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Chess

Russian OPCW envoy: Militants planning another 'false flag' chemical weapon attack in Syria's Idlib


Sputnik
Sat, 13 Jul 2019 11:13 UTC
attack Idlib Syria
© REUTERS / Ammar Abdullah
Earlier, Russia insisted that all reported cases of chemical weapons use in Syria must be investigated independently.

According to the Russian envoy to the Organisation for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Alexander Shulgin, a new chemical weapons provocation is being planned by militants in Syria's Idlib province.

"They repeatedly have said that Syrians have hidden stocks of chemical weapons and they access them when needed. But nobody seems to think about the military significance of chemical weapons use. We have noted that talk about chemical weapons begins whenever Syrian troops are successful. Why should they resort to chemical weapons use if they are practically in control in Douma or in other places already?" - Mr Shulgin told the media.
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Black Magic

Bizarre art, porn and dolls: Inside Jeffrey Epstein's New York house of horrors

Andrew Keiper
Fox News
Sat, 13 Jul 2019 02:43 UTC
jeffrey epstein mansion
© AP Photo/Bebeto MatthewsThis photo shows the Manhattan residence of Jeffrey Epstein, Monday July 8, 2019, in New York. Prosecutors said Monday, federal agents investigating wealthy sex offender Jeffrey Epstein found "nude photographs of what appeared to be underage girls" while searching his Manhattan mansion.
The extravagant home of financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein reportedly contains a plethora of odd and disturbing art pieces, including a collection of prosthetic eyeballs and a painting of Epstein in a prison yard. Epstein has been arrested on charges of sex trafficking, and authorities have found a collection of pornography believed to contain images of children stored inside his New York estate.

Over the years, the opulent Manhattan home of Jeffrey Epstein, the financier at the center of a still-unfolding sex-trafficking scandal, has transformed from an unoccupied private residence to a K-12 school, and finally to an alleged house of horrors.

The Upper East Side home, essentially gifted to Epstein by wealthy retail magnate Leslie Wexner, stands seven stories tall and is considered one of the largest townhomes in New York City. It's estimated to be valued around $56 million. Epstein, who has flitted between his Manhattan home and residences in Paris, Palm Beach, Florida, and New Mexico, is accused of abusing a number of girls across his properties.

A recent indictment filed in the Southern District of New York outlined a system of recruitment, coercion and — ultimately — sexual abuse and rape that Epstein developed to lure young women and girls into his orbit. The document centers on Epstein's alleged conduct in New York and Palm Beach.
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Snakes in Suits

Epstein tells judge he wants mysterious finances kept secret

Jerry Dunleavy
Washington Examiner
Thu, 11 Jul 2019 22:18 UTC
Jeffrey Epstein
© Photo Illustration by Kelly Caminero/The Daily Beast/Getty
The attorneys for Jeffrey Epstein, the alleged child sex trafficker and global jet-setter of unknown wealth, told the court Thursday that they wanted to keep Epstein's mysterious finances under seal, and the Justice Department declined to take a position on Epstein's request.

Epstein has been in jail since he was arrested by authorities at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey on his way home from Paris this weekend. His indictment, unsealed Monday, alleges that he "sexually exploited and abused dozens of minor girls at his homes in Manhattan, New York, and Palm Beach, Florida, among other locations" between 2002 and 2005, according to a 14-page federal indictment. Epstein, a registered sex offender, pleaded not guilty to the new charges Monday.

During a lengthy court filing Thursday arguing that Epstein should be allowed to be kept essentially under house arrest at his Manhattan mansion instead of being held behind bars, Epstein's attorneys requested that the court allow Epstein's finances be provided as "sealed supplemental disclosure" and be kept secret from the public. Epstein's attorneys also said that they would provide a "sealed list of his philanthropic donations."
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Eagle

Hiring the swamp: Meet the new Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty boss, a Russiagate-pushing neocon


RT
Thu, 11 Jul 2019 18:57 UTC
Jamie Fly
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a US government-funded propaganda outfit, will soon get a new president - a NeverTrump neoconservative flack, who last worked at an outfit promoting the 'Russiagate conspiracy.'

Jamie Fly is supposed to take over at RFE/RL in Prague on August 1, having reportedly been handpicked by board chair Kenneth Weinstein and endorsed by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. He reportedly received unanimous support from the board, composed of Democrats and Republicans appointed under the Obama administration.

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Megaphone

German SPD lists von der Leyen failures in damning paper to EU peers

Holger Hansen
Reuters
Fri, 12 Jul 2019 13:21 UTC
Ursula
© REUTERS/Francois LenoirFILE PHOTO: Ursula von der Leyen
Germany's Social Democrats have circulated a damning paper to their European political group in which they call Ursula von der Leyen an "inadequate and inappropriate candidate" to lead the European Commission ahead of a vote on her nomination next week.

