Puppet MastersS


Attention

Navy SEAL commander who sought to reform military unit after slew of criminal charges will step down a year early

Mathew Cole
The Intercept
Sat, 01 Feb 2020 06:30 UTC
Rear Adm. Collin Green, Rear Adm. Tim Szymanski
© U.S. NavyRear Adm. Collin Green shakes the hand of Rear Adm. Tim Szymanski after relieving him as commander of Naval Special Warfare Command during a change of command ceremony at Naval Amphibious Base Coronado in California on Sept. 7, 2018.
The commander of the Navy SEALs who found himself at odds with President Donald Trump over disciplining a notorious member of his force has informed the Navy that he will step down a year early, according to three people familiar with the decision.

Rear Adm. Collin Green, commander of the Naval Special Warfare Command, will leave his post in September, two of the people familiar with his decision said.

Green was widely viewed as a reformer who was willing to hold his command accountable. His departure follows two years during which he sought to repair the vaunted military unit's image after a slew of criminal charges against SEALs, including war crimes, murder, drug use, and sexual assault. Green had publicly told his force that the SEALs had a "problem" and that some members of the unit were "ethically misaligned."

Green's departure is unusual in part because it comes as his current tour length of two years is being extended to three, meaning he has effectively declined a final year in the job and won't seek a third star.

He will likely be replaced by another two-star SEAL admiral, H. Wyman Howard III, a former commander of SEAL Team 6, according to two people familiar with the Navy's pick. Howard is currently in command of Special Operations Command Central.

Comment: Out of control: US Special Ops command launches unprecedented investigation into troops' drug-smuggling, child abuse and murder

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Bullseye

Susan Collins announces she will vote to acquit Trump on both articles of impeachment

Henry Rodgers
The Daily Caller
Tue, 04 Feb 2020 04:35 UTC
Republican Sen. Susan Collins
Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins on Tuesday announced she will vote to acquit President Donald Trump on both of the articles of impeachment against him.

"I do not believe that the House has met its burden of showing that the president's conduct, however flawed, warrants the extreme step of immediate removal from office, nor does the record support the assertion by the House managers that the president must not remain in office one moment longer," Collins said. She went on to say she would vote to acquit the president on Wednesday.
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Pumpkin

Creepy Joe's first official face-plant: Biden flops in Iowa and so did the Democratic party's reputation

Nathan Robinson
The Guardian
Tue, 04 Feb 2020 21:20 UTC
biden rally Iowa
Uncle Joe packs in the voters at Iowa rally
The apparent malfunctioning of a new app, meant to transmit vote totals, threw the Iowa caucus in disarray. And this benefited some more than others

If you're the type of person who thinks the Democratic party is a creaking, incompetent entity whose leadership needs overthrowing, the Iowa caucuses certainly validated your point of view. None of us knew who would win, but we had at least expected a result. We didn't get one, at least not on caucus night. State Democratic party officials announced that due to "quality control" issues, release of the result would be indefinitely delayed. On a conference call with representatives of the candidates, party officials hung up the phone when asked when the totals would be released.

So what do we know? Well, one thing we can say confidently is that "frontrunner" Joe Biden flopped. There were places where Biden didn't even meet the 15% threshold needed to maintain viability from the first round to the second round - at one caucus site, the attorney general of Iowa had to switch from Biden to Buttigieg when Biden was disqualified. It explains why Biden's surrogate John Kerry was heard on the phone the other day asking whether it would be possible for him to enter the race at the last minute to save the Democratic party from being conquered by Sanders.

Comment: Stock up on the popcorn. This circus is only just getting started.

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Yoda

Michael Flynn cites FISA report in motion to dismiss case against him: 'Egregious abuse of power'

Jerry Dunleavy
Washington Examiner
Mon, 03 Feb 2020 20:54 UTC
Attorney Sidney Powell and General Flynn
Defence Attorney Sydney Powell and Michael Flynn
The legal team for retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn cited the Justice Department watchdog's bombshell report on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuse as the former Trump national security adviser seeks to have the government's case against him dismissed.

"Even though the investigation pertains to the abuses of the FISA process, not the FBI and DOJ's misconduct regarding Mr. Flynn, the IG report simultaneously documents at least some of FISA process abuses and misconduct against Mr. Flynn," lead defense counsel Sidney Powell told a federal court last week. "The IG report is replete with exculpatory evidence that, had it been known to Mr. Flynn, he never would have pled guilty."

