Puppet MastersS


Attention

'Pulling a CNN stunt': Critics blast NPR for fake bombshell of Trump Jr. lying to Senate

DTrumpJr
© Reuters/Jonathan ErnstDonald Trump Jr. departs interview by Senate Intelligence Committee
A much-quoted National Public Radio story about Donald Trump Jr, Michael Cohen and talks to build a Trump Tower in Moscow during the 2016 election campaign was shown to be factually wrong, but NPR has not retracted it yet.

Amid the wave of "end for Trump" media euphoria that followed Thursday's guilty plea by Cohen, who had been President Donald Trump's former personal attorney, NPR ran a story about how Trump Jr's testimony in September 2017 did not square with Cohen's admissions to a federal court - namely, that discussions on the Trump Tower project with developer Felix Sater went on as late as June 2016.

Trump Jr. testified that those talks concluded without result "at the end" of 2014, and "certainly not '16," according to the article authored by Phil Ewing and Tim Mak. It did not take long for champions of the "Russiagate" conspiracy theory to invoke the story as proof of President Trump's "Kremlin ties."



There was just one tiny little problem with the NPR story: It wasn't true. Worse, the transcript of Trump Jr.'s testimony proves it wasn't true.

As Mollie Hemingway pointed out in a scathing piece in The Federalist, the quote Ewing used as proof of discrepancy was not referring to Cohen's talks with Sater, but entirely different talks with Emin and Aras Agalarov - as one of the attorneys for Trump Jr. even explains in the very next lines of the transcript.

Arrow Up

Mueller mulls new charges and another trial for Manafort

Manafort
© Kevin Dietsch/UPIPaul Manafort
Special counsel Robert Mueller is considering bringing new charges against President Trump's one-time campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, for allegedly breaching a plea agreement with federal prosecutors.

Government attorney Andrew Weissmann told a federal district court judge on Friday that prosecutors have not yet decided whether to bring new charges against Manafort for breaching the deal. Those new charges could include obstruction of justice.

The government is also considering seeking a new trial on charges in Washington, D.C., that were initially dropped as part of the plea deal. Prosecutors said there were a number of obligations in the plea agreement that the government is now relieved of.

Comment: Hard to tell if Mueller is doing damage control or causing more damage. His authority to prosecute 'other than Russiagate charges' has led to the Manafort investigation and trial, tainting public opinion into thinking there is some connection between the two while finding none.


Star of David

See Hezbollah's warning to Israel: 'If you dare attack, you will regret it'

Nasrallah
© Reuters/Khalil HassanLebanon's Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah
The video comes after Syrian air defence forces took out several incoming missiles launched at Al Kiswah, a city located to the south of the capital Damascus. Israel denied its involvement in the missile attack.

Hezbollah, a Shia militant group, has posted a YouTube video warning Israel against launching missile strikes on Lebanon in the wake of an unsuccessful missile attack on Syria allegedly launched by Tel Aviv.

The video, which has subtitles in Hebrew, includes what look like satellite images and precise map locations of strategic sites in the Jewish state.

The clip, which specifically shows Hezbollah fighters preparing for a missile attack and the group's leader Hassan Nasrallah pledging to retaliate against a possible Israeli strike on Lebanon, wraps up with the warning "if you dare attack, you will regret it."


Comment: Hezbollah sent a very strong warning of dire consequences. It doesn't appear to be bluffing. Israel 'denies' the attack on Al Kiswah. Who else would do this? See more on the Al Kiswah attack:


Arrow Down

Former FBI Dir. Comey seeks to quash subpoena to testify in Russia investigation

James Comey
© AP/Andrew HarnikFormer FBI Director James Comey
Former FBI Director James Comey has asked a U.S. judge to quash a subpoena from congressional Republicans compelling him to testify behind closed doors about his decisions on the Russia investigation ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

The unusual filing in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on November 30 came after Comey previously told Republican lawmakers he would only agree to testify if the hearing were open to the public.

"Comey asks this court's intervention not to avoid giving testimony but to prevent the joint committee from using the pretext of a closed interview to peddle a distorted, partisan political narrative," the filing said.


Comment: And Comey's book is unbiased?


The subpoena ordering Comey's testimony was issued as part of a joint investigation by the House Judiciary Committee and House Oversight Committee into decisions made by the FBI in connection with its investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's use of a private e-mail server and its investigation into whether President Donald Trump's campaign colluded with Russia.

