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Attention

Rosenstein's coup attempt against Trump should not go unpunished

Greg Jarrett
Fox News
Sat, 22 Sep 2018 13:16 UTC
Rod Rosenstein
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's actions, as recounted by the New York Times Friday, are the equivalent of an attempted coup - a plot to overthrow the president.

As the Times reveals, Rosenstein was furious that Democrats blamed him for the firing of FBI Director James Comey.

Rosenstein, who had volunteered to write the firing memorandum, was "regretful and emotional." His behavior was described as "erratic."

He blamed Trump.

So, in an apparent act of vengeance, he proposed secretly recording the president to try to gain damaging information about him.

He solicited others to wear wires, including Andrew McCabe, who was later fired as Assistant FBI Director. Rosenstein is said to have discussed recruiting cabinet members to depose Trump under the 25th Amendment.

All of this is reportedly evidenced in memos, including those written by McCabe.

Comment:

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Snakes in Suits

Facebook vows to cease 'embedding' staff in political campaigns


RT
Sat, 22 Sep 2018 15:01 UTC
facebook white house
© Leah Millis / Reuters
Presidential candidates in 2020 won't be able to rely on 'embedded' Facebook staff, the Menlo Park company declared. Hillary Clinton's campaign declined this help in 2016, letting her rival Donald Trump leverage it to victory.

Facebook will still offer technical support to candidate headquarters, as well as basic training on how to use the platform, but will not have any staffers "embedded" in campaigns as it did in 2016, Bloomberg reported.

This kind of support helped then-candidate Trump spread his message in 2016, his digital director Brad Parscale said in an interview, referring to Facebook staff as "embeds." Facebook has quibbled with his choice of words and eventually decided to scrap the program, under tremendous pressure from Congress to "do something" about its influence over US elections.

Clinton's surprise defeat led to accusations of "Russian collusion" and "meddling" in social media, with numerous news outfits leading the witch hunt for "Russian bots and trolls" on Facebook and Twitter. After CEO Mark Zuckerberg was grilled by Congress in April, Facebook said in its follow-up response that it offered the same support to the Clinton camp as it did to Trump, but that the Democrats declined.
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Star of David

Top Israeli commander concedes Russia turned tide of war when ISIS was about to 'roll over Damascus'


RT
Sat, 22 Sep 2018 15:00 UTC
Russia Air Force Su-24
© Dmitry Vinogradov / Sputnik / File
Russian Air Force's Su-24 at Khmeimim air base
Russia's military presence in Syria has effectively turned the tide of war back in 2015, the year Islamic State was about to "roll over Damascus," the head of Israeli Air Force intelligence said in an interview.

The aerial campaign Russia started against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) in 2015 had "categorically" decided the fate of war in President Bashar Assad's favor, Brig. Gen. Uri Oron, head of the Israeli Air Force Intelligence, told Haaretz newspaper. He acknowledged the Russians came at the time when Syrian defenses were on the brink of collapse.

"In the summer of 2015 everyone was sure that ISIS was about to roll over Damascus too," Oron opined. The Russian deployment in Syria "was one of the strongest things to shape reality in the area in recent years," along with the milestone nuclear deal the six major world powers signed with Iran the same year.

Comment: Looks like Israel's government might be trying to lower expectations for the home crowd?

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Arrow Down

Ukraine's Poroshenko suing BBC over Trump pay-for-access story as crushing election defeat looms


RT
Sat, 22 Sep 2018 14:44 UTC
poroshenko trump
© Mykola Lazarenko/Ukrainian Presidential Press Service / Reuters
US President Donald Trump meets with Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko on June 20, 2017.
The president of Ukraine is suing British broadcaster BBC over a report that he paid $400,000 for a chance to meet Donald Trump. The news comes months before presidential election, which is set to be tough for Petro Poroshenko.

