Puppet MastersS


Bad Guys

Green New Deal is a power grab attempt and would have 'No Effect' on climate change - Study

Emily Zanotti
The Daily Wire
Thu, 25 Apr 2019 00:00 UTC
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
© Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via Getty Images
Green New Deal proponents, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), have long claimed that the GND, an expansive, costly, and dramatic change in the American economy (and in American infrastructure), would be worth it if it such extreme measures would in the long run lessen our impact on climate.

Now, though, a new study from the American Enterprise Institute questions whether the Green New Deal would have any real impact on climate change at all - leaving it little more than an effort to dismantle industry.

The AEI report breaks down the GND into bite-sized policy proposals, assessing not simply the cost, but the proposed effectiveness of each legislative item to address the core goal of the GND: reducing American carbon emissions to a "net zero" by 2050.

Comment: See also:

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Bad Guys

Sri Lanka blasts: Terrorism targets another Chinese ally

Tony Cartalucci
New Eastern Outlook
Thu, 25 Apr 2019 12:00 UTC
sri lanka bombing
The recent, tragic Easter attack in the South Asian state of Sri Lanka - killing and injuring hundreds - follows a now unfortunately all too familiar formula.

The New York Times has reported in its article, "What We Know and Don't Know About the Sri Lanka Attacks," that:
The authorities in Sri Lanka said a little-known radical Islamist group, the National Thowheeth Jama'ath, carried out the attacks, with help from international militants.
It is also reported that these extremists received assistance for the large-scale attack from foreign sponsors. The attack has put Sri Lanka on the map for many in the general public for the first time - but for all the wrong reasons.

Countering OBOR: Divide and Destroy

Sri Lanka has recently and decisively pivoted toward Beijing as a major partner of the One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative. This is despite Washington's best efforts to prevent it from doing so.

Comment: See also:

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Blue Planet

37 heads of state gather in China for BRI summit - US refuses to attend


RFE/RL
Thu, 25 Apr 2019 14:01 UTC
Belt and Road Forum
A man walks past a billboard for the Belt and Road Forum at the entrance to the China National Convention Center in Beijing on April 25.
Leaders from dozens of countries have begun arriving in Beijing to attend the April 25-27 Belt and Road Forum.

China's $1 trillion Belt and Road initiative seeks to create new rail, road, port, and energy infrastructure that links China with Europe, Africa, and other parts of Asia.

The United States and many EU countries have criticized China's project and its lending for regional infrastructure efforts, warning that it has saddled some developing countries with debts that they cannot afford to repay.


Comment: Accusations that China-Africa BRI a 'debt trap' are "complete nonsense" - Djibouti official


The high-profile meeting brings together dozens of heads of states, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, and Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, whose country became the first G7 member to sign up to the initiative.

Comment: The absence of the US and it's contrary position to some of the most constructive meetings happening in the world today is telling: Also check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: Trump Ditches Europe, Europe Bluffs, Russia and China Carry on With Eurasian Integration

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Bad Guys

Trump's envoy to Ukraine is paid by none other than Poroshenko himself

Nebojsa Malic
RT
Fri, 26 Apr 2019 18:17 UTC
Kurt Volker
© Reuters / HandoutSpecial envoy Kurt Volker welcomes Ukrainian President Poroshenko aboard the USS Donald Cook in Odessa in February
US special envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker is drawing a salary from John McCain's think tank, which is funded by George Soros and a DC lobbying firm working for Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, among others.

Volker was appointed Special Representative for Ukraine negotiations in July 2017, by then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and has been "mediating" the Ukrainian crisis on behalf of the US ever since in much the same way his colleague Elliott Abrams has been doing with Venezuela.

The twist is that Volker is doing this "on a voluntary basis without compensation" and "not taxing the taxpayers," drawing a salary from his day job as executive director of the McCain Institute for International Leadership in Arizona. Named after the late and hawkish US senator John McCain, the think tank is dedicated to "advancing leadership... in the United States and around the world." The two positions are very much aligned, Volker has said, allowing him to get his "hands dirty and actually solve our problems."

Comment: As noted in the The Saker interviews Dmitry Orlov:
In terms of foreign relations and strategic considerations, the Ukraine is run from the US embassy in Kiev. In terms of its internal functioning, the main prerogative of everyone in power, the president included, is thievery. Their idea is to get their cut and flee the country before the whole thing blows up.


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Sherlock

UN Special Rapporteur visits Assange in UK's 'Gitmo' jail to discuss violations of his privacy


RT
Fri, 26 Apr 2019 10:32 UTC
Belmarsh prison Julian Assange Wikileaks
© AFP / Daniel Leal-Olivas Reuters / Peter NichollsHMP Belmarsh, London
WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange has been visited in prison by the UN's Special Rapporteur as part of an investigation into the Australian journalist's claims that his privacy has been infringed.

Joe Cannataci, the UN's official on the 'right to privacy,' told reporters outside Belmarsh prison in London on Thursday that he is conducting an inquiry into whether Assange's human rights have been breached under international law.

