Puppet MastersS


Bulb

Russian businessman flees UK - says British secret services are the real threat, not Russia

Will Stewart
UK Mirror
Fri, 23 Mar 2018 20:51 UTC
Sergey Kapchuk
© TV Rain / east2west newsKapchuk said he believed British intelligence were planning something
A Russian businessman who claimed he was 'marked for death' by Vladimir Putin in London has fled the UK - claiming the real threat to his life comes from British secret services.

Sergey Kapchuk, 45, filmed last week flanked by two bodyguards, says he is now in hiding in fear of his life somewhere in Europe.

He earlier claimed that he had moved from number 12 to 11 on the alleged hit list after the death of fellow London-based oligarch Nikolai Glushkov this month.


Comment: In other words, Kapchuk appears to be just another self-absorbed, sensationalist, opportunistic con man. Or at least, that's the way he is presented in the media, which makes his image a perfect fit for helping sell the UK's anti-Putin agenda. That said, it looks like the "hit list" wasn't written up by Putin, but by MI5. Russian defectors can only be so helpful in life, but in death they can do one last service for Her Majesty The Queen.


Kapchuk announced last week he had cancelled plans to be among a group of exiled Russians planning to return to Moscow after getting assurances from Putin's government that they would not be prosecuted.

Now in a dramatic interview with a pro-Kremlin newspaper he said: "Honestly today I would feel safer in Russia."

Explaining his U-turn, he said: "I understood that I ams not of interest either for the FSB, nor for Russian (foreign) intelligence. And the British secret service might organise some sort of provocation, in my opinion. So I did not wait for it. I simply packed my things and immediately left the country. I am in continental Europe now."

Comment: Whether or not Kapchuk is sincere, he's probably very close to the truth.

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Info

What the Starr investigations of Bill Clinton can tell us about Mueller's probe


The Week
Sun, 25 Mar 2018 00:01 UTC
Ken Starr
© AP Photo/Doug Mills

How did Ken Starr's investigation into President Clinton resemble - and differ from - the ongoing Mueller investigation? Here's everything you need to know:

Why was Clinton investigated?

It began over the Whitewater scandal, a long-running controversy concerning a failed 1978 land deal in Arkansas. The Clintons' business partner in that project defrauded a small savings association and an investment firm, and some of the parties involved charged that the president and his wife had benefited from the fraud. In January 1994, Attorney General Janet Reno appointed Robert Fiske as a special prosecutor to investigate the Clintons' involvement. Seven months later, however, a Republican-leaning panel of judges dismissed Fiske - on the basis that his appointment by Clinton's attorney general represented a conflict of interest - and appointed Ken Starr as an independent counsel, reporting to Congress, not to the Justice Department. Starr, who had served as solicitor general under President George H.W. Bush, was a staunch Republican. Clinton loyalists immediately cried foul, denouncing the probe as "tainted" and a partisan "witch hunt." "This will last as long as [Clinton is] president and beyond," warned White House Counsel Bernard Nussbaum. "They'll be investigating things years from now that we haven't even dreamed about today."

Comment: Parallels can certainly be drawn between the two cases, but it remains to be seen whether or not Trump escapes the whole affair unscathed, as did Slick Willy before him.

See also:

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Biohazard

British accusations against Russia for Skripal poisoning not only unproven, but absurd!

Tom Stanford
The Duran
Sat, 24 Mar 2018 19:42 UTC
Boris Johnson
© Gustavo Valiente / Global Look Press
The British government claims to have overwhelming evidence of Russia's responsibility in the Salisbury poison attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter. In his Washington Post article of March 14, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson went so far as to claim that there was "only [one] plausible conclusion: that the Russian state attempted murder in a British city, employing a lethal nerve agent banned under the Chemical Weapons Convention". He even connected this with Russia "covering up" the alleged use of "the nerve agent sarin against the town of Khan Sheikhoun in April 2017" by Syrian forces. In a separate statement, the Foreign Secretary tells us it is "overwhelmingly likely" that Vladimir Putin personally ordered the attack. What evidence is there to support such serious accusations?

According to the British government (see e.g. Boris Johnson's article) and the mainstream media, the following elements are sufficient to incriminate the Russian state with near certainty: the weapon used, the motive, Russia's past record, the lack of another explanation.

