Puppet Masters

Pentagon warning: 'Grave consequences' should Turkey buy Russian missile system

Aaron Mehta
Defense News
Fri, 08 Mar 2019 00:00 UTC

Turkey faces "grave consequences" if it continues plans to buy the Russian S-400 air defense system, including being blocked from buying the F-35 fighter jet and Patriot air defense systems, the Pentagon's top spokesman said Friday.

Asked about comments made earlier this week by America's top general in Europe, acting press secretary Charlie Summers said: "If Turkey takes the S-400, there would be grave consequence in terms of our military relationship, and the Patriots and the F-35s."

"They will not get the F-35s if they take the S-400," he added, later indicating the potential Patriot sale would also be blocked.

The comments came a few days after U.S. European Command head Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti said it would be his best military advice to bar Turkey from getting the F-35, should the country continue on the path of procuring the S-400.

The comments come as part of this week's back-and-forth between Ankara and Washington on the issue.

Poland: US spy drone base now fully operational, yet NATO bemoans 'Russian' military build-up

RT
Fri, 08 Mar 2019 12:04 UTC

The US has upped its ability to spy over vast swathes of eastern Europe after a squadron of MQ-9 Reaper drones commenced "full" operations from an air base in Poland. This, as NATO cries foul over the so-called 'Russian threat'.

Based out of Miroslawiec Air Base, the US Air Force (USAF) silently began using the facility for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions last May.

However, it was not until March 4 that the 52nd Fighter Wing Expeditionary Operations Group (EOG), which operate drones, reached its "full operational capability" at the base, according to a USAF statement.

Facilities at the base, which include a secure processing center, communications infrastructure, and a large aircraft maintenance hangar, will allow the unit and contractors to control all aspects of the Reaper's missions, from take-off to recovery of the aircraft. The USAF statement didn't divulge the number of Reaper drones that would be stationed at the base.

Comment: See also:

Viva Russiagate: MSNBC prediction Moscow will 'shank' Paul Manafort in prison doesn't make the cut

RT
Fri, 08 Mar 2019 16:26 UTC

Paul Manafort's 4-year prison sentence will allow Moscow to more easily murder him, MSNBC's favorite Russia expert has declared - never mind that the presiding judge said the case had nothing to do with "Russian collusion."

The former Trump campaign manager received 47 months in prison for tax and bank fraud - a punishment far less severe than the 24 years recommended by prosecutors. During sentencing, US District Judge T.S. Ellis said that locking Manafort up for two decades would be "excessive," noting that "he is not before the court for anything having to do with colluding with the Russian government."

This can only mean one thing, according to MSNBC's Malcolm Nance, a former Navy cryptologist who served in the Middle East but then transitioned to styling himself as a knowledgeable Russia expert: "Manafort may be headed to white collar jail but that just means Russia can more easily get a shank in him," Nance tweeted, using highly sophisticated cryptologist lingo for 'assassination'.

Democrats are now officially split on Israel thanks to the bravery of Ilhan Omar and BDS

Philip Weiss
Mondoweiss
Fri, 08 Mar 2019 00:00 UTC

© Kerem Yucel/AFP/Getty Images
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) arrives for her victory party on election night in Minneapolis, Minnesota on November 6, 2018.

In the last election cycle, it was demoralizing to watch Hillary Clinton promise Benjamin Netanyahu she'd take the Israel relationship to the "next level" if she became president and her party platform committee shoot down one resolution after another about Jerusalem and the occupation and settlements, sponsored by Bernie Sanders' forces.

Those days are now over. Thanks in large part to the bravery of Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minneapolis and the organizing of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, progressive Democrats who hate the occupation and even imagine equal rights for Palestinians at last have a place inside the Democratic Party, and the party leadership feels the need to reckon with that force. This week it had to alter a resolution initially aimed at smacking down Omar for her remarks critical of Israel and the lobby so as to broaden its concerns.

Palestine Legal calls it a victory:

Thanks to thousands of activists mobilizing in support of Rep. Ilhan Omar, House Democrats were forced to rewrite a resolution meant to condemn her for statements she made challenging the Israel Lobby, falsely represented as antisemitic.

