Puppet MastersS


Bug

'Anti-semitism': A highly lucrative scam in Washington

Philip Giraldi
The Unz Review
Tue, 19 Feb 2019 00:00 UTC
Ihan Omar
"An anti-Semite used to mean a man who hated Jews. Now it means a man who is hated by Jews."- Joe Sobran
In his novel 1984 George Orwell invented the expression "newspeak" to describe the ambiguous or deliberately misleading use of language to make political propaganda and narrow the "thought options" of those who are on the receiving end. In the context of today's political discourse, or what passes for the same, it would be interesting to know what George would think of the saturation use of "anti-Semitism" as something like a tactical discussion stopper, employed to end all dispute while also condemning those accused of the crime as somehow outside the pale, monsters who are consigned forever to derision and obscurity.

The Israelis and, to be sure, many diaspora Jews know exactly how the expression has been weaponized. Former Israeli Minister Shulamit Aloni explained how it is done "Anti-Semitic"..."its a trick, we always use it."

Comment: Se also

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Snakes in Suits

ODNI and NSA impede lawmakers review of Obama admin 'unmasking' requests

Sara Carter
SaraACarter.com
Tue, 19 Feb 2019 15:37 UTC
Devin Nunes
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Security Agency still have not granted access to Republican lawmakers to review hundreds of unmasking requests made on Americans by Senior Obama Administration officials, SaraACarter.com has learned.

Despite an order from President Trump more than a year ago, ranking member Rep. Devin Nunes, R-CA, on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence said his committee has been stymied in its investigation into the unmasking requests that rocked Washington D.C. when discovered in 2017.

The ODNI and NSA were ordered by President Trump to make available the highly classified documents for congressional review. In order to make those classified documents available the ODNI needed to set up a secured repository for lawmakers on the committee to review the documents, added Nunes.
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Star of David

After Israeli anchor calls out brutality of 'occupation', political leaders land hard on her

Jonathan Ofir
MondoWeiss
Tue, 19 Feb 2019 00:00 UTC
Oshrat Kotler
Oshrat Kotler
This is a big story in Israel. On Saturday, Channel 13 anchorwoman Oshrat Kotler commented on a case of sadistic Israeli soldier beatings of a Palestinian father and son in occupied territory, saying:
They send children to the army, to the territories, and get them back human animals. That's the result of the occupation.
The response was immediate. Thousands of expressions of rage streamed in from audiences, and many leaders on the right were condemnatory. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted:
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Boat

Russian warships shadow US Destroyer Donald Cook in latest Naval close encounter

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Tue, 19 Feb 2019 00:00 UTC
In the latest indicator of heightened and ratcheting tensions between Moscow and the West, the Russian navy is reportedly shadowing an American warship, the USS Donald Cook, as it transits the Dardanelles Strait on Tuesday.

The US ship is en route to its second Black Sea deployment in only under a month, and fourth since the dangerous Kerch Strait incident.
destroyer Donald Cook
© US NavyThe Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer Donald Cook during prior Jan. 25 Black Sea exercises.
A US Navy statement confirmed that the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer began transiting the strait on Tuesday on a mission to conduct what it called "maritime security operations" and to "enhance regional maritime stability" with NATO allies and partners in the region. According to Russia's TASS news agency "the Russian Black Sea Fleet's guard ship Pytlivy tracked the US vessel's movements at the time."
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Star of David

Israel freezes Palestinian tax funds as 'collective punishment'

Maureen Clare Murphy
The Electronic Intifada
Mon, 18 Feb 2019 00:00 UTC
PalProtest
© Yasser Qudih/APA.jpgPalestinians protest the siege on Gaza at Erez checkpoint in the northern Gaza Strip.
Israel's freezing of millions of dollars in Palestinian tax revenue will cause the dire situation in Gaza to deteriorate even further, Al Mezan, a human rights group in the territory, warned on Monday.

Thousands of civil servants in the coastal enclave, its population of two million plunged into poverty after more than a decade of economic blockade, have already had to contend with salary cuts and late payments due to "discrimination" by the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

Now Israel is planning to withhold some $138 million in taxes it collects on behalf of the PA as a form of sanctions over stipends to political prisoners. The freezing of tax fund transfers will be a "dangerous contribution to the deterioration of humanitarian and economic conditions," according to Al Mezan.

Israel in "sole control" over borders

Legislation passed last year allows Israel to deduct payments made to Palestinian prisoners and their families from Palestinian Authority tax revenue, which Israel controls. Israel has intermittently frozen tax transfers to the Palestinian Authority since the Oslo accords were signed 25 years ago.

Israel's withholding of Palestinian tax revenue is a violation of Israel's obligations under the Oslo accords Paris Protocol, Al Mezan stated.

Comment: See also:

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Snakes in Suits

The real motive behind the FBI plan to investigate Trump as a Russian agent

Gareth Porter
Consortium News
Wed, 13 Feb 2019 00:00 UTC
TrumpRussia
© Pinterest
Coverage of this episode by The New York Times and CNN further stigmatizes any dissent from new Cold War policy toward Russia, writes Gareth Porter.

