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Che Guevara

US cuts off power to Venezuelan Embassy with activists besieged inside - cheering Guaido crowd attacks supporters, steals food


RT
Thu, 09 May 2019 16:45 UTC
activists venezuela embassy Washington
© Reuters/Shannon StapletonAn activist in opposition of the U.S. involvement in Venezuela occupying the Venezuelan Embassy, sits in a window sill in Washington
The Venezuelan Embassy in Washington DC was plunged into darkness after the US authorities shut down power in the building. The anti-coup activists hunkered down inside say they are not leaving despite the blackout.

After weeks of tense standoff between the 'Embassy Civilian Protection Collective' and supporters of US-backed opposition leader Juan Guaido outside the Venezuelan diplomatic compound, the US authorities attempted to drive the temporary occupants out by depriving them of electricity.

In a statement on Twitter posted by one of the group's members, independent journalist Alex Rubinstein, an activist says that the loss of electric power won't coerce them into abandoning their mission - to protect the embassy from a takeover by Juan Guaido appointees.

Comment: More from Sputnik:
The activists drew a parallel between US "attacks" on Venezuela's electric grid, and this attack on the power supply at the embassy of Venezuela.

"We are not leaving, we are going to resist," the statement says.

According to the witnesses, lights in the Venezuelan Embassy are completely out.


Earlier in the day, the Collective released a series of videos showing strange activity by police and utility workers around manholes nearby. ​

Earlier the Collective reported that US Veterans for Peace Director, Jerry Condon was arrested for attempting to give food to embassy protectors


​For last several weeks, with the permission of the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry, the Embassy Protection Collective activist group has been living in the embassy to prevent Guaido representatives from taking it over. The activists have been holding various events like lectures and speeches inside.

Members of the Embassy Protection Collective stressed that they will not leave the Embassy grounds until the United States works out an agreement with the Venezuelan government.


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Vader

Saying it won't make it so: Pompeo echoes falsehood about Venezuela's Guaido as "duly elected leader"


RT
Wed, 08 May 2019 16:36 UTC
pompeo
© Reuters / PoolUS Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo repeated the false claim that US-backed opposition leader Juan Guaido is the 'duly elected leader' of Venezuela. Apparently he reads CNN.

Speaking in London after his meeting with UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, Pompeo told reporters that Venezuelans had chosen Guaido to lead them.

"The Venezuelan people have spoken through through constitutional mechanism, they have put Juan Guaido as their interim president, and he is the duly elected leader there," Pompeo said, adding that "Maduro is on borrowed time."

Comment: Pompeo and his neocon partner-in-crime Bolton are salivating at the thought of a war, any war:

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Cardboard Box

We don't need the federal government to save kids from video game 'loot boxes'

Scott Shackford
Reason
Wed, 08 May 2019 16:24 UTC
© Blizzard"Overwatch" loot box
Today's round of ill-advised, for-the-children government meddling comes from Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who is fed up with video game makers selling stuff to kids for, uh, real money.

Hawley announced that he's going to introduce "The Protecting Children from Abusive Games Act," which would ban the sale of so-called "loot boxes" and other microtransactions marketed toward children.

For non-gamers, microtransactions are options to buy things within a video game itself, using real money. If you download a "free" iPhone game, for instance, the game publisher may encourage you to buy stuff inside the application in order to improve the game experience. These game upgrades are charged to a credit card or checking account associated with wherever the game was purchased (such as the Apple's App Store).
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Safe

Christopher Steele's damning pre-FISA confession of pro-Hillary bias was retroactively classified by the FBI

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Wed, 08 May 2019 13:46 UTC
Hillary Clinton Christopher Steele
Hillary Clinton (L) and Christopher Steele (R) The Federal Election Commission fined Clinton and the DNC for funding the infamous Christopher Steele dossier.
Former British spy Christopher Steele made a stunning admission during an October 11, 2016 meeting with Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec, just 10 days before the FBI used his now-discredited dossier to justify securing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to spy on Trump campaign aide Carter Page and the campaign's ties to Russia, according to The Hill's John Solomon.
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec's written account of her Oct. 11, 2016, meeting with FBI informant Christopher Steele shows the Hillary Clinton campaign-funded British intelligence operative admitted that his research was political and facing an Election Day deadline. -The Hill
According a typed summary of the meeting - which sat buried for over 2 1/2 years until an open-records litigation by Citizens United - Steele said that his client "is keen to see this information come to light prior to November 8," the date of the 2016 US election. Also attending the meeting was an employee of Steele's Orbis Security firm, Tatyana Duran.

Comment: The Barr-Horowitz investigations will no doubt turn up more of the same shenanigans.

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Snakes in Suits

FBI lost notes from Clinton probe meeting significant to concerns over foreign exfiltration lead

Petr Svab
The Epoch Times
Wed, 08 May 2019 13:22 UTC
Charles McCullough
© Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesNational Intelligence Community Inspector General Charles McCullough testifies before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in Washington on April 30, 2014.
The FBI lost notes from a 2015 meeting with people from the office of the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG), according to newly released FBI records on the investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's alleged mishandling of classified information.

The news raises concern that some information about an explosive lead passed by the ICIG to the FBI now might be lost.

The lost notes memorialized a meeting that took place on Aug. 3, 2015, less than a month after the ICIG made a referral to the FBI that classified information may have been disclosed in an unauthorized manner to a foreign power because Clinton conducted State Department business through an email hosted on an insufficiently secured server in her basement.

The ICIG-FBI meetings hold special significance because it was allegedly several of these meetings where the ICIG officials passed a lead to the FBI about anomalies in the metadata of the emails indicating that a copy of nearly every email was sent to an agent of a foreign power.