Flynn, 61, pleaded guilty in December 2017 for lying to investigators about his conversations with then-Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak, but last week he told the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., that "in truth, I never lied" and "I am innocent of this crime." Powell, a former federal prosecutor, took over representing Flynn last summer.

Powell said "the case against Mr. Flynn should be dismissed immediately for this egregious abuse of power and trust" laid out in Inspector General Michael Horowitz's report.

Comment:

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Arrow Up

Top EU diplomat warns against US & Israel's 'peace' plan


Al Jazeera
Tue, 04 Feb 2020 13:00 UTC
Josep Borrell
Josep Borrell calls for direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, who have rejected US president's vision.
The European Union has rejected parts of the proposed US plan for the Middle East, saying it broke with "internationally agreed parameters", and any Israeli annexation of Palestinian land would be subject to challenge.

President Donald Trump's plan, announced last week, was welcomed by Israel and rejected outright by the Palestinians.

It would give Israel most of what it has sought during decades of conflict, including nearly all Palestinian land on which it has built settlements.

The EU, which often takes time to respond to international developments because of a need for unanimity among its 27 members, had said last week that it needed to study the Trump plan before it would give its verdict.

Comment: See also:

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Biohazard

Chinese adds 4 more cities with 21mn people to coronavirus quarantine zone - now just 100 miles from Shanghai


RT
Tue, 04 Feb 2020 17:32 UTC
drone coronavirus quarantine
© China Daily via ReutersPeople in rural China are being publicly shamed by talking drones for not wearing face masks or for venturing outside unnecessarily.
Chinese authorities have extended the country's internal quarantine to include four additional cities comprising roughly 21 million people in a bid to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Travel restrictions have been placed on residents in Taizhou, Hangzhou, Ningbo and Wenzhou; allowing only one person per household to leave every two days to go and pick up supplies. In addition, residents in Taizhou must present ID every time they leave their homes.

City authorities also have placed rent controls on landlords, expressly forbidding them from renting their properties to people from "severely affected areas such as Hubei," if they have traveled home in the past few months.

Comment: There is good, there is evil, and there is the situation that determines whether an action is one or the other. Public surveillance is bad, but when a health crisis takes hold in a country with such a large population, it may be the most efficient way to spread a message and encourage helpful behaviour to mitigate the crisis. Bad is when, having normalized the idea of open drone surveillance, the Chinese government continues to use it after the need for it passes. Unfortunately, this is likely how it will play out.

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Eye 1

Iowa caucus tech firm Shadow Inc. played role in creating covert Dem propaganda media outfit


The Daily Caller
Tue, 04 Feb 2020 20:33 UTC
Iowa democratic caucus voters
© REUTERS/Brian Snyder
The firm responsible for the app that caused delays in counting votes during Monday's Iowa caucuses had a role in developing an outlet promoting Democratic propaganda outlets ahead of the 2020 election.

Campaign consulting nonprofit ACRONYM owns Shadow Inc., a company that operates the app Democrats hoped would simplify the process of counting the votes in Iowa's roughly 1,700 precincts. Officials across the state struggled to use the app, leaving the results of the caucuses in limbo.

HuffPost, citing campaign finance records, reported out ACRONYM's role in the debacle late Monday night.

Tara McGowan, a digital producer for Obama for America in 2011 and the proprietor behind ACRONYM, raised at least $25 million from wealthy liberals to create a media company called Courier Newsroom that is designed to deliver information favorable to Democrats.

Comment: Buttigieg's "investment' smells remarkably like a 'pay to play' deal, as he currently seems to be the only individual candidate to get financially involved with Shadow Inc. Will his contribution translate into extra support for his campaign over other Democratic candidates?

More on McGowan's propaganda project:

Democrats' new strategy to defeat Trump: Liberal media project adopts local journalism to sway voters

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Biohazard

Top WHO official warns world may be 'dangerously unprepared' as coronavirus outbreak continues to spread, but still not considered a pandemic

Berkeley Lovelace Jr.
CNBC
Tue, 04 Feb 2020 19:36 UTC
WHODirector-General Ghebreyesus coronavirus
© Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty ImagesWorld Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus gestures during a press briefing on evolution of new coronavirus epidemic on January 29, 2020 in Geneva.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned on Monday that the world may be "dangerously" unprepared for the next pandemic as the flu-like coronavirus that emerged from China about a month ago spreads rapidly to new countries.

