Puppet MastersS


Cloud Lightning

Unlike Trump, Canada PM Justin Trudeau is in real trouble over possible interference in a criminal investigation

David Marcus
The Federalist
Thu, 28 Feb 2019 18:17 UTC
Trudeau SNC Lavalin scandal
© Canada Free Press
Just three weeks after the scandal broke, a former member of the Canadian PM's cabinet has testified that he tried to interfere in a criminal investigation.

While Americans were transfixed on Wednesday with the salacious, but not legally damning, testimony of Michael Cohen before Congress, a bombshell went off in the Canadian Parliament. Former Canadian Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould testified before the House Justice Committee alleging that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and others in his administration pressured her in "inappropriate" ways to reach a settlement with an engineering company that has been charged with crimes.

The company, SNC-Lavalin, is facing charges that it sent bribes to Libya, then under the rule of Gadhafi, in defiance of Canadian law. If found guilty, the Quebec-based company will face severe sanctions, including a ban on working with the Canadian government. This would be a severe economic blow, especially in Trudeau's home province of Quebec.

Comment: More from the Globe and Mail:
Jody Wilson-Raybould says she faced "consistent and sustained" political pressure from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and top officials, including "veiled threats," on the need to shelve the criminal prosecution of Montreal's SNC-Lavalin Group Inc.

In dramatic televised testimony before the House of Commons justice committee spanning 3½ hours, the former justice minister and attorney-general outlined detailed conversations at the highest levels of the Trudeau government about helping the Quebec engineering and construction giant out of its legal difficulties.

Ms. Wilson-Raybould said the intense, behind-the-scenes campaign to press her to intervene in the justice system involved about 10 phone calls and 10 meetings that she characterized as inappropriate between September and December, 2018.

"I experienced a consistent and sustained effort by many people within the government to seek to politically interfere in the exercise of prosecutorial discretion in my role as the attorney-general of Canada in an inappropriate effort to secure a deferred prosecution agreement with SNC-Lavalin," Ms. Wilson-Raybould told MPs.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer later called on Mr. Trudeau to resign, saying he has "lost the moral authority to govern," and said the RCMP should investigate. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh called for a public inquiry.

Mr. Trudeau told a late news conference in Montreal that neither he nor his staff acted inappropriately and that he has faith in an investigation by the Ethics Commissioner.

Read the full text of Ms. Wilson-Raybould's opening statement

[...]

SNC-Lavalin faces one charge of corruption under the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act and one charge of fraud under the Criminal Code. It is alleged SNC paid millions of dollars in bribes to public officials in Libya between 2001 and 2011 to secure government contracts.

The engineering company says executives who were responsible for the wrongdoing have left the company, and it has reformed ethics and compliance rules.

If convicted, SNC-Lavalin could be banned from bidding on federal contracts for up to 10 years.


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Info

Trump says North Korea has 'tremendous potential' to become 'absolute economic power'


RT
Thu, 28 Feb 2019 18:23 UTC
Pyongyang
© Reuters / KCNAPeople celebrate the birth anniversary of former North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang, North Korea on February 16, 2019
Despite ending talks with Kim Jong-un without a clinched deal, Trump still had praise for the North Korean leader. He even claimed the cornered state can become a major economic power.

North Korea could be "one of the most successful countries on Earth" once Pyongyang "gets rid of the nukes," Trump said speaking about possible denuclearization options. He made the statement after his second summit with Kim (this time in Vietnam) unexpectedly wrapped up after two hours.
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Quenelle

'Unlike CNN, we get to tell the truth!' Now-unblocked Maffick hosts flip off censors


RT
Thu, 28 Feb 2019 18:12 UTC
Rania Khalek and Anissa Naouai
© Twitter / InTheNow
Two Maffick Media hosts wasted no time tearing into the alliance of mainstream media and neocon think tanks that silenced them for 10 days for breaking a Facebook rule they say didn't exist until after their page was removed.

Rania Khalek and Anissa Naouai of In the Now and Soapbox took aim at the "lazy report from CNN" inspired by "pro-war think tanks" that led Facebook to remove four pages published by Maffick Media for being part-owned by RT's video agency Ruptly and not having it written in all caps on their logo - a "crime" that wasn't actually against Facebook's rules - without bothering to inform Maffick beforehand.
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Info

Best of the Web: McCarthyism Then and Now: But There Was Reality Then

Patrick Armstrong
Strategic Culture Foundation
Wed, 27 Feb 2019 17:39 UTC
Joe McCarthy
© United Pres International / Hulton ArchiveSenator Joseph R. McCarthy, laughing for the camera, displays a newspaper advertisement that proclaims "McCarthyism is Treason to America."
History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce. (Karl Marx)

