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'A dereliction of duty during a crisis': Trump threatens to dismiss both chambers of Congress over held-up appointments


RT
Wed, 15 Apr 2020 22:16 UTC
congress
© Reuters / Joshua RobertsFILE PHOTO
US President Donald Trump has said he may force both chambers of Congress to officially adjourn unless they do so voluntarily in a protest over the House and Senate blocking him from recess appointments.

The Senate should "either fulfill its duty and vote on my nominees, or formally adjourn so that I can make recess appointments," the president said on Wednesday at a White House press conference.

Both the Republican-majority Senate and the Democrat-majority House continue to gavel in for pro forma sessions while most of the lawmakers have departed Washington DC and do not intend to return until May, Trump noted. This is having the effect of preventing him from making appointments in the manner provided for by law.

Comment: Similarly strange behavior, during what is claimed to be crisis, can be seen in the UK, with MPs taking their Easter holidays from Parliament a week early - not before rushing through emergency laws, of course - and there's no word on when they plan to return and to be held accountable:

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Sherlock

Navy removes 116 from hospital ship after 7 infected with coronavirus - source of infection unknown


ABC
Thu, 16 Apr 2020 10:03 UTC
USNS Mercy
© (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill, File)The Associated PressFILE - In this March 27, 2020 file photo, the USNS Mercy hospital ship enters the Port of Los Angeles. The number of COVID-19 cases among crewmembers of the Mercy has risen to seven while it is docked in the Port of Los Angeles to help serve the region's patients who have not been stricken by the coronavirus. A 3rd Fleet spokesman said the seven have been isolated off the ship and the Mercy's ability to receive patients has not been affected.
The Navy has removed 116 medical staff members from its hospital ship docked off Los Angeles after seven of them tested positive for COVID-19, an official said Tuesday.

The personnel from the USNS Mercy were taken to a nearby base and remain under quarantine. None so far has needed hospitalization, said Lt. Rochelle Rieger of the 3rd Fleet. Rieger initially said 126 medical crew members were taken off the ship but later corrected the number to 116.

It's unclear where or how the sailors became infected, Rieger said.

The ship left San Diego on March 23 when all were screened before they boarded, Rieger said. It arrived to Los Angeles four days later to provide relief to the city amid the pandemic by accepting patients from hospitals who were not infected with the virus.

Comment: See also:

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Alarm Clock

Flashback Best of the Web: Putin claims someone is harvesting Russian bio samples for obscure purposes - US Air Force admits to collecting genetic data for 'research'


RT.com
Tue, 31 Oct 2017 11:53 UTC

Comment: In light of the 'Covid-19 pandemic', we're re-running this report in which the Russian govt raised the alarm over possible schemes afoot to implement bio-hacking via viral means. To be clear, the suggestions made by the Russian govt several years ago are 'apples' compared with the 'oranges' we're facing in the current scenario. So while there is no clear or direct connection, the point to be made is that messing with viruses and bacteria for 'geo-political and social engineering purposes' is very much a thing among the powerful...


Putin says someone collecting bio samples
Russian genetic material is being harvested all over the country, purposefully and professionally, President Vladimir Putin has said, possibly hinting at the US Air Force's earlier move to acquire Russian tissue samples.

Putin was presiding over a meeting of Russia's Human Rights Council Monday, when he was informed of live broadcasts from polling stations during the recent regional elections being inundated with foreign viewers.

Council member Igor Borisov said the statistics showed that nearly a million views came from abroad. He hinted at a sinister motive behind those viewings.

Comment: The US Air Force has responded to the reports by saying that the biological samples have been collected for "research". The use of Russians for the research was also explained by Air Force spokesman Capt. Beau Downey:
The request [by the research center] did not specify where the samples should be received from, but to continue the study, similar samples were required. Since the supplier originally provided samples from Russia, suitable for the initial group of diseases, the control group of the samples should also be of Russian origin," he said. "The goal is the integrity of the study, not the origin [of the samples]."
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that Russian intelligence is aware that foreign NGOs are collecting genetic information from the population:
"Some emissaries are really carrying out such activities, representatives of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and other bodies. Such cases were registered, and security services, the president naturally have this information," he said.
If the Kremlin and Putin are openly talking about this, you can be sure that Russian security services are going to be paying very close attention to the activities of NGOs in Russia. It's worth pointing out that the CIA is well-known for farming out clandestine activities to various US-government funded NGOs who are really just fronts for Deep State activities. Whatever is going on, it does not seem to be as benign as the Air Force says it is.

