Puppet MastersS


Bullseye

Trump promises to make Biden's Ukraine scandal a 'major issue' in 2020 race

John Nolte
Breitbart
Thu, 05 Mar 2020 19:37 UTC
joe biden
© Joshua Lott/Getty ImagesCreepy Joe may be in for a rough ride if he gets the Democratic nomination.
President Trump promised to make the media and Democrats rue the fact that Joe Biden's corruption in Ukraine has been placed off limits.

The president phoned in to Sean Hannity's Fox News program Wednesday night, just 24 hours after Biden's incredible return from the dead. While much can still happen to once again alter everyone's expectations, the former vice president is now seen as the clear frontrunner to win the 2020 Democrat presidential nomination.

Hannity turned Trump's attention to the work done by Peter Schweizer, president of the Government Accountability Institute and Breitbart News senior contributor, as it relates to Hunter Biden, Joe Biden's 50-year-old son, who received millions of dollars from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma while his dad — then the sitting vice president — directed $1.8 billion in U.S. aid money to Ukraine.

Comment: "Burisma Biden"! Will CreepyJoe acquire a new Trump nickname as he zombie-shuffles to the Democratic nomination?

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Quenelle

Leaked evidence: Assange arrest came after Wikileaks publisher refused to give up sources

Tareq Haddad and Kit Klarenber
The Wtachdog
Mon, 02 Mar 2020 18:10 UTC
free assange poster light pole belmarsh
© Bridges for Media FreedomA 'Don’t Extradite Assange' campaign sticker outside HMP Belmarsh where journalist Julian Assange is arbitrarily detained.
U.S. President Donald Trump offered Julian Assange clemency in return for confirmation that Seth Rich was the source of leaked Democratic Party emails — only to push for the indictment of the Wikileaks founder when he refused to comply.

Text messages released last week by Kim Dotcom, the internet entrepreneur and close associate of Assange, revealed how he helped facilitate a 2017 meeting between the 48-year-old Australian and former U.S. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-Cal).

After his first meeting with Trump in April of that year, Rohrabacher travelled to meet Assange — then arbitrarily detained in Ecuador's London embassy — after Dotcom brokered the arrangement through his friend and Fox News host, Sean Hannity.

Comment: It is a testament to Assange's integrity that he refused to compromise the founding principles of Wikileaks, even as figuratively, his cell door stood open. When the his farcical trial resumes in May, we hope his lawyer will make full use of the information disclosed above.

A round up of the "proceedings" so far, courtesy of Craig Murray, from the initial bail hearing in October 2019, to the adjournment of the current round:

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Snakes in Suits

Violence 'must be reduced' for Afghan peace process to progress claims Pompeo just after US airstrikes on Taliban


FE/RL
Thu, 05 Mar 2020 16:57 UTC
Kunduz
Afghan soldiers stand at a checkpoint in Kunduz where clashes took place between Taliban and Afghan forces amid a recent flare-up in deadly violence.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has voiced frustration with renewed violence in Afghanistan, saying the Afghan parties to the conflict need to take advantage of a peace deal signed over the weekend.

"Violence must be reduced immediately for the peace process to move forward," Pompeo told reporters on March 5. "Do not squander this opportunity."

The comments came after the Pentagon said U.S. forces conducted a "defensive" air strike against Taliban fighters in Afghanistan on March 4, as attacks by the militants left at least 32 Afghan security-force members dead in at least three provinces.

The wave of violence is threatening to unravel a February 29 agreement signed in Doha between the United States and the Taliban and aimed at ending the 18-year war in Afghanistan.

Comment: See also: US strikes Taliban after Afghan security personnel killed in attacks, just hours after "very good" chat with Trump

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Bad Guys

Empires of the steppes fuel Erdogan Khan's dreams - and he's desperate

Pepe Escobar
Asia Times
Wed, 04 Mar 2020 12:00 UTC
Refugees
© AFP / Burcu Okutan / SputnikRefugees wait Saturday to cross the border between Turkey and Greece near the Pazarkule border post, in Turkey. Thousands of migrants and refugees, including Afghans, Syrians and Iraqis, have massed at Turkey's border with Greece after Erdogan announced on February 28 that Turkey would no longer prevent them from leaving for the European Union.
The latest installment of the interminable Syria tragedy could be interpreted as Greece barely blocking a European "invasion" by Syrian refugees. The invasion was threatened by President Erdogan even as he refused the EU's puny "offer you can refuse" bribe of only one billion euros.