The BBC report, which Poroshenko's lawyers claim was defamatory, came in May and said that the meeting between the leader of Ukraine and the US president in June 2017 was organized in a pretty roundabout way. The Ukrainian side paid Michael Cohen, then-the personal lawyer of Trump, at least $400,000 for an embarrassingly short two minutes and a handshake. The best the Ukrainian diplomats and registered lobbyist could have arranged at the time was reportedly a brief photo-op with the US president.

The lawsuit filed with London High Court, which was first reported by the Daily Telegraph, claims that the story of the pay-off was not true and stressed that BBC's failure to retract it was particularly damaging to Poroshenko's anti-corruption effort in Ukraine. Poroshenko's lawyer confirmed the report to RT.
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Clipboard

Observations on the New York Times' Rosenstein revelations

Jack Goldsmith
Lawfare
Fri, 21 Sep 2018 21:46 UTC
Rod Rosenstein
© KXLF.com
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein
There is a lot to chew over in the blockbuster New York Times story about Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's erratic behavior in his first few weeks on the job, just after President Trump fired FBI Director Jim Comey on May 9, 2017.

The Times reports that Rosenstein suggested that "he secretly record President Trump in the White House to expose the chaos consuming the administration" and that he "discussed recruiting cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Mr. Trump from office for being unfit." Rosenstein also reportedly told Acting FBI Director Andrew G. McCabe "that he might be able to persuade Attorney General Jeff Sessions and John F. Kelly, then the secretary of homeland security and now the White House chief of staff, to mount an effort to invoke the 25th Amendment." As Drudge summarizes it, with only a tad of unfairness: "Rosenstein Wanted to Wear Wire; Plot To Remove Trump." As the Times makes clear, "None of Mr. Rosenstein's proposals apparently came to fruition."

Rosenstein responded to the story in a statement:
"The New York Times's story is inaccurate and factually incorrect. I will not further comment on a story based on anonymous sources who are obviously biased against the department and are advancing their own personal agenda. But let me be clear about this: Based on my personal dealings with the president, there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment." But he did not deny the story's claims that he discussed invoking the 25th Amendment and secretly recording the president. And indeed, the Justice Department issued a statement from an anonymous official who said that Rosenstein made his proposal to record the president "sarcastically." Other anonymous officials, however, insisted that Rosenstein "was serious about the idea" and "followed up by suggesting that other F.B.I. officials who were interviewing to be the bureau's director could also secretly record Mr. Trump."

Comment: See also: Trump promises to get rid of 'lingering stench' at Justice Department

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Attention

Ukraine's impending disaster - Escalating in Lugansk and Donetsk

GH Eliason
The Greanville Post
Sat, 22 Sep 2018 14:19 UTC
Ukraine tank

Ukie armor: not anywhere as serious a threat as it might appear.
The tragic murder of Alexandr Zakharchenko solidified Ukraine's intent to retake the Donbass region by force. We know the attack on the Donetsk Republic leadership was meant to throw the fledgling nation into an emotional and political turmoil and cause a crisis in succession for the Republic.

Ukraine gravely miscalculated the response Poroshenko received which was both deliberate and dignified by the Donetsk Republic leadership and LNR's interim president Leonid Pasechnik.

The murder was possibly to set up the conditions for a September 14th assault.
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Oil Well

Iran won't let OPEC boost production

Nick Cunningham
Oilprice.ccom
Thu, 20 Sep 2018 14:16 UTC
Iran flag
It's about that time again. WTI hits $70 per barrel and the tweet-rage is back.


OPEC does have a meeting in the coming days in Algiers to assess the state of the oil market, and decide on next steps. But one of the largest near-term challenges for OPEC is balancing the oil market in the wake of lost barrels from Iran - a key factor driving up prices and also a fact that seems to be lost on the American President.