Comment:

Trump does cheap identity politics, brands Dems as 'anti-Israel, 'anti-Jewish'

RT
Fri, 08 Mar 2019 19:20 UTC

President Donald Trump has slammed the Democratic Party's supposed anti-Israel stance amid a row over Rep. Ilhan Omar's alleged anti-Semitic comments and a condemnation bill passed in response.

"The Democrats have become an anti-Israel party, they have become an anti-Jewish party," Trump told reporters as he left the White House for Alabama on Friday.

Comment: Identity politics: it's only bad when someone else is doing it. When it comes to Israel, Trump is as braindead as the Left when it comes to all other identity groups. Omar is right on this one.

See also:

US looking to get more cash from the countries it occupies - like Germany and Japan

Lolita C. Baldor
AP
Fri, 08 Mar 2019 19:12 UTC

The Trump administration is eyeing a plan to seek more money from allied European and other nations where American troops are based.

Several U.S. officials said Friday that the White House has asked the Defense Department to gather data on the costs of keeping troops in other countries and how much those nations contribute to the expenses. The officials weren't authorized to publicly discuss internal deliberations and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

President Donald Trump has waged a lengthy, public campaign to get NATO allies to meet the goal of spending 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense. And in the last two years, a number of allies have increased their spending.

The officials said this latest effort is along those lines. They said the collection of data could be used in subsequent meetings and discussions to pressure allies to help offset the costs of having U.S. troops within their borders.

The plan was first reported by Bloomberg.

Comment: This is a great idea. It will only make the public of those nations more angry and disillusioned with the American presence in their countries, which will make their leaders even more unpopular than they already are. It's not as if the Americans are there solely at the request of the nations in question - as pointed out in the article, the U.S. considers their presence there to serve American national interests. If they don't want to pay for that privilege, what real incentive to the countries in question have to pay for it? Not much.

Political posturing: Presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren threatens to break up tech giant monopolies

Jonathan Shieber
Techcrunch
Fri, 08 Mar 2019 00:00 UTC

The influential Massachusetts senator and presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren has been a longtime critic of the consolidation of economic power by Amazon, Google and Facebook. Now she's making their break-up a key component of her presidential platform.

Warren has just released her plan for breaking up big tech, in what seems like a watershed moment for a Democratic nominee. Since Al Gore famously (infamously?) "invented the internet," Democratic candidates have turned away from serious regulation of technology companies, preferring instead to receive their campaign contributions.

Eric Schmidt and Google donors were hugely important to the Obama campaign, and big tech companies were among his biggest supporters.

Now, Warren has said (on Medium no less) that the massive market power that Google, Facebook and Amazon wield is a threat and will be treated accordingly.

"Twenty-five years ago, Facebook, Google, and Amazon didn't exist," writes Warren. "Now they are among the most valuable and well-known companies in the world. It's a great story - but also one that highlights why the government must break up monopolies and promote competitive markets."

Comment: Warren's call for regulation of tech giants is designed to garner support for her presidential campaign - in reality the cozy relationship between the industry and the US government along with their alliance with the Democratic party will go a long way toward shielding them from any assaults on their 'imperium'.

Would Trump roll back US nuclear strategy to the 1950s?

Geoff Wilson and Will Saetren
War is Boring
Sat, 18 Feb 2017 18:10 UTC

First ground footage of destruction at Tyndall Air Force Base

Everyone loses when nuclear weapons - of any kind - get involved

As Donald Trump's first three weeks in office come to a close, critics are pointing out that his iconic slogan, "Make America Great Again" is starting to look more and more like an attempt to bring American society back to the 1950s. What most people haven't realized yet is that his vision of turning back the clock also applies to America's nuclear arsenal.

Just this past week, CQ Roll Call reported that a blue-ribbon Pentagon panel urged the Trump administration to make the U.S. arsenal more capable of fighting a "'limited' atomic war."

According to the report, "The Defense Science Board ... urges the president to consider altering existing and planned U.S. armaments to achieve a greater number of lower-yield weapons that could provide a 'tailored nuclear option for limited use.'"

Comment:

Chelsea Manning off to jail: Mainstream media would care if this was Russia

RT
Sat, 09 Mar 2019 16:51 UTC

Does the American media care that a whistleblower was hauled off to jail for refusing to testify to a secret grand jury? Not really. After all, there's 'Russian collusion' to chase.

