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SOTT Focus: The only 'Russian bots' meddling in US elections belonged to Democrat-linked 'experts'


RT
Fri, 28 Dec 2018 23:19 UTC
russian hacking
© Global Look Press
US cyber-security experts have blamed Russia for meddling in American elections since 2016. Now it has emerged that authors of a Senate report on 'Russian' meddling actually ran a "false flag" meddling operation themselves.

A week before Christmas, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a report accusing Russia of depressing Democrat voter turnout by targeting African-Americans on social media. Its authors, New Knowledge, quickly became a household name.

Described by the New York Times as a group of "tech specialists who lean Democratic," New Knowledge has ties to both the US military and intelligence agencies. Its CEO and co-founder Jonathon Morgan previously worked for DARPA, the US military's advanced research agency. His partner, Ryan Fox, is a 15-year veteran of the National Security Agency who also worked as a computer analyst for the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). Their unique skill sets have managed to attract the eye of investors, who pumped $11 million into the company in 2018 alone.

Comment: Looks like Roy Moore has some serious ammunition for his inquiry.

Roy Moore sets up "election integrity fund" to prove claims of Alabama voter fraud

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Eye 2

Angela Merkel: Nation states 'must give up sovereignty'

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Fri, 28 Dec 2018 08:10 UTC
Merkel,UE,soberanía
© EFE
"Nation states must today be prepared to give up their sovereignty", according to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who told an audience in Berlin that sovereign nation states must not listen to the will of their citizens when it comes to questions of immigration, borders, or even sovereignty.

No this wasn't something Adolf Hitler said many decades ago, this is what German Chancellor Angela Merkel told attendants at an event by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Berlin. Merkel has announced she won't seek re-election in 2021 and it is clear she is attempting to push the globalist agenda to its disturbing conclusion before she stands down.

"In an orderly fashion of course," Merkel joked, attempting to lighten the mood. But Merkel has always had a tin ear for comedy and she soon launched into a dark speech condemning those in her own party who think Germany should have listened to the will of its citizens and refused to sign the controversial UN migration pact:

Comment: For globalist stooges like Macron and Merkel, who obviously take their cue from similar sources, 'Europe' is a dictatorial entity serving the trans-national elites and not the citizens of the different countries which make up Europe. But if recent events all over Europe are anything to go by, people are becoming wise to politicians of their ilk: Also check out SOTT radio's:

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Attention

Why General Flynn's case is more important than one man deserving vindication

Sara Carter
saraacarter.com
Thu, 20 Dec 2018 17:35 UTC
flynn and wife
© Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesFormer White House National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and his wife Lori Andrade leave the Prettyman Federal Courthouse following a sentencing hearing in U.S. District Court December 18, 2018 in Washington, DC.
The confusion so many Americans have about the Russia collusion investigation is not due to anyone's lack of intelligence, it's done purposefully.

It was supposed to be a simple sentencing hearing.

It didn't pan out that way for former National Security Advisor Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn and his family, who were seated in the courtroom waiting for Judge Emmet G. Sullivan to enter the chamber.
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Camera

Special Forces Vets: Trump did not expose 'covert' SEAL team in Iraq

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Thu, 27 Dec 2018 15:36 UTC
TrumpTroops
© Unknown
It's the latest outrage fail after over a week of "outrage!" including Trump's announcing the pullout of all American forces from Syria, a major reduction of troops from Afghanistan eventually leading to a full withdrawal, and his telling a seven-year old that belief in Santa is "marginal" at that age. During Trump's Wednesday surprise Christmas visit to US troops in Iraq, he posed for a photo op with a Navy SEAL team deployed to Iraq; and after flying out of Baghdad posted the video to Twitter, yet the video was uploaded before the SEAL team members' faces could be blurred out to protect their identities according to protocol.

This immediately prompted howls and headlines that Trump exposed "covert" and "classified" ops from pundits and the media; however, a number of military and special forces experts, including some members of American special forces themselves quickly pointed out this was hugely exaggerated given that SEAL team 5 - the unit Trump posed with while they wore full combat gear and night vision goggles - is a "white" unit (meaning not classified), whose deployment with Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force Iraq (CJSOTF-I) is public knowledge.

Comment: Any fake excuse for an outrage will do...the more outrageous, the better.

More from RT:
Pundits ... also attacked Trump-supporting service members.

During a surprise visit to the Al Asad Airbase in Iraq on Wednesday, Trump gave a speech to cheering troops, signed some soldiers' red Make America Great Again hats, and posed for photos and videos - including with a group in full special forces gear. He tweeted out the video after Air Force One departed Al Asad, to a destination yet unspecified.

From Iraq, Air Force One traveled to the Ramstein Air Base, the primary US military hub in Germany. While the plane refueled, Trump visited with the troops there. Reporters in the US first griped about the inhumanity of dragging troops out of bed in the middle of the night, before they saw photos and video from Ramstein of some service members waving Trump flags and MAGA hats.