There are no clear solutions for OPEC+ that leave the oil market satisfied while also maintaining group cohesion.
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Attention

Judiciary Committee to vote on Kavanaugh Monday unless accuser Ford agrees to testify


RT
Fri, 21 Sep 2018 23:57 UTC
Kavanaugh
© Leah Millis / Reuters
The Judiciary Committee will hold a vote on US Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh on Monday, unless a deal is reached soon with his accuser Christine Blasey Ford, who accuses him of sexual assault, to testify before the panel.

"I'm providing a notice of a vote to occur Monday in the event that Dr. Ford's attorneys don't respond or Dr. Ford decides not to testify," the panel's chairman, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a statement. "In the event that we can come to a reasonable resolution as I've been seeking all week, then I will postpone the committee vote to accommodate her testimony. We cannot continue to delay."

The university professor, who is accusing Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct sometime back in 1982, has placed Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court in jeopardy. For the entire week, US lawmakers have been approaching Christine Blasey Ford to testify against the 53-year-old before the judge's confirmation process can proceed. On Friday, the Committee announced that the Monday hearing for Kavanaugh and his accuser to both appear before the US lawmakers has been called off.

The committee has now set a 10pm Friday deadline for Ford to accept the invitation to testify on Wednesday. If she declines and no other deal is reached, the vote on Kavanaugh will take place Monday.

Comment: Fast Times at Feinstein High: Dems ambush Brett Kavanaugh with last-minute sex assault charges

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Propaganda

Surprise! NYT's mammoth report on 'Russian interference' can't tell fact from fiction


RT
Sat, 22 Sep 2018 12:32 UTC
Vladimir Putin
© Alexei Nikolsky/Kremlin / Reuters
Russia's President Vladimir Putin and senior military officials
A new take on the 'Russia hacked the US election' story by the Gray Lady herself may make some in the journalistic community cringe. It's usually not considered correct to report allegations as facts, you see.

On Thursday the New York Times published a 10,000-word special report titled 'A Plot to Subvert an Election: Unravelling the Russia Story So Far'. Written in a way that would make the late Tom Clancy proud, it summarizes the many aspects about alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

The report has all the hallmarks of standard Russia scoop. Intellectuals will be pleased to see the name of Aleksandr Dugin in the section explaining why Russian President Vladimir Putin hates America and its freedom. The less-read are told about how he called the fall of the USSR the greatest geopolitical disaster of the previous century.
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Chess

Merkel wants a new deal with Northern Africa to curb illegal immigration


Sputnik
Sat, 22 Sep 2018 12:32 UTC
Merkel refugee immigrant
© AP Photo / Hussein Malla
Following a meeting of EU leaders in Salzburg, Austria, where they agreed to cooperate closer with Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, and Libya to curb illegal migration, the German chancellor has spoken out for modelling an agreement with them after a similar deal with Turkey.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has advocated for taking the European deal with Ankara, according to which Turkey agreed to help with more than 3 million refugees in exchange for several billion dollars, as an example for an accord with the Northern African states.

"Ultimately, we'll need agreements and accords that are structured like the agreement between the European Union and Turkey," Merkel said, recognizing that the situation of every country would require a different solution.


Comment: Who exactly is Europe going to cooperate with in Libya? Thanks to NATO it is now a lawless, failed state, where even the rival governments don't control a majority of the country.


Comment: Besides 'disembarkation centers' that no one wants and proposals with failed states, it looks like talks with Egypt have been the only productive move this far. Breitbart reports:
Kurz, whose country currently holds the EU's rotating presidency, and EU Council President Donald Tusk visited Cairo over the weekend for talks with President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, a top army general who took office in 2014. Both men have praised him for stopping people from leaving its coast bound for Europe.

"Egypt is efficient. Egypt has served as an example when it comes to illegal migration and people smuggling," Kurtz added.

Tusk said he will meet with Sissi this weekend to take the talks forward, and confirmed that the leaders had agreed to take part in an EU-Arab League summit in Cairo in February. Migration talks with other north African countries will also be launched.
Also see:

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