Comment: Comey's complaint is bogus. Whether the committee discloses the content of the interview or not, there will be documentation of exactly what was asked and said. He is throwing out innuendo to fuel public pushback - an offensive strategy prior to the meeting.


Boat

Merkel's potential CDU successor suggests blockade of Russian ships over Ukraine crisis

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer
© dpaAnnegret Kramp-Karrenbauer
The European Union and the United States should consider banning from their ports Russian ships originating from the Sea of Azov after Russia captured three Ukrainian vessels there, German Chancellor Angela Merkel's protege said on Friday.

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, who is leading the race to succeed Merkel as leader of her ruling conservatives, also said Germany must be ready to take more responsibility in foreign policy and to spend more on defense.

Russia seized the Ukrainian vessels and their crews on Sunday near Crimea, the Ukrainian region which Moscow annexed in 2014, over what it said was their illegal entry into Russian waters, which Ukraine denies.

"If it's confirmed that the aggression came from Russia ... then I think there must be a clear answer," Kramp-Karrenbauer told Reuters in a television interview. "One answer might be, for example, to stop Russian ships coming from the region - from the Sea of ​​Azov - from entering European or U.S. ports until this situation with Ukraine is resolved," she said.

The comments from Kramp-Karrenbauer, 56, mark a tougher tone than the posture adopted by Merkel, who has called for de-escalation and dialogue.

Comment: Is this the best Merkel can come up with? For more information on AKK and other candidates, see also: Merkel's potential successors: How they stand on foreign policy


Eye 2

Ukraine violates Minsk ceasefire 3 times in 24 hours: Shells Lugansk villages over 80 times

ukraine kiev bombs lugansk
Over the past 24 hours, Kiev military forces fired over 80 heavy shells upon the Republic, as tensions rise in the aftermath of the Kerch Strait battle incident. This was announced today at a briefing at the LuganskInformCentre by the head of the press service of the People's Police Department of the LPR, Yakov Osadchy.

He noted that the areas under the Republic's authority have not changed their stance, remaining vigilant as the situation remains tense; over the past 24 hours, Kiev military forces violated the ceasefire three times, with a total of 80 heavy shells raining upon the LPR.

"By order of the war criminals, the commanders of the 10th brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine 'Zubanich' and 72nd 'Tatus' were attacked in the Zolotoe 5 and Logvinovo settlements. 120 and 82 mm mortars, infantry weapons, various grenade launchers and systems prohibited by the Minsk agreements were subjected to shelling. small arms ", - said the head of the press service.

"In total, over 80 different ammunition were released across the territory of the Republic," said Osadchy.

Comment: In the meantime ordinary Ukrainian conscripts are voting on Kiev's latest aggression with their feet:
As tensions rise and the likelihood of a Ukrainian offensive grows, the already low morale of the UAF forces has worsened, resulting in a streak of desertions. Desertions are now at an all time high, corroborated by Ukrainian media.

In the most recent instance of desertion in recent days since the incident, a segment of a whole platoon of servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine arbitrarily left the location of the unit, taking with them their regular weapons. This mush was revealed at a briefing in Lugansk, according to the head of the press service of the People's Police LPR Yakov Osadchy.

"In the village of Popasna, the security agencies of Ukraine are conducting operational measures to find four soldiers from the 14th brigade, who, on November 25, voluntarily left the location of the unit with standard weapons," the agency LITs quoted him.

Osadchy added that Ukrainian commanders are hiding this fact from their superiors. Indeed, these incoming reports are clearly incomplete, due to the general success that Ukrainian commanders have in hiding these desertions which analysts claim have become common-place.

In the People's Militia, they have repeatedly noted that the moral and mental state of the Kiev security officials is worsening, they continue to maraud and organize "drunken clashes" which are not embraced by the local population, and cases of non-statutory relationships that lead to desertion and suicide among the Armed Forces of Ukraine have become frequent.

With Poroshenko's martial law provisions in place, journalists may find it illegal to report now on such desertions and suicides. This will create a longer-term problem for the Kiev Junta, as Ukrainians will increasingly look to foreign press for reports on the situation in the east of the country. Once citizens become accustomed to visiting websites not in anyway under the influence of the Kiev regime, the Junta will lose its ability to manufacture consent all together.



Attention

After Killary loss, Google employees brainstormed how to bury conservative sites in searches

google evil 800px
Google employees debated whether to bury conservative media outlets in the company's search function as a response to President Donald Trump's election in 2016, internal Google communications obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation reveal.

