Puppet MastersS


Light Saber

SOTT Focus: Former FBI Chief Says Sorry for 'Sloppy' Russia Investigation, But Media Interview Exposes Him as a Liar


RT
Sun, 15 Dec 2019 15:00 UTC
comey testimony intelligence committee
© Reuters / Jim BourgFormer FBI Director James Comey testifies before a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing
A report by the Justice Department's Inspector General published on Monday report found 17 irregularities, inaccuracies and omissions in the FBI's FISA warrant application, used to obtain permission to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

The warrant application was built heavily on a dossier of salacious and unproven gossip collected by former British spy Christopher Steele.

Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, Inspector General Michael Horowitz said that the FBI's "basic, fundamental, and serious errors" amounted to a "failure" by the "entire chain of command."

Comey himself apologized to Fox News' Christopher Wallace on Sunday, saying "I'm sorry" for misrepresenting the role of the Steele Dossier in kickstarting the investigation. "I was wrong" to say that the FISA process was followed correctly, he continued, admitting to "real sloppiness" in his agency.


Comment: Comey still believes in his choirboy image, when all evidence seems to be against him. Now it's all coming out in the mainstream media, as they have no choice but to report on the tsunami of information breaking loose.

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Oil Well

The Israel lobby's hidden hand in the theft of Iraqi and Syrian oil

Agha Hussain and Whitney Webb
The Unz Review
Tue, 10 Dec 2019 11:42 UTC
The outsized role of U.S. Israel lobby operatives in abetting the theft of Syrian and Iraqi oil reveals how this powerful lobby also facilitates more covert aspects of U.S.-Israeli cooperation and the implementation of policies that favor Israel.
iraq's and syria's oil
© Claudio Cabrera
"We want to bring our soldiers home. But we did leave soldiers because we're keeping the oil," President Trump stated on November 3, before adding, "I like oil. We're keeping the oil."

Though he had promised a withdrawal of U.S. troops from their illegal occupation of Syria, Trump shocked many with his blunt admission that troops were being left behind to prevent Syrian oil resources from being developed by the Syrian government and, instead, kept in the hands of whomever the U.S. deemed fit to control them, in this case, the U.S.-backed Kurdish-majority militia known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Though Trump himself received all of the credit — and the scorn — for this controversial new policy, what has been left out of the media coverage is the fact that key players in the U.S.' pro-Israel lobby played a major role in its creation with the purpose of selling Syrian oil to the state of Israel. While recent developments in the Syrian conflict may have hindered such a plan from becoming reality, it nonetheless offers a telling example of the covert role often played by the U.S.' pro-Israel lobby in shaping key elements of U.S. foreign policy and closed-door deals with major regional implications.

Indeed, the Israel lobby-led effort to have the U.S. facilitate the sale of Syrian oil to Israel is not an isolated incident given that, just a few years ago, other individuals connected to the same pro-Israel lobby groups and Zionist neoconservatives manipulated both U.S. policy and Iraq's Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in order to allow Iraqi oil to be sold to Israel without the approval of the Iraqi government. These designs, not unlike those that continue to unfold in Syria, were in service to longstanding neoconservative and Zionist efforts to balkanize Iraq by strengthening the KRG and weakening Baghdad.

Comment: See also,

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MIB

Former CIA officer: Eric Holder just revealed that the "deep state is running scared"

Gregg Hunter
USA Watchdog
Sun, 15 Dec 2019 23:05 UTC
Eric Holder
Eric Holder
Former CIA officer and counter-intelligence expert Kevin Shipp says that former Obama Administration Attorney General (AG) Eric Holder gave a big Deep State panic signal when he wrote in an Op-Ed last week in the Washington Post trashing current AG William Barr and his top prosecutor John Durham. Shipp explains,
"This is very significant. We all remember that Holder was Obama's right hand man. Eric Holder was Barack Obama's enforcer. The fact that Holder comes out this quickly after the Inspector General (IG) Horowitz Report comes out... and makes this veiled threat against Durham's reputation. The fact that Eric Holder came out and made this statement is a clear indication to me they are running scared.

We have to understand it was Eric Holder that Barack Obama used to target the heads of corporations that spoke out publicly about Barack Obama. We know Holder was held in 'Contempt of Congress.' He spied on AP reporters, ran guns to drug cartels and blacked out the information. He spied on over a hundred journalists, and on and on we go...

