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Mexico's President-elect will cut own salary by 60% in effort to finance health social programs


TeleSUR
Wed, 18 Jul 2018 04:53 UTC
Andrés Manuel López Obrador
Andrés Manuel López Obrador, President of Mexico
It's part of the president-elect's "republican austerity" plan aimed to finance health, education, and other social programs.

Mexico's president-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced he will cut his own salary by 60 percent once he is sworn in.

After a meeting with his future cabinet, Lopez Obrador told the press that the country's president earns about US$14,270 a month, according to the treasury department. "I will earn 108,000 pesos a month [about US$5,700], 40 percent of what president Peña currently gets. I choose to earn less than half, complying with my promise," he said.

Comment: Also see: Who is López Obrador? Mexico's AMLO, Trump and the error of comparison

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X

The FBI and DOJ as Praetorian Guard: The beginning of the end

LV
Investment Watch Blog
Mon, 16 Jul 2018 00:01 UTC
Augustus
After Caesar Augustus gained complete control in 27 B.C. and became the first Roman Emperor, he established the Praetorian Guard for his personal protection. Over the next three centuries, the Guard exploited its nexus to the seat of power for its own interest and aggrandizement. Most notably, the Praetorians schemed and interfered with Roman politics to the point of overthrowing emperors and proclaiming their successors.

In 193 A.D., Emperor Septimius Severus tried to disband the Praetorian Guard, but his reorganization of the Guard did not last as it regained power after his death. In 306 A.D., amidst turmoil among a tetrarchy of Roman emperors, the Praetorians turned to Maxentius and proclaimed him their emperor. In 312 A.D., Constantine the Great defeated Maxentius at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge to gain control of the Western Roman Empire. After the death of Maxentius at the battle, Constantine put an end to the Praetorian Guard by destroying their barracks and dispatching their soldiers to the outskirts of the Roman Empire.

Comment: See also:

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Dollar

Soros-linked nonprofit led by Clinton & Obama alum spending millions to "stop" Kavanaugh's confirmation

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Mon, 16 Jul 2018 07:57 UTC
george soros and friends
Today's edition of "George Soros Meddles" is brought to you by ten-week-old political advocacy group Demand Justice - a Soros-linked organization which has pledged $5 million towards a "multi-platform" campaign to stop Judge Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation to the US Supreme Court.

Headed by former Clinton campaign press secretary Brian Fallon and longtime Obama aide Christopher Kang as chief counsel, Demand Justice was created and financed by nonprofit organization the "Sixteen Thirty Fund," which has received millions from the Open Society Policy Center (OSPC), according to the Daily Caller's Kevin Daley and Andrew Kerr.

As we reported two weeks ago, Demand Justice intends to fight "Trump's hateful vision for America" by opposing his Judicial picks across the country - including the Supreme Court.

Comment: See also:

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Bullseye

SOTT Focus: Joe Quinn on Sputnik: 'They're Not Really Fighting Against Russia, But Against Reality Itself'


Sputnik
Tue, 17 Jul 2018 21:41 UTC
putin trump summit
A Russian national has been charged in Washington accused of being an agent of the Russian Federation at the same time as Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin were meeting in Helsinki, a summit that has angered American politicians.

Maria Butina was charged Monday by the US Department of Justice with conspiring to act as an agent of the Russian Federation within the United States, a criminal allegation that may be designed to draw attention away from Monday's meeting between the US and Russian heads of state.

The charges are not related to the Mueller probe that is examining alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election. She allegedly worked at the direction of a high-level Kremlin official. Sputnik spoke to political commentator Joe Quinn about the fallout from the Putin/Trump summit.

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War Whore

Gov. Mike Huckabee drops the MOAB on Hillary Clinton after she questions Trump's loyalty


teaparty.org
Mon, 16 Jul 2018 08:15 UTC
Mike Huckabee
As TGP's Kristinn Taylor reported, sore loser Hillary Clinton still cannot get over being defeated by Donald Trump for the presidency nearly two years ago now. Sunday night, on the eve of President Trump's summit in Finland with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Clinton trolled Trump on Twitter, questioning his loyalty to the Unites States.

Hillary had the nerve to tweet this after she paid millions of dollars for a fake Russia dossier and sold 20% of our Uranium to Russia in exchange for $150 million to the Clinton Foundation.

Hillary tweeted, "Great World Cup. Question for President Trump as he meets Putin: Do you know which team you play for?"