Malcolm Nance, who complained about Trump supposedly doxxing the SEALs in Iraq, now demanded a House investigation into the troops in Germany.

Other journalists and commenters joined in the calls to name and shame the service members, and even prosecute them under military laws, for sporting Trump campaign merchandise.


US Air Forces Europe headquarters said on Thursday that it saw no problem with the troops' behavior during the presidential visit.

"There is no rule against Airmen bringing personal items to be signed by the president," USAFE said in a statement quoted by the military newspaper Stars & Stripes. "No policy violations have been brought to our attention at this time."


Then there were pundits and celebrities who took credit for "shaming" Trump into making the trip, even though the president was already flying over Europe when they tweeted NBC News' tepid take, and presidential trips are not embarked-on at a moment's notice.


Though Trump seems to be getting this kind of media treatment no matter what he does, Thursday's pearl-clutching seems to be an extension of last week's hysterics after he ordered the withdrawal of US troops from Syria and Afghanistan.


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X

Gov't shutdown Day 5: Politics go on as stalemate continues over border wall funding

David Jackson
USA Today
Wed, 26 Dec 2018 12:05 UTC
Red light Capitol
© Adam Jeffery/CNBC
Shutdown politics did not take a holiday this week as President Donald Trump and congressional Democrats continued to spar in a border wall funding dispute that has frozen some government operations.

The partial government shutdown entered its fifth day Wednesday. Senators could be called back to Capitol Hill on Thursday, but there was little sign over the Christmas break that serious negotiations were underway.

"It's a disgrace, what's happening in our country," Trump said in the Oval Office on Christmas morning, summing up the status of the stalemate. "But other than that, I wish everybody a very Merry Christmas."

After extending Christmas greetings to troops overseas via video conference, Trump said Democrats who oppose funding for a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border once supported the idea. Trump likened the situation to his firing of FBI Director James Comey in 2017, claiming Democrats supported that idea until he actually did it.


Comment: Update from USA Today, December 28, 2018, 6:00AM
The partial government shutdown that began last week appears all but certain to continue into the new year.

Officially, both the House and the Senate each are scheduled to reconvene Monday, New Year's Eve. But those are expected to be little more than pro forma sessions based on the sharply articulated positions both sides have taken on funding of a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

The House and Senate returned to work Thursday for the first time since Saturday but quickly adjourned after scheduling no votes, signaling once again that little, if any, progress has been made toward resolving the budget impasse that has shut down a quarter of the federal government.

White House Spokeswoman Sarah Sanders admonished Democrats for leaving town, though most Republicans, who control both chambers of Congress, were not in Washington either.

"The President and his team stayed in Washington over Christmas hoping to negotiate a deal that would stop the dangerous crisis on the border, protect American communities, and re-open the government. The Democrats decided to go home," she said in a statement. "The only rational conclusion is that the Democrat party is openly choosing to keep our government closed to protect illegal immigrants rather than the American people."

Sanders said the president "does not want the government to remain shut down, but he will not sign a proposal that does not first prioritize our county's safety and security."


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Pirates

SOTT Focus: ISIS in Ukraine: A Christmas Present to Russian Christians From Western Multiculturalists

George Galloway
RT
Thu, 27 Dec 2018 16:43 UTC
Chechen commander
© Getty ImagesChechen unit commander of the Sheikh Mansur battalion, Ukraine
Islamist Chechen fighters who honed their combat skills at Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) training camps are at war against Ukrainian rebels, confirms the Times. Tumbleweed.

The report in British newspaper the Times, that Chechen Islamists, many reeling from defeat in Syria and Iraq amongst the alphabet soup of fanaticism, had indeed arrived at the war front in eastern Ukraine, woke me up from any Christmas torpor.

An earlier report in the New York Times had revealed that the Islamist Chechens were under the command of the fascist "Right Sector" and were there to "fight Russians" because "we like fighting Russians" and "will never stop fighting Russians."

For the Times at Christmas it was enough to quote one of their commanders: "Putin is our common enemy." A quote which of course could have come from the editor of the Times!
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Attention

Three oddities to note in the FBI handling of the Flynn interview

Kevin R. Brock
The Hill
Wed, 26 Dec 2018 18:09 UTC
Michael Flynn
© Yuri Gripas/BloombergMichael Flynn
Let's get this part out of the way: Michael Flynn believes he lied to FBI agents during an interview, as well as to the vice president, and he pleaded guilty to criminal charges. He owns that; it's on him.

But while Washington and the media fixate on that aspect of the story, the recently released "302" of his interview with the FBI - the official form that agents use to summarize certain interviews - is so odd that it only helps to perpetuate perceptions that the FBI was targeting the Trump campaign, and then the Trump administration, for mostly political reasons. This aspect of the story needs more attention for the FBI's sake and, more importantly, the nation's sake.

