Puppet MastersS


Snakes in Suits

House passes $484B small business aid bill; Dems launch probe into Trump's Covid-19 response


RT
Thu, 23 Apr 2020 21:50 UTC
Pelosi
© REUTERS/Tom BrennerU.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) enters the House Chamber to vote on economic stimulus package, April 23, 2020.
The US Congress has passed a nearly $500 billion Covid-19 aid package, as House Democrats voted to set up a panel to look into the administration's handling of the outbreak - a move blasted as "purely political" by the GOP.

The relief bill passed overwhelmingly by 388-5 after hours of debate on Thursday, securing the needed two-thirds majority and seeing only four Republicans and one Democrat vote in opposition. The aid package will immediately infuse $321 billion into the Paycheck Protection Program to ensure companies can pay their workers, while providing another $75 billion to hospitals, $60 billion in emergency loans for small businesses and $25 billion set aside for coronavirus testing.

Comment: So, here we go again...another Democratic probe targeting Trump. Forget the coronavirus, we have congressvirus, political distancing and faze masks.

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Target

One more time: House Dems form a new 'witch hunt committee' aimed at Trump's coronavirus response

Eric A. Blair
Gateway Pundit
Fri, 24 Apr 2020 10:10 UTC
PelosiTrump
© CNN.comHouse Speaker Nancy Pelosi • US President Donald Trump
House Democrats have voted to begin yet another witch hunt.

In a strictly partisan vote, 212-182, the House voted on Thursday to create a select committee to oversee the federal response to the coronavirus crisis — and examine President Trump's response.

The panel will be led by House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) — a longtime Trump hater who has also endorsed Joe Biden. It will be comprised of seven Democrats and five Republicans — which means every vote will be 7-5 in favor of the Democrats.

The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis within the House Oversight and Reform Committee will review the "efficiency, effectiveness, equity and transparency" of how
federal relief money is expended — and examine the Trump administration's response to the coronavirus.

Comment: Running in circles, the Democratic witch hunters can't manage to find anything else to do, never mind they're not even good at it!

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Document

Would Putin's new constitution amendments impact Moscow's international nuclear commitments?


RT
Fri, 24 Apr 2020 12:07 UTC
Russian bear
© iStock
Back in the B.C. (Before Corona) period, the biggest story in Russia concerned proposed amendments to the country's constitution. These were designed to spread powers more widely and shape the country's future direction.

The original - forged after bloodshed during an early constitutional 1990s crisis - had created a "hyper-Presidential system" and one of the most prominent of the new proposals provides for strict term limits in the A.P. (After Putin) era, along with zeroing his own clock. It was these aspects that garnered the most international attention.

However, one very important change flew somewhat under the radar: Putting domestic law above any rulings of foreign arbitrators. Which, according to critics, could change Moscow's relationship with various international institutions, such as the European Court of Human Rights and the United Nations, or could affect international treaties Russia has signed.
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Gift 2

US cozies up to Greenland with financial aid package and new consulate, its eye on Russia and the Arctic


RT
Thu, 23 Apr 2020 18:40 UTC
Nuuk Greenland
© Reuters/Alister DoyleNuuk, Greenland - site of the coming US consulate
The US has gifted a $12.1 million aid package to Greenland and will build a consulate there for the first time in over 50 years - an admitted move against Russian and Chinese Arctic supremacy that has angered Denmark.

The Trump administration's offer to buy the Danish-administered territory may have been laughed off last year, but Washington has put its money where its mouth is and offered up an economic development package to the massive island, a State Department official revealed on Thursday. The official stressed that the money was for "sustainable" economic development rather than a down payment.

"There is no plan or interagency process underway involving the purchase of Greenland," they reassured reporters.

Comment: See also:

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Star of David

Facebook lawsuit claims Israeli spyware company ran hacking operation in the US

Michael Arria
Mondoweiss
Fri, 24 Apr 2020 18:44 UTC
phone whatsapp
© Shutterstock
Lawsuit reveals extent of Israeli spyware company's U.S. operation

In 2019, nearly 1,400 WhatsApp users were hacked with a number human rights advocates and journalists targeted. The attack was allegedly the work the NSO Group, an Israeli spyware company.

Last October, Facebook (which owns WhatsApp) sued NSO over the breach, claiming that the company was unable to break Facebook's encryption, but infected the phones of many users. NSO denied the claims. "The sole purpose of NSO is to provide technology to licensed government intelligence and law enforcement agencies to help them fight terrorism and serious crime," the company said in a statement at the time, "Our technology is not designed or licensed for use against human rights activists and journalists. We consider any other use of our products than to prevent serious crime and terrorism a misuse, which is contractually prohibited. We take action if we detect any misuse." NSO has tried to get the case dismissed, arguing that a California court has no jurisdiction in the matter, as its customers aren't based in the U.S.