"What we are investigating at this moment of time is whether there's a breach of Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Article 17 of the International Government of Civil and Political Rights."

Comment: Also see: Julian Assange's Nightmarish Future

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Chess

Macron offers Yellow Vests €5bn in tax cuts, asks French to 'work more' in return


RT
Fri, 26 Apr 2019 10:28 UTC
Macron
© Reuters / Philippe Wojazer
French President Emmanuel Macron has offered another 5 billion euros worth of tax cuts and government reforms as a way to appease Yellow Vest protesters but insists the French must "work more" in turn.

In the first major press conference of his presidency, lasting for over two hours, the 41-year-old Macron said he wanted to implement "significant" income tax cuts amounting to €5 billion ($5.56 billion) or so, but that government spending would have to be cut and the French would have to put in longer work hours.

"We must work more, I've said it before. France works much less than its neighbors. We need to have a real debate on this," Macron said.
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Bad Guys

UK slams Saudi beheadings as 'repulsive' while enthusiastically arming their 'mass execution' in Yemen


RT
Fri, 26 Apr 2019 10:08 UTC
tank Saudi Arabia
© Global Look Press / Xinhua / Meng Tao
Saudi Arabia's mass executions are "utterly unacceptable" and "repulsive" for the UK, but it is less concerned when it comes to the ongoing arms sales to Riyadh, which continues its military campaign in the impoverished Yemen.

Joining the outrage from the UN, the Foreign Office Minister Alan Duncan has issued a strong condemnation of the Saudi kingdom which has just executed 37 people, mostly Shia Muslims. The executions, during which one of them was crucified, were "repulsive" and "utterly unacceptable in the modern world," Duncan told the House of Commons.

On its part, the EU's foreign affairs service doubted that the right to a fair trial is respected in Saudi Arabia and said the gravity of the charges made against some convicts was also open to question.
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NPC

CNN's 5-Hour Town Hall event proved to be another ratings catastrophe

John Nolte
Breitbart
Fri, 26 Apr 2019 10:08 UTC
CNN town hall event 2019
© CNN
Suppose you put on a major political event and nobody came? That is exactly what happened to the far-left CNN's five hour town hall event Tuesday night.

Now that the Mueller Report has exposed the media's Russia Collusion Hoax - a hoax CNN led 24/7 for more than two years, the fake news outlet has watched its already-humiliating ratings further collapse in ways no one thought possible. This has forced the last place outlet to come up with programming gimmicks as a means to hold on.

CNN has been putting on town hall events for a while now. For example, there was Jake Tapper's disastrous Let's Boo a Rape Victim anti-Second Amendment town hall last year. This year, though, CNN has put on a series of town halls to benefit Democrat presidential candidates. These events are basically an hour of softball questions where CNN anchors go so far as to tell the studio audience to applaud for the Democrat.
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Brick Wall

DHS Chief: US is 'aggressively' building Trump's border wall

Jason Hopkins
Daily Caller
Fri, 26 Apr 2019 10:08 UTC
Trump border wall migrants
© REUTERS/Jose Luis GonzalezU.S. soldiers walk next to the border fence between Mexico and the United States, as migrants are seen walking behind the fence, after crossing illegally into the U.S. to turn themselves in, in El Paso, Texas, U.S., in this picture taken from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, April 3, 2019.
The acting secretary of Homeland Security pushed back on the narrative that President Donald Trump's border wall is not being built, pointing out that construction has actually been going at an aggressive pace.

"So normally for a federal project of this scope, from the time you get funded to starting, it's over two years," Kevin McAleenan said Tuesday on Fox News. "We've already built the [fiscal year] 2017 funding in less than two years. That shows how aggressively we're moving out on this."

McAleenan - who became acting DHS secretary earlier in April after Kirstjen Nielsen resigned - has been tapped by the Trump administration to lead the agency at a time when the U.S. southern border is experiencing record numbers of illegal migrants, many of them Central American families.
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Snakes in Suits

How the Obama White House engaged Ukraine to give Russia collusion narrative an early boost

John Solomon
The Hill
Thu, 25 Apr 2019 19:00 UTC
Poroshenko/Obama
© Reuters/Larry Downing
As Donald Trump began his meteoric rise to the presidency, the Obama White House summoned Ukrainian authorities to Washington to coordinate ongoing anti-corruption efforts inside Russia's most critical neighbor.

The January 2016 gathering, confirmed by multiple participants and contemporaneous memos, brought some of Ukraine's top corruption prosecutors and investigators face to face with members of former President Obama's National Security Council (NSC), the FBI, State Department and Department of Justice (DOJ).

The agenda suggested the purpose was training and coordination. But Ukrainian participants said it didn't take long - during the meetings and afterward - to realize the Americans' objectives included two politically hot investigations: one that touched Vice President Joe Biden's family and one that involved a lobbying firm linked closely to then-candidate Trump.

U.S. officials "kept talking about how important it was that all of our anti-corruption efforts be united," said Andrii Telizhenko, then a political officer in the Ukraine embassy in Washington tasked with organizing the meeting.
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