Manning was placed in custody on Friday for contempt of court after refusing to testify in front a grand jury in a closed hearing regarding her disclosure of US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"I will not participate in a secret process that I morally object to, particularly one that has historically been used to entrap and persecute activists for political speech," Manning said in a statement.

Her silence saw her thrown back in jail, where she will remain until she either changes her mind and testifies, or until "the end of the life of the grand jury," Judge Claude M. Hilton ruled.

Those thirsty for 'anti-semitic' Omar's blood disappointed as Dems pass watered-down anti-hate bill

RT
Fri, 08 Mar 2019 17:35 UTC

The House of Representatives adopted a resolution condemning all forms of bigotry (including anti-Semitism) after a long day of linguistic gymnastics that saw it morph from censuring Rep. Ilhan Omar to frowning on... intolerance.

The thrice-rewritten bill was barely recognizable as a rebuke of the alleged anti-Semitism of the Minnesota Democrat, instead bristling with denunciation of bigotry against every imaginable minority group in the US - a process that began when Omar's supporters requested the language be modified to include Muslims.

The final resolution veered close to self-parody after Democrats insisted Latinos, Asians, Pacific-Islanders, and LGBTQ people be added to the "traditionally persecuted peoples" list, pushing the vote back an hour on Thursday afternoon. Internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, and even the Dreyfus affair - which took place in 1800s France! - were name-dropped in the final version of the bill.

The final vote was 407 in favor, with 23 Republicans opposed.

Comment: Omar's principled stand against AIPAC and the demand for US loyalty apartheid Israel is creating divisions in the Democratic party

Ilhan Omar's remarks on the Israeli lobby's grip on American politics have seen her fellow Democrats blast her for anti-Semitism, and in one extreme case, for daring to question the US-Israel alliance at all.

Omar (D-Minnesota) has been a longtime opponent of the Israeli government, accusing it of "evil doings" in a 2012 tweet, then suggested recently that there is "political influence in this country that says it is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country," a reference to the powerful Israel lobby.

WIth Omar facing accusations of anti-Semitism, the House of Representatives passed a watered-down resolution denouncing not just anti-Jewish racism, but racism and discrimination of all kinds, on Thursday. The resolution passed with 407 votes, with 23 Republicans opposed.

Criticism didn't just come from the GOP, but from some of Omar's fellow Democrats. Rep. Juan Vargas (D-California) spelled things out clearest, stating that "questioning support for the US-Israel relationship is unacceptable."

"The change that is happening in the Democratic party is something that started with the recent elections that brought Ilhan Omar and others - young, progressive, and pushing for new ideas," US-Palestinian journalist Ramzy Baroud told RT. "I think this is a sign of hope that more popular involvement in the party could...challenge the traditional elites of the party."

RT's Caleb Maupin took a closer look at the saga, and what it means for the Democratic party at large.

Government, aided by mainstream media: lie upon lie upon lie....

ReRan

Now i show that the above article is showing active 25 minutes ago which makes me wonder if Sahib ( Charitarth Ahlawat) jumped the gun on the...

Rowan Cocoan

Barclays was beautiful! The Next Day city workers did their thing! NYC finally woke their asses up! The demonstration follows a mob of...

Nada

I see a new market for fake IDs, this time claiming age of 17.

Yupo

Slappy looks old...I guess selling your soul to the devil has consequences...

Bezel Bub

Puppet Masters

Pentagon warning: 'Grave consequences' should Turkey buy Russian missile system

Poland: US spy drone base now fully operational, yet NATO bemoans 'Russian' military build-up

Viva Russiagate: MSNBC prediction Moscow will 'shank' Paul Manafort in prison doesn't make the cut

Democrats are now officially split on Israel thanks to the bravery of Ilhan Omar and BDS

Trump does cheap identity politics, brands Dems as 'anti-Israel, 'anti-Jewish'

US looking to get more cash from the countries it occupies - like Germany and Japan

Political posturing: Presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren threatens to break up tech giant monopolies

Would Trump roll back US nuclear strategy to the 1950s?

Chelsea Manning off to jail: Mainstream media would care if this was Russia

Those thirsty for 'anti-semitic' Omar's blood disappointed as Dems pass watered-down anti-hate bill

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