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Target

Trump wants a new nuclear deal with Russia and China after killing INF which ended Friday


RT
Fri, 02 Aug 2019 22:47 UTC
TrumpNukes
© The Daily BeastUS President Donald Trump
On the same day the US ended a landmark 1987 arms control treaty, US President Donald Trump said he wanted a new, comprehensive nuclear deal with Russia and China. Can Moscow and Beijing trust Washington?

"We've been speaking with Russia about the pact for nuclear," Trump told reporters outside the White House on Friday, adding that "China is very excited about it" too.

This is not the first time the US president has brought up the ambitious nuclear weapons reduction plan. He first referenced it in April, arguing that the ultimate goal is to "get rid" of as many nuclear weapons as possible.

In practice, however, the Trump administration has poured billions of dollars into modernizing the US nuclear arsenal and Pentagon doctrines on the use of atomic weapons, while scrapping the landmark 1987 INF arms control treaty that kept the peace in Europe for over 20 years.

Comment: Additional from RT 3/8/2019: 'No winners' in INF collapse, but Russia 'will never lose an arms race' either!
Deputy FM Sergey Ryabkov: "The US withdrawal from the INF treaty jeopardizes everyone's security and may cause an arms race, but the US shouldn't count on winning it. The US decided to untie itself from an arms control treaty that kept their capabilities in this area at zero level for decades. No one will gain from the collapse of the INF. Everyone's security will be in jeopardy. Russia will never lose in this arms race. We have shown earlier our ability to find cost effective answers to any challenges we face."

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that it would make no sense to compete with the US in the number of missiles and that parity should instead be achieved by producing a limited number of state-of-the-art hardware that surpasses American capabilities.
See also:

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Bomb

US-backed opposition are prime suspects in the Bangkok bombings

Tony Cartalucci
New Eastern Outlook
Fri, 02 Aug 2019 00:00 UTC
Bangkok bomb site
© UnknownBangkok, Thailand bomb site
Several small bombs detonated across Bangkok on Friday, August 2, amid a meeting between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) the US, China, and Russia. There were several injuries reported, but no deaths.

Despite a Western media deliberately feigning confusion over motives and possible suspects while attempting to depict the capital as "in chaos" and the current Thai government "humiliated" - its image "tarnished" - US-backed opposition groups are the prime suspects, their motives including growing desperation.

Also absent from Western media coverage was any genuine context surrounding Thailand's ongoing political crisis as foreign-backed opposition groups attempt to reverse the nation's growing ties with China, Russia, and developing nations across Eurasia.
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Cheeseburger

The 'nothingburger's' $31.7M Justice Dept bill comes due


RT
Sat, 03 Aug 2019 04:56 UTC
Mueller
© Reuters/Tom BrennerFormer SC Robert Mueller
Nearly two years of fruitlessly hunting for collusion between US President Donald Trump's campaign and the Russian government cost the country $31.7 million, the Justice Department has revealed.

The cost of special counsel Robert Mueller's 22-month probe was released in a Justice Department accounting report on Friday. While the last six months of the investigation, which concluded in May with Mueller's resignation, cost "only" $6.5 million as he began sending prosecutors home and writing up the 448-page report, turning the full force of the country's investigative apparatus against a president and his campaign isn't cheap. From May 2017 to September 2018, the special counsel's office spent $25 million digging for Russian infiltrators in the White House.

Some $2.4 million of the last phase's expenses would have been spent anyway on Department salaries, according to the report, but the itemized breakdown provides an interesting window into the bureaucratic swamp that produced the pricey nothingburger. "Transportation of Things" may have cost just $229, but Justice Department employees billed the government for $235,812 to work out of the special counsel's office instead of their own offices (filed under "Travel and Transportation of Persons").
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Footprints

US border human tsunami: Illegal migrants eclipse last two years, 1.1M predicted for 2019

Anna Giaritelli
Washington Examiner
Wed, 31 Jul 2019 11:48 UTC
Refugee tsunami
© Gary Varvel/KJN
Federal law enforcement based on the U.S.-Mexico border are expected to encounter 1.1 million people trying to cross illegally by the end of the fiscal year Sept. 30, despite Mexico's assistance stopping migrants on their journey north.

Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Ron Johnson forecast the 1.1 million figure during a committee hearing Tuesday based off the number of people arrested for illegally entering between border crossings and those who presented at ports of entry but were deemed ineligible for admittance.

As of June 30, U.S. Customs and Border Protection personnel had made contact with 905,926 migrants, including 694,229 who entered the country without permission. The 694,229 figure nine months into fiscal 2019 was more than double the 310,000 who illegally crossed the southern border in all of fiscal 2017.

This year's number has already surpassed the 683,178 encountered both at ports of entry and between ports in fiscal 2018.

Comment: See also:

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X

MSNBC paid Jesse Ventura $10M to 'keep silent' on Iraq


RT
Fri, 02 Aug 2019 20:37 UTC
Jesse Ventura/Lee Camp
© Jesse Ventura talks to RT's Lee Camp, YouTube/Redacted TonightJesse Ventura talks to RT's Lee Camp on "Redacted Tonight"
Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura told RT's Lee Camp that his anti-war views were so unpopular at MSNBC, the network paid him something to the tune of ten million dollars to "keep quiet."

After leaving office in 2003, Ventura began a weekly cable TV show, Jesse Ventura's America, on MSNBC. However, the show was dropped only a few months after it began. For Ventura, the show was canceled for one reason.

"They got rid of me because I opposed the invasion of Iraq," he told Redacted Tonight's Lee Camp. "Our government allowed no media at all to speak out against the invasion of Iraq, you were told it's off limits basically." While dissent may not have gone down well at MSNBC at the time, jingoism did, with host Joe Scarborough calling protesters "leftist stooges for anti-American causes," and pundit Michael Savage suggesting they "are absolutely committing sedition, or treason."


