Puppet MastersS


Target

Clinton probe: In response to stonewalling Trey Gowdy says Republicans will hit DOJ and FBI with 'full arsenal' to get documents

Trey Gowdy
House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy said that House Speaker Paul Ryan led a meeting with senior Justice Department and FBI officials Friday, and claimed he "made it very clear" the House will use "its full arsenal of constitutional weapons to gain compliance" on outstanding subpoenas.

Gowdy, R-S.C., said on "Fox News Sunday" that Republican lawmakers' actions could involve "the full panoply of constitutional weapons available to the people's house."

However, it was not immediately clear which subpoenas or requests Gowdy was referencing.

In March, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte subpoenaed the Justice Department to obtain documents related to the FBI's investigation of Hillary Clinton's email server, potential surveillance abuses, and the decision to fire former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.

The request totals roughly 1.2 million documents.

Comment: The political war in Washington is going full guns and has been for many months. Heads should roll for all the crap the dems and deep state have put this country through.


Roses

England fans on best behavior in Russia - Ahead of World Cup game, they pay respects to WW2 dead in Battle of Stalingrad

england fans russia WW2
James Locket (left) Harpreet Robertson (centre) and Billy Grant (right) attend a wreath laying at the Eternal Flame Monument at Mamayev Kurgan in Volgograd
England football fans have this morning laid a wreath in memory of the Soviet war dead in a ceremony to honour the two million victims of the Battle of Stalingrad.

Two supporters, James Lockett and Billy Grant, were among an official party who paid tribute at the memorial in central Volgograd today.

The ceremony took place ahead of England's opening World Cup game against Tunisia tonight at 7pm as 2,000 fans flooded into the city.

More than a dozen England fans turned out to watch the service at the city's Hall of Military Glory, in the heart of the Mamayev Kurgan memorial park commemorating the Battle of Stalingrad.

The city, named after former dictator Josef Stalin, was renamed in 1961 as part of a programme of de-stalinisation by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to try and reduce his 'cult of personality.'

Comment: Not so bad as they told you eh?

See also:

Propaganda, meet Reality: English football fans discover Russia is rather different to media portrayal


Russian Flag

Best of the Web: Propaganda, meet Reality: English football fans discover Russia is rather different to media portrayal

russia england fans
© Nicolas Asfouri / AFPEngland football fans wave flags as they arrive at the Volgograd railway station, June 18, 2018.
As thousands of English football supporters attend the FIFA World Cup, the overwhelming feedback is that Russia is far better than they expected. The British media needs to analyze its own role in this paradox.

SOCHI - Showing an incredible lack of self-awareness, the Guardian's former Moscow correspondent tweeted on Sunday: "the England fans I've met in Volgograd so far are absolutely loving it. "It's the opposite of what we expected, everyone has been amazingly welcoming. Last night was brilliant - (I/we) couldn't ask for a better start to a world cup (sic) trip".


Thus, Shaun Walker, who for many years had the privilege of interpreting Russia for the second most visited indigenous online news source in the United Kingdom (after the BBC) seems mystified by this apparent contradiction. But there's a simple explanation: British media coverage of Russia is not presenting an accurate portrayal of the country.


Vader

Dr. Kevin Barrett: US totally under the control of the most brutal faction headquartered in Tel Aviv

kevin barrett
The United States has been occupied by Israel for decades but it is now completely under the control of the most ruthless and brutal faction headquartered in Tel Aviv, says Dr. Kevin Barrett, an American academic, researcher and political analyst.

Dr. Barrett made these remarks in an interview with Press TV while commenting on a report which says the United States planning to quit the United Nation's Human Rights Council, primarily over Washington's claim that the UN's main human rights body is biased against Israel.

According to US and Western diplomats, who requested anonymity, it appears more a matter of when, not if, the pullout will happen. US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, threatened last year to pull the US from the UNHRC.

The United States could announce its decision as early as Tuesday, a US official said. The official, who was not authorized to publicly discuss the matter and requested anonymity, said it was "all but decided" that the US will pull out.

