Puppet MastersS


Snakes in Suits

Attack dog Bolton accuses China of bullying in S. China Sea, amid US intimidation and war games


RT
Tue, 20 Aug 2019 16:52 UTC
SChinaSea/Bolton
© MTSAT/Defense One/KJNSouth China Sea • US National Security Advisor John Bolton
US National Security Advisor John Bolton has accused Beijing of "coercive behavior" in the South China Sea - after the Pentagon boosted its own military drills, passages of warships, and bomber flybys in the region.

Beijing's "recent escalation of efforts to intimidate others out of developing resources in the South China Sea is disturbing," Bolton wrote in a tweet on Tuesday. He accused China of "coercive behavior and bullying tactics which threaten regional peace and security."

Bolton did not specify any incidents in particular, but his tweet appears to indicate that the White House is throwing its weight on the side of the Philippines, whose claims on the South China Sea overlap with China's. Over the weekend, Manila protested after a Chinese warship sailed through what the Philippines considers a part of its exclusive economic zone (EEZ) - and Beijing a part of its own.

Meanwhile, Washington has been flaunting its own maritime forces in the face of Beijing, regularly launching what it calls freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs), dispatching warships to sail the South China Sea - which apparently doesn't count as bullying in Bolton's books. Such passages aim to challenge China's "excessive maritime claims," as per the spokesperson for the US Seventh Fleet, Commander Clay Doss.

The Pentagon also stepped up its naval drills in the area and sent B-52 strategic bombers to fly over the disputed island held by China.

Comment: See also:

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Rocket

Best of the Web: 'Let go of your cold war mentality!' Russia and China deride Pentagon's INF-defying missile test

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Tue, 20 Aug 2019 20:20 UTC
Banned INF missile launch
© US Department of Defense/Scott HoweConventional ground-launched cruise missile test, San Nicolas Island, CA, August 18, 2019
Reaction out of Moscow and Beijing was swift after the US revealed Monday that the Pentagon successfully tested a ground-launched cruise missile with a range of over 500km for the first time in a post-INF treaty world.

Russia warned of a new "costly arms race" which it says it's seeking to avoid. Russia's deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, told state news agency TASS:
"The US has obviously taken a course towards escalation of military tensions. We won't react to provocations. We will not allow ourselves to get drawn into a costly arms race."
Interestingly, given the Pentagon test of a previously banned land-based intermediate cruise missile - which took place at a range in California on Sunday - came a mere 17 days after the final and formal US pullout of the landmark Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty, Ryabkov further said this was clear evidence that the United States had already been in breach of the treaty prior to its official end, given the technology development and extensive preparations that went in to such a test.

Comment: See also:

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X

Banned missile test tells us all we need to know regarding US foreign policy

Darius Shahtahmasebi
RT
Wed, 21 Aug 2019 11:39 UTC
Banned missile
© picture-alliance/Zumapress/Department of DefenseUS launches INF-banned missile
A recent missile test confirmed by the Pentagon is stoking fears of a newly established arms race which would include, among others, Russia and China.

On August 18, North Korea tested a previously banned ground-launch missile with a range of over 500km, sending the entire world into an enormous, frenzied panic. Oh no, it was the United States which in fact tested the missile to the sound of crickets over Western media discourse.

The missile in question was likely a Tomahawk missile (at a cost of at least $1.4 million per missile, but then again you can't put a price on wanton death and destruction), which is typically launched from ships and submarines - as we saw in Trump's infamous April 2017 Syria strike.

It sounds like a waste of money (to me, anyway) but there's a reason why Tomahawks cost a fortune. According to Popular Mechanics, a modern-day Tomahawk is guided by GPS and has the capacity to store coordinates for several targets. If a primary target was destroyed by friendly strikes, it can "take a picture of the damage done and loiter nearby until planners decide to re-attack the target or send the missile to attack an alternate."
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Dollars

Planned Parenthood whistleblower awarded $3 million for wrongful termination after trying to address illegal and unethical conduct

Mary Margaret Olohan
Daily Caller
Mon, 19 Aug 2019 19:39 UTC
Mayra Rodriguez
© Mayra RodriguezMayra Rodriguez and former Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards.
An Arizona court awarded $3 million in damages to a Planned Parenthood whistleblower Friday who sued the organization in 2017 for wrongful termination.