Watch the full video, also featuring corporate journalists finally turning on each other for two years of 'Russiagate' conspiracies and America's need for a viable third party.
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Sheriff

Russian opposition Navalny's anti-corruption fund under investigation in alleged $15mn money-laundering


RT
Sat, 03 Aug 2019 17:23 UTC
Alexander Navalny
© Reuters/Maxim ShemetovAlexey Navalny looking all broody and important
A probe has been launched into alleged money laundering by the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), an NGO led by an opposition activist Alexey Navalny. The announcement was made amid ongoing opposition protests in Moscow.

Members of the foundation, as well as other individuals "linked to its activities" are suspected of laundering the hefty sum of 1 billion rubles ($15.3 million) over the past three years, Russia's Investigative Committee said on Saturday. The FBK is an opposition NGO, which focuses primarily on open-source 'investigations' into alleged cases of high-profile corruption.

Comment: Not Navalny's first rodeo either:

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Black Cat

Newly released documents show FBI agents had to go to Comey's home to retrieve memos containing classified information


Judicial Watch
Wed, 31 Jul 2019 17:45 UTC
Comey
© Associated Press/Carolyn KasterFormer FBI Director James Comey
Documents also show Comey's claim that two memos he wrote documenting conversations with President Trump were 'missing'

Judicial Watch announced today it received six pages of records from the FBI showing that in June, 2017, a month after FBI Director James Comey was fired by President Donald Trump, FBI agents visited his home and collected "as evidence" four memos that allegedly detail conversations he had with President Trump. One of his memos was written on June 6, a month after he was fired.

Comey was fired by Trump on May 9, 2017. The memos obtained by Judicial Watch were collected from Comey by the FBI on June 7, a month later, and are dated February 14, 2017; March 30, 2017; April 11, 2017; and one is dated "last night at 6:30 pm."

The FBI documents also revealed that Comey recalled writing two other memos after conversations with Trump that he claimed were "missing." The FBI visit and interview took place on June 7, the day before Comey admitted leaking the memos in testimony to Congress.

Comment:

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Question

Tulsi Gabbard voted to condemn BDS, but then cosponsored Ilhan Omar's boycott bill?

Michael Arria
Mondoweiss
Fri, 02 Aug 2019 17:32 UTC
HI Rep. Tulsi Gabbard
HI Rep. Tulsi Gabbard
Congresswoman and presidential hopeful Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) has become the fifteenth House member to cosponsor H.Res.496, a resolution affirming that Americans have the right to boycott foreign countries to advance the cause of human rights.

The legislation was introduced last month by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and although the text doesn't specifically mention Israel or Palestine at all, Omar has made it clear that it was developed in response to the recent proliferation bills that target the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (also known as BDS). "We are introducing a resolution ... to really speak about the American values that support and believe in our ability to exercise our first amendment rights in regard to boycotting," she said shortly before the bill's introduction, "And it is an opportunity for us to explain why it is we support a nonviolent movement, which is the BDS movement."

Comment: Gabbard, who sincerely seems to be seeking peace for people everywhere, is in the unfortunate position of having to thread the Jewish Lobby needle in her quest for the Democratic nomination. Sizeable chunks of her base are on both sides of the question. To her credit, she has so far not bent the knee and addressed AIPAC, as is customary for those seeking the presidency. Whether this refusal to come down emphatically on one side or the other will hurt her in the long run remains to be seen.

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Star of David

Another Gaza protester dies as Israel finally admits to unjustified killings

Maureen Clare Murphy
The Electronic Intifada
Wed, 31 Jul 2019 17:10 UTC
gaza great march return Israel
© Ashraf Amra APA imagesA protester is treated by paramedics during Great March of Return protests in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, on 12 July.
A Palestinian man died after being shot in the stomach by Israeli occupation forces during Great March of Return protests in southernmost Gaza last week.

Ahmad Muhammad Abdallah al-Qarra, 23, was fatally injured during demonstrations east of Khan Younis on 26 July, Gaza's health ministry stated.

More than 200 Palestinians have been killed during the protests along Gaza's eastern and northern boundaries since their launch last year.

There has been a sharp drop in the number of protest fatalities in the last few months.

Israeli forces fatally injured four Palestinians during Great March of Return protests in May, including Muhammad al-Judaili, a paramedic who succumbed to his wounds in June. Al-Qarra is the first Great March of Return fatality since al-Judaili's death.
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Bad Guys

US Pentagon already planning to deploy banned weapons day after withdrawal from INF


DW
Sat, 03 Aug 2019 17:15 UTC
mark esper
US Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Saturday said the Pentagon would deploy ground-based intermediate-range conventional missiles in Asia a day after the White House withdrew from a key Cold War-era treaty.

"It's fair to say, though, that we would like to deploy a capability sooner rather than later," said Esper. "I would prefer months. I just don't have the latest state of play on timelines."

On Friday, the US formally exited from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), citing alleged violations by Russia. European officials have described the withdrawal as a risky move that undermines security on the continent.


Comment: Actions speak louder than words. It's the U.S. that withdrew from the treaty, and it's the U.S. that plans to immediately take actions that would've been illegal under the treaty. Clearly, they are the ones who wanted out of the treaty and no longer wanted to abide by its terms. Blaming Russia is only a half-hearted attempt at projecting blame.


German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said "Europe is losing part of its security" with the demise of the INF treaty. "I am convinced that today we must again succeed in agreeing rules on disarmament and arms control in order to prevent a new nuclear arms race."
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