Puppet MastersS


Snakes in Suits

Mueller exonerates Trump - now it's time for 'full disclosure'

Andrew C. McCarthy
National Review
Tue, 26 Mar 2019 10:04 UTC
Robert Mueller
© Joshua Roberts/ReutersSpecial Counsel Robert Mueller on Capitol Hill, June 21, 2017.
The news that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has closed his investigation without recommending criminal charges against President Trump is a relief. It is not a surprise.

Nor is it a surprise that the news has Trump antagonists clamoring for full disclosure of the special counsel's final report. Mind you, when skeptics of the Trump-Russia investigation asked what the criminal predicate for it was, and on what basis the Obama administration had decided to monitor the opposition party's presidential campaign, we were admonished about the wages of disclosure - the compromise of precious defense secrets, of deep-cover intelligence sources and methods. Why, to ask for such information was to be an insurrectionist seeking to destroy the FBI, the Justice Department, and the rule of law itself. Now, though, it's only the uncharged president of the United States at issue, so disclose away!

Well, if we're going to have disclosure, fine. But let's have full disclosure: Mueller's report in addition to the FISA applications; the memoranda pertinent to the opening and continuation of the investigation; the testimony in secret hearings; the scope memorandum Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein issued on August 2, 2017, after failing to cite a crime when he appointed Mueller - let's have all of it.
Read More...
Snakes in Suits

Macron wishes 'wisdom' to 73 year old injured Yellow Vest protester


RT
Mon, 25 Mar 2019 12:00 UTC
protester yellow vests
© AFP / Valery HACHEFrench police rush towards Genevieve Legay activtist, who collapsed on the ground a Yellow Vests rally in Nice
French President Emmanuel Macron, who many blame for the violence unleashed on Yellow Vest protesters, said he hopes one elderly protester whose head was severely injured during a demonstration gains "wisdom" over her injury.

Genevieve Legay, a French anti-globalization activist, was knocked over by officers wielding batons at an unauthorized rally in Nice last week. She fell and hit her head on a metal post before being rushed to the hospital for trauma care.

The incident was widely covered in French media, and Macron predictably was asked to comment on it. His response is unlikely to sit well with the Yellow Vests: "I wish her a speedy recovery, and perhaps a form of wisdom."

Comment: It would appear from Macron's comments and the repeated actions of his security services that, in Macron's France, citizens are no longer allowed the freedom to protest the increasing corruption in their government and, if they do so, the security forces apparently have license to maim them: Also check out SOTT radio's: NewsReal #26: Globalization vs Nationalism - The Hidden Causes of The Yellow Vest Protests in France

Read More...
Newspaper

Ukrainian side involved in MH17 flight disaster over Donbass - former SBU officer


TASS
Mon, 25 Mar 2019 13:25 UTC
MH17
© Zurab Javakhadze/TASSVasily Prozorov said it was his personal opinion and it relied on certain information
The Ukrainian side was involved in the MH17 flight disaster over Donbass, a former officer of the Ukrainian security service SBU, Vasily Prozorov, told a news conference on Monday.

"It is my personal opinion and it relies on certain information. The Ukrainian side is an accomplice to the Malaysian MH17 flight disaster," he said.

"The amazingly prompt reaction of the Ukrainian leadership was the first thing that made me feel suspicious. My unequivocal opinion was President Pyotr Poroshenko and his press-service had prior knowledge of the affair. Secondly, hostilities had been underway for several months by then, but the airspace over the area was not closed," Prozorov said.

Comment: The officers comments reveal that there are some in Ukraine who are know who was responsible for the terrorist act that resulted in the tragedy of flight MH17; we already know it was carried out on Ukrainian soil using Ukrainian weapons, in a failed attempt to frame Russia: Also check out SOTT radio's coverage of the report back in 2015: Behind the Headlines: Dutch MH17 report, ISIS hipster beards, China-UK entente

Read More...
Binoculars

Trump's paramilitary plot to overthrow Maduro uncovered in Venezuela

Stephen Lendman
stephenlendman.org
Sun, 24 Mar 2019 00:00 UTC
plot against Maduro
© AP Photo / Xinhua
On Saturday, Venezuelan President Maduro announced the capture of a Colombian paramilitary head of a (Trump regime) plot to oust him by brute force. More on this below.

So far, everything Trump regime hardliners threw at Venezuela to topple its democratically elected government failed.

It notably includes continued efforts to turn the country's military against President Maduro and Bolivarian governance - by pressure, false promises, perhaps threats and bribes.

It aims for gaining overwhelming popular opposition to Maduro, for acceptance of Guaido to replace him as interim president - despite nothing in Venezuela's Constitution permitting the scheme.

Comment: What we're also not hearing in the mainstream news gets fleshed out further here:
The Venezuelan president already survived an apparent assassination attempt in August 2018, when a pair of drones armed with explosives were detonated while approaching a stage where Maduro and other senior government officials were standing during a holiday. Caracas accused the US and Colombia of involvement in that attack.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has accused the United States and opposition leader Juan Guaido of being directly involved in a plot to kill him.

