Puppet MastersS


Document

New docs suggest Steele dossier was deliberate setup to spy on Trump

Lee Smith
The Federalist
Wed, 02 Jan 2019 17:32 UTC
Carter Page
© Sergei Karpukhin/ReutersOne-time advisor of Donald Trump Carter Page addresses the audience during a presentation in Moscow, Russia, December 12, 2016.
A trove of recently released documents sheds further light on the scope and logistics of the information operation designed to sabotage an American election. Players include the press, political operatives from both parties, and law enforcement and intelligence officials. Their instrument was the Steele dossier, first introduced to the American public two years ago.

A collection of reports compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele, the dossier is now engraved in contemporary U.S. history. First marketed as bedrock evidence that Donald Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election, the dossier's legitimacy took a hit after reports showed the Hillary Clinton campaign paid for the work.

The revelation that the dossier was used to secure a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page compromised the integrity of the investigation the FBI had opened on Page and three other Trump associates by the end of July 2016. Nonetheless, that same probe continues today as the special counsel investigation.

The dossier plays a central role in Robert Mueller's probe. In the unredacted portions of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's memo outlining Mueller's scope are allegations that Trump adviser Paul Manafort colluded with Russian government officials interfering in the 2016 race. That claim is found in no other known document but the dossier. It is unclear whether further dossier allegations are in the redacted portions of the scope memo.
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Handcuffs

Ex-Credit Suisse bankers and ex-Mozambique finance minister arrested on US charges involving $2 billion in fraudulent loans

Brendan Pierson, Karin Strohecker
Reuters
Fri, 04 Jan 2019 15:00 UTC
credit suisse
© Fabrice Coffrini / AFP
Three former Credit Suisse Group AG bankers were arrested in London on Thursday on U.S. charges of involvement in a fraud involving $2 billion in loans to state-owned companies in Mozambique, U.S. prosecutors and British police said.

Andrew Pearse, 49, Surjan Singh, 44, and Detelina Subeva, 37, were charged in a federal court in Brooklyn, New York, with conspiring to violate U.S. anti-bribery law and to commit money laundering and securities fraud. They have been released on bail in London while the United States seeks extradition.

Former Mozambique finance minister Manuel Chang, 63, was arrested in South Africa this week as part of the same case.

A fifth man, Jean Boustani, was arrested on Wednesday at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport and refused bail. Boustani is a Lebanese citizen who worked as lead salesman for Privinvest - an Abu Dhabi-based holding company whose subsidiaries include a ship building firm hired to provide equipment and services to the Mozambican companies, according to the indictment.

Comment: Ten years after the crash, we've learned nothing

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Boat

Iran plans to deploy navy to western Atlantic, US' 'backyard'


RT
Fri, 04 Jan 2019 17:15 UTC
Iranian navy maneuvers
© Global Look Press / Ahmad HalabisazIranian navy maneuvers
Iran will send warships to the western Atlantic Ocean starting in March, a move likely designed to counter US aircraft carriers stationed in the Persian Gulf.

The ambitious deployment was announced by a top Iranian naval commander on Friday, and comes several weeks after the Pentagon sent an aircraft carrier strike group to the Persian Gulf. The decision to send naval forces so far west may be motivated by the Islamic Republic's desire to counter what it sees as an aggressive US naval presence in its own backyard. The operation will begin in March and is expected to last for several months.

"The Atlantic Ocean is far and the operation of the Iranian naval flotilla might take five months," Rear-Admiral Touraj Hassani told state media.

He added that Sahand, a newly-built destroyer, would be one of the Iranian warships to take part in the flotilla. The new warship has a flight deck for helicopters and is reportedly equipped with anti-aircraft and anti-ship guns, surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles. Tehran claims that the destroyer also boasts electronic warfare capabilities.
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Gold Coins

Gold posts back-to-back gains as stock market declines

Myra P. Saefong and Mark DeCambre
Market Watch
Thu, 03 Jan 2019 17:16 UTC
gold
© Getty Images
Gold futures on Thursday climbed a second straight session to their highest finish in more than six months as U.S. stocks saw a sharp pullback and the dollar softened.

