Puppet MastersS


Bad Guys

Erdogan: Turkey will give 'much harsher response' if Damascus violates ceasefire, vows to keep border open until EU fulfills migrant deal


RT
Wed, 11 Mar 2020 18:21 UTC
turkish soldier idlib
© AFP / Bakr AlkasemA Turkish soldier in Idlib, northwestern Syria on February 20, 2020
Turkey will take decisive action if the fragile ceasefire recently brokered between Moscow and Ankara in Idlib, Syria is broken, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned.
We will not just retaliate [against] even the smallest attack here [in Idlib], we will give a much harsher response.
His comments come as the US considers intervening in the standoff in northwestern Syria. Washington's special envoy for Syria, James Jeffrey, has floated the idea of NATO becoming involved. Deploying ground troops should the ceasefire fall apart, however, is not currently on the table, Jeffrey noted. The Turkish president said on Tuesday that Washington has already offered to provide intelligence regarding Idlib.
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Bad Guys

Vietnam redux: Trump's withdrawal deal with the Afghan Taliban is a 'peace with honor' retread

Scott Ritter
RT
Wed, 11 Mar 2020 18:10 UTC
trump troops afghanistan
© Global Look Press / White House / FileUS President Donald Trump, November 30, 2019, Afghanistan
President Nixon referred to the peace accords ending the Vietnam War as "peace with honor;" what President Trump is doing in Afghanistan is gearing up to become the same - both on the shiny label and in the sobering reality.

The US has begun withdrawing combat troops from Afghanistan, initiating a process set forth in a peace agreement signed with the Taliban on February 29 which, if implemented, would see the number of forces in the country cut from about 13,000 to 8,600 over the next four and a half months and, if the conditions for total withdrawal are met, all US and foreign troops removed from Afghan soil over the course of a 14-month period. The troops leaving Iraq under this current round of reductions were already scheduled to return home; unlike previous rotations, this time there will be no replacements flown into Afghanistan to replace them.
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Briefcase

Hunter Biden hit with contempt motion: 'Willfully' defied court order to provide financial documents in paternity suit

Edwin Mora
Breitbart
Wed, 11 Mar 2020 18:00 UTC
hunder biden Lunden Alexis Roberts
© ABC News, Facebook/Lunden RobertsHunter Biden and Lunden Alexis Roberts
The lawyers representing the mother of a child fathered by Hunter Biden recently filed a motion seeking to have the former vice president's son held in contempt of court for repeatedly refusing to obey a paternity and child support suit-linked order to provide financial documents, including his 2017 and 2018 personal tax returns.

Citing the contempt motion filed in an Arkansas court by 28-year-old Lunden Alexis Roberts' lawyers on Friday, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette revealed that besides his tax returns, Hunter Biden has also failed to disclose:
"All financial institutions used by him or a business he owns or controls;" "a list of all companies he currently owns or in which he has an ownership interest and the state in which those companies are incorporated;" "a list of all sources of income for the past five years;" "a list of all employers for the past five years;" tax documents for companies he owns and "a copy of deeds to properties that he owns or in which he has an ownership interest."

Comment:

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X

Voters face delays as untested procedures and system failures complicate polling in six states


RT
Tue, 10 Mar 2020 22:23 UTC
Polling place,
© Global Look/Liu Jie
As primary voters streamed to the polls in six US states, they encountered system failures, missing ballots, disqualifying technicalities, and other unexpected roadblocks. One mayor was even turned away from his polling station.

Former vice president Joe Biden leads the Democratic field going into Tuesday's contests, in which the candidates will compete for 352 party delegates. While Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders began the nomination season strong, handily taking the first three states, Biden surged to the forefront on Super Tuesday - though some have raised alarms about vote-counting abnormalities in several of the states he won, noting sizable disparities between exit polling and computer vote tallies. As voting began on Tuesday, more anomalies have cropped up.


If Texas, or New Hampshire or South Carolina were socialist Latin American countries, the CIA, through the OAS would have already installed a fascistic right-wing government like that of Jeanine Anez today in Bolivia.

Comment: Biden projected to carry Mississippi and Missouri
Early projections favor Biden to win the majority of Mississippi's 36 delegates and Missouri's 68. Exit polls showed the former vice president coming out of Mississippi with more than three times the votes of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, and leading in Missouri by over 20 points.