Well, it's more complicated than that. What Erdogan is in fact weaponizing is mostly economic migrants - from Afghanistan to the Sahel - and not Syrian refugees.

Informed observers in Brussels know that interlocking mafias - Iraqi, Afghan, Egyptian, Tunisian, Moroccan - have been active for quite a long time smuggling everyone and his neighbor from the Sahel via Turkey, as the Greek route towards the EU Holy Grail is much safer than the Central Mediterranean.

Comment: Sputnik provides more commentary with Tom Luongo on the situation:
'Out on a Limb': Erdogan 'Trapped Between Major Powers Tired of His Game'

Amid his attempts to salvage a collapsing situation in Syria's Idlib Governorate, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has few friends to turn to, having alienated every major power by playing them against one another for so long, an expert tells Sputnik.

In northern Syria in the past few weeks, a shooting war has broken out between Turkish forces in support of their proxies occupying Idlib and the Russian forces fighting alongside the Syrian Arab Army to retake the province for Damascus. Erodgan has tried and failed to invoke Article 5 of the NATO charter, which would have brought his European and American allies into the war on Ankara's side, and on Thursday, he is traveling to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin directly.

Tom Luongo, independent politics, culture and market analyst at Gold Goats 'n Guns, told Radio Sputnik's Political Misfits Tuesday the Moscow summit would be "the tale of the tape, as it were," spelling out in no uncertain terms just how much - or how little - capability Erdogan has in this fight.

"I firmly believe that from the moment the Syrian operation began that Erdogan was promised most of Idlib and a 30-mile buffer zone between Turkey's southern borders and Syria's northern borders ... in order to effectively break up the two Kurdish cantons, two Kurdish enclaves in Syria. That's what Erdogan wants, and he also wants most of Idlib," Luongo said.

"I think he's been very - well, in his mind - skillfully managing both the United States and Russia to weasel them to get what he wants, playing both sides against each other at strategic times. He flip-flops constantly," Luongo noted. "One week he's hugging Putin for saving his life, and the next week he's asking [US President Donald] Trump for Patriot missile batteries ... It goes back and forth, but Idlib has been kind of the thing that he's bargained for in all of his negotiations with Putin."

Luongo said that when Erdogan won the establishment of the de-escalation zone in September 2018 after the invasion of Idlib by Turkish forces earlier that year, that he firmly believed he had established a new southern border of Turkey by doing so.

"I think Erdogan has overplayed his hand. I think he's now into desperation mode. Remember two or three years ago, certainly right after the [2016] coup attempt, his popularity was still very strong. But he's lost two major regional elections in Turkey in the last 12 months - one in Istanbul and one in Ankara - and the latest poll that I've seen has his approval rating down in the low 40s. Salt that to taste, it's one poll, but it's been trending in that direction for a long time now."

"Unemployment is rising again. He's demanding the central bank get interest rates down into single digits while inflation is beginning to rise. None of this has anything to do with any kind of hybrid war pressure being placed on the lira because he's buying S-400s from the Russians, like in 2018. He's got real fiscal problems now. He's got $168 billion in Turkish corporate debt, which has to be rolled over in the next 12 months, and they don't have the money. And now he's ticked off everyone who helped him get through the last funding crisis in 2018, which stabilized the lira," Luongo said.

"So, he's going to Moscow on Thursday to try and cut a deal with Putin to get some of Syria and say 'Well, just give me something,' so he can save face at home and stay in power," he noted. "I don't think Putin's going to give him anything, because ultimately, at the end of the day, Putin doesn't need Erdogan. He needs Turkey, but he doesn't need him. I think at this point, everybody's tired of this guy constantly playing everybody against each other, and he finds himself trapped between major powers who are tired of his game. I don't think it's going to work for him here."

"I'm becoming convinced that, within a year, he's going to be out of power, and this time no one's going to save him," Loungo told hosts Bob Schlehuber and Jamarl Thomas. "He's out on a limb."

See also:

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Arrow Up

OPCW whistleblowers confront leadership's attacks, cover-up of Douma deception

Aaron Maté
The Grayzone
Thu, 05 Mar 2020 17:58 UTC
opcw
Two whistleblowing chemical weapons inspectors at the center of an Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons's (OPCW) cover-up scandal are demanding their suppressed findings get a fair, transparent, and scientific hearing. In formal letters to the OPCW Director-General, the two veteran officials also refuted the OPCW's leadership's efforts to impugn their credibility.