Comment:

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Briefcase

Trump not able to hire crackerjack attorney diGenova, Mueller strategy now in limbo

Tyler Durden
Zerohedge
Sun, 25 Mar 2018 14:42 UTC
Joe diGenova and his wife Victoria Toensing
Joe diGenova and his wife Victoria Toensing
On Friday, we reported that President Trump would be "F---ing doing it my way" after "hitting the roof" over his legal team's cautious approach to dealing with special counsel Robert Mueller, and after Trump had brought on D.C. veteran attorneys Joe diGenova and his wife Victoria Toensing last Monday to lead the Mueller probe just as Trump's head Russian probe lawyer, John Dowd, was about to resign.

diGenova and Toensing were reportedly recommended to Trump by Dave Bossie and Jeanine Piro - both of whom are outside advisors to Trump. That said, Fox News Senior Judicial Analyst Judge Napolitano thinks Dowd's resignation and the decision to put Trump in front of Mueller's team would be a "disaster" for the President.

While some outlets reported that Trump had a bad feeling about diGenova and Toensing, the reason the husband and wife legal team will not be joining President Donald Trump's personal legal team representing him in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation is due to a determination that their firm's existing work presents a conflict.

Comment: It's perhaps a positive sign in a sea of tumult and capitulation to the deep state that Trump is seeking council from such a knowledgeable and competent lawyer as diGenova. But does it even matter and will the political war against Trump ease up now that Trump appears to have given in to the war party?

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Stock Up

Trump tariffs, a reimbursement to campaign donors?

Steven Chovanec
Reports from Underground
Sat, 24 Mar 2018 00:00 UTC
Fat cat
© Project Syndicate
A lot of the debate surrounding Trump's steel and aluminum tariffs misses key points.

Many who have vehemently rejected the measures have exaggerated the harms that are likely to be caused by them. The arguments mainly stem from a desire to safeguard the global economic architecture that has been pursued by decades of previous administrations, commonly referred to as "globalization."

Really, this represents one specific form of global interconnection, one that has been constructed by, and for, the interests of Western economic elites. It has been championed by US administrations because it expands US influence and control throughout the world and the primary beneficiaries are US and allied nations' corporations. A debate that oscillates either between Trumpian nationalism or this formulation of globalization is a false dichotomy.

In terms of the effects of the tariffs, price raises are likely to be barely noticeable for consumers, while the loss of employment in other affected sectors is likely to outweigh any benefits within the steel and aluminum industries, resulting in a net loss. The main threat though lies elsewhere: that the tariffs will provoke retaliatory measures from trading partners like the EU which will harm export industries. Therefore, they "may help protect the minority of workers in the targeted industries, but at some cost to the majority in others," as Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), has commented.

Comment: See also:

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Bomb

Israeli ex-defense minister claims Bolton was pushing him to strike Iran


RT
Mon, 26 Mar 2018 02:09 UTC
Bolton
© Mike Segar/Reuters/KJN
The newly appointed US National Security Adviser, John Bolton, tried to persuade Israel to conduct a pre-emptive strike against Iran before it achieved nuclear weapons capability, Israel's ex-Defense Minister has revealed.

"I got to know John Bolton when he was the US ambassador to the United Nations," Shaul Mofaz said at a conference of former IDF chiefs. "He tried to convince me that Israel should attack Iran."

Mofaz, an Iranian-born Israeli who served as the defense minister at the time when Bolton headed the US mission at the UN, in turn advised the ultra-hawkish Republican against attacking Tehran. The former defense chief explained that he did not believe that a military strike on Iran would be a "wise" decision, for either Tel Aviv or Washington DC.

Bolton, an Iraq war apologist and an advocate of 'military options' in many other conflicts, is set to replace outgoing National Security Adviser Gen. HR McMaster on April 9, just days after CIA chief Mike Pompeo will supplant Rex Tillerson as head of US State Department. With these new key foreign policy leaders in place at the helm of the Trump administration, many politicians on Capitol Hill have raised concerns that Trump would be fully ready for war.

Comment: Great. Trump may have a lively discussion amongst advisors...but if they are all neocons, we know the parameters. Only one question remains: 'How soon?'