The Maricopa County Superior Courts in Maricopa, Arizona, awarded Mayra Rodriguez $3 million in a wrongful termination suit against Planned Parenthood after she was fired in October 2017.

Planned Parenthood terminated Rodriguez after 17 years at the organization during which she ran three different clinics, she told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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Quenelle - Golden

SOTT Focus: Manufacturing Mass Fascism Hysteria

CJ Hopkins
Consent Factory, Inc.
Tue, 20 Aug 2019 19:31 UTC
based spartan protester
"Based Spartan" guy
If the neoliberal ruling classes expect to keep the American masses worked up into a white-eyed hysteria over "fascism" until November 2020, they're going to need to get some better Nazis. The current Nazis are just not going to cut it. They are neither scary nor Nazi enough. OK, the militia ones look kind of scary, and that "Based Spartan" guy looks kind of... uh, weird, but most of them just look like regular old rednecks. How hard would it be to get them some brown shirts, or those khaki pants like they wore in Charlottesville, or some other type of Nazi-like uniform?

And some jackboots. People love those jackboots.

Seriously, the Resistance needs to get their official narrative optics in order, and they need to do it without delay. Millions of liberals are standing by to be brainwashed into a year-long frenzy of manufactured mass "fascism" hysteria, but they are going to need some halfway convincing Nazis to spastically freak out over. A few hundred bozos in MAGA hats parading around with American flags does not exactly a Sturmabteilung make.
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Jet3

US State Dept approves $8B sale of F-16s to Taiwan disregarding Beijing's warning of 'consequences'


RT
Tue, 20 Aug 2019 22:34 UTC
F-16 jets
© Reuters/Nicky LohF-16 jets at Taiwan's Chia-yi air force base
Despite extreme objections voiced by Beijing, the State Department has approved the sale of dozens of F-16 fighter planes to Taiwan, openly admitting that the move serves US economic and national security interests in the region.

The approval of the $8 billion sale by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DCPA) came just days after plans to supply 66 fighter jets to Taipei were greenlighted by the White House. In approving the proposed deliveries, the DCPA reasoned that additional arms will help maintain "political stability, military balance, and economic progress" in the region.
"This proposed sale serves US national, economic, and security interests by supporting the recipient's continuing efforts to modernize its armed forces and to maintain a credible defensive capability."
The prospects of yet another weapons sale by the Trump administration to Taiwan, which still has to be approved by Congress, drew ire from Beijing, which repeatedly slammed all US attempts to arm the enclave, that China considers an integral part of the mainland.

Comment: Followup from RT: 21/8/2019: China threatens sanctions against US firms providing F-16 jets to Taiwan
Beijing has urged Washington to cancel the sale of American F-16 fighter planes to Taiwan, vowing sanctions against US companies that take part in the deal in order "to protect [China's] interests."

"We demand from the United States to adhere to joint agreements and immediately cancel the supply plan. Otherwise, Washington will have to answer for all the consequences," Gen Shuang, official representative of China's Foreign Ministry, said at a news briefing on Wednesday.

He stressed that the Taiwan issue relates to purely internal problems of China, and Beijing will firmly defend its interests on the matter, even if it comes to sanctions.

"China will take all possible measures to protect its own interests, including sanctions against US companies that will participate in these arms transfers to Taipei," he summed up.
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X

Predictable: Trump nixes meeting with Danish PM when she refused to discuss selling Greenland


RT
Tue, 20 Aug 2019 23:59 UTC
Thule base Greenland
© ReutersUS Thule Military Base, Greenland
US President Donald Trump has cancelled a meeting with the Danish PM after she unequivocally shot down his dreams of purchasing resource-rich Greenland, a much-memed possibility about which the president was quite serious.