Both inspectors were part of the team that deployed to Syria to investigate allegations of a chemical weapons attack in the eastern Damascus suburb of Douma in April 2018. The US government accused the Syrian government of a chemical attack, justifying missile strikes on the country by the US and its allies.

But the inspectors in Douma found evidence that raised serious doubts that a chemical weapons attack ever occurred, and which pointed instead to the staging of the incident by anti-Assad extremists. Their findings were suppressed by OPCW leaders who re-wrote their initial report, then excluded the investigators from the ensuing process.

The letters by the two whistleblowers are a response to a recent OPCW inquiry that dismissed them as rogue actors "who could not accept that their views were not backed by evidence," and which baselessly accused them of "deliberate and premeditated breaches of confidentiality."

Comment: For more on the series of leaks, see the following: The OPCW covered up the truth - plain and simple. Now the only thing they can do to hang on to their non-existent credibility is to smear the only individuals trying to uphold the OPCW's stated mission. That's what happens when you let the CIA tell you what to do. Unfortunately, it looks like they'll get away with it, fake credibility intact. Because so far, only the Daily Mail and maybe 1 or 2 other mainstream publications are even reporting on the scandal. That makes practically the entire MSM complicit, not only in the cover-up, but the war crime that resulted from it.

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Handcuffs

Those behind killing of Russian Ambassador Karlov in Turkey must be found & punished - Moscow


RT
Thu, 05 Mar 2020 17:39 UTC
karlov
© AFP / Natalia KOLESNIKOVAAmbassador Andrey Karlov was shot dead by a Turkish off-duty police officer in 2016
Russia wants to ensure that both masterminds and perpetrators in the 2016 murder of its envoy Andrey Karlov are found and brought to justice, the Kremlin said, hours ahead of a one-on-one between the Turkish and Russian leaders.

"Indeed, we are following this case very closely, and we want to be sure that those who orchestrated and carried out the murder of the Russian ambassador to Turkey will be found and punished by law," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday.

He spoke amid media reports that Turkish prosecutors have floated the idea of lifting several convicts' charges.

While Turkey's judicial proceedings "are none of our business," it is crucial "that the murderers of our ambassador are punished," Peskov reiterated.

It emerged earlier in the day that Turkish prosecutors have also requested 70 years behind bars for 8 suspects in the ambassador's killing and asked for differing prison terms for several others. The next court hearing, where judges will hear lawyers for the suspects, is set for March 31.

Comment: Interesting timing, given the tensions between Turkey and Russia in Syria, prompting the Erdogan-Putin meeting today. There are most likely many skeletons in the closet, which can be used as leverage in negotiations going forward. It's impossible to say whether or not that is the case here, but Russia will no doubt seek to put as much pressure on Turkey to bring them into line in Syria, while preventing any further escalations. Erdogan will be given another chance, which he will no doubt fail to uphold, and in the meantime, thus repeating the process, but Syria will slowly regain control of its sovereign territory.

See also:

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Popcorn

Warren drops out of 2020 race, setting up 'one-on-one showdown' between Sanders and Biden

Tyler Olson, Paul Steinhauser, Tara Prindiville
Fox News
Thu, 05 Mar 2020 11:15 UTC

Comment: Just don't mention Tulsi Gabbard, who is still in the race...


Liz Warren
© AP Photo/Patrick SemanskyFormer Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., speaks during a primary election night rally, Tuesday, March 3, 2020, at Eastern Market in Detroit.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren dropped out of the 2020 presidential race after a disappointing Super Tuesday in which she failed to win even her home state -- a development that could boost Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders' campaign by making him the lone progressive standard-bearer in the Democratic field.

The decision essentially leaves the race as a one-on-one battle between Sanders and former Vice President Joe Biden, who is surging after claiming a stunning 10 victories on Super Tuesday. Warren announced the decision in a late-morning, all-staff call on Thursday.

"I want all of you to hear it first, and I want you to hear it straight from me: today, I'm suspending our campaign for president," Warren told staffers on the call. "What we have done - and the ideas we have launched into the world, the way we have fought this fight, the relationships we have built - will carry through, carry through for the rest of this election, and the one after that, and the one after that."

Warren's move, first reported by The New York Times, comes after a disappointing performance on the biggest day of primary voting. Moderate candidates Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar already had dropped out in the days before, boosting Biden to a delegate lead and essentially co-frontrunner status with Sanders. Billionaire Mike Bloomberg, another moderate, dropped out of the race on Wednesday and endorsed Biden.