The New York Times and CNN led media coverage last month of discussions among senior FBI officials in May 2017 of a possible national security investigation of President Donald Trump himself, on the premise that he may have acted as an agent of Russia.

The episode has potentially profound political fallout, because the Times and CNN stories suggested that Trump may indeed have acted like a Russian agent. The New York Times story on Jan. 11 was headlined, "F.B.I. Opened Inquiry into Whether Trump Was Secretly Working on Behalf of Russia." CNN followed three days later with: "Transcripts detail how FBI debated whether Trump was 'following directions' of Russia."

By reporting that Russia may have been able to suborn the president of the United States, these stories have added an even more extreme layer to the dominant national political narrative of a serious Russian threat to destroy U.S. democracy. An analysis of the FBI's idea of Trump as possible Russian agent reveals, moreover, that it is based on a devious concept of "unwitting" service to Russian interests that can be traced back to former CIA director John O. Brennan.

Comment: Blaming Russia and fabricating Trump-Russia collusion has many uses: the cementing of a new Cold War, the diversion from Hillary's crimes and the complicit DNC, and the galvanization of public support behind a bonanza of imperial conquest.

And all it's based on is John f***ing Brennan's spurious suggestions that 'maybe' Trump is 'unwittingly' a Russian stooge!

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Pistol

Best of the Web: US air freight company caught smuggling weapons into Venezuela is linked to CIA 'black site' renditions

Whitney Webb
Popular Resistance
Fri, 15 Feb 2019 00:00 UTC
21Air
© 21AirA 21Air jet loading relief supplies
This article in McClatchy News about the CIA-connected airline that has been making lots of round trip flights from Miami adds to the article below. They write,
"The Boeing 767 has made dozens of flights between Miami International Airport and destinations in Colombia and Venezuela since Jan. 11, a flight tracking service shows, often returning to Miami for only a few hours before flying again to South America." The Boeing 767 has a payload capacity of 42 tons. The discovery of weapons occurred Tuesday, two days after the flight landed briefly in Valencia, Venezuela's third-largest city. Venezuelan authorities found 19 assault weapons, 118 ammunition cartridges, and 90 military-grade radio antennas, among other items.

An Ottawa-based analyst reported on the unusual ship and plane movements, Steffan Watkins, drew attention to the frequent flights of the 21 Air cargo plane in a series of tweets Thursday. The airline had been flying all around the United States but in January it began flying to destinations in Colombia and Venezuela on a daily basis, and sometimes multiple times a day making close to 40 round-trip flights from Miami International Airport to Caracas and Valencia in Venezuela, and Bogota and Medellin in Colombia since Jan. 11.
McClatchy concludes with how this is a common tactic of the United States and one that was used when Elliott Abrams was previously in government, writing:
The CIA operated a dummy airline, known as Air America, from the early 1950s until the mid 1970s for air operations in Southeast Asia, including air-dropping weapons to friendly forces.

More than a decade later, Sandinista soldiers shot down a cargo plane taking weapons to the U.S.-backed contra rebels fighting the Nicaraguan government. A U.S. Marine veteran, Eugene Hasenfus, survived the 1986 crash, and later told reporters that he was working for the CIA, paving the way for his release and return to the United States.

Curiously, one of the figures in the Reagan administration instrumental in delivering support to the contras, former assistant secretary of state Elliott Abrams, was named by President Donald Trump late last month as his special envoy overseeing policy toward Venezuela.

KZ

Comment: The pieces appear to be falling into place for Plan Venezuela. While the payload in this instance may not be particularly troubling for the Venezuelan military, the number of recent flights over a short period of time, and the appointment of Abrams to oversee Plan Venezuela, support a worse trajectory than a coup: a failed coup costing hundreds of thousands of lives, and millions of war refugees fleeing to the US border.

As the McClatchy article suggests, the CIA is revisiting a page out of its regime-change playbook - including particular principals in their cast of characters.

See also:

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Target

Moscow: Warsaw summit exposed US' attempt to create new dividing lines in Middle East


Sputnik
Mon, 18 Feb 2019 20:27 UTC
Zakarova
© AzerNewsRussian FM Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova
Earlier, Iran denounced the US-sponsored meeting in the Polish capital as a "circus" and a "failure," accusing Washington of promoting "insecurity, instability, poverty, war and extremism" throughout the region.

Last week's anti-Iran conference in Warsaw, Poland served as another illustration of US efforts to create new "dividing lines" in the Middle East, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

"The conference was not conceived and held for the sake of a serious discussion of the problems affecting the Middle East. It's main result was the creation of several working groups discussing a number of global challenges and threats," such as terrorism, non-proliferation, humanitarian issues and refugees, Zakharova said, addressing reporters on Monday. "What is this if not an attempt to launch a 'parallel track' which will engage in the creation of unilateral decisions?" the spokeswoman asked.

