Puppet MastersS


Jet5

Russian bombers intercepted by US fighter jets off Alaskan coast

Mark Moore
New York Post
Tue, 21 May 2019 17:50 UTC
Russian bomberAlaska
© Getty Images/KJNRussian bombers near Alaska
US warplanes intercepted four Russian bombers and two jet fighters in international airspace off the coast of Alaska on Monday, the North American Aerospace Defense Command said in a statement Tuesday.

The Russian planes - Tupolev Tu-95 bombers and Su-35 fighters - were intercepted by US F-22 fighter jets as they entered the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone that extends about 200 miles off the state's western coast, NORAD said.

They were "positively identified" by a US E-3 spy plane that was conducting overall surveillance.

"The Russian bombers and fighters remained in international airspace and at no time did the aircraft enter United States or Canadian sovereign airspace," the statement said.

The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed the incident in a tweet Tuesday. It said:
Aerospace Forces "made scheduled sorties over the neutral waters of the Chukotka, Bering and Okhotsk seas, as well as along the western coast of Alaska and the northern coast of the Aleutian Islands. At certain stages of the route, Russian aircraft were escorted by #F22 fighter jets of the #USAF. The total flight time exceeded 12 hours."
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Eye 1

Thanks to Facebook data mining cell companies can now surreptitiously decide if you're creditworthy enough sell you a new phone

Sam Biddle
The Intercept
Mon, 20 May 2019 18:58 UTC
facebook big brother surveillance
© Soohee Cho/The Intercept
Among the mega-corporations that surveil you, your cellphone carrier has always been one of the keenest monitors, in constant contact with the one small device you keep on you at almost every moment. A confidential Facebook document reviewed by The Intercept shows that the social network courts carriers, along with phone makers - some 100 different companies in 50 countries - by offering the use of even more surveillance data, pulled straight from your smartphone by Facebook itself.

Offered to select Facebook partners, the data includes not just technical information about Facebook members' devices and use of Wi-Fi and cellular networks, but also their past locations, interests, and even their social groups. This data is sourced not just from the company's main iOS and Android apps, but from Instagram and Messenger as well. The data has been used by Facebook partners to assess their standing against competitors, including customers lost to and won from them, but also for more controversial uses like racially targeted ads.
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Pirates

US F-16 cost "unjustified" - Bulgarian defense minister


RT
Tue, 21 May 2019 13:54 UTC
f-16 jet
© Reuters
The price for the US-made F16 jet fighters is "higher than expected" and "unjustified," the Bulgarian defense minister has said as Sofia continues negotiations on the purchase of the Lockheed Martin's warplanes.

While the price issue is not currently on the table, officials in Bulgaria think the terms of the deal are disadvantageous for Sofia. That's according to Defense Minister Krasimir Karakachanov who made the point as he was speaking on local TV.

"Personally, I think some of the deal's parameters are not profitable and it is a matter of negotiation that prices are normalized. They are higher than expected and unjustified."

Comment: Military deals with the US usually involve much more than just the equipment:

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Chess

Iraq to send delegations to US and Iran to calm tensions

John Davison, Ahmed Rasheed, Raya Jalabi
Reuters
Tue, 21 May 2019 18:44 UTC
Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi
Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi
Iraq will send delegations to Washington and Tehran to help "halt tension" amid fears of a confrontation between the United States and Iran in the Middle East, Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said on Tuesday. He said there were no Iraqi groups that wanted to push towards a war, two days after a rocket fired in Baghdad landed close to the U.S. Embassy, the latest in a series of regional attacks the United States believes may have been inspired by Iran.

No one has claimed responsibility for the rocket fired into the heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses government buildings and diplomatic missions, on Sunday. U.S. government sources said Washington strongly suspects Shi'ite militias with ties to Tehran were behind the rocket attack.


Comment: It is much more likely US had a hand in the failed rocket attack, and Iran has warned about it: Iranian FM warns of US false flag plotting in region


Iran has rejected allegations of involvement in attacks. U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday Iran would be met with "great force" if it attacked U.S. interests in the Middle East.
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Bad Guys

Nadler preparing contempt vote for McGahn - but have the consequences been weighed?

Griffin Connolly
Roll Call
Tue, 21 May 2019 18:24 UTC
Don McGahn
© Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/FileThen-White House counsel Don McGahn listens to testimony at the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing for Brett Kavanaugh in Hart Building in September.
House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler is preparing a committee vote to hold former White House counsel Don McGahn in contempt of Congress, the second Trump official to get such treatment for defying one of Nadler's subpoenas to testify about the special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

"Let me be clear: this Committee will hear Mr. McGahn's testimony, even if we have to go to court to secure it. We will not allow the President to prevent the American people from hearing from this witness," Nadler said at a hearing Tuesday for McGahn that the former White House lawyer skipped per the administration's orders.

The White House argued in a letter to Nadler Monday that McGahn has "absolute immunity" and is not legally required to comply with a congressional subpoena, citing an internal Justice Department opinion that determined Congress cannot compel the president's senior advisers to testify about their official duties.