See also:

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Footprints

Trump plans expulsion of Russian envoys in response to UK attack

Jennifer Jacobs, Nick Wadhams
Bloomberg
Sat, 24 Mar 2018 10:40 UTC
Trump
© Unknown
President Donald Trump is preparing to expel dozens of Russian diplomats from the U.S. in response to the nerve-agent poisoning of a former Russian spy in the U.K., two people familiar with the matter said Saturday.

Trump agreed with the recommendation of advisers and the expulsions are likely to be announced on Monday, the people said, though they cautioned that Trump's decision may not be final. Trump is prepared to act but first wants to be sure European allies will take similar steps against Russia, aides said.

U.S. officials are working through the weekend to develop a coordinated response with the Europeans, one of the people said, after British Prime Minister Theresa May this week rallied support for a tough rebuke.

As early as Monday, a number of European nations also are expected to expel Russian officials, including Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and the Czech Republic. France and Germany backed May's call for tougher action, though their exact plans are less clear.

Comment: What a mess and it is getting messier. It seems any excuse is explosive enough to formulate a Western 'front' against Russia. It is disgusting how many countries are falling into this illusion and supporting absolute nonsense to maintain their 'integrity' within the NATO bloc and hide under the Western umbrella.

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Info

'Moscow will take the appropriate decision': Russian envoy vows response to expulsion of 60 diplomats


RT
Mon, 26 Mar 2018 19:09 UTC
Anatoly Antonov
© Sergei Karpukhin / ReutersAnatoly Antonov
Russia's ambassador to the US has criticized the expulsion of 60 diplomats, blaming Washington for undermining what little remains of Russia-US relations and promising an appropriate response to the hostile move.

"I can say that the US understands nothing other than strength. I think that the response should be adequate. Moscow will take the appropriate decision. I think, even just as a citizen of the Russian Federation, that such provocative unreasonable steps cannot be left unanswered," Russia's Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov told reporters.

The envoy was summoned to the US State Department earlier on Monday, where he was told that the US was expelling 48 Russian diplomats. Later, Antonov was notified that Washington had declared 12 Russian diplomats at the UN persona non grata.

Comment: See also: Trump caves again, expels 60 Russian diplomats, closes Seattle consulate over fake accusations for Skripal poisoning - 14 EU states follow suit

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Wolf

Closing in: Israeli police interrogate Netanyahu and wife again over corruption charges


Sputinik
Mon, 26 Mar 2018 16:45 UTC
netanyahu and wife
© Gali Tibbon/Associated PressIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sits with his wife Sara
Israeli police have been investigating three corruption cases, namely Case 4000, Case 1000 and Case 2000, against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since 2017.

Police in Israel held another interrogation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this Monday over the so-called Case 4000, Israeli Channel Eser, formerly known as Israel 10, said.

According to the broadcaster, the police will also interrogate Netanyahu's wife Sara and son Yair at the police department in the city of Lod. This is the Netanyahu's tenth interrogation since 2017 and second in 2018. The most recent questioning was held on March 2.

Comment: Netanyahu is the embodiment of all that's despicable about Israeli society.

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Bizarro Earth

Totalitarian globalism: American freedom is a prime target of the New World Order

Greg Hunter
USA Watchdog
Wed, 21 Mar 2018 00:00 UTC
new world order
Award winning journalist Alex Newman has extensively covered the push towards a so-called New World Order by the global "Deep State." New revelations about millions of Facebook user profiles show the battle lines start in cyberspace. Newman says,
"It's really hard to tell where the social media firms begin and where the "Deep State" ends. . . . In all these globalist confabs . . . what you see are the leading executives of Facebook, Google, Twitter, Linked In, Amazon and Microsoft. These are the same people involved in the Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission and the World Government Summit. They all come and give their little speeches, and what you see, and it's becoming clearer in the last few weeks, they are undergoing a systematic campaign to censor, to silence and to sideline conservatives, Christians, Libertarians and people who say anything that contradicts the agenda. We saw a massive purge just in the last few weeks of YouTube channels. We know Facebook has been manipulating their algorithms to censor conservatives so stuff doesn't get trending. This is across the board on all these social media platforms."

Comment: Just like 'humanitarian intervention" ie. starting war to "help people", globalism is not what it purports itself to be. See:

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