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Bad Guys

US plotting to replace military in Iraq with CIA-trained agents

Drago Bosnic
Fort Russ
Wed, 15 Apr 2020 12:00 UTC
us army
© REUTERS / Ako Rasheed
A prominent Iraqi security expert warned that the US is attempting to replace its military personnel in Iraq with forces trained by the CIA to protect its interests in the country.

"The US is trying to replace the military units present in Iraq with a number of forces trained under the supervision of CIA with the aim of supporting its interests in the country," Adnan al-Kanani told the Arabic-language al-Ahd news website on Monday.

Elsewhere, he criticized the political groups in Iraq for weak positions against the US plots, warning that Washington is now seeking to conduct military action in Iraq after the parliament's approval to expel the American forces. His remarks came in line with earlier calls by the Iraqi parliament and military for all foreign troops to leave the Arab country as soon as possible.

Comment: It's hard to believe that some factions within the US would ever truely leave Iraq - at least willlingly: Joe Quinn on PressTV: 'Like Iran, Trump Wants US Forces Out of Iraq, But Only With Trade Guarantees - Elephant in The Room is Israel'

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Pirates

Exactly 18 years after US coup against Venezuela, Pompeo and Abrams warn another is coming

Alan Macleod
MintPress News
Mon, 13 Apr 2020 00:00 UTC
Mike Pompeo, turns the podium to Elliott Abrams
© Manuel Balce Ceneta | APSecretary of State Mike Pompeo, turns the podium to Elliott Abrams, left, during a press briefing about Venezuela at the State Department in Washington, Jan. 25, 2019.
US regime change cheerleaders Mike Pompeo and Elliot Abrams warned Venezuala's government not to resist the upcoming implementation of a "transitional government."

On the eighteenth anniversary of the U.S.-backed coup against the government of Venezuela, senior American officials announced that the people should prepare for another imminent push. "The goal is to replace [President Nicolas] Maduro's illegitimate dictatorship with a legitimate transitional government that can hold free and fair elections to represent all Venezuelans. It is time for Maduro to go," announced Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

On Saturday the eleventh, exactly 18 years after the U.S. supported a briefly successful coup against Hugo Chavez, American envoy for Venezuela and coup specialist Elliott Abrams warned that if Maduro resisted the implementation of said "transitional government" his departure would be far more "dangerous and abrupt," effectively threatening him with another assassination attempt, like the one the U.S.tacitly supported in 2018.

The U.S. has recently upped its sanctions against Venezuela and sent warships to the region to enforce a blockade.

Comment: Is all this rhetoric towards Venezuela another bone that Trump is throwing to the deep state - or does he intend to let Washington go the full imperial distance?

See also:

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Display

Judicial Watch subpoenas Google in search of Hillary Clinton's missing government emails

Sara Carter
SaraACarter.com
Wed, 15 Apr 2020 23:15 UTC
hillary_clinton
Judicial Watch served a subpoena Wednesday on Google to produce Hillary Clinton's missing emails from the Google account believed to contain her government emails when she served as Secretary of State.

The subpoena was authorized by a DC federal court. According to documents and testimony Platte River Networks' IT specialist Paul Combetta reportedly "used the Google account to transfer Clinton's emails from a laptop to a Platte River server, then used Bleach Bit to remove any traces of the emails from the laptop."

"Judicial Watch's subpoena seeks all Clinton emails from her time at State, January 21, 2009, to February 1, 2013. Google is requested to produce the emails by May 13," stated a statement released by Judicial Watch Wednesday.

Tom Fitton, Judicial Watch president, said "a federal court, tired of the State and Justice Departments' gamesmanship authorized Judicial Watch's subpoena to Google to follow a lead on the Clinton emails. DOJ and State are AWOL and covering up for Hillary Clinton, so it is again up to Judicial Watch to do the basic investigative heavy lifting to get at the truth."
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Biohazard

US gave $3.7million to Wuhan lab that was performing pathogen experiments on bats

Frances Mulraney
Daily Mail
Sun, 12 Apr 2020 01:49 UTC
laboratory
A laboratory at the center of scrutiny over the coronavirus pandemic has been carrying out research on bats from the cave which scientists believe is the original source of the outbreak
The Chinese laboratory at the center of scrutiny over a potential coronavirus leak has been using U.S. government money to carry out research on bats from the caves which scientists believe are the original source of the deadly outbreak.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology undertook coronavirus experiments on mammals captured more than 1,000 miles away in Yunnan which were funded by a $3.7 million grant from the US government.

Sequencing of the COVID-19 genome has traced it back to bats found in Yunnan caves but it was first thought to have transferred to humans at an animal market in Wuhan.