Humor is reason gone mad. (Groucho Marx)
Every now and again, we hear about a "new McCarthyism". Usually it's the alternative media like Truthdig or Consortium News or left-wing outlets because mainstream outlets are so sunk in Trumpophobia that they have forgotten what the expression means. It's not Trump who's the new McCarthy (Trumpism Is the New McCarthyism or Is Donald Trump The New Joe McCarthy?) it is they: Is Trump Putin's Puppet?, Trump Is Making the Case That He's Putin's Puppet; calling other people Moscow puppets is precisely what McCarthy did. And today's Russhysteria has spread outside the USA: France to Probe Possible Russian Influence on Yellow Vest Riots; Why Putin Is Meddling in Britain's Brexit Vote; Spain: 'Misinformation' on Catalonia referendum came from Russia. Endless torrents of delirium, nothing too absurd: Russia could freeze us to death!, Russian cricket agents, 14-legged killer squid found TWO MILES beneath Antarctica being weaponised by Putin? The Russophobes find Moscow's influence everywhere: children's' cartoons, fishsticks, Pokemon. People who like to imagine that they're taken seriously suggest the Russians are threatened by our "quality".

But not so threatened, it appears, by our mental qualities.

Joseph McCarthy, making much of (and perhaps improving upon) his war record, was elected a US Senator in 1946. After three years in which he attracted little attention, he rose to national prominence with a speech in February 1950 in which he claimed to have a list of Communist Party members active in the US State Department. There is still debate today about the precise numbers he claimed and to what degree he was used by other actors. But he realised he was on to a good thing (he secured re-election in 1952) and kept "revealing" communists in the government and elsewhere. Televised hearings showed his vituperative and erratic nature; the Senate censured him in 1954 and he faded away. "McCarthyism" has become a doubleplusungood swearword so stripped of meaning that it can be shaped into mud to be thrown at Trump.
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Eye 1

Police in Canada are tracking people's 'negative behavior' in a 'risk' database

Nathan Munn
Motherboard
Wed, 27 Feb 2019 17:29 UTC
surveillance
Police, social services, and health workers in Canada are using shared databases to track the behaviour of vulnerable people-including minors and people experiencing homelessness-with little oversight and often without consent.

Documents obtained by Motherboard from Ontario's Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services (MCSCS) through an access to information request show that at least two provinces-Ontario and Saskatchewan-maintain a "Risk-driven Tracking Database" that is used to amass highly sensitive information about people's lives. Information in the database includes whether a person uses drugs, has been the victim of an assault, or lives in a "negative neighborhood."

The Risk-driven Tracking Database (RTD) is part of a collaborative approach to policing called the Hub model that partners cops, school staff, social workers, health care workers, and the provincial government.

Information about people believed to be "at risk" of becoming criminals or victims of harm is shared between civilian agencies and police and is added to the database when a person is being evaluated for a rapid intervention intended to lower their risk levels. Interventions can range from a door knock and a chat to forced hospitalization or arrest.
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Bad Guys

Iranian officials claims Assad rejected offer to break ties with Iran in return for US support


Sputnik
Thu, 28 Feb 2019 17:31 UTC
syrians
© AP Photo / Hassan Ammar
A senior Iranian official said in an interview that the Syrian president confirmed his devotion to Iran during his visit to the Islamic Republic.

Syrian President Bashar Assad has reportedly denied a US offer to break ties with Iran in exchange for Washington's support, according to a report by Al-Masdar News.

The report quotes Hossein Amir Abdollahian, the advisor to Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani. The news comes amid Assad's first visit to Iran since the start of the Syrian Civil War.

"The Syrian President's visit to Tehran bore a hidden yet great message. The visit of Bashar al-Assad with the Leader and the president of our country at this time was carried out with several goals," he said, as quoted by the Fars News Agency.

According to Abdollahian, Assad's visit to Tehran and his refusal to accept the US' offer reaffirmed his commitment to "both Iran and Hezbollah." The advisor said that Assad responded to the US proposal in "a loud voice" that Iran and Syria will continued to uphold the so-called Axis of Resistance.
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Smoking

Senate takes aim at China's Confucius Institutes in US saying they spread propaganda


RT
Thu, 28 Feb 2019 05:14 UTC
china dragon lights
© Global Look / Fang DongxuFILE PHOTO
China is engaged in a "soft power" offensive encouraging complacency toward the Chinese "threat" via innocuous-seeming cultural programs, and must be stopped - unless they let the US reciprocate - a Senate committee found.