Comment: See also:

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Megaphone

Bombshell revelation! Russian woman charged with being a lobbyist in Washington, DC

Michael Isikoff
Yahoo News
Tue, 17 Jul 2018 19:37 UTC
Maria Butina
Maria Butina
A Russian gun-rights activist who developed close relations with leaders of the National Rifle Association as well as conservative activists working with Donald Trump's presidential campaign was arraigned Monday on charges she conspired to influence American politics on behalf of the Russian government.

Maria Butina, 29, who founded the Russian gun group "The Right to Bear Arms" and worked as the executive assistant to a top official of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, was arrested Sunday by the FBI in Washington, D.C., where she had been living. The charges allege that she visited the United States in 2015 and 2016 for the purposes of acting "as an agent" of the Russia, according to a criminal complaint released by the U.S. Justice Department on Monday afternoon, a few hours after President Trump and Russian President Putin met in Helsinki.


Comment: What fortuitous timing for the so-called 'Russian collusion investigation' (witch-hunt).


Butina conspired to "exploit personal connections" with U.S. political figures and to "infiltrate organizations active in U.S. politics" and establish "back channel lines of communication" in an effort to advance Russian government interests, the complaint charges.


Comment: 'Back channel lines'... are they connected to the Dark Web?


Comment: So the facts are that a young woman who is a lobbyist in Washington, DC has been arrested/probed/whatever for... being a lobbyist in Washington, DC.

Oh, and she's Russian, so that makes it bad.

Pay no heed to the thousands of lobbyists peddling influence at the Heart of the Empire from countries the world over.

Just know that when Russians do it, it's bad. Real bad.

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Wine n Glass

SOTT Focus: For the Western Establishment, Detente is Bad and Cold War is Good

Craig Murray
craigmurray.org.uk
Tue, 17 Jul 2018 14:30 UTC
trump putin
The entire "liberal" media and political establishment of the Western world reveals its militarist, authoritarian soul today with the screaming and hysterical attacks on the very prospect of detente with Russia. Peace apparently is a terrible thing; a renewed arms race, with quite literally trillions of dollars pumped into the military industrial complex and hundreds of thousands dying in proxy wars, is apparently the "liberal" stance.

Political memories are short, but just 15 years after Iraq was destroyed and the chain reaction sent most of the Arab world back to the dark ages, it is now "treason" to question the word of the Western intelligence agencies, which deliberately and knowingly produced a fabric of lies on Iraqi WMD to justify that destruction.

It would be more rational for it to be treason for leaders to blindly accept the word of the intelligence services.

Comment: Exactly. See also:

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Light Saber

Putin deals blow to Deep State, says Mueller's indictment of Concord Management is for the courts to settle

Joe Hoft
Gateway Pundit
Mon, 16 Jul 2018 15:23 UTC
Trump Putin summit
© Kevin Lamarque/ReutersPresident Donald Trump and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin shake hands as they meet in Helsinki, Finland, July 16, 2018.
Russian President Putin today in his press conference with President Donald Trump destroyed the Mueller investigation. He pointed out numerous items, including that he provided the US information on the Russian company Mueller indicted, Concord Management, and that the courts should decide the fate of the Mueller investigation and not the Deep State.
I'd like to add something to this. After all I was an intelligence officer myself. And I do know how dossiers are made up. Just a second. That's the first thing.

Now the second thing. I believe that Russia is a democratic state and I hope you're not denying this right to your own country. You're not denying that the United States a democracy. Do you believe the United States is a democracy? And if so, if it is a democratic state then the final conclusion in this kind of dispute can only be levered by trial, by the court, not by the, executed by the law enforcement.

For instance the Concord Company that was brought up is being accused of interference but this company does not constitute the Russian state and does not represent the Russian state and I brought several examples before. Well, you have a lot of individuals in the United States, take George Soros for instance, with multi billion capitals but it doesn't make him, his position, his posture, the posture of the United States. No it does not. Well it's the same case. There is the issue of trying a case in the court and the final say is for the court to deliver. We're now talking about the individuals and not about particular states.

Comment: See also:

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Attention

Not again! 'Summitgate' and the campaign vs. 'peace'

Stephen F. Cohen
The Nation
Wed, 11 Jul 2018 00:00 UTC
PutinTrump handshake
© alliance/Sputnik/S. Guneev
Not surprisingly, Trump's meetings with NATO and Putin are being portrayed as ominous events by Russiagaters.

Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at NYU and Princeton, and John Batchelor continue their (usually) weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War.

