Puppet MastersS


Pistol

Israeli army preps for violence in Golan Heights in wake of Trump's announcement


Sputnik
Sat, 23 Mar 2019 17:30 UTC
Golan Brigade
© AFP/Jack GuezThe Golan Brigade
This comes a day after the Syrian Foreign Ministry condemned US President Trump's recent comments on the Golan Heights as "irresponsible", adding that the Syrian people plan to recover the area through "all available means".

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) and police are bracing themselves for possible violent protests near the Israeli-Syrian border following US President Donald Trump's move to recognise the Jewish state's sovereignty over the Golan Heights. "We are preparing for the possibility of tension in the northern Golan Heights," the IDF said in a statement without elaborating.

The development comes as the Druze, an Arab minority who practice an offshoot of Islam and live in the Golan Heights, rejected US President Donald Trump's support of Israel's sovereignty over the area. "Trump can make his statements and say he wants to make the Golan part of Israel. But we know this will stay Syrian land", Sheikh Mahmoud Nazeeh was quoted by the Jerusalem Post as saying.

Comment: See also:

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Arrow Up

Ratcheting up the pressure, US hits Venezuela with new economic sanctions

Katie Galioto
Politico
Fri, 22 Mar 2019 02:56 UTC
Trump VenFlag
© Andrew Harnik/APUS President Donald Trump
The Treasury Department on Friday slapped additional sanctions on Venezuela, this time on the banking sector, the latest effort from the White House to intensify pressure on dictator Nicolás Maduro.

The sanctions target Venezuela's state-owned and controlled bank Banco de Desarrollo Economico y Social de Venezuela, or BANDES, and four related financial institutions.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement Friday:
"The willingness of Maduro's inner-circle to exploit Venezuela's institutions knows no bounds. Regime insiders have transformed BANDES and its subsidiaries into vehicles to move funds abroad in an attempt to prop up Maduro.

"Maduro and his enablers have distorted the original purpose of the bank, which was founded to help the economic and social well-being of the Venezuelan people, as part of a desperate attempt to hold onto power."
The sanctions are the latest volley in a broad campaign led by the White House to pressure the socialist country's autocrat to step down, after President Donald Trump recognized National Assembly President Juan Guaidó as Venezuela's rightful "interim president" in January.

The sanctions come a day after Venezuelan police detained Guaidó's chief of staff, Roberto Marrero, a move that earned sharp criticism and threat of a forceful response from the United States.

Comment: See also:

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Pirates

Time for celebration? Trump claims ISIS fully destroyed in Syria but US-backed militants disagree


RT
Fri, 22 Mar 2019 20:54 UTC
Trump ISISchart
© REUTERS/Kevin LamarkeTrump hands over maps depicting the size of the "ISIS physical caliphate" upon his arrival in West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S., March 22, 2019.
US President Trump has again boasted of victory over Islamic State terrorists. This time they've supposedly fully lost territorial control in Syria, but US-backed militants actually fighting IS on the ground disputed this claim.

Trump faced the media on Friday, yet again showing his favorite visual aid map of "ISIS defeat." "Here's ISIS on Election Day. And here's ISIS right now," Trump told the reporters "You guys can have the map. Congratulations. I think it's about time."

Earlier on Friday, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders stated that IS (formerly ISIS/ISIL) no longer held any territory in Syria, citing US acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, who had briefed Trump on that purported milestone.

The bold claims of -supposedly- the ultimate defeat of the terrorist group have quite unexpectedly come under friendly fire, from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militant group. Mustafa Bali, the head of SDF press service, personally challenged Trump's claims on Twitter. To add insult to injury, he posted pictures to prove what has really been happening in the area.

Comment: More from RT, 3/23/2019: US-backed forces now confirm 'total elimination of ISIS in Syria'
The Kurdish-led and US-back Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said that they crushed the last remaining pocket of jihadist resistance in Syria. Damascus earlier dismissed the celebratory news as a "bluff."

Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) suffered "total elimination" and "a 100 percent territorial defeat," SDF spokesperson Mustafa Bali announced on Saturday. The news came after Kurdish forces reported heavy fighting near Baghouz in northeastern Deir ez-Zor Province, along the Iraqi border.


As reports of Baghouz being on the verge of complete liberation were coming in, US President Donald Trump rushed to boast of the US-led Coalition's victories. Earlier this week...Trump said that the militants "are losers and barely breathing."


Syria's envoy to the UN, Bashar Jaafari, dismissed Trump's jubilant language as a "bluff" and "untrustworthy." "ISIS is not over yet in Syria," he said, adding that militants are still hiding in the Rukban refugee camp, located within the US-controlled area.


