Puppet MastersS


Question

Rep. Nunes: What information did the CIA give the FBI in 2016?

Alex Nitzberg
Just the News
Sun, 19 Apr 2020 07:00 UTC
Nunes
© Win McNamee/Getty ImagesRep. Devin Nunes
California Rep. Devin Nunes on Sunday said that he wants to find out what information the CIA gave the FBI in 2016. His comment came while he was discussing several areas of interest concerning the Russia investigation.

"We now are laser focused on that," the House Intelligence Committee chairman said during a Sunday interview on Fox News, noting that former Congressman Trey Gowdy's efforts revealed that this had occurred.

"We need to know exactly what did the CIA give to the FBI in 2016? That's what our investigation is now focusing on" Nunes said. "There's essentially three, what I would call phony documents, also called dossiers," the congressman noted, pointing to the Steele Dossier, an Intelligence Community assessment during the Obama administration and the Mueller report.

Nunes also said that there are three Russian-Americans "that we're looking into."

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Arrow Down

Merkel slams 'discussion orgies' as regional governments plan to ease Covid-19 restrictions


RT
Mon, 20 Apr 2020 14:54 UTC
Merkel
© Getty Images/Anadolu Agency/Abdulhamid HosbasGerman Chancellor Angela Merkel
Germany is about to relax its quarantine restrictions, but some regions are planning to go too far, according to Chancellor Angela Merkel, who warned that such carelessness risks a major setback in fighting the virus.

Merkel took an unusually harsh tone as she said her government's decision to gradually lift some restrictions imposed over the epidemic of the novel coronavirus has unleashed "discussion orgies" on further relaxing the rules, according to sources cited by the German dpa news agency.

"We have not made it yet," the chancellor said, warning that relaxing the rules too much could easily reverse all the progress the nation has achieved in fighting the disease and cause another spike in infection cases. Merkel, who spoke at a session of her Christian Democratic Union Party presidium, said that such discussions are particularly "not helpful" since they could prompt more people to abandon social distancing norms.

She added that the federal and regional governments will discuss how to proceed further on April 30. At the same time, she also said that the situation in the fields of economy and the public health could become clearer no sooner than May 8 or May 9.

Comment: Berlin ready to help
"The willingness and the capacity are there to take additional foreign patients if necessary," Health Minister Jens Spahn said on Monday. The treatment costs will be borne by Germany, in what he said was "our understanding of European solidarity."

Spahn didn't say how sizable or costly the initiative will be but said that over 200 foreigners were admitted by German intensive care units before. Local media reported that most of them came from neighboring France and Italy, where Covid-19 has killed close to 20,000 and 24,000 respectively.

The European powerhouse's healthcare system isn't as overburdened and undersupplied as that of some other EU nations. Just this week, the Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive and Emergency Medicine (DIVI) reported that over 12,600 intensive care beds remained free across the country - a "fantastic" figure, as the body described it.


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Snakes in Suits

Damascus: Iran's FM Zarif holds talks with Syria's president Assad


RFE/RL
Mon, 20 Apr 2020 15:41 UTC
ZarifAssad
© Iran FM Mohammad Javad Zarif • Syrian President Bashar Assad, EPA/azertac/APIran FM Mohammad Javad Zarif • Syrian President Bashar Assad
Iran's foreign minister has held talks with Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad as both countries grapple with the coronavirus outbreak.

The country's official government news agency IRNA said Mohammad Javad Zarif met with Assad in the Syrian capital, Damascus, on April 20, but no further details were released.

Ahead of the visit, the Iranian Foreign Ministry said the talks were expected to touch on bilateral relations, regional developments, and the "fight against terrorism."

Iran is Syria's closest ally in the region. Along with Russia, Tehran has provided crucial military support to Assad during the country's civil war, which entered its 10th year last month. More than 400,000 people have been killed and millions displaced since the conflict began.

The civil war has devastated Syria's health system, and aid workers and rights activists have warned the government is incapable of preventing the coronavirus from spreading.

