Welcome to Sott.net
Fri, 05 Nov 2021
The World for People who Think

Puppet Masters
Map

MIB

Ex-CIA operative says US has long meddled in elections but it's OK since they are the 'good cops'


RT
Sun, 18 Feb 2018 16:04 UTC
People carry the U.S. flag
© Eduardo Munoz / Reuters
As Democrats indict Russians over "election meddling," former CIA officers say the US has been interfering in foreign elections for decades and "hopefully" will keep doing so because it has the moral high ground.

In an article published in the New York Times on Saturday, former CIA officers and several researchers, who have been studying covert US intelligence operations for years, say that the while methods allegedly used by Russians to meddle into the US elections might slightly differ from the old school CIA operations overseas, there is nothing in the allegations against Russians that Americans haven't done themselves.

"If you ask an intelligence officer, did the Russians break the rules or do something bizarre, the answer is no, not at all," retired CIA veteran Steven Hall told NYT's Scott Shane.
      Read More...
Compass

Wasserman-Schultz urges Florida shooting vigil attendees to 'hold elected officials accountable'

Diana Stancy Correll
Washington Examiner
Thu, 15 Feb 2018 20:26 UTC
Debbie Wasserman-Schultz
© AP/Richard Drew, file
Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, D-Fla., urged those present at a vigil honoring victims of a mass shooting at a high school in her home state on Wednesday to hold elected officials responsible.

"We must hold other people's elected officials accountable. We must make sure that they hear us," she said at the vigil Thursday evening.

"We will help lead you to help other communities elect people who will do the right thing, who will make sure no one's families ever have to go through this again," she added.

At one point, the crowd chanted "no more guns" during the vigil, according to reports.

      Read More...
Mr. Potato

Mueller's investigation is a farce - Files joke indictment against Russian trolls

Elizabeth Vos
Disobedient Media
Fri, 16 Feb 2018 13:44 UTC
Robert Mueller
If one needed proof that Mueller's investigation was an utter farce, they were in for a treat this morning when the Deputy Attorney General announced the indictment of thirteen "Russian trolls," for allegedly interfering in the 2016 Presidential election by posting on social media accounts.

Laying Mueller's disregard of the First Amendment aside, the indictment is blatantly hypocritical in light of active social media intervention by pro-Clinton David Brock and his multi-million dollar efforts to 'Correct The Record.'


Comment: Internet trolls are a dime a dozen these days. But Robert Mueller needed Russian ones to keep his charade alive. And so far he has only been able to come up with thirteen. Pathetic!

      Read More...
Handcuffs

ICC has over 1 million testimonies from Afghans suing US government over war crimes


teleSUR
Sun, 18 Feb 2018 09:29 UTC
An Afghan boy works at a construction site behind a US Army soldier in Logar province, Afghanistan.
© Reuters
An Afghan boy works at a construction site behind a US Army soldier in Logar province, Afghanistan.
The International Criminal Court began collecting material three months ago for a possible war crimes case involving armed actors Afghanistan.

More than one million statements from Afghan people and organizations have been submitted to the International Criminal Court alleging war crimes were committed by several actors in the country including the U.S. military, the CIA, Afghan forces and the Taliban, local groups working with the Hague-based tribunal said Friday.

Abdul Wadood Pedram, an official at the Kabul-based Human Rights and Eradication of Violence Organization, told the Associated Press Friday that his group has knowledge of the groups and individuals who submitted the 1.17 million statements to the court over the past three months.

Comment: See: Also check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: From the invasion of Iraq to the refugee crisis: 'Reshaping' the planet through phony terror

      Read More...
Bullseye

Russian Foreign Ministry Zakharova dismisses Mueller's charges on election meddling as absurdity


TASS
Sun, 18 Feb 2018 13:26 UTC
Maria Zakharova
© Mikhail Japaridze/TASS
The official spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova
The official spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova wrote about it at her page in Facebook

Moscow - The official spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, has dismissed the charges with interference in the U.S. electoral processes, brought on by the special counsel Robert Mueller, as an absurdity.

She wrote about it at her page in Facebook.

"It turns our the U.S. Department of Justice believes there were thirteen of them," Zakharova wrote. "Thirteen individuals interfering in the U.S. election? Thirteen individuals versus the budgets of the security agencies that are measured in billions of dollars? Versus the intelligence, counterintelligence and top-notch technologies? Isn't it absurd? Well, that's the US political reality nowadays, you know."

Comment: Indeed, initially the indictments made big headlines, but as time goes by people will realize that this is mere nonsense. See also:

      Read More...
Stock Down

"Slow burn": Low pay and record debt signal apocalypse for Britain's retailers as economic downturn continues

Sarah Butler
The Guardian
Sat, 17 Feb 2018 16:00 UTC
UK shoppers face declining real pay and debt problems, but there is also a structural shift in the way people spend their time and money.
© Simon Dawson/Reuters
UK shoppers face declining real pay and debt problems, but there is also a structural shift in the way people spend their time and money.
"Who'd be a retailer now?" That was the comment from City economist Jeremy Cook when the latest set of grim retail sales data was released by the Office for National Statistics last Friday. "The average Brit," he added, "has spent the past few years living by the mantra 'When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping.'"