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TV

What will the MSM spin now? US media suffers panic attack after Mueller fails to deliver on Trump indictment


RT
Sat, 23 Mar 2019 19:04 UTC
Mueller Trump
© Agence France-Presse
Important pundits and news networks have served up an impressive display of denials, evasions and on-air strokes after learning that Robert Mueller has ended his probe without issuing a single collusion-related indictment.

The Special Counsel delivered his final report to Attorney General William Barr for review on Friday, with the Justice Department confirming that there will be no further indictments related to the probe. The news dealt a devastating blow to the sensational prophesies of journalists, analysts and entire news networks, who for nearly two years reported ad nauseam that President Donald Trump and his inner circle were just days away from being carted off to prison for conspiring with the Kremlin to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.

Comment: No one seems to have taken the disappointment harder that MSNBC's Russiagate shill Rachel Maddow, who visibly teared up onscreen:

The MSNBC host, who has devoted countless hours of airtime to gossiping about the alleged ties between President Donald Trump and the Kremlin, struggled to keep her composure while discussing the end of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, which wrapped up on Friday without issuing any further indictments.

Maddow didn't succumb to this unexpected and shocking injustice, however, and reassured her viewers that Mueller's decision not to issue a single collusion-related indictment is the "start of something apparently, not the end of something."

The internet laughed and laughed.


"Very rough night at MSNBC. Rachel Maddow looks like she's going to cry. Chris Hayes glasses are all fogged up," noted radio host Mark Simone.

"This is what it looks like when you've deliberately misled your audience for two years, and then the music stops, and the bill comes due. @maddow," tweeted OANN White House Correspondent Emerald Robinson.

"#Maddow either choking on kitty litter chunks or facing the hard cold reality she's the worst journalist in television history," quipped actor and conservative commentator James Woods.

"What's going on with Maddow? Has she been hospitalized? Sedated?" inquired journalist Michael Tracey.

Others expressed exasperation at Maddow's refusal to face the music, accusing the MSNBC host of ignoring real, pressing issues as she leads her Russiagate crusade.

"So can those of us on the left criticize Trump on the actual issues now, and FINALLY give up on #Russiagate? For 2 years, @maddow has lead @MSNBC in selling us the narrative that Trump colluded w/ Russia What will @maddow do now? Double down or actually do journalism?" asked author and activist Dennis Trainor Jr.



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Arrow Up

Judicial Watch: More classified emails in Hillary Clinton's unsecured email system uncovered


Judicial Watch
Thu, 21 Mar 2019 00:00 UTC
Hillary hand
© MSNBC/KJN
Judicial Watch today announced it received 756 pages of newly uncovered emails that were among the materials former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tried to delete or destroy, several of which were classified and were transmitted over her unsecure, non-"state.gov" email system.

Hillary Clinton repeatedly stated that the 55,000 pages of documents she turned over to the State Department in December 2014 included all of her work-related emails. In response to a court order in another Judicial Watch case, she declared under penalty of perjury in 2015 that she had "directed that all my emails on clintonemail.com in my custody that were or are potentially federal records be provided to the Department of State, and on information and belief, this has been done."

In 2017, the FBI uncovered 72,000 pages of documents Clinton attempted to delete or did not otherwise disclose. Until the court intervened and established a new deadline, the State Department had been slow-walking the release of those documents at a rate that would have required Judicial Watch and the American people to wait until at least 2020 to see all the releasable Clinton material. The production of documents in this case is now concluded with the FBI being only able to recover or find approximately 5,000 of the 33,000 government emails Hillary Clinton took and tried to destroy.


Comment: See also:

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Eagle

US policy failure results in reopening of Iraqi-Syrian borders and Iran-Beirut road

Elijah J. Magnier
ejmagnier.com
Thu, 21 Mar 2019 18:33 UTC
baghouz isis suspects
© BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty ImagesMen suspected of being Islamic State (IS) fighters wait to be searched by members of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) after leaving the IS group’s last holdout of Baghouz, in Syria’s northern Deir Ezzor province on February 22, 2019.
"A dinosaur with a bird's brain". This is how the ex-President of Iran Hashemi Rafsanjani described the United States of America, evoking its great military strength but lack of strategic intelligence in foreign policy. Indeed, the very unusual meeting of the chiefs of staff of Syria, Iraq and Iran in Damascus this week would not have been possible without the latest US action in Syria. The US establishment has done a favour for the three countries aligned with the "Axis of resistance" by eliminating the "Islamic State" group (ISIS) in its last stronghold east of the Euphrates. The US attack on Baghuz (east of Syria), done in conjunction with its Kurdish proxies, has led the three military commanders to decide to re-open the land road between Syria and Iraq, paving the way for a safe Iranian land passage to Iraq and Syria. This means the Tehran-Baghdad-Damascus-Beirut road is now clear. This is not the first time the US establishment has rendered substantial strategic support to Iran with its clumsy planning.