Sanders is considered the clear favorite to repeat his 2016 success in North Dakota, where 14 delegates are at stake. With just 14 voting sites for the entire state, some went so far as to cry "voter suppression."


Having won the most delegates in last week's Super Tuesday contests, Biden is leading Sanders by 670 pledged delegates to the Vermont senator's 574. While neither is anywhere near the 1,991 needed for an outright victory, the party establishment's support for Biden all but guarantees that the unpledged 'superdelegates' will line up behind him at the convention in Milwaukee, just like they did in 2016 for Hillary Clinton.
Biden projected to take Michigan with 125 delegates at stake
Democratic Party frontrunner Joe Biden edged out rival Bernie Sanders as polls closed in Michigan, with early counts giving him 52.1 percent of the vote. Voters in some cities were still waiting to cast their ballots, however, with some waiting an average of three hours.


Before polls closed, state officials warned that primary results would likely be delayed due to a backlog in counting absentee ballots. The state expanded its vote-by-mail options to all citizens last year and has already received over 800,000 absentee votes, which it was only permitted to start counting Tuesday morning.

While pre-election polls showed Biden with a comfortable lead over his rival, the candidate did himself no favors with Michigan voters, getting into a shouting match with a factory worker during a campaign stop on Tuesday after the man accused him of trying to take Americans' guns. Instead of trying to smooth-talk his way out of it, the former vice president called the worker a "horse's ass" who was "full of s**t," shocking onlookers.

Sanders himself had staked his hopes on winning Michigan, telling reporters last week that it was the "most important state" for his campaign.

Sanders supporters have accused the Democratic National Committee of rigging several states' primaries against their candidate, noting suspicious disparities between exit polls and reported vote totals in South Carolina, Texas, and Massachusetts.


But not everyone was buying the "Biden wave."




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Microscope 2

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern explains why Kiwis should not avoid public events amid coronavirus COVID-19

Zane Small
Newshub
Tue, 10 Mar 2020 00:01 UTC
Jacinda Ardern
Jacinda Ardern does not want Kiwis to avoid public gatherings amid the COVID-19 outbreak despite asking officials for advice on two events this weekend.

The Prime Minister said on Tuesday morning she had sought advice from health officials about whether it is safe to go ahead with the Pasifika Festival and the Christchurch terror attack memorial on Saturday and Sunday, respectively.

By Tuesday afternoon, the Prime Minister said she was expecting to receive the advice from officials "later this afternoon" and that she would share the outcome when she has it.

Comment: See also:

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Megaphone

US now openly admits its goal in Syria is to make it 'difficult' for Moscow and Damascus to defeat terrorists

Nebojsa Malic
RT
Tue, 10 Mar 2020 22:55 UTC
liberated idlib province Islam
© REUTERS/Omar SanadikiA Syrian soldier walks by the sign reading "Islam is the solution" in the town of Khan Sheikhoun, Idlib province, freshly liberated from militants; August 24, 2019.
The State Department's special envoy for Syria has just admitted that the US aims to defend jihadist militants in Idlib against 'Russian aggression,' proving once again that the swamp in Foggy Bottom is alive and well.

Russia and the Syrian government "are out to get a military victory in all of Syria," Ambassador James Jeffrey told reporters on a conference call out of Brussels on Tuesday.
Our goal is to make it very difficult for them to do that by a variety of diplomatic, military, and other actions.

Comment: See also:

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Snakes in Suits

Turkey will not receive Patriot System unless it returns S-400 to Russia - Pentagon


Sputnik
Wed, 11 Mar 2020 18:25 UTC
S-400
© AP Photo / Turkish Defence Ministry
The United States continues to condition the supply of the Patriot air defence systems to Turkey on returning the already purchased S-400 systems back to Russia, US Defense Department spokesperson Jonathan Hoffman said in a briefing on Tuesday.

"Turkey is not going to receive a Patriot battery unless it returns the S-400," Hoffman told reporters.

Earlier on Tuesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the United States has softened its stance on Turkey's purchase of the Russian S-400 air defence systems and reduced its demands to asking Ankara not to put the weapon on active service.

