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Question

End of an era as Surkov leaves Kremlin: Will it signal new dawn between Russia & Ukraine?

Bryan MacDonald
RT
Thu, 20 Feb 2020 20:32 UTC
Vladislav Surkov
© Global Look Press / Komsomolskaya PravdaVladislav Surkov
So it's official now. A month after it was first leaked, the Kremlin has confirmed that Vladislav Surkov has left the building. There are divergent views on his legacy, but nobody will accuse him of being boring.

It was the age of big beast political advisers. George W Bush looked to Karl Rove, Tony Blair relied on Alastair Campbell and Vladimir Putin had Vladislav Surkov.

In Washington, Rove reflected a post-Cold War American exuberance ("we're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality"), while Campbell kept his boss on a tight leash, reportedly once interrupting Blair's answer to a question on religion with the words "we don't do God."
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V

Lawyer tells court Trump offered WikiLeaks' Julian Assange a pardon if he admitted Russia was not involved hacking of DNC emails

Dan Mangan, Kevin Breuninger, and Christina Wilkie
CNBC
Wed, 19 Feb 2020 19:51 UTC
assange
© Daniel Leal-Olivas | AFP | Getty Images
President Donald Trump offered a pardon through an intermediary to Julian Assange if the WikiLeaks chief agreed to say that Russia was not involved in hacking emails from Democrats during the 2016 presidential election, a lawyer for Assange reportedly told a court in London on Wednesday.

Assange's lawyer Edward Fitzgerald made that claim during a hearing related to the U.S. request to extradite Assange from the United Kingdom to face more than a dozen criminal charges in the United States, according to The Daily Beast news site.

Fitzgerald referred in that hearing to a statement from Jennifer Robinson, another lawyer for Assange, saying that then-Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., told Assange that, "on instructions from the president, he was offering a pardon or some other way out, if Mr. Assange ... said Russia had nothing to do with the DNC [Democratic National Committee] leaks," The Daily Beast reported.
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Snakes in Suits

'Cokehead, womanizing, fag': New book of quotes by Michael Bloomberg paints a damning picture of Democratic presidential candidate

Barbie Latza Nadeau
The Daily Beast
Sat, 15 Feb 2020 19:34 UTC
bloomberg
© David McNew/Getty
"Cokehead, womanizing, fag." That's the way Michael Bloomberg once characterized a competitor in New York's financial industry, according to a book of quotes presented to the billionaire businessman for his 48th birthday in 1990.

The quote is one of a number of vulgar and degrading remarks, contained in a gag gift presented to Bloomberg by an employee, that may spell trouble for the former New York mayor as he attempts to convince Democrats he can topple Donald Trump in the 2020 election.

The tome, titled Wit & Wisdom of Michael Bloomberg, was published in full by the Washington Post on Saturday morning. It has been quoted at length over the years but has never been printed in full by a mainstream outlet.
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MIB

Deep State Mayor Pete: Might former Naval intelligence officer Buttigieg be a CIA asset?

Sam Jacobs
Ammo.com
Thu, 13 Feb 2020 18:12 UTC
Buttigieg
© UnknownMayor Pete Buttigieg in Afghanistan. Not necessarily a spook, but thinks like one?
Former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg is a rising star in the Democratic Party. A mere year ago, few could have picked him out of a police lineup. Now he's the presumptive front-runner of the centrist faction of the party and - for the moment, at least - the most likely person for "Stop Bernie" forces to coalesce around.

But few know much about him, if anything. His personal biography seems to revolve around two data points. First, that he's a gay Christian. Second, that he's a former Navy intelligence officer.

The latter of the two has not had any significant scrutiny. When "Mayor Pete's" military record is subjected to even the slightest bit of observation, however, some disturbing facts and damning questions begin to leap out. The question at the bottom continues to be: Who is Pete Buttigieg?

Comment:

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Bad Guys

Maduro says US plotting to invade Venezuela, country 'not afraid of combat'


PressTV
Tue, 18 Feb 2020 19:14 UTC
maduro
© AFP
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro says the United States and some of its allies are plotting to invade Venezuela and that the South American country is "not afraid of military combat."

In a televised speech on Monday, Maduro said the US had assembled a "mercenary force" to invade Venezuela.
"We don't want war; we don't want violence; we don't want terrorism, but we are not afraid of military combat and we are going to guarantee peace," said the Venezuelan president, surrounded by the armed forces' high command.
The US has been carrying out a pressure campaign against Maduro's government and urged the armed forces to turn against him. Washington has been backing opposition figure Juan Guaido in his attempts to topple the government in Caracas, including through a recent coup that failed.
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Star of David

Israel plans new settlement on occupied land earmarked for 'Muslim tourism' in Trump plan

Yumna Patel
Mondoweiss
Wed, 19 Feb 2020 19:05 UTC
West Bank
© Getty ImagesConstruction in the West Bank settlement of Ariel, September 27, 2010
Israel is planning to build a new Israeli settlement in the Atarot area of East Jerusalem — the same swath of land that was slated by US President Donald Trump's peace plan to go to the Palestinians.

According to settlement watchdog Peace Now, the Israeli Ministry of Housing submitted plans a week ago to the Jerusalem Municipality for a new settlement spanning 9,000 hectares (22,239 acres) in Atarot, which is currently an Israeli industrial zone that lies between East Jerusalem and the Palestinian neighborhoods of Qalandiya and Kafr Aqab, on the eastern side of the wall.