They (Deep State) are convinced there are going to be indictments. Secondly, there is AG Barr's outrage over (IG) Horowitz's report and what it did not do. He made statements that there was spying and actions by government officials that need to be criminally looked into. Barr's outrage over this shows me that there are going to be indictments, and that he is taking this seriously. Again, when Holder comes out and puts out this bombshell in the Washington Post, which is another indication that indictments are coming. John Brennan, former Obama Administration CIA Director, is going to be at the top of the list."

Comment: Deep state consigliere Holder has been deflecting, obscuring and executing a whole bevy of high crimes for the political and monied interests in Washington for many years. It would be nice to see him get his comeuppance - as well as Brennan, Clapper, Obama, Rice and many others. But we're not holding our breath here. The political warfare we're witnessing seems to be a battle to the death - and the crew Holder represents are not going down without a dirty drag-down fight.

See also:

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Light Sabers

'Terrorism comes at a cost': Ex-Indian Air Force chief says about Balakot strikes

Amanjeet Singh Salyal
Hindustan Times
Mon, 16 Dec 2019 01:20 UTC
Balakot was message to Pakistan that terror attacks come at a cost': Ex-IAF chief BS DhanoaBS Dhanoa said that Balakot strikes happened because of decisive national leadership and the fact all three armed forces wing were at the ready.
Indian Air Chief Marshal BS Dhanoa (retd)
© PTIPointing towards the poor fiscal health of Pakistan, Dhanoa said that in February, the neighbouring country was reeling under severe financial crisis.
'
Air Chief Marshal BS Dhanoa (retd) on Saturday said Pakistan was anticipating retaliation after the Pulwama attack in which 40 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel died.

"There were only two questions — when does the retaliation take place, and where," he said in a brainstorming session on 'Understanding the Message of Balakot' on the second day of the third Military Literature Festival at the Lake Club, Sector 1, in Chandigarh.
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Russian Flag

Best of the Web: 'Unprecedented brazenness': Trump and Lavrov in the Oval Office sends US media into hysterics


Irrussianality
Wed, 11 Dec 2019 22:47 UTC
lavrov trump oval office white house
© Twitter / @realDonaldTrump'OMG, two Russians in the White House!' Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and President Donald Trump
'Something is rotten with the state of Denmark', or if not Denmark then certainly the United States of America. It's the only conclusion one can draw from the way the absolutely normal is nowadays treated as the most extraordinary drama.

On Monday, US President Donald Trump met Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov. It's about as normal a diplomatic event as one could possibly imagine, but it caused much of the American commentariat to go into a collective meltdown.

'Trump welcoming Russia's top diplomat to the Oval Office is one of his most brazen moves yet,' declared the Washington Post, which makes you think that Trump really needs to step up his game on the brazenness front. The Post isn't alone in thinking this way, however. What one might call the 'liberal' TV channels leapt on the story too, dragging in some representatives of the American security apparatus to ram home the point (there was a time when liberals regarded the FBI and CIA with suspicion, but such days are apparently long gone).

Comment: Morons, we're ruled by utter morons.

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Quenelle

Best of the Web: First Minister warns Johnson: Scotland 'cannot be imprisoned' in UK

John Pienaar
BBC
Sun, 15 Dec 2019 18:51 UTC
Nicola Sturgeon
© Russell Cheyne / ReutersNicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland and leader of the Scottish National Party
Scotland "cannot be imprisoned in the union against its will" by the UK government, Nicola Sturgeon has said.

The Scottish first minister says the SNP's success in the general election gives her a mandate to hold a new referendum on independence.

However, UK ministers are opposed to such a move with Michael Gove saying the vote in 2014 should be "respected".

Ms Sturgeon told the BBC that if the UK was to continue as a union, "it can only be by consent".

She told The Andrew Marr Show that the UK government would be "completely wrong" to think saying no to a referendum would be the end of the matter, adding: "It's a fundamental point of democracy - you can't hold Scotland in the union against its will."

Comment: RT adds
Johnson and his Tory government have stated that they will not permit another vote on Scotland leaving the union, but Sturgeon - whose Scottish National Party (SNP) won 48 of Scotland's 59 seats in the UK parliament in the recent snap general election - said that the matter isn't up to the prime minister. The pro-independence first minister argued that if Johnson is so sure that preserving the union is the best course of action, "he should be confident enough to make that case and allow people to decide."

Scotland held an independence referendum in 2014, but the motion was rejected by voters.
Actually, there were some serious questions around the the vote, with many reports of irregularities. Ms. Sturgeon may well be right in her call for another referendum.