Comment: See also:

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X

Lavrov: Russia refrains from 'tooth for a tooth' retaliation as Facebook bans Russian-linked media


RT
Tue, 19 Feb 2019 16:07 UTC
Camera blocking
© Reuters/Andrew Couldridge/KJN
Sergey Lavrov says he is opposed to retaliating against foreign media in Russia after the Facebook ban of Russia-linked pages. Moscow should instead focus on upholding the rights of its journalists abroad.

The recent suspension of four Maffick Media Facebook pages after a CNN report on their links to RT is "definitely another example of pressure against Russian media and against free speech," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told media after a meeting with his Slovak counterpart and current chairman of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Miroslav Lajcak.

Lavrov said he had also brought to Lajcak's attention recent cases of discrimination against Sputnik and RT, including journalists being arbitrarily banned from official events in Spain.

When asked whether Moscow would retaliate against foreign media in Russia, however, Lavrov said he is "firmly against" such measures. "The fact that we still have not done so is not only testimony to our restraint, but also to our strength. We are an open society."
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Eye 1

Best of the Web: Cyber-Gestapo: CNN asked Facebook to censor Russia-backed video company at behest of Atlanticist 'think-tank' German Marshall Fund

Kevin Gosztola
Shadowproof
Tue, 19 Feb 2019 17:41 UTC
Maffick media Facebook ban
© CNNJournalist Rania Khalek Screen and Maffick Media chief operating officer J. Ray Sparks in CNN's report on Russia-backed video company Maffick Media.
Disclosure: Kevin Gosztola co-hosts the Unauthorized Disclosure podcast with Rania Khalek, who is a contributor for Maffick Media's Soapbox. Unauthorized Disclosure is entirely listener-funded. Shadowproof is member-supported and funded by reader donations.
CNN went in search for a story about a Russian-funded digital media project that produces viral videos aimed at undermining American democracy. When CNN journalists could not find what they were looking for, they effectively manufactured the news by giving Facebook a pretext for removing the project's pages used to share videos. Now, the cable news network had their story.

Four CNN journalists worked on the report, "Russia is backing a viral video company aimed at American millennials." It appeared online late in the day on February 15 and broke the news that Maffick Media had their Facebook pages for three video channels suspended.

Maffick also produces In The Now, which Facebook took down as well.

Facebook never required pages to include information about their parent companies nor has the social media company ever labeled state-sponsored media, which CNN acknowledged. Yet, since the project involves funding from Russian state media, CNN believed Facebook may want to require the pages to disclose such details.

Comment: RT adds further comment:
"Closing a Facebook account or any internet link of a media, without prior warning, can be considered as an act of censorship opposed by the IFJ," the group's chief Philippe Leruth told RIA Novosti.

His remarks came after Facebook suddenly removed several news and viral video-themed pages with millions of subscribers, managed by Maffick Media, on Friday. It happened immediately after CNN ran a report accusing the agency of being part of a Russian "influence campaign." The reason given was that Maffick is partially owned by Ruptly video agency, a subsidiary of RT which is funded by Russia. Facebook gave no notice or warning before taking down the pages. The company later said that it is launching an update for popular pages and will request them to disclose their ownership.

"Closing brutally any link doesn't respect this normal way of doing [things]," Leruth said explaining that even if a media organization is accused of "spreading fake news," it should be asked for the "rectification" of the information presented, and if it refuses - other steps can be taken, including legal action.

Maffick's team heavily pushed back against Facebook, pointing out that its pages didn't violate any of the social network's rules. News agencies weren't required to display information on their funding and ownership on Facebook, and the social network never came after other state-funded media, like the BBC, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty or Qatari-owned Al Jazeera, they argued.


Four days after taking down the pages Facebook got back to Maffick saying that more information is needed in About section.


RFE/RL updated its page later on Tuesday.


Good for Naouai! If Maffick Media is to be held to such a high standard, then apply it across the board.


Co-founder of the Intercept, journalist Glenn Greenwald also criticized Facebook's actions as "highly disturbing." The company, along with CNN and the US-funded German Marshall Fund, whose opinion was prominently featured in CNN's story, are "working together to selectively censor," he wrote on Twitter.


Speaking to RT, journalist and political commentator Martin Summers said that Facebook's action against Maffick Media brings up a broader question on whether the social media giant "should have the power to decide what people see here."

"When you do internet searches... you're supposed to find the thing that the most people are looking at. But, of course, now they've started talking about changing the algorithms."

"It's quite clear that the 'Russiagate' is out of control," RT's deputy director for creativity and innovation, Ivor Crotty noted. "The narrative, paranoia and conspiracy theories around it are starting to disintegrate."

Maffick Media said that it appealed the removal of its pages immediately after it happened, but has still received no reply from Facebook.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, meanwhile, suggested that Russia shouldn't retaliate in 'an-eye-for-an-eye' fashion but rather focus on maintaining a "comfortable" environment for foreign reporters.
Maffick Media CEO, host slam Facebook's unprovoked 'censorship' after CNN runs hit piece: 'end of free speech'

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