When US President Donald Trump decided to pull out of Syria, describing it as a land of "sand and death", he was serious about his plan. However, the US could not leave without first eliminating the ISIS pocket in the area under US control in the east of Syria, which would have meant leaving in place what has been the sole pretext for its occupation of the area. This is why Trump was advised to eliminate ISIS first and then withdraw his troops. He finally ordered his forces to do so after long months of inaction, during which the US effectively offered protection to the terror group and allowed tens of thousands of ISIS militants to move freely to attack the Syrian Army and its allies along the Deir-ezzour al-Bukamal axis.
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Bullseye

The wisdom of Trump's lawyers, and the accountability that Mueller's report must produce

John Solomon
The Hill
Fri, 22 Mar 2019 17:58 UTC
trump mueller
President Trump and Special Counsel Robert Mueller
Special counsel Robert Mueller did the job he was asked to do, seemingly unfazed by the mindless babble of speculating reporters or the panicked political arrows fired his way from all sides in Washington over nearly two breathless years.

On Friday, he completed that work and delivered a final report in the same understated style with which he accepted the job in May 2017. In between, he was as invisible and mythical as the Wizard of Oz, as he conducted a methodical investigation.
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Attention

Peru's hellish mining city of La Rinconada: A warning of Washington's intentions for all of Latin America

Andre Vltchek
RT
Fri, 22 Mar 2019 13:06 UTC
La Rinconadsa
© Andre VltchekMagestic approach to La Rinconadsa - through garbage
While the West attacks Venezuela, a country that improved the lives of many of its citizens, it overlooks horrors that are taking place in Peru and other 'pro-market' countries in Latin America.

La Rinconada, which lies at over 5km above sea level, is the highest settlement in the world; a gold mining town, a concentration of misery, a community of about 50,000 inhabitants, many of whom have been poisoned by mercury. A place where countless women and children get regularly raped, where law and order collapsed quite some time ago, where young girls are sent to garbage dumps in order to 'recycle' terribly smelling waste, and where almost all the men work in beastly conditions, trying to save at least some money, but where most of them simply ruin their health, barely managing to stay alive.

I decided to travel to La Rinconada precisely during these days when the socialist Venezuela is fighting for its survival. I drove there as the European elites in Bolivia were trying to smear the enormously popular and successful President of Bolivia, Evo Morales, while the elections were approaching.

As in so many places in the turbo-capitalist and pro-Western Peru, La Rinconada is like a tremendous warning: this is how Venezuela and Bolivia used to be before Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales. This is where Washington wants the entire Latin America to return to. Like those monstrous and hopeless slums surrounding Lima, La Rinconada should be a call to arms.
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Snakes in Suits

Protecting Israel's image: Media blackout as Israel's largest banks pay record fines for US tax evasion schemes

Whitney Webb
MintPress News
Thu, 21 Mar 2019 17:32 UTC
dollars shekals israel us
© Abed Abed/Flash90US dollars and Israeli shekels
Israel's three largest banks - Hapoalim Bank, Leumi Bank and Mizrahi Tefahot Bank - have all been ordered to pay record fines, which collectively are set to total over $1 billion, to the U.S. government after the banks were found to have actively colluded with thousands of wealthy Americans in massive tax-evasion schemes.

The scandal, though it has been reported on in Israeli media, has garnered little attention in the United States. The media black-out has been so surprising it was even directly mentioned by the Times of Israel, given that similar revelations about other banks and offshore tax-evasion schemes - such as those contained within the Panama Papers - led to global protests and even the resignations of some world leaders.
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Book 2

Tehran school's Pompeo on his use of the Torah to promote Iranophobia - Persia helped saved the Jews


Sputnik
Sat, 23 Mar 2019 17:39 UTC
ancient torah tunis
© Sputnik / Наталья Селиверстова
The Iranian foreign minister issued a measured response to the US secretary of state, who claimed this week that it was "possible" that Donald Trump had been divinely sent to Earth by God in order to save Israel from the "Iranian menace."

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has encouraged Mike Pompeo to get better acquainted with the Torah, the Jewish holy text, and educate himself with Jewish religious scholars' writings about the Ancient Persians, the predecessors of modern-day Iran.

"Even the Torah is distorted to serve Iranophobia," Zarif wrote on his official Twitter page, before proceeding to list some of the things the scripture actually said, including multiple references to Persian efforts to save Jews from captivity and genocide, and reference to Persian ruler Cyrus the Great's capture of the city of Babylon in 539 B.C. which allowed exiled Jews to return to their homeland and resulting in the king being bestowed the title of 'Messiah' - becoming the only foreigner to be so hailed in Jewish scripture.

Comment: Shallow opportunists like Pompeo manipulate religion in the interests of politics. It may appear as if Zarif is doing the same. But he's actually got a point. Iran has a good reputation in the Jewish scriptures. And Iran has a Jewish population that is protected and thriving:

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