The European Parliament is due to vote next Tuesday on whether von der Leyen, Germany's defense minister and a conservative ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel, should succeed Luxembourg's Jean-Claude Juncker as head of the EU executive.

Von der Leyen's nomination by EU leaders has infuriated the Social Democrats (SPD), Merkel's coalition partners, who feel aggrieved that the leaders ignored the lead candidates from the main parliamentary blocs in their horse-trading over top posts.

Merkel said on Thursday the coalition's situation "is not easy". She was the only EU leader to abstain in a vote last week on an EU top jobs package after she consulted the SPD, which rejected the deal.

Comment: See also: The new leaders of the EU - A more incompetent and corrupt bunch we've never seen

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Arrow Up

Russia, China, Iran & Venezuela developing crypto to bypass US financial control


RT
Fri, 12 Jul 2019 13:00 UTC
dollar
A new report by the American Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) says the US' geopolitical adversaries are deploying blockchain technology to help avoid sanctions and counter US financial power.

According to the FDD, with the increase of adoption of cryptocurrencies around the world, efforts are underway to build new systems for transferring value that work outside of conventional banking infrastructure.

Governments in Russia, China, Iran, and Venezuela are experimenting with the technology that underpins the crypto market, said the report. They are prioritizing blockchain technology as a "key component of their efforts to counter US financial power."

Comment: See also: Pepe Escobar: Currency chaos, gold, oil, cryptocurrencies and dumping the dollar

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Snakes in Suits

Out for blood? House Judiciary authorizes subpoenas for 12 witnesses, includes Jared Kushner

Andrew Desiderio, Kyle Cheney
Politico
Fri, 12 Jul 2019 03:45 UTC
Nadler
© Michael Loccisano/Getty ImagesHouse Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler
The House Judiciary Committee voted on Thursday to authorize subpoenas for 12 crucial witnesses as part of House Democrats' ongoing investigations targeting President Donald Trump.

On a party-line vote, the committee empowered Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) to issue subpoenas to current and former Trump administration officials who were central figures in former special counsel Robert Mueller's 22-month investigation of Russian contacts with the Trump campaign.

The subpoena list also includes Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, in addition to some of Mueller's key witnesses: former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, former national security adviser Michael Flynn, former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and former White House Staff Secretary Rob Porter.

The panel also authorized subpoenas for executives of American Media Inc., which was involved in hush-money payments to women who alleged that they had affairs with Trump. Nadler has not indicated when or whether he'll issue the subpoenas.

"We will not rest until we obtain their testimony and documents so this committee and Congress can do the work that the Constitution and the American people expect of us," Nadler said.

Trump ripped the Judiciary Committee's move early Thursday on Twitter, erroneously stating that Mueller concluded there was "no collusion, no obstruction." He also accused Democrats of wasting time. "Enough already, go back to work!" he said.

Comment: See also:



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Question

Free speech - as in everyone? Trump scolds social media platforms; MSM attacks his audience


RT
Thu, 11 Jul 2019 23:33 UTC
Trump WH
© Reuters/Carlos BarriaPresident Donald Trump speaks to social media summit attendees
All Americans have the right to speak freely, not just supporters of one political party or another, President Donald Trump told social media platforms at a White House "summit" featuring mainly influencers who have supported him.

"I am not speaking for 'our side.' You could be some of the most liberal people in the world in this audience, and I don't care," Trump told the assembled guests in the East Room on Thursday.

For most of the speech, however, he pointed to social media companies repeatedly deplatforming, suspending, shadowbanning or otherwise suppressing his supporters. "Big Tech should not be silencing the voices of the American people. In all fairness, some of you I could almost understand," he joked, looking at the crowd. "Some of you guys are out there! But even you should have a voice!"

Calling free speech "the bedrock of American life," Trump said he would be summoning the heads of social media platforms to the White House within a month or so, presumably to give them an earful about censorship going into the 2020 election. "They have to be here," he added, making clear that the invitation was not optional.

Comment: More from RT: Trump: 'Fake news less important than social media'
The summit will host a number of social media stars, many of them in the pro-Trump orbit, on Thursday afternoon, and will address the "tremendous dishonesty, bias, discrimination and suppression" practiced by social media companies, according to the president.

"We will not let them get away with it much longer," President Trump tweeted Thursday morning. "The Fake News Media will also be there, but for a limited period. The Fake News is not as important, or as powerful, as Social Media. They have lost tremendous credibility."

