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Magic Wand

James Clapper denies FBI was spying on Trump team, then says it was a good thing they were doing so

James Clapper
James Clapper, CNN Contributor, former Director of National Intelligence
Obama's former DNI Chief James Clapper said Thursday evening on CNN it's a good thing the Deep State FBI was spying on Trump's camp.

Now of course this is after he initially denied the Intelligence Community was spying on Donald Trump.

The Deep State liars have gone from denial to celebrating the illegal spying.

While speaking to Clapper, CNN's Don Lemon referenced the NY Times article which revealed the FBI embedded at least one spy in Trump's camp during the 2016 election.

Clapper the leaker immediately went into spin mode and brought up those pesky Russians.

"They may have had someone who was talking to them in the campaign, but, you know, the focus here is not on the campaign, per se, but what the Russians were doing," Clapper said.

Right, the Russians were the focus, not American citizens...

Comment: Clapper is a liar.


Info

Netherlands ready to expand ties with Iranian petchem companies

Chemical plant
Chemical plant
Dutch as well as other European companies are interested in working with Iranian businesses and transferring technology to them, Siavoush Shojaee, director for Regional Sales at Control Seal, a Netherlands-based valve manufacturer, told NIPNA.

"We are planning to take steps in the long run to bring technology forward through formation of a joint venture with Iranian companies," Shojaee said.

Talking about the company's activities, he said Control Seal is active in the production of special valves, such as high temperature valves for downstream and petrochemical industries.

Comment: Iran's Petroleum Minister Bijan Zangeneh said on Saturday that visiting EU Climate Action and Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete has conveyed the European Union's message of Support for Iran nuclear deal.
He said that during today's meeting, they reviewed issues earlier discussed between Iran's foreign minister and his counterparts from three European countries - Britain, France and Germany.

The meeting was a joint effort to find ways to resolve oil, petrochemical and oil products issues Iran is facing, Zangeneh said.



Propaganda

Lying NYT says "Russian collusion" scandal worse than Watergate - ignores US govt's conspiracy to tamper with its own election

brennan
When historians of the future finish their meal of rat à la moutarde at the campfire, and pass around the battered plastic jug of wild raisin wine, they will kick back and hear the griot sing of John Brennan, the fabled chief of an ancient order called the CIA, and how he started the monkey business aimed at bringing down the wicked Golden Golem of Greatness, chief of chiefs in the land once known as America. Alas, the hero's journey of Brennan, ends in a jail cell at the storied Allenwood Federal Penitentiary, where he slowly pined away between games of ping-pong and knock-hockey, dreaming of a cable network retirement package that never was....

One gets the feeling more and more that Mr. Brennan is at the center of this ever-mushrooming matrix of scandals around the 2016 election. "Bigger Than Watergate?" the headline in today's New York Times asks? The mendacity of this once-proud newspaper is really something to behold. Take the following paragraph, for instance:
"Depending on what is eventually proven, the core scandal could rival Watergate, in which a "third-rate burglary" of Democratic National Committee headquarters ultimately revealed a wide-ranging campaign of political sabotage and spying to influence the 1972 presidential election and undercut perceived rivals. In the current case, a hostile foreign power sought to sway the 2016 election and there is evidence that at least some people in Mr. Trump's circle were willing to collaborate with it to do so."
You have to really wonder how the Times editors overlooked the other relevant details in the current case pertaining to goings-on initiated by Mr. Brennan and involving obviously criminal misbehavior among the US Intelligence services, and especially the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in their effort to un-do the election that put the Trump creature in the White House instead of the enchantress known as Hillary. I did like the trope "a hostile foreign power." Apparently they were too embarrassed to just say "Russia," since by now it has become the most threadbare hobgoblin in all of US political history.

Jet5

Syrian military: Israeli warplanes increase flights over Syrian-Lebanese border amid fears of another big strike

Israeli F-16 fighter jet
Israeli F-16 fighter jet
Israeli warplanes were once again seen stalking the Syrian-Lebanese border just two weeks after launching their largest assault on Damascus since the 1973 October War (var. Yom Kippur War, Ramadan War).

According to a Syrian military report, the Israeli warplanes began their flights in southern Lebanon near the town of Marjeyoun before they made their way towards the Syrian border.

In addition to their flights over these areas, an Israeli warplane was seen above the Lebanese capital of Beirut.

Bad Guys

Washington: Can't beat Assad, so let's punish his people

Syria
© Sana Sana / Reuters
The bombs continue to fall over Syria to the consternation of all concerned. Syrian president Bashar al-Assad warns of a conflict on Syrian soil that will embroil Israel, Iran, and Russia. "Things," he says, "could spin out of control."

The escalating violence between Iran and Israel in recent days is clear evidence of a new post-"Assad must go" phase in Syria's ongoing misery.

One might have thought that after losing the war for regime change in Syria, Washington would undertake a soul-searching review of the spurious assumptions and myriad other problems that produced the ongoing debacle. One might have thought they would at least try to work out a post-war policy for Syria that puts right the incredible damage done to that country and its long-suffering citizens.

Instead, the U.S. is doubling down on its failed campaign against Assad, mobilizing an international coalition to deny him and, more importantly, the Syrian people the tools to rebuild. The weapons in this battle are not F-15s or mortars but aid for reconstruction, international finance for the rehabilitation of Syria's public and private infrastructure, and a crushing sanctions regime meant to sabotage the ability of Assad's Syria and its decimated private sector to emerge from the ashes. To top it off, there's been a feeble if expensive effort to create, with the support of Washington's "friends of Syria," something different in the eastern parts of the country currently outside the regime's control.

