Puppet MastersS


Better Earth

'Thank you for your support': Putin talks to supporters as preliminary results signal election victory


RT
Sun, 18 Mar 2018 21:17 UTC
putin pre election speech 2018
© Ruptly
Vladimir Putin is making an address in his electoral campaign headquarters. Putin leads the elections with some 75.5 percent of the vote, according to preliminary results.

Vladimir Putin expressed gratitude to all his supporters and voters, stating that the election results clearly indicate that the people support his political course, despite the hard times Russia recently went through.

Speaking with the reporters at his HQ, Putin addressed the hottest political issues. The president commented on the Skripal case and the accusations the UK has raised against Russia. Putin dismissed them, stating that it was "nonsense and absurd to claim that Russia would do anything like that before the elections and the World Cup."

Russia's leader condemned the situation in Ukraine, stating that the Kiev's decision to block Russian diplomatic facilities and prevent voters from accessing polling stations was a clear violation of international laws.

Comment: From TASS:
Putin said that the voting results demonstrate people's confidence and hope for further development of the country.

"I see in this at least recognition of what has been done in the recent years in very difficult conditions - trust and hope of our people that we will work the same hard, the same responsible and more efficiently," he said.


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Pocket Knife

Liz Cheney, pack leader for torture apologists

Jake Johnson
Information Clearing House
Fri, 16 Mar 2018 00:00 UTC
Liz Cheney
© Casper Star-TribuneLeader of the Pack

As lawmakers and former intelligence officials defend Trump's CIA pick, civil libertarians argue she "should be in jail."

President Donald Trump's decision this week to nominate Gina Haspel - an intelligence official civil libertarians argue "should be in jail" for her role in the Bush administration's torture regime - as the next CIA chief has illuminated something of a spectrum of torture apologists among America's political elite.

Placing herself firmly on the far-right end of this spectrum on Tuesday was Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wy.), daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, who tweeted a proud defense of the CIA's euphemistically-named torture program at Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who argued the Senate should closely scrutinize Haspel's role in overseeing the torture of detainees at U.S. black sites overseas.


Comment: Haspel is a proven torture operative and has a reputation for enjoying the suffering of her victims. That makes her a trained psychopath with a license to kill. A sick choice by Trump. Maybe LC would think differently if she witnessed the torture in person...then, again, as she is her father's daughter, maybe not. See also:

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Heart - Black

Salon: Hillary's right about 'backward' country bumpkins who didn't vote for her

Matt Vespa
Townhall
Fri, 16 Mar 2018 01:59 UTC
Killary
© UnknownTrashing American voters? Really, no one but Hillary is falling for it!
Of course, there were going to be a few people who thought Hillary Clinton's remarks in India about the voters and states who didn't vote for her was right. Over there, Hillary trashed American voters, saying that
Middle America was a bastion of "backwards" folks who can't stand black people having rights, littered with white married women enslaved to their husbands, and oozing with misogyny. She called Trump voters deplorable without saying the word.
Of course, she's wrong. And the notion that she has to revert back to this failed line of attack just shows, among the many reasons, why she lost the election.

That's the line: I can't convince these people, so I guess they're all racists, sexists, and misogynists. Yeah, that's expert messaging right there. Maybe this rural revolt was partially your party's doing, relegating large swaths of the country as insignificant. Some of that has to do with the fact that these areas have become decidedly and unshakably Republican, but there's another reason. Democrats shun rural voters as country bumpkins, a lesser form of human due to their more socially conservative slant, support for gun rights, pro-life tendencies, and cultural divergence from the far left Democratic base. They hate these people.


Comment: She came, she saw, she lied.