While no guest list has been published, some of the invitees are known, among them Twitter memesmith 'Carpe Donktum', prominent pro-Trumper Bill Mitchell, right-wing journalist Jim Hoft, as well as other conservative organizations such as Turning Point USA and PragerU.

The summit has its conservative detractors as well, however, who argue that the White House didn't invite anybody who was actually booted off a social media platform for their views.

No social media executives were invited to the event.

Social media firms have come under increasing pressure since the 2016 presidential election to crack down on controversial voices and figures deemed "hateful" or "trolls," but the platforms' efforts to control content has prompted calls of censorship. Facebook has implemented a number of "purges," scrubbing the platform of millions of accounts, including high-profile conservative personas like Alex Jones, Milo Yiannopoulos and Laura Loomer. Other platforms, like Twitter and YouTube, have followed suit, where perma-bans are becoming increasingly common.
In addition from RT: Twitter is twittering (after global crash during Trump's 'bias and free speech tirade')
It's been a hard day for Twitter. First the platform's executives were not invited to the White House social media summit, then it experienced technical difficulties and a global outage, provoking whispers of a conspiracy.

Twitter says the worldwide outages were caused by "an internal configuration change," but many of its users soon smelled a rat, claiming foul play was afoot:

"Ironic this occurs as @POTUS holds his #SocialMediaSummit here -- without inviting #Twitter," noted Voice of America journalist Steve Herman, to which one person replied "It's only ironic if it's coincidence."

"Was this a [demonstration] for Trump or demo by DT hackers?" another user asked.

"I wonder if ... Twitter experienced alleged 'technical difficulties' to sabotage Trump & his fellow patriots?" one Trump supporter inquired.

"Let's play connect the dots," one person tweeted. "Few days ago Facebook and Instagram had outages. Today, Twitter had outages. So on the day of the White House social media summit, might we consider that Trump's Russian buddies are flexing their cyber-muscles? 2 bad Trump doesn't care."

"Can't wait to hear about how the deep state did the Twitter outage to combat Trump's social media summit or something," one person commented incredulously.


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Arrow Down

How the S-400 undermines the global military cabal

Jean Perier
New Eastern Outlook
Fri, 12 Jul 2019 00:00 UTC
S-400
© UnknownRussian S-400 anti-air system
A great number of analysts these days would draw attention to the decision that both India and Turkey took to proceed with the purchase of Russia's state of the art S-400 anti-air systems in spite of unparalleled political pressure Washington applied on both Ankara and New Delhi. Essentially, this decision represents a turning point in the international struggle against the US military dictate. It's worth mentioning that both India and Turkey were Washington's allies at some point, and yet they came under colossal pressure from the Anglo-American empire, which has directed all of its efforts at establishing a multi-national military infrastructure, where all proceeds from arms sales go into the pockets of US military contractors.

As it has recently been noted by a Belgian media source:
"there is something utterly shameless and rude in the behavior of the US sales representatives (Pompeo and the like) when it comes to pushing military equipment and weapons for the sake of unparalleled greed of the Washington oligarchs with their belligerent hegemonic attitude. They seek to establish a distribution network that puts their customers in a position when they have no choice other than purchasing the constant "upgrades". All this resembles the deadly grip of an octopus or a swamp, that you just cannot outrun no matter how fast you go. "
In addition to this, in order to get a better understanding of the reasons that prompted Ankara to lean toward acquiring the S-400 system from Russia, instead of going with Washington's Patriot missiles, it must be recalled what the NATO-imposed Washington Collective Defense and Common Security represents and who's been benefiting from it.

Comment: See also:

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Family

Citizenship status check: Trump orders govt to turn over ALL records for US citizen/non-citizen count


RT
Thu, 11 Jul 2019 21:45 UTC
Trump/Map USA
© Human Events
President Donald Trump has declared he is "not backing down" from his effort to determine the citizenship status of the US population, promising to issue an executive order to put an alternative plan into effect immediately.

Complaining about "meritless litigation" that would have prevented the government from adding a citizenship question to the US Census on time, Trump ordered "every department and agency in the federal government " to provide the Department of Commerce with records on the number of citizens and non citizens in the country.

"They must furnish all legally available records in their possession immediately. We will leave no stone unturned," Trump declared, adding that the Census Bureau had determined that, using previously available records, it could determine the number of citizens and noncitizens with 90 percent accuracy - more accurate, he claimed, than adding a citizenship question to the census itself.

"We are not backing down on our effort to determine the citizenship status of the United States population. We must have a reliable count of how many citizens, non-citizens, and illegal aliens are in our country."

Attorney General William Barr elaborated on the rationale behind the order, explaining that the obstacle to adding a citizenship question was "a logistical impediment, not a legal one."

Comment: See also:

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