Puppet MastersS


Pistol

Luxury hotel close to presidential palace stormed by militants in Somalia


RT
Tue, 10 Dec 2019 00:00 UTC
Somalia armed militant
© REUTERS/Feisal Omar
A group of armed militants are laying siege to the SYL Hotel in Mogadishu, Somalia, according to eyewitness reports of gunfire and explosions at the scene. The luxury hotel is frequented by government officials and politicians.

Somalia-based Islamist group Al-Shabab has claimed responsibility for the attack, according to local reports. Witnesses say heavy gunfire can still be heard within the premises, though it's not clear how many people are inside. Some also said the attackers - four to five militants - had donned Somali security personnel uniforms.

Comment: See also:

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Handcuffs

Ex-Mexico top cop charged by United States for protecting El Chapo's cartel

Tom Winter
NBC
Tue, 10 Dec 2019 23:56 UTC
Genaro Garcia Luna was charged with accepting millions of dollars in bribes in exchange for providing protection to the Sinaloa cartel.
Genaro Garcia Luna
© Tomas Bravo / Reuters fileMexico's then-Public Security Minister Genaro Garcia Luna attends a meeting in Mexico City on Nov. 29, 2012.
A former top law enforcement official in the Mexican government was charged by the U.S. government with accepting millions of dollars in bribes in exchange for providing protection to Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's notorious drug cartel.

Genaro Garcia Luna, 51, who served in a Cabinet post overseeing Mexico's federal police, was indicted by a federal grand jury in Brooklyn last week on three counts of cocaine trafficking conspiracy and one count of making false statements for his role in allowing the Sinaloa cartel to operate "with impunity" in Mexico. He was arrested Monday in Dallas, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York announced Tuesday as it unsealed the indictment.
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Target

US and UK military-intelligence apparatus campaigns to destroy Jeremy Corbyn

Ben Norton and Max Blumenthal
The Gray Zone
Mon, 09 Dec 2019 16:28 UTC
corbyn media attacks
2015-2019 anti-Corbyn campaign: The longest-running Anglo-Zionist-American 'Hate Week' in history?
The popular socialist leader of Britain's Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, could be on the verge of becoming prime minister of the United Kingdom. And the mere possibility is terrifying British intelligence services and the US government.

Since Corbyn was elected to the head of the Labour Party in 2015, in a landslide victory after running on a staunch leftist and anti-war platform, the corporate media has waged a relentless campaign to demonize and delegitimize him.

With just days remaining before UK's national election on December 12, British intelligence agencies and US government-backed organizations have escalated their attacks on Corbyn, borrowing tactics from America's Russiagate hysteria and going to great efforts to portray him — without any substantive evidence — as a supposed puppet of the dastardly Kremlin.
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Chess

Democrat-dominated House cobbles together articles of 'impeachment' against Trump


RT
Tue, 10 Dec 2019 20:45 UTC
democrats impeachment committee
© Em Nguyen/Spectrum NewsCommittee leaders announced two articles of impeachment charging President Donald Trump with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress during a news conference on Tuesday.
The US House Judiciary Committee has released the formal written articles of impeachment against Donald Trump for "high crimes and misdemeanors."

Under the first article for "abuse of power," Trump is accused of having "solicited the interference of a foreign government" in the 2020 presidential election when he allegedly asked Ukraine's government to announce investigations that would "benefit his reelection" and harm the election prospects of political opponent Joe Biden.

Comment: The Democratic party's culmination of its three-year tantrum over losing the 2016 election may go down as the biggest political prat-fall in U.S. history. It would almost be amusing if it were not for the irreparable harm it is doing in dividing Americans from each other..

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Bullseye

The Dems are spinning the law on impoundment to justify impeachment

Nathan Cogley
Washington Examiner
Mon, 09 Dec 2019 12:00 UTC
SchiffShadow
© mediadc.brightspotcdnHouse Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff contemplates his future self.
The 300-page Trump-Ukraine impeachment inquiry report finally identifies the argument that Democrats will use to impeach President Trump. It should be no surprise that the document is full of false narratives about the facts of the case and Trump's intentions. But the report also tries to spin the relevant law — the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which governs situations in which the executive fails to spend authorized and appropriated funds.

Buried in the House Intelligence Committee's report is a cherry-picked, blurred, and poorly cited description of this law, which twists it as somehow cutting against the president. As I have argued previously, however, the actual text of the act casts doubt on this entire impeachment inquiry. Democrats have long sought whatever excuse was available to impeach, but the law prescribes a much less drastic remedy for when a president withholds appropriated funds.

First, the committee's report falsely characterizes what the law says about the temporary withholding or deferring of funds. On page 75, the report states,
"Any amount of budget authority proposed to be deferred (i.e., temporarily withheld) or rescinded (i.e., permanently withheld) must be made available for obligation unless Congress, within 45 legislative days, completes action on a bill rescinding all or part of the amount proposed for rescission."
But this is false. Although permanently "rescinded" funds must be made available in this manner and within that time frame, the language in section 684 contains no such requirement for funds that are temporarily withheld, or "deferred," as in the case of the aid to Ukraine.

Comment: Wham! It should be rather simple. There are laws and legalities. They are written and accessible. They apply to Congress. How could they not know this? (And if they did, what does that say?)

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Arrow Up

'Always better to talk than not': Lavrov and Pompeo discuss Russia-US issues in DC


RT
Tue, 10 Dec 2019 18:17 UTC
PompeoLavrov meeting
© Reuters/Jonathan ErnstUS Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Russia’s FM Sergey Lavrov hold talks at the State Department in Washington, US on December 10, 2019.
Russian FM Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are briefing the media after talks in Washington, DC, the first such meeting since 2017.