"American imperialism wants to kill me. We just exposed the plan that the devil's puppet [Guaido] personally directed to kill me," Maduro said, speaking to supporters at a rally.

"We have evidence; they could not and cannot [succeed] because we are protected by God," Maduro added.

Maduro stressed that the Prosecutor's Office had made serious progress in the case, with "new terrorists" expected to be arrested "in the coming days."

Last week, Venezuelan security arrested Guaido 'chief of staff' Robert Marrero, accusing him of organizing a terror cell and conspiring to hire professional assassins from across Central America to murder high-ranking Venezuelan officials and carry out acts of terrorism and sabotage using monies from frozen Venezuelan bank accounts abroad.

Speaking on Venezuelan television on Saturday, communication minister Jorge Rodriguez alleged that the opposition had recruited the killers and paramilitaries to send them to Colombia for training. "Marrero was involved in contracting people from Guatemala and Colombia to comply with the recruitment and training plan for assassins," he said.

Rodriguez provided detailed information about the plot, which he said included the creation of over half a dozen hit teams of eight mercenaries apiece to go after Venezuelan political and military leaders, and carry out terror plots against the state. The evidence included recordings of what were said to be WhatsApp conversations between Marrero and Guaido on the use of Venezuelan funds frozen by US sanctions to finance armed groups with Colombia's support.

Venezuelan authorities have already identified some of the estimated 30+ paramilitaries which have infiltrated into Venezuela from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala after being trained in Colombia, according to Rodriguez.

In his speech, Maduro also indicated that an unidentified Colombian paramilitary chief had also been captured and was now "giving testimony."

Marrero was arrested at his Caracas home on Thursday, with authorities finding two assault rifles and a grenade as well as large sums of cash in foreign currencies at his home. The politician claimed the weapons had been planted. The US, the US and the Lima Group of countries condemned Marrero's arrest and demanded that he be released immediately.

Venezuela's long-running political crisis escalated in late January, when Juan Guaido, head of the semi-defunct National Assembly, declared himself interim president pending fresh elections, just days after Maduro's inauguration for a second term. The plot received immediate backing from the US and its Latin American allies, as well as Europe. Russia, China, Cuba, Bolivia, Turkey, Syria, North Korea and a number of other countries condemned the coup attempt and urged outside powers not to interfere in Venezuela's internal affairs.


Read More...
Megaphone

UN Special Rapporteur: US sanctions don't work, are illegitimate, and worsen human rights situation


RT
Mon, 25 Mar 2019 22:53 UTC
Steven Mnuchin John Bolton
© Reuters / Jim YoungTreasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and security adviser John Bolton announce sanctions on Venezuela in Washington
From Venezuela to Iran, Liberia to Belarus, there's barely a corner of the world not sanctioned by the US. But economic penalties don't help regime change and unfairly impact civilians, the UN sanctions rapporteur told RT.

When direct military action is out of the question, economic sanctions are often the US' next weapon of choice. President Donald Trump's withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal last year was accompanied by the reimposition of crippling sanctions, designed to force Iran to "act like a normal country," in the words of State Secretary Mike Pompeo. Ditto in Venezuela, where US sanctions targeted President Nicolas Maduro's oil wealth, and in North Korea, where sanctions have been applied, removed and reapplied in an effort to curb Kim Jong-un's nuclear ambitions.


All in all, at least 25 percent of the world's population lives under unilateral US sanctions, their livelihoods impacted by geopolitical decisions made half a world away.
Read More...
V

CNN roasted for urging US voters to stay off Twitter if they want to understand 2020 elections


RT
Mon, 25 Mar 2019 22:26 UTC
CNN logo
© John Greim / LightRocket / Getty Images
An analysis by CNN's Harry Enten has been torched on Twitter for stating the apparently obvious, that social media is almost never a reflection of overall sentiment in the real world.

Enten cites a CNN national poll on the leading Democratic pretenders for the 2020 US presidential election. According to their data, Joe Biden is the frontrunner but Enten argues that you may not know this judging by social media, namely Twitter, as Bernie bros are often the most vocal online.


Enten elaborates that Twitter can often be seen as a second home for many journalists, again highlighting the inherent weaknesses in the social media platform when it comes to "accurately capturing the sentiment of the Democratic electorate."
Read More...
Network

Russia seeks new gas transit deal with Ukraine - energy ministry


RT
Mon, 25 Mar 2019 21:50 UTC
oil pipeline
Moscow wants to sign a new gas transit deal with Ukraine after 2019, when the current contract with the country expires, Russia's deputy energy minister has said.

"We expect that, to some extent, we will be able to reach an agreement with Ukraine on the transit of gas... If this does not happen in May, it will probably happen in October," Anatoly Yanovsky told reporters on Monday. The official added he has no doubt the agreement will be reached one way or another.

The next round of talks on the matter are to be held in May and another trilateral meeting between Russia, Ukraine, and the EU can be held in September-October 2019, according to Yanovsky.