Comment: Russia has done a lot more for Turkey than simply provide it with superior weaponry and so if Erdogan and Turkey's ruling factions know what's best for it, they'll stick with Russia's S-400s:

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HAL9000

Best of the Web: Democrats and Republicans pause their phony war to quietly extend NSA's mass surveillance powers


RT
Wed, 11 Mar 2020 00:24 UTC

Comment: The House always wins...


surveillance
© Pixabay / succo
Democrat and Republican House leaders have paused their partisan sniping to do the real work of governing: keeping unpopular surveillance programs, including roving NSA wiretaps and access to metadata, alive indefinitely.

With just four days to go before congressional authorization for the controversial provisions expires, a bipartisan contingent has swooped in to save the NSA from experiencing one second of separation anxiety from Americans' private communications. Committee heads from both sides of the aisle wrangled enough votes within their own parties to deliver a reauthorization bill on Tuesday night which they believe will pass the entire House on Wednesday.

Lawmakers reportedly sweated for months over the legislation, which extends key elements of the USA Freedom Act, the 2015 replacement for the NSA's "StellarWind" program exposed by whistleblower Edward Snowden - even though the NSA itself no longer uses the program. Indeed, it was the Trump administration, not Congress, that pleaded for its reauthorization, on the offchance it might be needed again in the future.

Comment: See also:

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USA

US-Israel is predictably behind Turkish aggression in Syria

Tony Cartalucci
New Eastern Outlook
Tue, 10 Mar 2020 00:00 UTC
US soldier
Turkey's ongoing fighting in northern Syria's Idlib governorate was - from the beginning of recent escalations - clearly a continuation of Washington's wider now 9 year-long proxy war against Damascus.

Whatever gains Turkey had made in terms of reducing its role in Washington's proxy war and repairing ties with Syria's allies Russia and Iran - were clearly less important to Ankara amid these recent weeks of renewed aggression than whatever Washington has either promised Anakara or threatened it with.

And precisely because Turkey's aggression in Idlib is merely one part of the much wider proxy war Washington continues to wage against Damascus - it was predicted that others involved in the proxy war would coordinate with Turkey elsewhere in Syria.

Israeli Airstrikes

In recent weeks Israel has continued carrying out attacks in Syrian territory.

Recent news has covered Israeli attacks on military targets in Homs - right at the edge of where Turkey's aggression trails off.

Chinese news site Xinhua in its March 5, 2020 article, "Syrian air defenses intercept Israeli missiles in central, southern regions," would report:
Syrian air defenses intercepted Israeli missiles in the central province of Homs and the southern Quneitra province after midnight Thursday, state news agency SANA reported.

The missiles were fired from Israeli warplanes over the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and from Lebanese airspace, said the report, without providing details on the targets.

The attack is the latest in a string of missile strikes carried out by Israel.

Comment: See also:

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Eagle

The Federal Reserve's irresponsible rate cut accelerated panic

Daniel Lacalle
dlacalle.com
Sun, 08 Mar 2020 00:00 UTC
stone eagle
The monumental mistake of the Federal Reserve cutting rates this week can only be understood in the context of the rising God's complex of central planners. An overwhelming combination of ignorance and arrogance.

Less than a week ago, several members of the Federal Reserve board reminded - rightly so - that cutting rates would not have a significant impact in a supply shock like the current one. We must also remember that the Federal Reserve already cut rates in 2019 and inflated its balance sheet by 14% to almost all-time highs in recent months, completely reversing the virtually nonexistent prior normalization. Only a few days after making calls for prudence, the Fed launched an unnecessary and panic-inducing emergency rate cut and caused the opposite effect to what they desired. Instead of calming markets, the Federal Reserve 50 basis points cut sent a message of panic to market participants. If the jobs and manufacturing figures were better than expected, and the economy is solid with low unemployment, what message does the Fed transmit with an emergency cut? It tells market participants that the situation is much worse than it seems and that the Fed knows more than the rest of us about how dire everything can be. A communication and policy mistake driven by an incorrect diagnosis: The idea that the market crash would be solved with easy monetary policy instead of understanding the impact on stocks and growth of an evident supply shock from the coronavirus epidemic.
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