The Daily Caller and Breitbart were specifically singled out as outlets to potentially bury, the communications reveal.

Trump's election in 2016 shocked many Google employees, who had been counting on Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton to win.

Communications obtained by TheDCNF show that internal Google discussions went beyond expressing remorse over Clinton's loss to actually discussing ways Google could prevent Trump from winning again.

Comment: Google can run all the PR it wants, but its behavior is telling. By the way, they were pushing down alternative media in search results at least a decade ago... They aren't fooling the rest of the world either.


Blackbox

Cohen's false statements: Is Mueller's purpose to focus in on non-criminal collusion using the Trump Tower meeting?

Michael Cohen
© Craig Ruttle/APMichael Cohen, former personal lawyer to President Donald Trump, leaves federal court in New York, Aug. 21, 2018.
Michael Cohen, a former lawyer for President Trump, pled guilty in Manhattan federal court this morning to making false statements to Congress regarding his involvement in efforts to build a Trump Tower complex in Moscow (the "Moscow project").

As our Jack Crowe has noted, Cohen's guilty plea is in connection with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation and pertains to testimony Cohen gave to the Senate Intelligence Committee. Cohen pled guilty to a one-count criminal information.

In a nutshell, Cohen gave testimony to the committee that minimized the extent and duration of efforts made by the Trump organization on the Moscow project. In order to downplay Donald Trump's connections to Russia, Cohen told the committee that the project had ended in January 2016 (i.e., before the Iowa caucuses), and that Trump's personal involvement had been scant - limited to three conversations with Cohen.

In reality, Cohen now says efforts on the project continued well into 2016. Moreover, both Donald Trump and members of his family were extensively briefed on it. The efforts involved communications with Russian-government officials, as well as discussions of possible trips to Russia by Cohen and Trump, and possible meetings with Russian president Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dimitry Medvedev.

Comment: As Byron York at the Washington Examiner points out, there's something else interesting about this latest development. No mention is made of a central claim in the Russiagate narrative: Cohen's alleged trip to Prague to arrange secret payments to Russian hackers:
Last April, McClatchy published a blockbuster story with the headline "Sources: Mueller has evidence Cohen was in Prague in 2016, confirming part of dossier." The story was the subject of a lot of talk among Resistance types. But one notable thing about the McClatchy scoop was that other news organizations never duplicated it, as is common when one outlet breaks a big story. Now Mueller, with vastly more resources and investigative power than any news organization, hasn't either.

For more than a year, a number of Trump-Russia investigators on Capitol Hill have maintained that none of the dossier's substantive allegations are true. The new plea deal between Cohen and Mueller is more evidence to support that.



Eye 2

Best of the Web: The Pentagon's massive accounting boondoggle exposed

The Pentagon building in Washington, DC
© Agence France-Presse
How US military spending keeps rising even as the Pentagon flunks its audit.

On November 15, Ernst & Young and other private firms that were hired to audit the Pentagon announced that they could not complete the job. Congress had ordered an independent audit of the Department of Defense, the government's largest discretionary cost center - the Pentagon receives 54 cents out of every dollar in federal appropriations - after the Pentagon failed for decades to audit itself. The firms concluded, however, that the DoD's financial records were riddled with so many bookkeeping deficiencies, irregularities, and errors that a reliable audit was simply impossible.

Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan tried to put the best face on things, telling reporters, "We failed the audit, but we never expected to pass it." Shanahan suggested that the DoD should get credit for attempting an audit, saying, "It was an audit on a $2.7 trillion organization, so the fact that we did the audit is substantial." The truth, though, is that the DoD was dragged kicking and screaming to this audit by bipartisan frustration in Congress, and the result, had this been a major corporation, likely would have been a crashed stock.

Comment:


Info

Houthis express willingness to attend peace talks in Sweden, but only with security guarantees

houthis
© AP Photo / Hani Mohammed
Houthis are ready to take part in talks on Yemen in Sweden, but demand that the UN resolve the issue of providing the aircraft, issuing the permit for its departure and the delegation's security, a representative of the Ansar Allah Houthi organization told Sputnik.

"There are preparations that the UN should do by the date [December 6], they are connected with the arrival of the delegation from Sanaa to Sweden in terms of providing the aircraft, permit and guarantees of security for the delegation, transportation of those wounded and other things," the member of the political bureau of the Ansar Allah Houthi organization Fadl Abu Talib said.

Talib further noted that the prospective talks on Yemen in Sweden would last 7-10 days.