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Magic Hat

Corbyn's defeat has destroyed the left's last illusion

Jonathan Cook
Jonathan Cook Blog
Fri, 13 Dec 2019 00:00 UTC
This was an election of two illusions.

The first helped persuade much of the British public to vote for the very epitome of an Eton toff, a man who not only has shown utter contempt for most of those who voted for him but has spent a lifetime barely bothering to conceal that contempt. For him, politics is an ego-trip, a game in which others always pay the price and suffer, a job he is entitled to through birth and superior breeding.
Eton Toffs
© Charles Fearn/Channel 4Eton toffs: young Boris Johnson and David Cameron in their supper club clobbery.
The extent to which such illusions now dominate our political life was highlighted two days ago with a jaw-dropping comment from a Grimsby fish market worker. He said he would vote Tory for the first time because "Boris seems like a normal working class guy."

Johnson is precisely as working class, and "normal", as the billionaire-owned Sun and the billionaire-owned Mail. The Sun isn't produced by a bunch of working-class lads down the pub having a laugh, nor is the Mail produced by conscientious middle managers keen to uphold "British values" and a sense of fair play and decency. Like the rest of the British media, these outlets are machines, owned by globe-spanning corporations that sell us the illusions - carefully packaged and marketed to our sectoral interest - needed to make sure nothing impedes the corporate world's ability to make enormous profits at our, and the planet's, expense.
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Cardboard Box

Now you see it, now you don't: Hundreds of billions in gold and cash quietly disappearing

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Sat, 14 Dec 2019 19:00 UTC
moneywater
© Los Angeles Times
Something strange is going on: at the same time that central banks are injecting $100 billion each month in electronic money to crush volatility and ramp markets, a similar amount in hard physical currency and precious metals is literally disappearing.

Take gold: as we reported last week, it was none other than Goldman Sachs which recently laid out the case for gold, saying "gold's strategic case still strong." One reason for this is that the same central banks that are "full tilt" printing cash, they have also been splurging on gold, and as a result of "geopolitical uncertainty" there has been a record surge in gold demand by central banks themselves. As Goldman notes,
"CBs globally have been buying gold at a very strong pace" and "2019 looks to be a record year for CB gold purchases with our target of 750 tonnes combined purchases likely to be met."
gold graph
But it was another, even more bizarre discovery by Goldman, that caught our eye: according to the bank there has been a whopping 1,200 tons, or $57 billion, of "unexplained" gold flows in just the 3 years.
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Arrow Up

Galloway launches Workers Party of Britain to oppose identity politics, NATO, support BREXIT

Paul Antonopoulos
FRN
Sun, 15 Dec 2019 00:00 UTC
Galloway group
© unknownGeorge Galloway in group discussion.
Following the failure of Jeremy Corbyn to be elected as the new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, boisterous George Galloway, host of the Mother Of All Talk Shows on Sputnik, has launched the Workers Party of Britain.
The ardent supporter of Palestine, Venezuela and Cuba is known for his no-nonsense attitude towards his radio hosting and politics, and has targeted "identity politics, including sexual politics," as a means that "divides the working class." The Labour Party's constant pandering towards identity politics has created a split between traditional socialists and those who confuse liberal values as socialism. The Worker's Party of Britain has made it clear that this is not a part of their ideology.

Comment: See also:

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Propaganda

WaPo revelations only tell part of the story

James O'Neill
New Eastern Outlook
Sun, 15 Dec 2019 00:00 UTC
SoldierPoppy
© UnknownSoldier on watch in poppy field
The Washington Post has recently published a series of articles detailing its long battle to obtain United States government documents relating to the decision to invade Afghanistan in 2001. The Washington Post story has been picked up by a number of news organisations around the world. Insofar as these revelations confirm what has long been known or suspected, that the United States invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001 was based on faulty or non-existent intelligence, that confirmation is welcome.

The publicity given to the Washington Post revelations while welcome, continues to ignore several major points about that conflict. It is hardly a shattering revelation that the United States government lies. Nor is it a revelation that their various schemes to invade or attack foreign governments are often ill-conceived, badly executed, and lack a "what comes next" strategy.

Putting a stop to these endless invasions, occupations and destructive policies will not come about by ignoring their essential character, which is the furtherance of the economic and geopolitical interests, not only of the United States government, but the powerful forces and individuals that are the true determiners of United States foreign policy.

Comment: See also:

US intention to announce withdrawal of 4K troops from Afghanistan next week

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