At an executive board meeting in Geneva, Tedros urged the World Health Organization's 196 member countries to "invest in preparedness," not "panic." He added that funding for outbreak preparedness in surrounding countries "has remained grossly inadequate" in the past.

"For too long, the world has operated on a cycle of panic and neglect," Tedros said, according to a transcript of his remarks. "We throw money at an outbreak, and when it's over, we forget about it and do nothing to prevent the next one."

"If we fail to prepare, we are preparing to fail," he added.

Comment: RT reports the China coronavirus death toll reached 427 with 20,000+ cases, but China appears to be getting a grip on the situation, a fact not being reported in the mainstream media.
The death toll from a fast moving viral outbreak sweeping China has risen to 427, with over 20,000 cases worldwide. WHO has urged for preparedness instead of panic, as the US called the spread "explosive and unprecedented."

Another 2,345 cases were confirmed in Hubei by Tuesday, as the novel coronavirus surpasses the scale of the SARS outbreak of the early 2000s and health authorities around the world continue to take aggressive steps to contain its spread.

Of the 427 confirmed fatalities, all but one have occurred in Mainland China, with an additional death in the Philippines involving a Chinese national who traveled from Wuhan, the city where the virus was first observed.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying reiterated criticism of the US response to the outbreak on Tuesday, urging Washington to stop fuelling fear and deliver on offers of close cooperation and assistance. Beijing previously slammed the US for setting a "bad example," deeming the hasty evacuation of American diplomats from China as a dramatic overreaction.

Despite the climbing disease toll, the number of recoveries have surpassed the deaths. Over 500 patients have bounced back from the illness in China, with several other recoveries in Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Australia. Officials in Taiwan also announced on Sunday that a "cocktail" of HIV and other flu medicines led to a speedy recovery for one patient in the span of 48 hours.



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Bad Guys

Tech firm started by Clinton campaign veterans is linked to Iowa caucus debacle

Jeff Bercovici, Melanie Mason
Los Angeles Times
Tue, 04 Feb 2020 19:31 UTC
Democratic caucus
© Associated PressDemocratic caucus in Dubuque, Iowa.
An app created by a tech firm run by veterans of Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign is taking heat for the unprecedented delay in reporting Democratic caucus results from Iowa.

Results from Monday's caucuses could not be transmitted to Iowa party headquarters, and state Democratic Party Chairman Troy Price blamed the problem on a coding error. "While our plan is to release results as soon as possible today, our ultimate goal is to ensure that the integrity and accuracy of the process continues to be upheld," he said in a statement Tuesday morning.

Confusion among caucus organizers over how to use the app also seemed to contribute to the problem.

Comment: See also: Iowa Caucus Disaster: 'Technical Glitch' Spawns Conspiracy Theories & Democrats Have Only Themselves To Blame

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Star of David

Kushner blames Palestinians for rejecting his plan: 'Take a cold shower' and don't 'screw up'

Abba Solomon
Mondoweiss
Mon, 03 Feb 2020 00:00 UTC
Kushner
© Reuters/screenshotJared Kushner
Arrogance and complacency is the core of Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner's plan for the final extinguishment of Palestine.

It is a continuation of the 1947 UN Partition Plan that was rejected by the non-Jewish citizens of Palestine living under British Mandate rule. That plan allotted a majority of the land, including the arable land, to the minority of the population that was recently arrived Jewish settlers.

Starting in late 1947 and in the ensuing 1948 war, a majority of Palestinians were made refugees outside of the new State of Israel, in large measure forced from homes and villages in operations conducted by Zionist forces, as the state of Israel expanded beyond the 1947 UN partition proposal.

In the June 1967 war, Israel occupied the remainder of Palestine.

The new Trump/Kushner January 28 proposal expands Israel sovereignty into the West Bank and all of the Jordan River valley, a portion of Syria, and the city of Jerusalem that was to be an international city under the 1947 plan.
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