Speaking at the press conference on Tuesday, Pompeo said the US was seeking a "better relationship" with Russia and that the two countries have been working on improving relations since his visit to Sochi in May. He said lines of communication between Moscow and Washington were open and relations were candid.

Lavrov echoed that, saying the two met regularly and also spoke frequently by phone. "It is useful to talk to each other," he said. "Always better than not talking to each other."


Comment: See also:

Ukraine, Syria, nukes, Russiagate...what's not on the table! Lavrov goes to Washington

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Target

GOP senators want to interview ex-DNC contractor and a diplomat who worked with Ukraine in 2016

Chuck Ross
Daily Caller
Fri, 06 Dec 2019 02:29 UTC
LeshchenkoGrassley
© AFP/Getty Images/Reuters/Joshua RobertsSerhiy Leshchenko, Kiev, August 2016 • US Senate Finance Chair Chuck Grassley
The Republican chairmen of three Senate committees are seeking records from and interviews with a former DNC contractor and a former Ukrainian diplomatic official to determine whether there was any coordination between the Ukrainian government and Democrats in the 2016 election, an allegation Democrats have dismissed as a conspiracy theory.

Sens. Chuck Grassley, Ron Johnson and Lindsey Graham said Friday that they are requesting the records from Alexandra Chalupa, the former DNC contractor, and Andrii Telizkhenko, a former political officer who worked in the Ukrainian embassy.

The senators said the request is a continuation of Grassley's inquiry in 2017 about possible coordination between the DNC and Ukrainian embassy to dig up dirt on the Trump campaign and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

Chalupa met throughout 2016 with Ukrainian embassy officials, and sought to trade information related to Manafort, who worked through 2014 for former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, on Jan. 11, 2017, Politico reported. Telizhenko told Politico he was directed by his bosses to help Chalupa in the effort.
ChalupaTelizhenko
© Facebook/TwitterAlexandra Chalupa • Andril Telizhenko

Comment: The tip of 'iceberg Ukraine' has migrated to deeper and deeper DNC swamp waters.

See also:

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Clipboard

Ukraine, Syria, nukes, Russiagate...what's not on the table! Lavrov goes to Washington

Nebojsa Malic
RT
Mon, 09 Dec 2019 21:27 UTC
awkward hand shake
© US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo • Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov Reuters/Pavel GolovkinUS Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the most awkward pre-handshake ever!
While there is little hope that relations between Washington and Moscow will warm up, the fact that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is meeting with his US counterpart Mike Pompeo suggests they haven't frozen over quite yet.

If unnamed diplomatic sources sharing insider information with news agencies are to be believed, Lavrov and Pompeo will discuss Ukraine, Syria, arms control and "other issues" between the US and Russia when they meet on Tuesday.

The last time Lavrov visited Washington, in May 2017, Pompeo was head of the CIA and US President Donald Trump had just fired FBI Director James Comey, setting off an avalanche of criticism among the media and Democrats that it was all related to the 'Russiagate' conspiracy theory - which was eventually debunked by special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation this spring.

To deal with 'Russiagate,' however, Trump has pursued a hard-line policy towards Moscow, expelling Russian diplomats, closing consulates, approving sanctions, and siding with allies such as the UK in their "highly likely" claims - but no evidence - against Russia. That has done nothing to appease or mollify his critics, however, while making any sort of cooperation with Russia on international security issues, counter-terrorism or nuclear disarmament that much more difficult.
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Question

Question: How bad was the FBI's Russia FISA, considering it had 51 violations and 9 false statements?

John Solomon
John Solomon Reports
Mon, 09 Dec 2019 00:00 UTC
HorowitzFBI
© Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters/FBIInspector General Michael Horowitz
To understand just how shoddy the FBI's work was in securing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant targeting the Trump campaign, you only need to read an obscure attachment to Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz's report.

Appendix 1 identifies the total violations by the FBI of the so-called Woods Procedures, the process by which the bureau verifies information and assures the FISA court its evidence is true.

The Appendix identifies a total of 51 Woods procedure violations from the FISA application the FBI submitted to the court authorizing surveillance of former Trump campaign aide Carter Page starting in October 2016.

A whopping nine of those violations fell into the category called: "Supporting document shows that the factual assertion is inaccurate." For those who don't speak IG parlance, it means the FBI made nine false assertions to the FISA court. In short, what the bureau said was contradicted by the evidence in its official file.
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Tornado1

Joe Biden's 'temper was overflowing' after Ukraine prosecutor seized Burisma assets

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Mon, 09 Dec 2019 15:30 UTC
Biden
© UnknownFormer US VP Joe Biden
The Ukrainian prosecutor Joe Biden got fired by threatening to withhold vital US financial aid says that the former Vice President was outraged after Ukrainian authorities seized the assets of Burisma - a natural gas firm owned by a notoriously corrupt oligarch who hired Hunter Biden to sit on its board.

The fired prosecutor, Victor Shokin, sat down with OAN News and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani to explain what happened when former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko told him to stop investigating Burisma:
"Yes, that's what he told me. He came to me and said, 'you are a patriot of Ukraine, we need this billion dollars. We are at war, and if you are a patriot you will close this case'. My conversation with Poroshenko was in a phone call. It was after we started seizing Burisma assets in Ukraine when Poroshenko called me and said 'listen, this all has to stop already. Joe Biden's temper is overflowing. This seizing of Burisma assets was the last straw.'"
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