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Post-It Note

Political war in America: Fired FBI chief McCabe gave Mueller his memos on Trump


RT
Sun, 18 Mar 2018 04:49 UTC
McCabe
© ReutersAndrew McCabe
Andrew McCabe, the freshly-fired ex-FBI deputy director, reportedly kept track of his interactions with US President Donald Trump and handed over his notes to "Russia collusion" probe chief FBI Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

McCabe's alleged accounts of his personal meetings with Trump are believed to be similar in nature to what former FBI Director James Comey admitted to leaking to the media through a friend last May. Comey's notes prompted the start of Robert Mueller's investigation into the "Trump-Russia" collusion that Trump's opponents are pinning their impeachment hopes on.

CNN, citing a person with the knowledge of the matter, reported that McCabe not only submitted his notes to the office of the special counsel, but he has already been interviewed by Mueller's team. It's not clear when the interview took place, however.

Comment: At this point, how accurate and how important are McCabe's recollections, surfacing mid-stream, in this search for a red herring (any red herring!) on which to tank an administration and annihilate a country?

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Question

Manafort's 'motion to dismiss' might help General Flynn

Robert Barnes
Law & Crime
Thu, 15 Mar 2018 04:15 UTC
Gen Flynn
© Fox NewsGeneral Michael Flynn
The Constitutional Appointments Clause (found in Article II, Section 2, clause 2) was designed to prevent a Robert Mueller-type prosecutor - a prosecutor with all the powers of the executive branch and all the powers of the grand jury at his disposal who is: 1) not elected by the public, 2) not appointed by anyone who was elected by the public, and 3) not directly accountable for his actions to anyone who was elected by the public. In other words, the Appointments Clause is about protecting democracy and insuring civil liberty. The Appointments Clause does not give unfettered prosecutorial discretion to what the law calls "inferior officers" - those never elected, never appointed by elected officials, and never accountable to elected officials.

Thus, in my opinion, Manafort's legal position in his motion to dismiss the Mueller indictments is constitutionally correct - the Special Counsel's behavior makes Mueller's appointment and actions unconstitutional, in violation of the Appointments Clause of the United States Constitution. Dismissal of both the Manafort and Flynn indictments would be the right remedy. The end of Mueller's tenure should soon follow.

Comment: If this argument holds water, why has it not been called into play? Anyone following the news understands Mueller is, shall we conservatively say, 'reaching' for evidence under any rock, stone or pebble - no matter how far flung.

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Snakes in Suits

Rand Paul says it's time for a new American foreign policy

Rand Paul
The National Interest
Mon, 12 Mar 2018 00:00 UTC
SenatorRandPaul
© Reuters/Joshua RobertsSenator Rand Paul (R/KY)
What kind of job can you have where you are consistently wrong, yet get to still go on TV talking endlessly and making more wild predictions that will no doubt lead to the same failed result?

If you guessed "TV Weatherman" you're close...but the job I'm referring to is "Neocon Foreign Policy Expert" Being a neocon means never having to say you're sorry, even trillions of dollars and decades into doomed wars.

Iraq

Famously, the neocons have told us that we would be greeted as liberators in Iraq. The thousands of American soldiers killed or wounded might argue otherwise. The architects of the Iraq war forgot to tell us that it would embolden Iran and give Iran a new ally in the 'liberated' Shia majority in Iraq. They forgot to tell us that it would tip the balance of power in the Middle East and encourage Saudi Arabia to go on a military buying spree and become the third largest purchasers of weapons in the world.

Libya

The neocons told us that the Arab Spring would bring Western-style democracy to the Middle East. They told us toppling Muammar el-Qaddafi would bring freedom and stability. They were wrong and instead of stability the overthrow of Qaddafi brought chaos. They failed to understand that the chaos of Libya would become a breeding ground for terrorism.

Comment: It will be a toasty day in hades when neocons give up their mania for conquest and relinquish their ring side seat at the shredding of yet another country in the name of liberty and democracy. They obviously have never learned what those concepts truly mean. And, yeah, it's destroying America from the inside out. (Isn't that their real intention? No one left standing?)