After a grim December, many had been hoping for a bounceback, but the figures showed that consumers were not as hardy as they once were, said Cook, and the retail sector was facing a long-term, continuing slowdown.

Shoppers are being hit by declining real wages, record levels of consumer debt and the prospect of higher borrowing costs. But the wider problem is a structural shift in the way consumers spend their money. This is threatening famous retailers and forcing a rethink about how high streets will look in years to come, and what might be done with retail parks and malls when retailers shut up shop.

Comment: This article refuses to acknowledge the main driver that, regardless of how people shop, when wages are stagnating, debt and inflation are sky-rocketing, people have no money to spend. Like other western countries, the UK economy is on the brink of collapse - and it has been for years but financial fiddling, like printing money (aka 'QE'), postponed reality, for a little while:

      Read More...
Pistol

Pakistan's reliance on US military imports is over with 70% now coming from China and Russia

Javed Hafeez
Times of Islamabad
Fri, 16 Feb 2018 12:00 UTC
pakistan army
Because of their often problematic relations, it is natural for India and Pakistan to seek divergent allies. In the Cold War era, their choices were apparent and easy. Pakistan joined two regional defense pacts patronized by the United States to contain communism.

India followed a non-aligned policy to begin with, but signed a Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation with the Soviet Union in 1971. Indo-US relations witnessed a brief period of warmth after the Sino-Indian War of 1962, but Jawaharlal Nehru's India did not want to be tagged to any superpower.

International relations are often dictated by the cold logic of national interests and the balance of power. While Pakistan opted for allies in the West, India chose the Soviet Union to balance the power of China . All that started changing after the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the rise of India as a regional power.

Comment: The US isn't interested in peace in Afghanistan, or anywhere else in the Middle East:

      Read More...
Black Cat 2

Ex-Dutch and Canadian Foreign Minister like to spread lies to the press about their speaking relationship with Putin: They've had none

John Helmer
Dance with Bears
Wed, 14 Feb 2018 00:00 UTC
Dutch Foreign Minister Halbe Zijlstra and Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland
The Dutch Foreign Minister Halbe Zijlstra (lead image, left) resigned his post this week after admitting he had publicly and repeatedly lied that he had met with President Vladimir Putin when he had not done so.

The Dutch press, which initiated the investigation exposing the lie, reports that in his resignation speech to the Dutch parliament Zijlstra confessed "the biggest mistake of my political life...The Netherlands deserves a minister who is above any doubt."

In Canada, Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland (right) - appointed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in January 2017 — has been lying about meeting President Putin when she did not

No Canadian newspaper has investigated Freeland's lying, and she has expanded the lie to meetings with other Russian officials, which also did not happen. The Toronto Globe and Mail, the Ottawa Citizen and the state-owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) have also failed to report Zijlstra's resignation for his Putin lie; their editors blocked the Reuters and Bloomberg wire reports, which have been running on Canadian newsroom screens, from appearing in print.
      Read More...
Георгиевская ленточка

No. 1 supporter: Kadyrov calls Putin a 'superhero' who should rule Russia for life


RFE/RL
Fri, 16 Feb 2018 02:52 UTC
Putin Kadyrov

Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov
The Kremlin-backed head of Russia's Chechnya region, Ramzan Kadyrov, says he hopes President Vladimir Putin will remain in power for life.

The remark, not unusual for a regional leader who has frequently praised the president and called himself Putin's "foot soldier," comes weeks ahead of a March 18 presidential election that seems certain to hand Putin a new six-year term.

"I wish our president and supreme commander in chief a long life and hope that he will run our country for life," Kadyrov said in a post on Telegram on February 15.

Comment: Yes, Putin will win his next election, and with popular support numbers only dreamed of by Western politicians.

      Read More...
Key

'The Doorman' and the Deep State: Only one of these runs the show

Jeff Thomas
International Man
Fri, 16 Feb 2018 21:15 UTC
doorman
© guestofaguest.com
Picture this: A tribal leader from a distant country visits the US. He's brought to a large apartment building in New York City. When he gets out of the car, he looks up at the great building and is quite impressed. A uniformed doorman exits the foyer and comes out on the sidewalk. The tribesman sees the gold braiding and brass buttons of his coat and immediately decides that this is a very important person. Again he looks up at the building and says to the doorman, "This is a very great home you have. You must be very important indeed."

Of course, if we were present, we might chuckle at the tribesman's naiveté. The owners of such a great building would never greet people at the entrance. They leave such trivial tasks to hired servants, whilst they run the real business without ever needing any direct contact with visitors as they enter the building. And, in addition, doormen come and go - they are, after all, disposable. The owners - those who control what happens in the building - retain their positions over the long term... and may remain anonymous, if they so choose.

We find this simple concept easy enough to understand, and yet we chronically have difficulty in understanding that, in most countries, the president, or prime minister, is not by any means the man who makes the big decisions in the running of the country.

We assume that, because we were allowed to vote for our leader, he must actually be our leader. But, as Mark Twain has at times been credited as saying, "If voting made any difference, they wouldn't let us do it."
      Read More...
Amazon Smile
Revolt! T-shirts