Several lawmakers, as well as the Justice Department's Inspector General, publicly confirmed that then-ICIG Charles McCullough told them about the metadata anomalies and that the lead was communicated to the FBI. The FBI acknowledged that Clinton's emails could have been breached by foreign actors who covered their tracks, but denied that any evidence of foreign infiltration was found. Several current and former senior FBI officials involved in the Clinton case denied in congressional testimonies any recollection of receiving the metadata lead.
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Eye 2

377 UK MP's credit cards suspended due to misuse, Parliament watchdog tried to keep it a secret

Anna Mikhailova
Telegraph
Thu, 09 May 2019 09:00 UTC
uk parliament
Parliament's spending watchdog tried to prevent the public being told that 377 MPs, including nine Cabinet ministers and Jeremy Corbyn, have had their official credit cards suspended for breaking the rules on expenses.

Exactly 10 years after The Telegraph's original investigation into MPs' expenses, the body set up to ensure greater transparency in the wake of the scandal has been accused of trying to prevent openness, rather than ensuring it.

The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority tried to stop disclosure of MPs' use of Parliamentary credit cards on the grounds it would have a "chilling effect" on its relationship with MPs and reduce public confidence in the regulatory system.


Comment: Just when you thought public confidence in MPs couldn't get any lower.


But a former High Court judge reversed the decision, saying that the risk of "embarrassing" MPs was no reason to keep the information secret.

Comment: Shameless behaviour like this has become commonplace throughout Western governments, and the dissatisfaction with the corrupt establishment can be seen in everything from how people vote to the surge in protest movements: And check out SOTT radio's: NewsReal #26: Globalization vs Nationalism - The Hidden Causes of The Yellow Vest Protests in France

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Eye 2

Best of the Web: US hawks threatening an apocalyptic war with Iran, and most Americans don't seem to care

Michael Snyder
End of the American Dream
Tue, 07 May 2019 09:42 UTC
jet plane
This is the closest that the U.S. has been to a war with Iran in decades, and yet most Americans are either clueless or they don't seem to believe that it could actually happen. And I certainly don't think that President Trump wants a war, but he is surrounded by war hawks that have been pushing an extremely aggressive "get tough" policy with Iran. The Trump administration just canceled the waivers that were allowing other nations to continue purchasing Iranian oil, and the goal of that move is to reduce Iranian exports to zero. But oil exports are 40 percent of the Iranian economy, and the Iranians understand that this move could absolutely cripple their economy. The Iranians have threatened to close the straight of Hormuz in retaliation, and that would almost certainly provoke a U.S. military response. In addition, it is being reported that on Wednesday the Iranians will announce that they are taking steps to restart their nuclear program...
On Wednesday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is expected to announce small steps to resume his country's nuclear program. According to the New York Times, that will include conducting research on centrifuges that can make nuclear fuel, and curbing nuclear inspections from observers.



Comment: What Rouhani actually said was that if there was no progress in the next 60 days they would start increasing uranium enrichment levels, but, for the moment, they have no intention of leaving the JCPOA entirely.


Comment: See also:

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Snakes in Suits

Mueller's 10 most egregious missteps during anti-Trump Russia investigation

Margot Cleveland
The Federalist
Thu, 09 May 2019 10:24 UTC
Trump Mueller
© media.salon.com
The release of the special counsel's report in April exposed several significant missteps Robert Mueller made over the last two years. Last week's testimony by Attorney General William Barr before the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmed these blunders and bared additional concerns with Mueller's handling of the probe into Russian interference with the 2016 presidential election and President Trump's supposed collusion and obstruction of justice.

Here are ten.

1. Mueller Spent $30 Million But Didn't Do His Job

The special counsel probe reportedly cost more than $30 million, yet Mueller failed to do his job. Federal regulations expressly provide that at the conclusion of the special counsel's work he must "provide the Attorney General with a confidential report explaining the prosecution or declination decisions reached by the Special Counsel."
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Eye 1

Court filing shows Mueller was constructing 'obstruction case' from day one

sundance
The Conservative Treehouse
Thu, 09 May 2019 10:02 UTC
mueller white house
© Associated PressSpecial counsel Robert Mueller walks past the White House
On January 22nd, 2018, eleven months prior to the mid-term election, lawyers from the special counsel's office told Judge Boasberg in a sealed-courtroom why they needed to keep James Comey's memos from being released.

Special Counsel Attorney Michael Dreeben informed the court the special counsel was charged with investigating an obstruction case against President Trump from the beginning. President Trump was the target of their investigation from the outset.

The previously sealed court transcript was released today - SEE HERE
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USA

Trump invokes executive privilege to block Dem access to unredacted Mueller report

Allen Zhong
The Epoch Times
Thu, 09 May 2019 10:02 UTC
Donald Trump Military Academy at West Point
© Alex Brandon/AP PhotoPresident Donald Trump pumps his fist as he departs after the presentation of the Commander-in-Chief's Trophy to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point football team, in the Rose Garden of the White House on May 6, 2019.
President Donald Trump has asserted executive privilege on May 8, to block the efforts of the House Judiciary Committee Democrats to get an unredacted copy of special counsel Robert Mueller's report and underlying documents.

"Faced with Chairman Nadler's blatant abuse of power, and at the Attorney General's request, the President has no other option than to make a protective assertion of executive privilege," the White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement.

The statement came as the House Judiciary Committee is holding a vote to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt after the Justice Department (DOJ) refused to turn over an unredacted Mueller report.
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