"The plan is at the heart of an urban Palestinian continuum built from Ramallah, through Kfar Aqab and Qalandiya, to Beit Hanina and Shu'afat, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians live," Peace Now noted.

The group claimed the proposed settlement in Atarot "is intended to stick a wedge in the Palestinian succession and become an Israeli enclave that will prevent the Palestinian development of the central and most important metropolis in the future Palestinian state."
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Newspaper

'Journalism is not a crime': Australian MP says charges against Assange must be dropped after visiting him in UK prison


RT
Thu, 20 Feb 2020 01:16 UTC
Assange protest
© Reuters / Henry Nicholls
Continued persecution of the WikiLeaks co-founder is a "crazy situation," Australian lawmaker George Christiansen told RT, adding that Julian Assange did not commit any crime aside from running afoul of US elites.

Christiansen, a member of the Liberal National Party of Queensland, questioned the integrity of the legal process against Assange, who is now facing the possibility of extradition to the US over "unlawfully obtaining and disclosing classified documents related to the national defense."

The journalist was hauled out of the Ecuadorian embassy in London after his asylum was revoked in April 2019, and has been locked up at the maximum security Belmarsh prison ever since.

"We have an Australian citizen, who is a subject to our laws, extradited by one foreign nation into another on charges in accordance with the laws of a country he did not even set foot to. That is a crazy situation," Christiansen said, after visiting Assange at Belmarsh, south of London.

Comment: From RT:
Campaigners have projected the footage of an American airstrike on Iraqi civilians, originally exposed by WikiLeaks, onto the parliament building in London, to protest against the proposed extradition to the US of Julian Assange.

Clips from the infamous 2007 footage were projected onto Westminster Palace, where both houses of parliament are located. The same video was projected on the wall of the Belmarsh maximum security prison in London, where the WikiLeaks co-founder is awaiting his US extradition trial. The images on the buildings' walls included photos of the activist along with slogans like 'Don't extradite Assange' and 'Journalism is not a crime.'

The anti-extradition group behind the stunt argues that the prosecution of Assange is unlawful because he did journalistic work, and all information published by WikiLeaks was of public interest.

The classified footage, which was published by WikiLeaks in 2010, revealed how the crew of a US AH-64 Apache attack chopper shredded a group of civilians in Baghdad, including two reporters working for Reuters, after mistaking them for insurgents.

Assange could face up to 175 years in prison if found guilty of all 18 charges that have been brought against him in the US. His extradition hearings are to start next week.



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USA

"Asking for trouble": Video shows American APC pushing Russian army jeep off road in Syria


RT
Thu, 20 Feb 2020 10:19 UTC
US jeep Russia
© Ruptly/YoutubeScreenshot.
Footage from Syria purports to show a US armored personnel carrier pushing a Russian military jeep off the road; relations between Moscow and Washington remain tense.

A video, posted on social media on Wednesday, shows what appears to be a Russian military convoy moving alongside an American one. At one point, a Russian Tigr heavy jeep tries to overtake an Oshkosh M-ATV armored vehicle with a US flag on its roof. The M-ATV responds by maneuvering to the right, pushing the Tigr further away from the road.

Narrowly evading collision and nearly hitting a pedestrian in the process, both vehicles stop, and one of them honks.

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Wolf

Best of the Web: Bloomberg can declare Trump 'Bernie's new bro', but he can't hide from being compared to a fellow billionaire

Helen Buyniski
RT
Thu, 20 Feb 2020 17:40 UTC
bloomberg trump
© Getty Images / Clint Spaulding / Patrick McMullan / FileMichael Bloomberg and Donald Trump in 2007
Billionaire Democrat candidate Michael Bloomberg has tried to equate his democratic socialist rival Bernie Sanders with the party's bogeyman, President Donald Trump. But if anyone resembles Trump, it's Bloomberg.

The candidate has spent over half a billion dollars remaking the 2020 primary in his own image, seeking to accomplish with sheer brute financial force what others must finesse by appealing to voters on the issues they care about. Even Trump, who has arguably redefined the Republican Party in 2016 with a largely self-funded effort, secured his party's nomination as much with showmanship as with bottomless pockets.

But so far, if polls are to be believed, Bloomberg's plan is working - despite never setting foot on a debate stage, he has surpassed double digits in some state polls. Tuesday's NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll has him running an improbable second with 19 percent of the vote.
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Newspaper

Hillary Clinton shakes off rumors she could be Michael Bloomberg's running mate


Sputnik
Thu, 20 Feb 2020 10:22 UTC
hillary clinton
© AP Photo / Mary Altaffer
Speculations that billionaire Michael Bloomberg could tap the former Secretary of State, who aspired to move into the White House in 2016 but was defeated by Donald Trump, as his potential vice president were prompted by the Drudge Report earlier in February. The candidate's campaign, however, has dismissed the claims.

The Democrats' 2016 presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, has laughed off the possibility that she could team up with Michael Bloomberg, fighting for the party nomination this year.

"Oh no", she responded during an El Vocero de Puerto Rico interview to a question about becoming the billionaire's running mate in the 2020 campaign.

Comment: See also:

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