Comment: See also:



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Eye 2

Cuomo offers up New Yorkers as GUINEA PIGS for coronavirus vaccine, mandates face masks in public

Noah Higgins-Dunn
CNBC
Wed, 15 Apr 2020 21:18 UTC
Cuomo
© UnknownNew York Governor Andrew Cuomo
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday he is ordering all people to wear a face covering while in public as the state works to combat the nation's worst coronavirus outbreak.

The executive order will take effect after a three-day grace period, Cuomo said at his daily news conference in Albany.

In outlining a gradual reopening of businesses, Cuomo said the state is moving toward a "new normal."

"Where we're going, it's not a reopening in that we're going to reopen what was. We're going to a different place," Cuomo said.

Comment: RT provides more detail on the dystopian diktats from Cuomo:
"You want to use New York state as a laboratory? We are ready, willing and able," Cuomo gushed on Wednesday during his daily coronavirus press conference, addressing the Food and Drug Administration, which is conducting early-stage vaccine trials on a number of experimental coronavirus vaccine compounds.

New York was not only "energized, and creative, and ambitious" about turning its population into pharmaceutical guinea pigs, Cuomo suggested, it was only natural given its status as the global epicenter of the epidemic. "You need a place to test [a vaccine] in large numbers, think of New York."

"Anything we can do to accelerate that vaccine, we will do."

Cuomo seemed to have confidence that the state's economy would reopen soon, however. "We have the infection spread down to a manageable number," he said, even while acknowledging that the state would be "going to a different place, which is a new normal" rather than reverting to status quo.

"By the way, people will enforce it, they'll say to you, if they're standing next to you on a street corner, 'Where's your mask, buddy?' in a nice New York kind of way."

Calling for aid from the Trump administration, Cuomo claimed "large-scaling testing" was "the single best tool to safely reopen society" but insisted "we can't get either diagnostic or antibody testing to scale without federal support."

New York recorded 752 deaths with the coronavirus in the last 24 hours - a slight drop from the previous day - but Cuomo cautioned that "we are not out of the woods yet" and pledged to conduct 2,000 or more finger-prick antibody tests per day, focusing on first responders and healthcare workers. The state is currently the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, with over 202,000 confirmed cases and 10,834 deaths with the virus, according to New York statistics. However, casualty numbers released on Tuesday by New York City include close to 3,800 people who were never tested for coronavirus but merely assumed to have the disease. The US has 614,482 cases as of Wednesday and some 132,276 fatalities, according to Johns Hopkins University.


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Fire

New Chinese assault carrier ship catches fire in Shanghai port

H I Sutton
Forbes
Sat, 11 Apr 2020 08:35 UTC
Type-075 carrier
© Twitter
Black smoke has been seen billowing from China's first assault carrier in Shanghai. The new Type-075 carrier, which is similar to the U.S. Navy's America Class assault carriers, is designed to carry helicopters and hovercraft to support amphibious landings.

The smoke was reported on Chinese social media platforms earlier today. Images suggest that the fire took hold within the hull of the ship, possibly in the expansive aircraft hanger. Smoke came out of the open aircraft lift near the front of the island superstructure. Smoke also came out of the rear hangar opening. For a time a massive cloud of smoke rose high into the air, and would have been visible for miles around.

The fire was put out, but not before causing significant smoke damage to the hull. The extent of damage inside is not yet known. Black stains can now be seen from the ship's large well deck in the stern, contrasting with the clean gray paint. The vessel was only launched on September 25 and is being fitted out before sea trials.
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Bizarro Earth

Anti-China hawks risk isolating Britain

Tom Fowdy
chinadaily.com.cn
Sun, 12 Apr 2020 21:57 UTC
Blame game virus
© Luo Jie/China Daily
As the COVID-19 pandemic has gathered pace in the United Kingdom, it has come with increasing calls from some individuals and media outlets situated on the political right to pursue a politics of blame and retaliation against China over the outbreak.

Starting with an editorial in The Mail on Sunday two weeks ago, officials in the Conservative Party including former Party leader Ian Duncan Smith, called for a "reckoning" against China and demanded the UK "re-think" its relationship with Beijing. The paper falsely claimed that China's case numbers were 40 times higher than reported, and whipped up racist imagery of animal markets, which was in fact taken in Vietnam, to further vilify the country.

The succeeding week, the newspaper proceeded to whip up a figure from the Neoconservative Think Tank the Henry Jackson Society, stating that "China owes Britain £351 billion". In the meanwhile, these anti-China individuals including also parliamentary select committee on Foreign Affairs Leader Tom Tugenhadt, have been appearing more prominently in a variety of right wing outlets also making this call.

The same political faction within the Conservative Party sought to ban Huawei's participation in Britain's 5G network back in January and rebel against Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government. With the UK government having typically pursued good relations with Beijing, this faction is now weaponizing the crisis to push its agenda into the mainstream.
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