"The Trump administration is showing once again that it is completely controlled by Tel Aviv with its decision to quit the United Nations' Human Rights Council due to the UN's supposed bias against Israel," Dr. Barrett told Press TV.

Comment: See also:


Star of David

'Nothing to see here!' Ministers approve 'unconstitutional' bill to criminalize filming IDF actions

IDF soldiers
© Mussa Qawasma/ReutersIsraeli soldiers in the West Bank city of Hebron.
A controversial bill that criminalizes filming IDF soldiers has been advanced by an Israeli government committee. The Israeli Attorney General, however, said it would not withstand a constitutional review in its current form.

The Ministerial Committee for Legislation, which determines the coalition government's position on all pending bills, has green-lighted the legislation, which envisages penalties of up to five years in prison for anyone filming or publishing footage showing Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) with an aim to "harm [soldiers'] spirits." It is to be debated in the parliament this week. However, Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit said he considers the bill to be "problematic" from a legal point of view, adding that he would not be able to defend it in court.

The legislation "presents serious legal problems," Mendelblit said, in a letter he sent to the government committee, adding that it is unlikely to be upheld by the Supreme Court as it apparently contradicts Israel's basic laws in its current form.

The legislation, which was proposed in April by right-wing politicians and backed by the Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, says the sentence could be doubled to as much as 10 years if a published footage "harms the state's security."
"For many years Israel has witnessed a worrisome phenomenon in which IDF soldiers are being documented via video, stills photography and audio recordings by anti-Israeli and pro-Palestinian groups such as B'Tselem, the women of Machsom Watch, Breaking the Silence and various BDS groups,"
explanatory notes to the legislation say, listing the groups that are apparently targeted by the bill.

Comment: Israel has/creates all the means and false justifications that facilitate a fascist regime. In fostering this mindset, it has become what it despised.


Star of David

Trump's choice of envoys enable Israel's worst extremists

David Friedman
© Kikar HaShabbatUS Ambassador David Friedman
US embassy claimed Ambassador David Friedman "was not aware of the image thrust in front of him" when he was handed a doctored photograph with Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosque replaced by a Jewish Temple.

When US ambassador to Israel David Friedman received a framed photograph of the Old City of Jerusalem last month it confirmed something obvious: Donald Trump's envoys don't just support the positions of Israel's far-right government but stand even further to the right of it.

The picture showed the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa mosque photoshopped out and replaced with a Jewish temple.

In the photo, first published by the Israeli news site Kikar HaShabbat, Friedman is seen grinning from ear to ear while being presented with the framed image, just days after he presided over the US moving its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Friedman appears to be delighted at the erasure of the al-Aqsa compound, among the most monumental architecture in historic Palestine, one of the principal sites revered by Muslims all over the world and an iconic symbol of Palestinian identity and nationalism.

The doctored image represents the fantasies of followers of the Temple movement, messianic Jewish extremists who seek the destruction of the al-Aqsa compound and its replacement with a Jewish temple where they would conduct ritual animal sacrifice of around 10,000 animals at a time on Jewish holy days.

Comment: Israel - delusional, self-serving and deadly - exposes its fanatic religious underbelly of torture, persecution, assassination and massacres as its genocidal birthright.

See also: US Embassy in Israel demands apology for Israeli third temple photo stunt


Snakes in Suits

IG: McCabe used Lisa Page to bypass chain of command, monitor Clinton probe

Andrew McCabe
© Kevin Lamarque / ReutersFormer Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe
Then-Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe tasked the mistress of lead agent Peter Strzok to stay appraised of the probe into Hillary Clinton's private server - a decision that other bureau officials took issue with at the time, according to the Department of Justice Inspector General's bombshell report.