Comment: How dare Syrians overwhelmingly support and illegitimately vote for Assad to be their leader. It is unacceptable. Therefore, it makes sense that they should be punished. They made the wrong choice.


Bad Guys

US attempts to smear Venezuela's Maduro ahead of 'fake' elections by accusing him of drug profiteering

Nicolas Maduro sitting together with Diosdado Cabello
© ReutersNicolas Maduro sitting together with Diosdado Cabello
The US has criticized the upcoming Venezuelan elections as 'fake,' and rushed to support 'democracy' by slapping a top ruling-party member with new sanctions and accusing President Nicolas Maduro of drug-trade profiteering.

The "second most powerful man in Venezuela," Diosdado Cabello, immediately brushed aside the accusations and new US sanctions introduced against him for allegedly heading a drug ring. He said such slander would only strengthen the ruling party's candidate, Maduro, to win Sunday's elections.

"In truth I feel liberated, that imperialism is busy persecuting this humble soldier and his family, strengthens me, forces me every day to continue fighting for the causes that I believe and to be faithful and loyal to our beloved people," Cabello, who is vice president of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), said in a tweet after the US Treasury slapped him - as well as two members of his family, and his "front man" - with sanctions ahead of the election.

Comment: And yet the US accuses Russia of election 'interference':


Gear

Enough is enough: German AfD party sues Merkel amid open-door policy toward migrants

German Chancellor Angela Merkel
© AP Photo / Michael KappelerGerman Chancellor Angela Merkel attends a plenary session of German parliament Bundestag in Berlin, Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2017
The party claims that the federal government had excluded the Bundestag from the decision-making process, which could be considered a violation of the country's constitution.

The German right-wing party "Alternative for Germany" (AfD) has filed a complaint against German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the German Die Zeit newspaper reported, referring to AfD's lawyer Stefan Brandner.

The complaint was submitted to the Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe in connection with the government's migration policy, which AfD has repeatedly criticized.

Comment: See also:


Bulb

Trump's great plan for Iran: Put terrorists in charge

Giuliani
© Jabin Botsford / The Washington Post via Getty ImagesIn mid April 2018, Giuliani joined President Trump's legal team
Back in the 2008 presidential race, I explained to then-candidate Rudy Giuliani the concept of "blowback." Years of US meddling and military occupation of parts of the Middle East motivated a group of terrorists to carry out attacks against the United States on 9/11. They didn't do it because we are so rich and so free, as the neocons would have us believe. They came over here because we had been killing Muslims "over there" for decades.

How do we know this? Well, they told us. Osama bin Laden made it clear why al-Qaeda sought to attack the US. They didn't like the US taking sides in the Israel-Palestine conflict and they didn't like US troops on their holy land.

Why believe a terrorist, some responded. As I explained to Giuliani ten years ago, the concept of "blowback" is well-known in the US intelligence community and particularly by the CIA.

Unfortunately, it is clear that Giuliani never really understood what I was trying to tell him. Like the rest of the neocons, he either doesn't get it or doesn't want to get it. In a recent speech to the MeK - a violent Islamist-Marxist cult that spent two decades on the US terror watch list - Giuliani promised that the Trump Administration had made "regime change" a priority for Iran. He even told the members of that organization - an organization that has killed dozens of Americans - that Trump would put them in charge of Iran!

Comment: The problem with "interventionistas", as Nassim Nicholas Taleb calls them, is that they have no skin in the game. They don't have to pay any consequences if they're wrong. So when they are inevitably wrong, and their simplistic delusions fail, they are free to try them again, and again, and again.

More on MEK:


Question

Trying to make sense of Russian political ambiguities

Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin
Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin
Introduction: the world is not Hollywood

The past couple of weeks saw a number of truly tectonic events taking place simultaneously in the US, in Russia, in Israel, in Syria, in Iran and in the EU. I think that it would also be reasonable to say that most of those who opposed the AngloZionist Empire have felt feelings ranging from mild disappointment to total dismay. I sure did not hear many people rejoicing, but if somebody was, they were in the minority (uncharacteristically, Mikhail Khazin, for example). These reactions are normal, we all form expectations which can be, and often are, disappointed. Still, even when the news is clearly bad it is helpful to keep a number of things in mind.

First, people, countries and events are not frozen in time. They are processes. Processes, by definition, are subject to change, evolution and (even radical) changes in direction.

Second, each process carries within itself the seeds of its own contradiction. This is what makes processes dynamic.

Stop

No democracy for you: Canada bans Venezuelan expats from voting in election

venezuela flag
© Reuters
"Who is preventing here the right to suffrage and to vote?" said Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza.

Canada is prohibiting its Venezuelan immigrants from voting in the coming May 20 presidential elections, Bolivarian Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza said during a press conference Wednesday.

Canadian authorities said they will not allow Venezuelan embassies or consulates in the cities of Toronto, Ottawa or Vancouver to install polling stations.

"They denounce that there is a dictatorship in Venezuela, but who is denying the right to vote? Only dictatorship countries do not allow citizens to exercise their right to vote, so I ask if Venezuela - according to some world nations - is a dictatorship, how is it that today Canada intends to curtail the right to vote of Venezuelans?

"Who is preventing here the right to suffrage and to vote, the government of Venezuela or the government of Canada?" Arreaza said.