Comment: The civil war in Syria became an 'external power' free-for-all which included the ruin of medical facilities throughout the country. Coronavirus is but another tactic to cause extreme fear and societal repercussions. Between a virus and self-serving manufactured terror, murder and destruction, there is no question which of these rank more deadly to the Syrian people.

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Clipboard

Poll shows Trump is unpopular but Biden bores America to tears

Graham Dockery
RT
Sun, 19 Apr 2020 18:19 UTC
TrumpBiden
© REUTERS/Leah Millis; Global Look Press/CNN/Keystone Press AgencyUS President Donald Trump • Former US VP Joe Biden
A new poll shows a majority of voters disapprove of President Donald Trump. But hardly anybody trusts Joe Biden in his place. Even against an unpopular incumbent, Biden has his work cut out for him.

Low approval ratings are nothing new for President Trump, especially when it's liberal or centrist outlets carrying out the polling. The NBC/WSJ poll is a case in point. The president's approval rating in this monthly survey has never topped 43 percent, and this Sunday came in at 41 percent, with 51 percent rating his performance negatively.

One would think that Democratic nominee Joe Biden would fare better, but all that can be said about the former vice president is that people hate him slightly less. Biden's approval rating sat at 37 percent, but only 41 percent rated him negatively.

While Trump is a polarizer, a significant chunk - one in five - of the electorate have no opinion either way on Biden.
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Bad Guys

Facebook deems protests 'harmful misinformation' as citizens defy quarantine orders


RT
Mon, 20 Apr 2020 19:37 UTC
covid protest
© Reuters / Lindsey Wasson
Americans protesting their states' coronavirus lockdown measures won't be able to organize protests on Facebook any longer, after the Silicon Valley firm declared them "harmful misinformation."

Speaking to ABC's George Stephanopoulos on Monday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that anti-lockdown protests organized through his platform are considered "harmful misinformation," and will be removed by moderators.

"I think a lot of the stuff that people are saying that is false around a health emergency like this can be classified as harmful misinformation," Zuckerberg added.

President Donald Trump has left it up to governors to decide when to lift lockdown measures in their states, but only a handful have eased the coronavirus shutdown. Florida opened some of its beaches on Friday, while South Carolina intends to open some of its shoreside spots this week.
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Star of David

Netanyahu and rival Gantz make up - agree to form 'unity' government to avoid another election


RT
Mon, 20 Apr 2020 17:47 UTC
gantz netanyahu
© Reuters/Ronen ZvulunIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu looks on as he sits next to Benny Gantz, leader of Blue and White party, during a memorial ceremony for late Israeli President Shimon Peres, at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem September 19, 2019.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reached an agreement with rival Benny Gantz to form a 'unity government' which would finally break a year of political deadlock, Israeli media has reported.

In a statement, Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party and Gantz's centrist-liberal Blue and White party said they had agreed on a unity deal following elections in September and March which saw neither side winning a large enough majority to form a government.

According to Israeli media reports, Netanyahu and Gantz will hold the position of prime minister on a rotating basis. Netanyahu will serve as PM first for 18 months before Gantz takes the helm for another 18 months.

Comment: No matter how the swamp of Israeli politics rearranges itself, Palestinians will still be the losers.

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Light Sabers

Kim never sent 'nice note' to Trump: North Korea accuses US president of 'feeding ungrounded story to media'


RT
Mon, 20 Apr 2020 19:24 UTC
Kim Jong Un
© Reuters / KCNA
Donald Trump's claim that he received a positive letter from Kim Jong Un is false, Pyongyang has said, urging the US president to refrain from using his relations with the North Korean leader for "selfish purposes."

During his briefing on Saturday, Trump boasted that he had "recently" received a written message from Kim. "It was a nice note. I think we're doing fine," he said, insisting that the US and North Korea would've been at war by now, were it not for his diplomatic efforts.