'Confucius Institutes', run by the Chinese government on over 100 American college campuses, are a Trojan horse for Chinese influence in America, according to a report from the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, part of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, which also warned that 519 American public schools are harboring "Confucius Classrooms" aimed at swaying the hearts and minds of children as young as five.

"Through Confucius Institutes, the Chinese government is attempting to change the impression in the United States and around the world that China is an economic and security threat," the report states. The institutes primarily offer Chinese language classes and cultural events, including cooking classes, performances, and speakers, portraying China, which the mainstream political class in the US sees as its archnemesis, as "approachable and compassionate" instead. There are 525 such Institutes around the world, but the US has more than any other country, and China is on track to open 1,000 more by 2020.

Comment: If the US taught its children to discern truth from lies they would have little to worry about:

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Gold Bar

US Army reportedly transported 50 tons of stolen gold from Syria


Daily Sabah
Thu, 28 Feb 2019 17:08 UTC
Syria Deir Ezzor US marine army
© AFPA gunner mans a machine gun at the back of a US Marine Corps V-22 Osprey flying near a French artillery base near Al Qaim in Iraq's western Anbar province opposite Syria's Deir Ezzor region, a few kilometres away from the last scrap of territory held by ISIS.
The U.S. Army is transferring tons of gold from Daesh-held areas in Syria to the U.S., multiple reports said.

According to a source who spoke to Kurdish Bas News Agency, the U.S. forces transferred about 50 tons of gold from areas seized from Daesh terrorists in eastern Syria's Deir el-Zour region and gave a portion of the remaining gold to the PKK's Syrian offshoot People's Protection Units (YPG).

The gold was reportedly transported from the U.S. military base in Kobani.

Meanwhile, 40 tons of gold bullions stolen by Daesh terrorists from Iraq's Mosul province was also taken by the U.S. forces.

Local sources who spoke to regime-run SANA news agency claimed that the troops relocated large boxes containing Daesh's gold treasure from al-Dashisheh region in southern Hasakah.

Daesh terrorist leaders nabbed by U.S. troops reportedly provided information on the whereabouts of the gold, the report said.

The claim coincides with a report by the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory of Human Rights, which said that the U.S.-backed YPG was after 40 tons of gold left behind by Daesh terrorists in Deir el-Zour.

Comment: South Front's report on this:

Just appalling. These are the head-choppers they say massacred Europeans in Paris, Brussels, London, etc.

There's this too: US forces in Eastern Syria made a 'gold for safe passage' deal with Daesh - with plundered gold

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Snakes in Suits

Proposed US sanctions target Russia's gas, sovereign debt, banks & shipbuilding projects


RT
Thu, 28 Feb 2019 10:34 UTC
bank russia
© Reuters/Jonathan Ernst
The US Senate has released a draft law on extending penalties against Russia. The bill threatens to target multiple sectors of the Russian economy, including operations with sovereign debt and investing in LNG projects abroad.

If passed, the bill, titled Defending American Security from Kremlin Aggression Act of 2019 (DASKAA), will ban US nationals from "engaging in transactions with, providing financing for, or otherwise dealing" in Russia's state debt, including "bonds issued by the Central Bank, the National Wealth Fund, or the Federal Treasury of the Russian Federation, or agents or affiliates of any of these entities."

The document, which is set to be approved by the US Congress and signed by the president, was introduced by Senators Lindsey Graham and Bob Menendez earlier this year, marking the second attempt by the lawmakers to impose additional sanctions against Moscow. The previous version was defeated last year.

Comment: With the US, if they can't beat them, they sanction them:

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Black Cat

Michael Cohen's speculation-filled testimony reads like a jilted lover

Sara Carter
saraacarter.com
Thu, 28 Feb 2019 16:25 UTC
CohenTrump
© Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call; Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty ImagesFormer Trump lawyer Michael Cohen and President Donald Trump
Michael Cohen's testimony isn't exactly the bombshell Democrats professed it to be.

It is filled with speculation. The testimony he is providing the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Wednesday reads like a jilted lover whose been damaged by a past relationship and one in which the other party, that being President Donald Trump, never fully respected or considered as important.

For Cohen, who was hired by Trump in 2007, this appears to be too much to take. His working relationship with Trump dragged him into the bowels of Washington D.C.'s most brutal investigations into a President and his campaign that Americans have ever witnessed.

Senior officials within the Obama Administration launched an investigation that targeted Trump and everyone around him nearly three years ago. And for the past two years with the appointment of a Special Counsel it has consumed U.S. politics and national media.

Comment: Tucker Carlson has a drop of sympathy for a vain, unintelligent man who is caught by forces he doesn't comprehend. Cohen is part of the circus distracting the nation from the real issues facing it.



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