As Cohen pointed out in previous discussions, US-Russian (Soviet and post-Soviet) summits are a long tradition going back to FDR's wartime meeting with Stalin in Tehran in 1943. Every American president since FDR met with a Kremlin leader in a summit-style format at least once, several doing so multiple times. The purpose was always to resolve conflicts and enhance cooperation in relations between the two countries. Some summits succeeded, some did not, but all were thought to be an essential aspect of White House-Kremlin relations.

As a rule, American presidents have departed for summits with bipartisan support and well-wishes. Trump's upcoming meeting with Russian President Putin, in Helsinki on July 16, is profoundly different in two respects. US-Russian relations have rarely, if ever, been more dangerous. And never before has a president's departure - in Trump's case, first for a NATO summit and then the one with Putin - been accompanied by allegations that he is disloyal to the United States and thus cannot be trusted, defamations once issued only by extremist fringe elements in American politics. Now, however, we are told this daily by mainstream publications, broadcasts, and "think tanks." According to a representative of the Clintons' Center for American Progress, "Trump is going to sell out America and its allies." The New York Times and The Washington Post also feature "experts" - they are chosen accordingly - who "worry" and "fear" that Trump and Putin "will get along." The Times of London, a bastion of Russophobic Cold War advocacy, captures the mainstream perspective in a single headline: "Fears Grow Over Prospect of Trump 'Peace Deal' with Putin."

Comment: Cohen offers an informative dissect of the political climate in the US where an extremist mindset has overtaken mainstream, as in those who vengefully need to be 'right' at all costs including going to war over coming to peace.

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Nuke

Israel briefs US media on an Iranian archive heist by Mossad agents


RT
Mon, 16 Jul 2018 11:19 UTC
Iranian file warehouse
© CNN/youtube.comThe Mossad raided this Iranian building to steal alleged nuclear weapons program documents.
Leading US media have reported new details about a Mossad operation to break into an archive of nuclear-related documents in Iran, which the Israeli PM showcased in April as proof of Iran's evil intentions.

The two articles published on Sunday by the New York Times and the Washington Post, both of which contain over 2,000 words, offer new details of the Mossad operation. The mission had previously been reported when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was pushing the Trump administration to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. Israeli officials briefed the two newspapers last week on the details of the operation and handed over some of the documents stolen by Israeli agents from the Iranian warehouse.

According to the NYT report, the Mossad operation on January 31 was made possible by the fact that the building was not guarded overnight. Iran had used the facility to store documents relating to its nuclear research since the 2015 deal was signed.

Israeli agents used a seven-hour window to disable alarms, break through two doors, and cut open 32 pre-selected Iranian-made safes with blowtorches to steal materials weighing half a ton. The report says the Israelis knew which safes to crack and which not to, implying that they had help on the inside. The operation was compared to the Ocean's Eleven heist film by Israeli officials.

Comment: Were the warehouse and contents legit or something else? Giving credit to the legendary Mossad for its clandestine expertise, the idea that it filmed this set-up for two years (see below) and knew exactly what archives to capture, could just as easily have been a grand con job set up by Israel with actors and props - a facility Iran knew nothing about. Or, as Israel insists, the real deal - revealed at the most effective and self-serving time.

From the New York Times:
6 Hours, 29 Minutes: The Mossad mission took place on the night of January 31, with the agents arriving at the archive's site about 10:30pm. Iranian guards were scheduled to arrive at their posts at 7am and the agents were warned to complete their mission before 5am. When they made their exit, they were carrying some 50,000 pages and 163 CDs detailing the Iranian nuclear plans. They no doubt had inside help. They knew the workings of the alarm system and exactly which safes to target.

The archive captures the program at a moment in time - a moment 15 years ago, before tensions accelerated, before the United States and Israel attacked Iran's nuclear centrifuges with a cyberweapon, before an additional underground enrichment center was built and discovered.

The warehouse the Israelis penetrated was put into use only after the 2015 accord was reached with the United States, European powers, Russia and China. That pact granted broad rights to the International Atomic Energy Agency to visit suspected nuclear sites, including on military bases.

So the Iranians, Israeli officials said in interviews, systematically went about collecting thousands of pages spread around the country documenting how to build a weapon, how to fit it on a missile and how to detonate it. They consolidated them at the warehouse, in a commercial district with no past relationship to the nuclear program, and far from the declared archives of the Ministry of Defense. There were no round-the-clock guards or anything else that would tip off neighbors, or spies, that something unusual was happening there.

What the Iranians did not know was that the Mossad was documenting the collection effort, filming the moves for two years, since the relocation began in February 2016.


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