"Obviously, the concerning news from Apple sales in China has created an additional wave of equity market selling, and that in turn has continued to pump money towards gold," analysts at Zaner Precious Metals wrote in a daily report.

A bearish revenue outlook from iPhone-maker Apple Inc. AAPL, +3.65% rattled markets, with investors pushing the technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite IndexCOMP, +4.09% sharply lower. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +3.11%and the S&P 500 index SPX, +3.20% also declined as gold futures settled.

Apple shares headed lower after the tech giant announced a rare cut to its sales forecast, citing sluggish economic growth in China, which could also be exacerbated by the longstanding tariff dispute between Beijing and Washington.
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Fire

Explosion at Germany's right-wing AfD office prompts suspicion of politically motivated attack


RT
Fri, 04 Jan 2019 16:17 UTC
explosion Alternative for Germany office
© Global Look Press / Sebastian WillnowPolice and firefighters secure the scene following the explosion, January 4, 2018
Police in Germany are investigating possible political motivations behind an explosion outside offices belonging to the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. Its members slammed the incident as "shameless act."

The incident, involving the detonation of an "unknown substance," occurred outside the party's Doebeln office in the eastern state of Saxony. The explosion happened late on Thursday, yet the information started to make rounds in the local media only Friday.

No one was injured in the attack. However, the blast damaged the doors and windows of the office as well as the adjoining buildings and vehicles parked outside.

Comment: There's no doubt the Alternative for Germany party (AfD) has a scary platform. People are right to be wary of it. But its formation comes in reaction to Merkel's highhanded immigration policies, which took no note of the German populace's feelings about being overrun by strangers who have no affinity or respect for the native culture.

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Dominoes

Dem. Senator Jim Webb, under consideration for Trump's Defense Secretary, has history of wanting to end US foreign interventions

Daniel Lippman
Politico
Thu, 03 Jan 2019 17:00 UTC
Jim Webb
© Scott Olson/Getty ImagesFormer Sen. Jim Webb's views on foreign policy and military affairs align with President Donald Trump in key respects
Jim Webb, the iconoclastic former Democratic senator from Virginia who served as Ronald Reagan's secretary of the Navy, is under consideration for Defense secretary, according to an administration official with knowledge of the process.

Webb would be an eye-opening choice as a member of the opposing party who briefly ran for president in 2015.

But his views on foreign policy and military affairs align with President Donald Trump in key respects. For example, he ran for the Senate in 2006 on a platform to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq, even campaigning while wearing his Marine son's combat boots.

Whether he gets the nomination "really depends on how the military views him, how the career people view him, what his view are of Syria and Afghanistan and any number of issues," said the official, who added that a number of candidates exist.

Webb, 72, penned a darkly prescient essay before the U.S.-led Iraq invasion in 2003 in which he warned that "those who are pushing for a unilateral war in Iraq know full well that there is no exit strategy if we invade."
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Blackbox

Trump still 'evaluating' whether to withdraw troops from Afghanistan


RFE/RL
Fri, 04 Jan 2019 16:58 UTC
trumppodium
© ReutersPresident Donald Trump
U.S. President Donald Trump is in the "process of evaluating" whether to withdraw some troops from Afghanistan, said Vice President Mike Pence.

Pence's remarks came amid reports that Trump had ordered the Pentagon to prepare for the withdrawal of 7,000 American troops deployed in Afghanistan, about half of the U.S. contingent in the country.

"Well, the president is in the process of evaluating that, as we speak," Pence told Fox News during an interview broadcast on January 3.

His remarks came a day after Trump urged other countries, specifically Russia, Pakistan, and India, to become more involved in the fighting in Afghanistan as he argued against continued long-term presence of U.S. troops in the war-torn country.

