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Megaphone

Mercouris on the Skripal crisis: Russia asked to "prove innocence" while UK unable to provide any proof

Alexander Mercouris
The Duran
Tue, 13 Mar 2018 15:22 UTC
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
Russia has now publicly responded to the British government's ultimatum - set out in Theresa May's statement yesterday - that unless Russia provides a 'credible response' to the British enquiry about Russia's custody of Novichok chemicals by close of business today, then the British government will treat the attack on Skripal as the action of the Russian state.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has dismissed Britain's claim of Russia's involvement in Skripal's poisoning as "nonsense". He has also said that Britain has refused Russia's offer of cooperation to solve the case, and has also refused what he called Russia's "legal request" for samples of the chemical used to attack Skripal so that Russia can carry out its own tests.

Latest reports also say that the Russians have summoned the British ambassador to the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Comment: See Also:

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Biohazard

British government advances toxic agenda for Russian media

Finian Cunningham
Sputnik
Tue, 13 Mar 2018 20:48 UTC
Skripal Zizzi restaurant nerve gas poisoning
© Reuters / Peter NichollsPolice officers continue to guard Zizzi's restaurant where Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia are known to have visited shortly before they were found in the centre of Salisbury, Britain, March 8, 2018
Relations between Britain and Russia have become so toxic now that anyone working with Russian news media is liable to be condemned as a stooge or traitor.

Senior Labour party member John McDonnell, the shadow finance minister, has conceded this week that fellow opposition politicians "may be banned from appearing on Russian news media" following the furore over allegations that Moscow carried out an assassination attempt in Britain last week.

Other reports have called on Britain's state media regulator, Ofcom, to cancel the broadcast license for Russian government-owned news outlet RT. That move is being touted as "appropriate retaliation" for Moscow's alleged involvement in the apparent poison attack on Sergei Skripal and his adult daughter.

Comment:

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Shoe

James Clapper escapes possible charges for lying to Congress

Matt Vespa
Townhall
Tue, 13 Mar 2018 21:56 UTC
James Clapper
James Clapper, former Director of National Intelligence under Obama, can rest a little easier concerning possible legal fallout. The statute of limitations for allegedly lying to Congress in his cringeworthy testimony to Congress over surveillance methods in 2013 has expired. At the time, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) asked Clapper if the National Security Agency was collecting any type of data on Americans en masse. Clapper said, "not wittingly." He later admitted that his testimony to Congress was erroneous because he didn't take into account the call record collection. This was after the cat was out of the bag on the intelligence community's methods of surveillance, which were exposed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden (via Washington Examiner):


Comment: Previously:

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Attention

UK's actions an "unprecedented provocation", investigation is "non-transparent", Russia vows a response


RT
Wed, 14 Mar 2018 15:57 UTC
The Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry, Moscow.
© Maksim Blinov / SputnikThe Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry, Moscow.
The UK's hostile actions against Russia under the pretext of the poisoning of ex-double agent Sergei Skripal are an unprecedented provocation which won't be left without a response, Russia's Foreign Ministry said. UK Prime Minister Theresa May accused Russia of using a chemical weapon on British soil, suggesting a set of measures to retaliate against Moscow. Those include the expulsion of 23 diplomats, limiting ties and freezing Russian state assets in the UK.

The British move is "an unprecedentedly rude provocation, which undermines the foundations of a normal dialogue between our countries," the ministry said in a statement.

The ministry said that "the British government chose confrontation with Russia" instead of completing the investigation and using international formats "including those in the framework of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons [OPCW]."

Comment: See Also:

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Vader

It is no exaggeration to say that Mike Pompeo is God-awful

Michael Krieger
Liberty Blitzkrieg
Tue, 13 Mar 2018 14:10 UTC
pompeo
When the director of the CIA, an unelected public servant, publicly demonizes a publisher such as WikiLeaks as a "fraud," "coward" and "enemy," it puts all journalists on notice, or should. Pompeo's next talking point, unsupported by fact, that WikiLeaks is a "non-state hostile intelligence service," is a dagger aimed at Americans' constitutional right to receive honest information about their government. This accusation mirrors attempts throughout history by bureaucrats seeking, and failing, to criminalize speech that reveals their own failings...

Words matter, and I assume that Pompeo meant his when he said, "Julian Assange has no First Amendment freedoms. He's sitting in an embassy in London. He's not a U.S. citizen." As a legal matter, this statement is simply false. It underscores just how dangerous it is for an unelected official whose agency's work is rooted in lying and misdirection to be the sole arbiter of the truth and the interpreter of the Constitution.

- From Julian Assange's Washington Post opinion piece: The CIA Director Is Waging War on Truth-Tellers like WikiLeaks
What's most unique about Mike Pompeo isn't the fact he's a terrible human being, it's the fact he's so transparent and shameless about it. This became crystal clear last April when I read the transcript of a speech he gave at UAE-funded think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

I covered Pompeo's commentary in detail in the piece, The American Empire Under Donald Trump Has Become Increasingly Desperate, Dangerous & Insecure, but let's revisit in case some of you missed it the first time around.

Comment: Trump sure can pick 'em! And the people he is now surrounded by are assuredly not the ones who are going to help him 'make America great again'. On the contrary, with appointments like these the US would now seem to be on the fast track towards greater world conflict as it flexes its last spasms of destructive power.

See: As Russiagate loses momentum Trump promotes longtime Russia hawk

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War Whore

As Russiagate loses momentum Trump promotes longtime Russia hawk

Caitlin Johnstone
Medium
Wed, 14 Mar 2018 19:19 UTC
Mike Pompeo
Rex Tillerson, whose hotly scrutinized ties to Russia have been a centerpiece of Rachel Maddow's conspiratorial ravings for many months, has been fired. Replacing him as Secretary of State will be Mike Pompeo, who has been a consistent and longstanding Russia hawk for years, going so far as accusing President Obama of endangering America by simply agreeing to meet with Vladimir Putin in 2015.

