new arms race, and the Pentagon has no choice but to rely on its nuclear deterrent. But how sincere are they being?

"It takes two to race," David Trachtenberg, the US deputy undersecretary of defense, said this week, adding that America is "not interested in matching the Russians system for system." He also casually noted that "the Russians are developing an incredible amount of new nuclear weapons systems" and generally "are doing a number of things we are simply not doing."

Talking at the Brookings Institution in Washington, a leading think tank, Trachtenberg said that Russia has recently launched a "military modernization program" by "completely rescaling and replacing a lot of their nuclear systems both at the strategic level and the non-strategic level."
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Eye 2

The UAE's malign influence operations are buried in a footnote in the Mueller Report

Helena Cobban
Mondoweiss
Tue, 23 Apr 2019 16:21 UTC
Mohammed Bin Zayed
© Wikimedia
Mohammed Bin Zayed in front of a painting of his father.
Last week, the redacted text of the Mueller Report dropped-into a Capitol Hill that will spend much of the rest of the present Congressional session dealing with its fallout.

Robert Mueller's investigation was into allegations only of Russian interference in U.S. politics. But at one point his report highlights some highly questionable (Russia-related) contacts that people close to Trump's transition team had with representatives of another government that has intervened massively in U.S. policymaking in recent years: the United Arab Emirates.

The UAE is a small but very wealthy federation of seven tiny emirates (princedoms) strung out along the coast of the Gulf. Through the wily hawkishness of its powerful Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Zayed (MBZ), the UAE has played a major role in prolonging the war in Yemen, fomenting and supporting the conflicts in Syria and Libya, overthrowing (in 2013) the elected government in Egypt - and in persuading Pres. Trump to walk out of the key de-escalation/denuclearization deal the United States concluded with Iran in 2015.
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Chess

Key Republican House Judiciary Committee member: Obama DOJ has to fess up on FISA 'spying' after Mueller finds no collusion

Daniel Chaitin
Washington Examiner
Sun, 21 Apr 2019 16:44 UTC
Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX)

Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX)
A key Republican member of the House Judiciary Committee says the Obama Justice Department has some explaining to do.

Special counsel Robert Mueller's inability to find collusion between President Trump's campaign and Russia begs the question of why officials sought FISA warrants to wiretap one-time campaign adviser Carter Page, Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, said Sunday on Fox News.

He said Attorney General William Barr, who recently testified "spying did occur" on Trump's campaign, needs to seek answers.

"I'm glad that he has focused on getting the Mueller report out in a redacted form that people can see, but now his focus needs to be answering his own question, as he said, there was spying, the Obama Justice Department and intelligence community did spy on the Trump campaign," Ratcliffe said on "Sunday Morning Futures."
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