"Why isn't Russia there? Why isn't India there? Why isn't Pakistan there?" Trump said in televised comments to reporters during a cabinet meeting on January 2. "Why are we there and we're 6,000 miles away?"

Comment: See also:

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Russian Flag

Russia delivers humanitarian aid to residents of Aleppo, Syria


Sputnik
Fri, 04 Jan 2019 16:48 UTC
russian aid
© Sputnik / Dmitri Vinogradov
Russian military has delivered food baskets and winter clothing to the residents of Syria's Aleppo provided by the Russian charity organizations, a representative of the Russian Defense Ministry's Center for Reconciliation of Opposing Sides in Syria, Igor Privalov, said on Friday.

"We have provided children and women with warm clothes. We are also distributing bread to all the residents of [Aleppo]," Privalov told reporters.

He added that this time the humanitarian assistance had been delivered to the parishioners of Faras church located in Aleppo's Midan district.

As the Syrian government has regained control over most of the country's territories that were seized by terrorists, it is now focused on creating favorable conditions for repatriating refugees.

Moscow is assisting Damascus in this by providing humanitarian aid to civilians and being a guarantor of the ceasefire, along with Turkey and Iran.

Comment: While the U.S. pretends to be a benevolent empire, meanwhile Russia is busy actually being everything the U.S. merely pretends to be.

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Light Saber

Trump proclaims January as month committed to abolition of human trafficking

Bowen Xiao
The Epoch Times
Tue, 01 Jan 2019 13:22 UTC
U.S. President Donald Trump
© Drew Angerer /Getty Images
In one of President Donald Trump's final actions of 2018, he proclaimed January as "National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month."

In a lengthy proclamation issued on Dec. 31, Trump said that it's not enough to merely denounce such horrific assaults, instead, we must "actively work to prevent and end this barbaric exploitation of innocent victims."

"Human trafficking is a modern form of slavery," the proclamation stated. "We are morally obligated to confront and defeat the abhorrent practice of human trafficking, and I am keeping my pledge to take aggressive action."

Such crimes are often described as an everyday problem hidden in plain sight. Data from a landmark Global Slavery Index report in July last year found that 1 in 800 people in the United States lives in modern slavery. The phrase is a broad term used to describe victims of forced labor, sexual exploitation or servitude, and forced marriages, among other abuses.

Trump has made combating human trafficking a focal point of his administration over the past two years. In February 2018, he signed an executive order to dismantle transnational criminal organizations that traffic and exploit people. In January 2018, Trump signed a similar declaration for the month.

In the Dec. 31 proclamation, he linked stopping human trafficking to building a border wall: "I have made it a top priority to fully secure our Nation's Southwest border, including through the continued construction of a physical wall, so that we can stop human trafficking and stem the flow of deadly drugs and criminals into our country."
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Bad Guys

New Brazilian president says he's open to hosting US military base

Brad Brooks and Lisandra Paraguassu
Reuters
Thu, 03 Jan 2019 16:41 UTC
Bolsonaro
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro
Brazil's new President Jair Bolsonaro said on Thursday that he would be open to the possibility of the United States operating a military base on his country's soil, a move that would form a sharp shift in direction for Brazilian foreign policy.

Bolsonaro, who took power on Tuesday, said that Russia's support of President Nicolas Maduro's "dictatorship" in neighboring Venezuela had significantly ramped up tensions in the region and was a worrying development.

Asked by the SBT TV network in an interview taped on Thursday if that meant he would allow U.S. military presence in Brazil, Bolsonaro responded that he would certainly be willing to negotiate that possibility.

"Depending on what happens in the world, who knows if we would not need to discuss that question in the future," Bolsonaro said.

He emphasized that what Brazil seeks is to have "supremacy here in South America."

Comment: See also: Bolsonaro vows to 'fight the marxist trash' in 2019.

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