Having authored hundreds of 302s, and run many sensitive counterintelligence investigations and operations during my bureau career, I know an FBI oddity when one wanders by.

Oddity No. 1:

Then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe personally contacted Flynn on the second full working day of the Trump administration and asked him to meet with FBI agents, a meeting that McCabe reportedly characterized as no big deal. That should have been Flynn's first red flag. The FBI doesn't do "no big deal" interviews.

Comment: The 'odds' are in Flynn's favor.

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Snakes in Suits

Giuliani: Mueller must be investigated for destroying FBI evidence

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Thu, 27 Dec 2018 10:32 UTC
Giuliani
© UnknownLegal counsel to President Trump, Rudy Giuliani
Special counsel Robert Mueller needs to be investigated for destruction of FBI evidence, President Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani said in an interview with Hill TV's John Solomon and Buck Sexton.

Referencing recent reports that Mueller's office allowed text messages from former FBI employees Peter Strzok and Lisa Page to be destroyed, Giuliani levied harsh accusations at the special counsel.

"Mueller should be investigated for destruction of evidence for allowing those text messages from Strzok to be erased, messages that would show the state of mind and tactics of his lead anti-Trump FBI agent at the start of his probe," said Giuliani.

The Inspector General of the DOJ revealed in a report this month that it found large gaps in text message records between Strzok and Page, the top FBI agents in charge of investigating both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump during the 2016 US election. Of note, the two agents harbored extreme animus against then-candidate Trump, while supporting Hillary Clinton - bias which the DOJ claims never made its way into their work.
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Star of David

By legal definition should Israeli settlers be considered civilians?

Robert Inlakesh
MintPress News
Sat, 29 Dec 2018 00:00 UTC
israeli settler gun
© Majdi Mohammed/APIsraeli Jewish settler fires gun as Palestiians protest the Prawer Plan to resettle Israel's Palestinian Bedouin minority from their villages in the Negev Desert.
It is time to pose a question: Are Israeli settlers civilians? Or are they illegal occupiers? A group of Israeli settlers made the move, to seize land in East Hebron (al-Khalil) last Monday (06/03/18), setting up camp - adjacent to the 'Kharsina settlement' - backed by an entourage of heavily armed soldiers. This move threatens three Palestinian families, with fears that they will soon be dispossessed of their land and homes. Those at risk of being cleansed and their property stolen, are the Eida, Jwihan and the al-Halawa families. The initiative to take this land came from the settlers themselves, who now occupy the 70-dunums. The settlers are living in four newly purchased caravans.

The above example clearly illustrates the way in which illegally established settlements, in the West Bank, come to their fruition.

Most people do not understand the true nature of Israel's settlers, many granting settlers the same status that regular Israelis - living within Israel's internationally accepted borders - have. The point that will be challenged in this article, is an Israeli settlers status as a "civilian".

The fact of the matter is that West Bank settlers are completely illegal. With the continuing development of West Bank settlements, Israel is currently violating several United Nations resolutions, including the latest resolution 2334, which called for the state to completely dismantle its settlements and withdraw its citizens.

Comment: Israel does not operate on universal standards, nor does it abide by UN decisions.

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Dollars

Ukraine's new deal with the IMF: First tranche may be the last

Translated by Ollie Richardson, Angelina Siard
Stalker Zone
Fri, 28 Dec 2018 12:09 UTC
Christine Lagarde
© CBCInternational Monetary Fund's Christine Lagarde
The International Monetary Fund approved a new program of cooperation with Ukraine. The incomplete Extended Fund Facility (EFF), which in 2015 was called a program of reforms of Ukraine, was terminated ahead of schedule. Instead, a rapid response program (Stand-by) came into force. It is calculated over 14 months, with a maximum possible completion term of 36 months. Before February inclusive, Ukraine will be able to receive a loan of $3.9 billion in three tranches - $1.4 billion, $1.25 billion, and $1.25 billion. In order to open a new credit line Ukraine satisfied two main conditions - raising gas prices for the population and approving the state budget for 2019 coordinated with the creditor.

The first tranche may arrive into the accounts of the National Bank of Ukraine already [very] soon. There were significantly fewer conditions for the continuation of crediting in the Stand-by program than in the EFF, however, the implementation of some of them already looks improbable. In order to receive the second tranche gas prices for the population have to be raised by 15% in May 2019, and for the third tranche - by 22.7% from January 1st, 2020. It is unlikely that the government of Vladimir Groisman or any other Prime Minister will take such a step before parliamentary elections. Thus, there is a probability that the first tranche of the Stand-by program will become the last, irrespective of the need for cheap borrowed funds.
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