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Top Secret

John Helmer: The Blood Libel of the British Government (SIC)

John Helmer
Dance with Bears
Sun, 18 Mar 2018 00:00 UTC
The Sunday Times 'Blood Libel' Cartoon
© by The Commentator on 28 January 2013-17-39
Prime Minister Theresa May committed a blood libel against Russians in the House of Commons last week. This was the allegation that the Russian state and all Russians are murderers.

May has subsequently asked the Foreign Secretary and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to correct the record by charging that only one Russian, President Vladimir Putin, is a murderer.

The Canadian Government was also requested by the British to urgently correct the record May has been making in refusing to allow the international rules of the Chemical Weapons Convention to decide what happened in the poison attack in Salisbury on March 4. According to the new Canadian statement, coordinated with the British, the international convention can be suspended by Prime Minister May in order to make her blood libel stick.
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SOTT Logo Radio

SOTT Focus: Behind the Headlines: Doing Putin's 'Dirty Work': Barmy British Incite War With Russia


Sott.net
Sun, 18 Mar 2018 17:00 UTC
Theresa May vial
Vial woman
The strange case of Sergei Skripal began two weeks ago when this former Russian intelligence officer, along with his 33-year-old daughter Yulia, were found unconscious on a public bench in Salisbury, southern England. Fortuitously for them, the people who first found them were a passing doctor and nurse. Their current location is unknown, although British authorities report that they are alive and in a 'stable condition'.

An international scandal has erupted in the meantime, with the British government accusing its Russian counterpart of conducting a chemical weapon attack on its soil. Emergency UN Security Council meetings, more anti-Russia sanctions and other punitive measures have been undertaken by the British government, with varying degrees of support from fellow NATO member-states.

The political climate of anti-Russia hysteria, which was already tense, continues its parabolic curve towards... well, towards what? War? Anyone would be forgiven for thinking so, but with the Russian presidential election taking place today, and the football World Cup coming up in Russia this summer, the more likely impetus for these shrill histrionics stem from a powerful impetus to 'de-legitimize' Putin's government and isolate Russia internationally.

Join us on Behind the Headlines this Sunday 18 March 2018 - from 5-7pm UTC / 6-8pm CET / 1-3pm EST - for some truth antidote to the British terror tactics.

Running Time: 01:30:58


Download: MP3

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Camera

Liberation in sight: Bashar Assad photographed in Eastern Ghouta


Sputnik
Sun, 18 Mar 2018 16:35 UTC
Bashar al-Assad visited army positions in the Eastern Ghouta
© SantaKlaus / Twitter
According to a report by the Syrian state news agency SANA, President Bashar al-Assad visited army positions in the Eastern Ghouta suburb of Damascus.

"In the line of fire in Eastern Ghouta... President Assad with heroes of the Syrian Arab Army," the president's Telegram account said.

Pictures showing the Syrian president surrounded by men in military clothing along damaged buildings with several parked tanks in liberated from terrorists areas of Eastern Ghouta quickly spread across social media.

According to the Syrian army command, government troops had already liberated 70 percent of Eastern Ghouta's territory, which has been under terrorists' control since 2012.
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Dollars

US splurging more cash on Balkans arms for Syria

Lawrence Marzouk, Ivan Angelovski, Juliana Ruhfus, Jelena Cosic
BalkanInsight
Thu, 15 Mar 2018 16:08 UTC
Belgrade Airport
© BIRNBelgrade Airport
The Pentagon is planning to spend $162.5 million on weapons, ammunition and other equipment in 2019 to arm Syrian forces fighting Islamic State, ISIS, a recently released budget report reveals.

The amount comes on top of the $2.2 billion already designated by the US for arms to Syrian fighters [and other Pentagon-backed groups] from former Eastern Bloc countries - which BIRN revealed in investigation in September last year.

The operation of arming Syrian rebels already on the ground with former Eastern Bloc arms and ammunition, known as the Syria Train and Equip program, has drawn almost entirely from the Balkans and Central Europe to date, a trend that is likely to continue throughout 2018 and 2019.
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