Like pretty much everything that happens anywhere ever, this occurrence is being cited as evidence of collusion between Donald Trump and the Russian government.

"Tillerson Fired by Trump Hours After Blaming Russia for Chemical Attack in U.K.," blared a headline from the increasingly pro-establishment Intercept, referring to a comment Tillerson had made about the plot hole-riddled claims of the UK government that a Russian double agent had been poisoned by the Kremlin.

"By firing Tillerson one day after he publicly stated that Russia behind a WMD attack on British soil, we now have proof Trump is colluding with Putin," tweeted Vanity Fair editor and tentacle porn connoisseur Kurt Eichenwald. "I don't know if he did in the election. But he is doing it NOW in front of our eyes. He is Kremlin-owned."

Comment:
It is worth weighing the possibility that now that the American public has been paced into supporting new cold war escalations with Russia, the Russiagate psyop which was used to harness rank-and-file Democrats' fear of Trump to inflame fears of Putin is no longer necessary, and is now being let go in place of more brazen hawkishness.
Alternatively, they have finally pushed Trump into a position in which he cannot oppose the Deep State, so there is no longer any point in having him impeached. Why get rid of a perfectly good puppet? Now the people who are really in power can proceed with their imperialistic agenda overseas.

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Russian Flag

Russia promises retaliation if Trump strikes Syria again

Tom O'Connor
Liberty Headlines
Tue, 13 Mar 2018 00:01 UTC
PutinTrump
© Spero News
"If a new strike of this kind takes place, the consequences will be very serious," Russia Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov...
Top Russian officials have threatened to retaliate with force if President Donald Trump orders an attack that could endanger the lives of its soldiers stationed there in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's campaign against rebels and jihadis near Damascus.

Army General Valery Gerasimov warned on Tuesday that the U.S. was preparing to launch raids against Moscow's ally, the Syrian government, as it attempted to clear the pockets of insurgents - some of which were once backed by the West - in the suburbs of the capital city of Damascus. Gerasimov, who acted as chief of Russia's general staff and deputy defense minister, claimed that the U.S. would strike under the false pretense of a chemical weapon attack - a tactic that Russia has denied the Syrian military utilizes - and vowed to fight back.

"In the event of a threat to our military servicemen's lives, Russia's armed forces will take retaliatory measures to target both the missiles and their delivery vehicles," Gerasimov said, according to the state-run Tass Russian News Agency.

Comment: See also:

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Gear

CENTCOM general voices support for Iran nuclear deal amid Tillerson exit


RFE/RL
Wed, 14 Mar 2018 21:00 UTC
U.S. Army General Joseph Votel
© Saul Loeb (AFP)U.S. Army General Joseph Votel
A top U.S. military commander expressed the Pentagon's continued support for Iran's nuclear deal with world powers, hours after the announced departure of U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, a top defender of the deal in the U.S. administration.

U.S. Central Command chief General Joseph Votel told the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 13 that he shares the views of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Joe Dunford that the deal is still in the best interests of the United States.

"From my perspective, the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] addresses one of the principal threats that we deal with from Iran. So, if [it] goes away, then we will have to have another way to deal with their nuclear weapons program," he said.

"There would be some concern, I think, about how we intended to address that particular threat if it was not being addressed through the JCPOA," Votel said.
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USA

White House continues to insist that drunk driving illegal immigrants living in sanctuary cities will be repatriated

Neil Munro
Breitbart
Tue, 13 Mar 2018 19:48 UTC
dui car crash
© Indianapolis Colts/Indiana State Police
White House officials are not backing down as pro-immigration reporters pressure them to drop the administration's growing campaign against dangerous sanctuary cities.

On Monday and Tuesday, reporters prodded White House officials to relax their commitment to repatriate illegal immigrants in sanctuary cities who are also dangerous drunk-drivers, even when the drunk drivers have secretly lived in the United States for several years, or have a family in the United States.

The pool report from a press gaggle for reporters on Air Force One cited the uncompromising response from an unnamed administration official:
To the question about an illegal immigrant who was arrested for a DWI, [the official] said, "What do you tell the mother whose kid gets killed by the second DWI?"
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Magnify

The Obama campaign hired Fusion GPS to investigate Mitt Romney

Chuck Ross
The Daily Caller
Tue, 13 Mar 2018 01:04 UTC
Obamafusiongps
© Getty Image/KJN
The Barack Obama presidential campaign hired Fusion GPS in 2012 to dig up dirt on Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, according to a book released on Tuesday.

The Obama campaign hid its payments to Fusion GPS through its law firm, Perkins Coie. The arrangement is similar to the one that the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee used to pay Fusion for its investigation of then-candidate Donald Trump in 2016. That contract led to the creation of the infamous Steele dossier, which was written by former British spy Christopher Steele.

"In 2012, Fusion GPS was hired to do opposition research on Mitt Romney for Barack Obama's reelection campaign," reads Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin's War on America and Donald Trump's Election. The book is written by Michael Isikoff and David Corn, two veteran reporters who met during the 2016 campaign with Steele and Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson.

"As had become standard practice in the shadowy world of 'oppo' research, the Obama campaign's payments to Fusion GPS were never publicly disclosed; the money paid to the investigative firm was reported on campaign disclosure reports as legal bills to the campaign's law firm, Perkins Coie," the book reads.

Comment: Obama's opinion of FusionGPS to do research on Mitt Romney must have been satisfactory since FusionGPS was hired again.

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