Comment:

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Bad Guys

Magnier: Confirmation of deterrence policy between Israel and Hezbollah

Elijah J. Magnier
ejmagnier.com
Thu, 23 Apr 2020 17:50 UTC
hezbollah car
The moment an Israeli missile hits a Hezbollah car at Jdaidet Badous in Syria
The Israeli leadership has not tired of trying to change the Rules of Engagement (ROE) with Hezbollah since its defeat in the 2006 war, in the hope of eliminating the organisation that rose to state level in military capabilities (and medical skills, as it showed its preparations to confront the emerging COVID-19 virus). Israel has tried to hit targets inside Syria to stop convoys coming into Lebanon loaded with advanced weapons. However, Israel, after pursuing a non-provocation policy with Hezbollah for many years, decided to improvise and attempt a sneak attack on Beirut with drones, in the hope of introducing a new ROE and hitting Hezbollah targets. Hezbollah, however, returned the Israeli attempt by creating another balance of deterrence, embarrassing and ridiculing Israel and its army. But that, it seems, did not deter Israel, which was searching for methods to break the existing Rules of Engagement. The breach came on the northern border. Did the tension bring a large-scale escalation between Israel and Hezbollah any closer?

Since the beginning of the Syrian war in 2011 and the participation of Hezbollah in this war throughout the entire Syrian geography since 2013, Israel has not hit any Hezbollah target causing casualties in its ranks, with two exceptions. The first was in 2015 when hitting two cars roaming in the Quneitra - the occupied Golan area - killing an Iranian Revolutionary Guards officer and the person responsible for protecting VIPs in "Hezbollah", Jihad Imad Mughniyeh, and their companions. Hezbollah responded by striking an Israeli convoy in the Shebaa Farms area, killing an Israeli captain and sergeant and wounding 7 others. Tel Aviv accepted the tit-for-tat and refrained from responding further.

In the same year, Israel assassinated Samir al-Quntarin in the Syrian capital, Damascus. Al-Quntar was in charge of the organisation and recruitment among the Druse of Suweida and the occupied Golan. After these two incidents, whenever Israel wanted to hit a truck bound for Lebanon, it would bomb the road in front of the truck to force it to stop and give time for passengers to evacuate to a safe distance before striking the cargo. This introduced an acceptable ROE between Israel and Hezbollah, as there were no casualties but only equipment lost which was eventually replaced.
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Attention

Duterte threatens martial law in Philippines again, warns 'there will be no turning back'

Rosie Perper
Business Insider
Fri, 24 Apr 2020 17:31 UTC
duterte mask
© Ezra Acayan/Getty ImagesA man is seen wearing a mask with the name of President Duterte and his election campaign slogan on April 5, 2020 in Quezon city, Metro Manila, Philippines.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte threatened on Thursday to enforce martial law across the country, citing reported attacks on soldiers delivering coronavirus aid by communist rebels.

Speaking at a televised coronavirus press conference on Friday morning local time, Duterte said there would be "no turning back" from the measure once in place.

"I am now warning everybody, I am putting notice to the armed forces and police," he said. "I might declare martial law and there will be no turning back."

According to CNN Philippines, he also promised to "finish" all of the communist group members before his presidential term ended in 2022.

The Philippines army claimed that rebels carried out an attack on soldiers distributing coronavirus aid money in the northeastern Aurora province on Tuesday. Two soldiers were killed and three other soldiers were wounded in the gunfire exchange, according to the army, who blamed the attacks on the New People's Army, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines that is designated as a terrorist group by the Philippine government.
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Attention

Canada: Federal government open to new law to fight pandemic misinformation

Elizabeth Thompson
CBC News
Wed, 15 Apr 2020 04:00 UTC
Stephanie Jenzer
© CBCStephanie Jenzer
The federal government is considering introducing legislation to make it an offence to knowingly spread misinformation that could harm people, says Privy Council President Dominic LeBlanc.

LeBlanc told CBC News he is interested in British MP Damian Collins's call for laws to punish those responsible for spreading dangerous misinformation online about the COVID-19 pandemic.

LeBlanc said he has discussed the matter already with other cabinet ministers, including Justice Minister David Lametti. If the government decides to follow through, he said, it could take a while to draft legislation.