Comment: For the next round of televised Democratic Party debates, Gabbard was supposed to be on the set because she now has the minimum of one pledged delegate. Except the DNC changed the rules as soon as Gabbard recently reached this threshold.

Democrazi, aint it great!

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Eye 1

Absurd claims of Julian Assange being Russian tool only made to justify Hillary's loss to Trump - WikiLeaks founder's father to RT


RT
Thu, 05 Mar 2020 02:16 UTC
Demonstrator stands protest against the extradition of Julian Assange in London.
© Reuters / Peter NichollsA demonstrator stands protest against the extradition of Julian Assange in London.
Julian Assange published the DNC leaks in 2016 not because of links to Russia, but because he was always longing for truth, John Shipton said as he recalled key moments of his son's life in an interview with RT Documentary.

Claims by the US intelligence services that Assange received the leaked 2016 Democratic National Committee emails directly from the Kremlin are "absurd," Shipton said.

WikiLeaks published the files, which revealed the DNC's bias against candidate Bernie Sanders and eventually cost Hillary Clinton dearly in the presidential race against Donald Trump. At the time, Assange was holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

While in the embassy, Julian was "the most surveyed person on the planet," with anybody entering the facility photographed and recorded by both the British and Ecuadorian secret services. Under such circumstances, it's just "impossible" to imagine that he could've had any contacts with the Russian intelligence, Shipton pointed out.
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Arrow Down

Best of the Web: 'Everything is China's fault': Western media excoriates China over coronavirus response, even as infection rates subside

Helen Buyniski
RT
Wed, 04 Mar 2020 17:04 UTC
Shanghai coronavirus
© Reuters / Aly SongResidential community in Shanghai closed for coronavirus protection.
China can do no right in its response to the coronavirus, according to western media. Even as the epidemic appears to be subsiding, Beijing is being slammed for being simultaneously too authoritarian and too weak.

Even as the Chinese government earns plaudits from the World Health Organization and epidemiology experts for its handling of the epidemic, Western media haven't let up on their criticism. Coronavirus has given them license to unleash every stereotype and wild speculation they've ever had about life in China, and they aren't about to let go of that opportunity. Accordingly, nothing Beijing does — or doesn't do — will be enough for the armchair critics of the American press.

Blaming Communism

CNBC has compared the government's response to coronavirus to the reaction of Soviet authorities to the 1986 nuclear accident at Chernobyl, citing US financial firm Raymond James. However, the company only wrote that it was "receiving questions on whether or not this will be a 'Chernobyl-like' event for China" in their analyst report published February 18. They didn't openly declare it had been one, though they did suggest that "if the virus becomes a true global pandemic, the actions by the Chinese leadership will come under fire as they no doubt contributed to the spread" (emphasis added).

Comment: Western media, as mouthpieces for the establishment, are making the terror of Western elites at the growing power of China all too obvious.

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Laptop

Cyber soldiers penetrate the Skripal case

John Helmer
Dances with Bears
Wed, 04 Mar 2020 11:40 UTC
cyberattack
© Wall Street
Cyber attacks have been launched in England to stop publication of new evidence in the Skripal case from being published this week on the second anniversary of the attack on Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury, March 4, 2018.

The targets were The Blogmire produced by Rob Slane from Salisbury, and this website produced from Moscow. The Blogmire was disabled and inaccessible to readers between last Thursday and Saturday. Then on Monday evening this site was attacked. The evidence left behind by the attackers shows they come from the same source, using the same unusual method of attack and concealment.

Reporters and columnists for the London papers also say they are under pressure from their editors not to report on or review the new book, Skripal in Prison, published on February 13. According to Mary Dejevsky, columnist for The Independent, "the govt's info people have managed by various stratagems, incl silence, to close the whole thing down."

Rob Slane
The Blogmire publishes essays by Slane (right), a church minister, on a range of religious, political and social topics. The website opened in 2014; Slane's reports on the Skripal case began on March 12, 2018. Printed out, they currently run to more than three hundred pages. They have also drawn comments, additional data, factual corrections of police, prosecutor, and politician claims, together with speculations about motive, timing and modus operandi. Altogether on the website, attached as threads to Slane's reports, there are several thousand comments from individuals, some of whom identify themselves, some of whom prefer to stay anonymous; some are very well-informed. MI6 and the BBC have dismissed them as "truthers or pro-Kremlin users".

Comment: See also:

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