Comment: Much huffing and puffing from the Democrats as they try to keep alive something, anything, nefarious alive with which to plague the Trump administration. Inasmuch as AG Barr does not seem to be worried about toothless congressional subpoenas, it is likely McGahn isn't either.

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Eye 1

UK Home Secretary: MI5 committed serious safeguard breaches with interception warrants

Owen Bowcott
The Guardian
Tue, 14 May 2019 18:34 UTC
gchq
MI5 has committed "serious" breaches of surveillance safeguards in the way it handles information obtained under interception warrants, the home secretary, Sajid Javid, has admitted.

So severe was the compliance failure that the Investigatory Powers Commissioner's Office (IPCO) sent a team of inspectors into the intelligence agency for a week to investigate, according to the human rights organisation Liberty.

Liberty is one of a number of NGOs taking legal action over what it alleges are excessively intrusive surveillance powers. The IPCO, chaired by the appeal court judge Sir Adrian Fulford, is the official body responsible for overseeing government surveillance practices.

In a written statement to parliament last week that was not widely noticed, Javid said he was notifying MPs of "compliance risks MI5 identified and reported within certain technology environments used to store and analyse data, including material obtained under the Investigatory Powers Act".
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Bad Guys

Researchers find coordinated anti-Trump campaign on Instagram

Emily Birnbaum
The Hill
Mon, 20 May 2019 18:24 UTC
instagram
Researchers have identified what they are calling a coordinated campaign to undermine President Trump on Instagram, an effort that bears hallmarks of the disinformation campaigns that proliferated on the platform in 2016.

A recently published study by Italian analytics firm Ghost Data identified a network of 350 anti-Trump accounts coordinating efforts to promote messages deriding the president, sometimes with graphic or violent language. The researchers found 19 suspicious Instagram accounts that took the lead in promoting anti-Trump content.

In total, the posts from the accounts generated have more than 35.2 million interactions, with 3.9 million of those interactions occurring in the last two months. The study concluded that the anti-Trump Instagram campaign has ramped up over the past several months, with the network's activities swelling "dramatically" since April.

"Most content shared by these users is identical, while other images are slightly altered in size, colors, filter, partial or missing text," the researchers wrote.

Comment: While conservative voices are being silenced across social media, anti-Trump social media accounts that violate terms of service are somehow given a pass. It's almost as if there is a coordinated campaign between the Left and Silicon Valley to control what social media users see on their platforms.

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Target

Iranian President Rohani seeking expanded executive powers to deal with West's economic war


RFE/RL
Tue, 21 May 2019 18:21 UTC
rouhani
Iranian President Hassan Rohani has said he is seeking expanded, wartime executive powers to deal with an "economic war" being waged against the country by the United States.

Relations between Tehran and Washington have plummeted since last year when U.S. President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of the 2015 nuclear deal that curbed Iran's nuclear program in exchange for relief from crippling economic sanctions.

Since then, Washington has stepped up its rhetoric and reimposed sanctions.

There have been growing concerns of a possible military conflict with the United States, which has warned of "imminent threats" from Tehran, a claim Iran has denied.
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Arrow Up

War with Iran could send oil prices to $250 per barrel

Vincent Lauerman
Oilprice.com
Mon, 20 May 2019 18:16 UTC
iran soldiers
© AFP / Behrouz Mehri
As tensions between Iran and the US continue to escalate, analysts have begun to consider the likelihood and consequences of an Iran war.

There has been much talk of an Iran War in recent weeks, but the likelihood of a war, whether intentional or accidental, is relatively small for the simple reason that the leaders of Iran and the US don't want one. President Donald Trump, who has been remarkably faithful to his campaign promises, to the chagrin of many, doesn't want another Iraq-like war - with a quick victory followed by a long defeat. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of Iran, doesn't want his revolution and country crushed by the massive military might of America.

This is not to say there aren't powerful individuals in the Trump administration - such as National Security Advisor John Bolton and possibly Secretary of State Mike Pompeo - and regional allies - Israel, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates (UAE) - who want a war to bring about regime change in Iran, and who are willing to stir the pot in an attempt to make it happen.

Trump's personal preference for Iran may also be regime change, with a negotiated neutering of the Islamic Republic his next best outcome. But he probably would settle for long-term containment of Iran through his "maximum pressure" campaign, accepting that the Iranian regime would likely be able to sustain itself though skirting sanctions.
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Dominoes

Venezuela to ditch Visa & Mastercard by early 2020


RT
Tue, 21 May 2019 18:14 UTC
credit cards
© Reuters / Maxim Zmeyev
The central bank of Venezuela will develop an independent national payment system to get rid of international giants Visa and Mastercard in response to US sanctions, according to local media citing the regulator.

The document, which also separately mentions multi-national debit card service Maestro owned by Mastercard, orders a suspension of debit card operations starting November 2019 and payments via credit cards from January 2020.

The joint order was reportedly issued on May 16 by the central bank and Superintendency of the Institutions of the Banking Sector of Venezuela (SUDEBAN), responsible for ensuring the country's banks comply with local regulations. It instructs the banks to create a "sovereign" system to process financial operations that will use clients' biometric data.
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