Comment: It all sounds innocent enough - shut down hucksters with fake health cures who are taking advantage of the public's fears. But the question brought up here, as it is in all fake-news-fighting censorship initiatives, is who defines what is fake news. The mainstream media has done a bang-up job of smearing vitamin C as ineffective, despite evidence to the contrary, so would this information be censored? And how about people calling out the government for instituting lockdowns and continuing them despite overwhelming evidence that the virus is really not that dangerous?

Here's how they're dealing with dissidents in Germany: German lawyer confined to psych ward after calling for resistance to 'unconstitutional' Covid-19 lockdown

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Eagle

Why America's accusations that China is testing nuclear weapons harms arms control

Sahil Shah
The National Interest
Thu, 23 Apr 2020 00:00 UTC
Trump
© Reuters
The success of the CTB Treaty requires good-faith arguments.

In a new compliance report released last week, the United States once again accused Russia, and now China, of violating the "zero-yield" standard or threshold envisioned under the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). While "zero," "yield," and "threshold" do not appear in the text of the CTBT, the United States, Russia, China, and other negotiating parties have always held the interpretation that the Treaty bans nuclear test explosions with any yield, anywhere.

The current U.S. administration's vague and ungrounded claims pointing to possible Russian and Chinese "low-yield" nuclear testing are vexingly unsubstantiated and ultimately harm progress on arms control, strategic stability, and confidence-building. These thinly-supported claims are also counterproductive to American national security goals, especially as President Trump's team continues to propose a "new generation" of trilateral arms control agreements that would include both Russia and China. Washington cannot achieve this important goal without producing pragmatic proposals to back its vision. Instead of using the common lack of CTBT ratification between America and China as an opportunity to take what would be a tremendously positive joint step, the U.S. administration is using it to spark increased animosity.

Comment: China is none too pleased with the way the US has been handling this issue - and has been very vocal in calling the US out on it:
China's foreign ministry has slammed the US for "politicizing" the way other nations work on civilian nuclear power projects. Washington had earlier claimed China is undermining global non-proliferation safeguards.

"In recent years, the United States has been using various pretexts to discredit and suppress the normal cooperation in nuclear energy between other countries," the ministry's spokesperson, Geng Shuang, told reporters at a daily briefing on Friday.
Some senior US officials even publicly stated that cooperation in nuclear energy should be used as a geopolitical tool. China strongly opposes this way of politicizing cooperation in nuclear energy.
Geng was answering a question about the recent policy report by the US Nuclear Fuel Working Group, whose members include Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette and Interior Secretary David Bernhardt. In their report, published on Thursday, the officials accused Beijing and Moscow of not holding their trading partners to the "same high standards" as the US does, and of using "lower standards as a selling point." It was further claimed that Chinese and Russian companies allow foreign countries to import nuclear technology "without the same non-proliferation safeguards required by the United States and its allies."

Dismissing the report's claims as "completely inconsistent with the facts," Geng said that Beijing has always promoted the use of civilian nuclear power in a "responsible manner."

He stressed that China will continue to "strictly abide by its international non-proliferation commitments" and to conduct cooperation with foreign states "on the basis of mutual respect and to mutual benefit."

Last week, the US State Department expressed concern over China allegedly violating the 'zero-yield' standard during its underground nuclear tests in 2019. 'Zero yield' refers to a nuclear test without an explosive chain reaction that would be similar to the one caused by a nuclear warhead. Beijing said that these allegations were "entirely groundless" and reiterated that the country is fulfilling all of its obligations under international law.


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Broom

Oopsies! Dossier author Steele testified emails were 'wiped,' no longer has documents related to his primary source

Chuck Ross
The Daily Caller
Thu, 23 Apr 2020 14:35 UTC
DurhamSteele
© Red Journalists/McClatchy Washington BureauUS Attorney John Durham • Christopher Steele
Christopher Steele told a British court last month that he no longer has documents and other information from his meetings with the main source for his Trump dossier, suggesting that the former British spy has no way of backing up his side in a dispute with the Justice Department's inspector general (IG), according to a deposition transcript obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Steele also told the court that his communications regarding the dossier, including with Fusion GPS, were "wiped" in December 2016 and January 2017, the transcript shows.

The former MI6 officer made the disclosures during a March 17-18 deposition in a defamation case related to the dossier. The DCNF obtained a transcript of the deposition.

Comment: Pretty convenient for Steele and those still pushing the "Russian disinformation" line. Russians may have been involved, but that is a long way from Russian government involvement. Plus Ukraine was up to its eyeballs in Brennan's and the DNC's plot.

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