McCabe was supposed to be insulated from the probe by two levels of management: Strzok worked for counterintelligence head Bill Priestap, who worked for national security head Michael Steinbach, who reported up to McCabe. However, Strzok communicated about the probe with his mistress, Lisa Page, who worked directly for McCabe and acted as a liaison for the Clinton investigation for the deputy director.
LisaPagechart
© FBI

Comment: Circumventing the chain of command, breaching protocol, designating an information bypass of intermediary positions without Priestap's or Steinbach's knowledge so as to change the rules and control the outcome - Andrew McCabe ordered this. Page and Strzok complied. For McCabe: less filtering and oversight, less interference, more control.


Attention

Merkel embroiled in migrant row, Germans back tough policies says poll

Merkel
© Handelblatt GlobalChancellor Angela Merkel
As Chancellor Angela Merkel fights to save her government in a heated battle over immigration, an opinion poll Friday showed most Germans support the tougher line of her rebel interior minister.

The survey found that 62 percent of respondents were in favour of turning back undocumented asylum seekers at the border, in line with the stance of Interior Minister Horst Seehofer who is openly challenging Merkel. And 86 percent want faster deportations of rejected asylum seekers, a process now often held up by bureaucratic hurdles, according to the Infratest dimap poll.

The survey heightens pressure on Merkel, who has faced a backlash for allowing into Germany more than one million people fleeing war and misery in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere since 2015. The mass influx sparked the rise of the far-right and anti-Islam AfD party, which entered parliament last September.

Merkel's welcome to refugees also infuriated Seehofer and his CSU, the sister party of her Christian Democrats in the southern state of Bavaria, the main entry point for most arrivals.

In an unprecedented split between the CDU and CSU, Seehofer has openly defied Merkel with a demand to allow border police to turn back migrants who lack valid identity papers or are already registered in another EU country.

Merkel argues that Germany must not take the sudden and unilateral step of rejecting most asylum seekers at the border, which would heighten the burden for frontline countries like Italy, Greece and Spain. She has pledged instead to seek bilateral agreements with these countries and a wider solution by the EU, which holds its next summit on June 28-29.

Comment: Gates of Heaven or Gates of Hell -- all in the perspective of the observer and which side of the gate you are on. Merkel has to have surmised the border policy she fought for would have ramifications with German citizens and their representatives sooner or later.


Binoculars

Austria demands Germany own up to its alleged massive state-level spying

Logo of BND
© Hannibal Hanschke/ReutersGerman Federal Intelligence Agency
Austria has urged Berlin to "clarify" allegations of large-scale surveillance conducted by German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) in the early 2000s, following a damning report on German spying activities in Austrian media.

"There must be no such thing among friendly states," Austria's Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said, at an extraordinary press conference in Vienna on Saturday.

According to a report, published by Profil magazine on Friday, from 1999 to 2006 BND carried out surveillance operations based on some 2,000 so-called "selectors" - keywords for search, such as names, phone numbers, e-mails and others. The information on the spying activities is based on an internal BND database, provided by a German source, the report states.

Comment: Spying is a bureaucratic obsession. So far there is no cure.


Arrow Down

IG blasts Comey, says others at FBI showed 'willingness to take official action' to hurt Trump

Comey
© Getty Images/Justin SullivanFormer FBI Director James Comey
The Justice Department inspector general on Thursday castigated former FBI director James B. Comey for his actions during the Hillary Clinton email investigation and found that other senior bureau officials showed a "willingness to take official action" to prevent Donald Trump from becoming president.

The 500-page report, documenting major missteps in one of the most politically charged cases in the FBI's history, provides the most exhaustive account to date of bureau and Justice Department decision-making throughout the investigation of Clinton's use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, particularly in the months just before she would lose the presidential election to Trump.

The inspector general did not find evidence supporting assertions made by the president and his allies that political bias inside the FBI had rigged the case to clear Clinton, but the report cited numerous instances of unprofessionalism, bias and misjudgment that hurt the bureau's credibility. In particular, the report singled out lead agent Peter Strzok as showing anti-Trump bias that could have affected his thinking on the case during the immediate run-up to the 2016 election.