The statement comes shortly after the CEO of Ukrainian state gas firm Naftogaz Andrey Kobolev claimed that Russian energy giant Gazprom began informing its partners of its plans to stop the transit starting 2020.
Read More...
Bullseye

In Ukraine's Presidential vote the joker's wild

James George Jatras
Strategic Culture
Sat, 23 Mar 2019 12:00 UTC
Volodymyr Zelensky
Volodymyr Zelensky
The moment of truth is fast approaching in the high-stakes game of Three-Card Monte also known as Ukraine's presidential election. Following a March 31 first-round vote only two of the three leading candidates will make it to a runoff slated for April 21.

The Joker in the deck is, literally, a joker. Volodymyr Zelensky, a comic actor who played President of Ukraine in a popular TV series is now, according to all polls, the leading candidate for the position he once spoofed. Initially considered only a protest candidate funded by Dnipro-based oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi as a foil against his erstwhile ally turned bitter enemy, current president Petro Poroshenko, Zelensky seems to have hit a nerve with a public sick of the same old, corrupt faces. "People want to show the authorities the middle finger, and he is playing the role of this middle finger," says one Ukrainian analyst. Donald Trump would understand.

No one better embodies the old guard than the perennial Queen of Diamonds, former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko. Long a fixture in Ukrainian politics, Tymoshenko, also known as the "Gas Princess" (for her prominent role in the shady natural gas industry), "goddess of the Revolution" (for her firebrand image in Ukraine's turbulent post-Soviet history), and the "Princess Leia of Ukrainian politics" (for her trademark folk-motif braids) maintains both her populist base and her high-style image: "a kind of Eva Peron figure," according to one US analyst, "on the side of the poor but in a fur coat."

Comment: It seems Ukranian's aren't hopeful that this election will be just or bring about any meaningul change:

Read More...
Dreamsicle

SOTT Focus: It's Official: Russiagate is This Generation's WMD

Matt Taibbi
taibbi.substack.com
Sat, 23 Mar 2019 20:22 UTC

Comment: This is a long read, but worth it if you're interested in a recap of the whole 'Russiagate' nothing-burger. It's also interesting as it's written by one of the few dissenting 'mainstream' journalists, and provides a blow-by-blow account of how the 'intelligentsia' in the US - and their counterparts aping them in other Western countries - collectively broke from reality when they boarded the 'Trump-Russia' train set in motion by the Deep State. From the initial lie told by 'Gods of the intelligence community' The author's prognosis for their profession - and their credibility - is dire.



Note to readers: in light of news that Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller's investigation is complete, I'm releasing this chapter of Hate Inc. early, with a few new details added up top...
mueller investigation street art
Imagine being so taken in by this that you think it's anti-system to post an FBI Director's face as street art...
Nobody wants to hear this, but news that Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller is headed home without issuing new charges is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media.

As has long been rumored, the former FBI chief's independent probe will result in multiple indictments and convictions, but no "presidency-wrecking" conspiracy charges, or anything that would meet the layman's definition of "collusion" with Russia.

With the caveat that even this news might somehow turn out to be botched, the key detail in the many stories about the end of the Mueller investigation was best expressed by the New York Times:
A senior Justice Department official said that Mr. Mueller would not recommend new indictments.
Attorney General William Barr sent a letter to congress summarizing Mueller's conclusions. The money line quoted the Mueller report:
[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.
Over the weekend, the Times tried to soften the emotional blow for the millions of Americans trained in these years to place hopes for the overturn of the Trump presidency in Mueller. As with most press coverage, there was little pretense that the Mueller probe was supposed to be a neutral fact-finding mission, as apposed to religious allegory, with Mueller cast as the hero sent to slay the monster.

Comment: Westerners are now experiencing what it was like to live under totalitarian regimes of old.

The main newspapers in the USSR were called Pravda and Izvestia, meaning "the truth" and "the news" respectively.

It became common knowledge to most living under that regime that "there's no truth in Pravda and no news in Izvestia".

Read More...
Bad Guys

NZ shooter 'backed by global forces hostile to Islam' - ex-Turkish minister


Sputnik
Thu, 21 Mar 2019 21:26 UTC
NZ Mosque
© AP Photo / Vincent Yu
On 15 March, a 28-year-old Australian shooter launched an attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. President Erdogan's tough remarks on the assault prompted Canberra to summon the Turkish ambassador. Speaking to Sputnik, former Minister of European Union Affairs Egemen Bagis shared his opinion on the forces behind the attack.

Judging from the manifesto published by Brenton Harrison Tarrant, the 28-year-old Australian shooter, he was backed by global anti-Islamic forces hostile to Turkey, former Minister of European Union Affairs Egemen Bagis opined in an interview with Sputnik Turkey.

"We have faced a new attack, similar to the one that several years ago claimed the lives of more than 70 children in Norway", he suggested, referring to Anders Breivik's 2011 Norway attack.

According to Bagis, the purpose of the unprecedented New Zealand massacre is "to intimidate the world community by making a certain message".
Read More...