But it turned out that the letter wasn't nice, nor was it unpleasant - as, according to the North Korean Foreign Ministry, it simply didn't exist.
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Eye 2

(UN)HOLY ALLIANCE: UK's BAE systems sold almost $20bln in weapons to Saudi Arabia during their aggression on Yemen

Drago Bosnic
Fort Russ News
Mon, 20 Apr 2020 18:09 UTC
Saudis bombing Yemen
Saudis bombing Yemen
United Kingdom's leading arms manufacturer is found to have sold more than £15 billion ($18.9) worth of arms to Saudi Arabia since the Wahhabi kingdom started a brutal war of aggression against Yemen, the Arab world's most impoverished nation.

The Guardian carried a news article last Tuesday, citing data obtained from the BAE (British Aerospace) Systems' most recent annual report that has also been newly analyzed by Britain's Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT). The sum includes £2.5 billion in revenues that the company received from Saudi arms sales in 2019.

The sales came despite a ruling by Britain's Court of Appeal in June last year that all British arms exports that could be used against Yemen were to be halted.
Andrew Smith of the CAAT, meanwhile, said, "The last five years have seen a brutal humanitarian crisis for the people of Yemen, but for BAE it's been business as usual. The war has only been possible because of arms companies and complicit governments willing to support it."
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Eye 1

Zuckerberg touts users' data as 'new superpower' as Facebook's 'Covid-19 self-report survey' rolls out worldwide


RT
Mon, 20 Apr 2020 17:58 UTC

Comment: This is how much of a fake pandemic this is. People are SELF-DIAGNOSING via a Facebook tool. With the help of AI.


covid facebook
© Facebook / Dado RuvicYou can trust them, they've got a graph!
A Facebook survey allowing US users to self-report coronavirus symptoms (and reveal their own 'presumed' infection to the platform) is expanding globally, as CEO Mark Zuckerberg touts the data as a "new superpower."

The social media giant's symptom-checker tool, developed with Carnegie Mellon University, released its first set of data on US users on Monday, reaffirming what healthcare professionals treating its victims already know about the coronavirus - it appears to cluster in high-density, urban counties, and is vanishingly rare in rural regions. What the survey lacks in scientific accuracy, it will soon make up in global reach, as the tool is expanding worldwide on Wednesday.

Zuckerberg touted the data, harvested with respect for users' privacy and human rights, he insisted, as humanity's "new superpower" in a Washington Post op-ed published to coincide with the data release. The social media magnate claimed that the self-reported information collected from the survey will "get us started on the road to recovery."


Comment: On the road to damnation more like.

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Blackbox

Sergei and Yulia Skripal - in prison together, or in solitary?

John Helmer
johnhelmer.net
Mon, 20 Apr 2020 16:55 UTC
skripals
The last people to say they saw Sergei and Yulia Skripal together were two medical staff members at Salisbury District Hospital. The first was Senior Sister Sarah Clark, who was in charge of the evening shift at the Salisbury hospital's Intensive Care Unit; the second was Dr Stephen Davies, a consultant in the Emergency Department of the hospital.

According to the British Government, the two Skripals were attacked by a chemical nerve agent in the centre of Salisbury at about 4:15 on the afternoon of Sunday, March 4, 2018, then rushed by ambulance to the Salisbury hospital. The nerve agent was reported later - at least thirty-six hours later, perhaps longer - to have been identified by the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down as an organophosphate chemical warfare agent called Novichok produced in Russia. The British Government's version of what happened is that the nerve agent was despatched from Moscow with assassins of the Russian military intelligence agency GRU. Two men have been named and publicly accused by British prosecutors with attempted murder and other crimes.

The Skripals survived the alleged attack, and have recovered from its medical effects. Public releases by the hospital claim Yulia Skripal was released on April 9, 2018; her separation from her father was confirmed thereby. Sergei Skripal was reportedly released from hospital on May 18. In two subsequent telephone calls Yulia made to her cousin and grandmother in Russia, and in a brief televised statement filmed by the US news agency Reuters on May 23, she referred to her father's medical recovery, but did not say he was living with her. The Reuters film was recorded in a parkland corner of the Royal Air Force base at Fairford, north of Salisbury. The base is run by United States Air Force intelligence and bomber staffs.

Yulia's last telephone contact with her family in Russia was on July 24, 2018. She has not been heard from since.
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