Trump thanked PM Mette Frederiksen for being "so direct" and sparing "a great deal of expense and effort" for both countries, which apparently have few pressing matters to discuss absent the gigantic and seemingly absurd real-estate purchase. The meeting, scheduled for two weeks into the future, would be postponed "for another time," the president tweeted on Monday.

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Arrow Up

Arm twisted? Australia joins the US' anti-Iran flotilla in as limited a way as possible


RT
Wed, 21 Aug 2019 01:07 UTC
2 Aussi ships
© Facebook/Royal Australian Navy/LSIS Tara Byrne/Commonwealth of AustraliaAustralian Navy
Australia will send a frigate and a spy plane in support of Washington's dubious initiative to boost security in the Straits of Hormuz by filling it with foreign warships, increasing the risk of miscalculations and provocations.

"The government has decided that it is in Australia's national interest to work with our international partners to contribute," Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Wednesday morning. "Our contribution will be limited in scope and it will be time-bound."

Following the US and UK lead, the former British colony will reinforce the sparse coalition with a P-8A Poseidon maritime surveillance plane this year and will dispatch a frigate next January for at least six months' patrol, foreign affairs minister Marise Payne and defense minister Linda Reynolds said in a statement.

Besides this 'limited' contribution, Canberra also agreed to provide intelligence and other assistance, as the US faces an uphill battle trying to muster support for its "maritime policing" initiative. Previously, only the UK and Israel had volunteered to battle the much-hyped Iranian threat, following a series of mysterious attacks on oil tankers that were pinned on Tehran and reciprocal vessel seizures by Iran and the UK.

The Islamic Republic, meanwhile, believes the US is simply trying to enforce its unilateral oil sanctions through military pressure after failing to do it via political extortion.

Comment: See also:

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Chess

Elizabeth Warren admits to vague 'mistakes', possibly regarding her phony Native American ancestry claims

Bob Fredericks and Nikki Schwab
New York Post
Mon, 19 Aug 2019 19:05 UTC
Elizabeth Warren
Elizabeth Warren
Elizabeth Warren admitted Monday that she had "made mistakes" regarding her claims of Native American ancestry — which led to President Trump dubbing her "Pocahontas."

"Like anyone who's been honest with themselves, I know that I have made mistakes," the Massachusetts senator and Democratic presidential candidate said at the Frank LaMere Native American Presidential Forum in Sioux City, Iowa, without specifying exactly what she was apologizing for.

"I am sorry for harm I have caused. I have listened and I have learned a lot, and I am grateful for the many conversations we have had together," she said.
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Chess

Judicial Watch files request to depose Hillary Clinton on her illegal email server and destruction of State Department documents


Judicial Watch
Wed, 21 Aug 2019 18:52 UTC
Hillary Clinton
© Getty ImagesHillary Clinton testifies at the Benghazi hearings in 2015
Judicial Watch announced today that a federal court ordered a hearing for Thursday, August 22, 2019, on the Clinton email issue. On December 6, 2018, U.S. District Court Judge Lamberth ordered Obama administration senior State Department officials, lawyers and Clinton aides to be deposed or answer written questions under oath. The court ruled that the Clinton email system was "one of the gravest modern offenses to government transparency."

The court ordered discovery into three specific areas: whether Secretary Clinton's email use of a private email server was intended to stymie FOIA; whether the State Department's intent to settle this case in late 2014 and early 2015 amounted to bad faith; and whether the State Department has adequately searched for records responsive to Judicial Watch's request. Judicial Watch deposed nearly a dozen witnesses and will seek addition witnesses and documents from the court, including the deposition of Hillary Clinton and Cheryl Mills, her chief of staff at State and personal lawyer who directed the destruction of 33,000 State Department Clinton emails. Lawyers for Clinton and Mills are expected at the hearing Thursday.

Comment: We wish Judicial Watch the best of luck in cornering Killary and her minions. Wonder how many times she will take the Fifth?

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