Puppet MastersS


Laptop

Desperate Dems hang #ReleaseTheMemo trend on Russia, demand Twitter & Facebook investigate - again (UPDATE)


RT
Wed, 24 Jan 2018 15:53 UTC
smart phone twitter
© Jan Haas / Global Look Press
Two top-ranking Democrats in Congress are calling on the two largest social media platforms to help them again. This time, they want to know if Russian bots were behind the trending hashtag #ReleaseTheMemo.

On Tuesday, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-California) and Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California) sent a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to ask for their assistance. The lawmakers said that Russia-linked social media accounts are "again exploiting Twitter and Facebook platforms in an effort to manipulate public opinion."

Feinstein and Schiff said that Kremlin-linked social media actors boosted the hashtag #releasethememo to the top trending hashtag on Twitter. The lawmakers cited several reports that claimed Russian Twitter accounts increased the use of the hashtag by 286,700 percent, and it was being used 100 times more than any other hashtag linked to Russian influence campaigns.

Comment: More from The Daily Caller:
No, Russian Bots Weren't Behind The #ReleaseTheMemo Hashtag
Chuck Ross 6:27 PM 01/23/2018

...

Business Insider published the first story on the trending hashtag. NBC News quickly followed suit.

Some reporters who worked on the stories used the spike in Russian activity in order to chastise Trump supporters who shared #ReleaseTheMemo, despite Russians seemingly being a negligible force behind the trending hashtag.


Dilanian, a reporter at NBC News, also claimed that Republicans and Russian propagandists had "joined together to embrace" the hashtag.


Schiff and Feinstein, the top Democrats on the House Intelligence and Senate Judiciary Committees, respectively, cited the stories in Tuesday letters to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg that hyped Russian participation in the hashtag.

"If these reports are accurate, we are witnessing an ongoing attack by the Russian government through Kremlin-linked social media actors directly acting to intervene and influence our democratic process," they wrote, despite no evidence that Russian trolls had any role in helping the hashtag go viral.

A spokesman for the House Intelligence Committee took a shot at Democrats for pushing the false narrative.

"When Democrats demand investigations of a hashtag but find no cause for concern after the FBI loses five months' of critical evidence concerning the Strzok text messages, then someone's priorities are out of whack," Jack Langer told The Daily Caller.

Langer pointed to the revelation over the weekend that the FBI "failed to preserve" five months of text messages exchanged between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, two anti-Trump FBI agents who worked on the Russia investigation.


Read More...
Post-It Note

Trump: 'I'm looking forward to' future under-oath meeting with Mueller


RT
Thu, 25 Jan 2018 07:39 UTC
Trump
© Yuri Gripas / ReutersU.S. President Donald Trump
President Donald Trump has signaled that he will speak under oath to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

"I'm looking forward to it," Trump told reporters Wednesday from the doorway of his chief of staff John Kelly's office, according to the Associated Press.

"I would do it under oath," Trump added, according to Reuters.

There was just one condition, however, according to the New York Times, which reported that Trump said he would speak to Mueller under oath after asking if his 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton, had spoken to the FBI under oath during her interview while under investigation for the mishandling of classified materials kept on her private email server.

Comment: It doesn't seem like Trump has anything to fear in being interviewed under oath, as long as he sticks to the facts. But it would probably be a good idea for him to record it!

See also:

Read More...
Megaphone

Czech President: claims of 'Russian meddling' in elections an 'insult to voters'


Sputnik
Thu, 25 Jan 2018 10:25 UTC
Czech President Milos Zeman
© Retuers/David W CernyCzech President Milos Zeman
Czech President Milos Zeman has blasted any suggestion that Russia may have interfered in the country's ongoing presidential campaign in a debate with opponent Jiri Drahos.

In the course of Tuesday's televised debate, the first between Zeman and Drahos, the opposition candidate suggested that Russian intelligence services had meddled in last October's elections to parliament, and claimed that Moscow was also trying to influence the presidential campaign. The politician did not offer any evidence to back up the claims.


Comment: They never do.


Brushing off the accusations, Zeman said that Drahos was mistaken. "You have insulted voters, turning them into a mob which can be manipulated by foreign intelligence agencies," he noted.

Comment: Also See:

Read More...
USA

War crimes: Economic sanctions are essentially medieval sieges designed to starve target populations

Patrick Cockburn
CounterPunch
Mon, 22 Jan 2018 09:45 UTC
Siege of Constantinople (1204)
© Eugène DelacroixSiege of Constantinople (1204)
The first pathetic pieces of wreckage from North Korean fishing boats known as "ghost ships" to be found this year are washing up on the coast of northern Japan. These are the storm-battered remains of fragile wooden boats with unreliable engines in which North Korean fishermen go far out to sea in the middle of winter in a desperate search for fish.

Often all that survives is the shattered wooden hull of the boat cast up on the shore, but in some cases the Japanese find the bodies of fishermen who died of hunger and thirst as they drifted across the Sea of Japan. Occasionally, a few famished survivors are alive and explain that their engine failed or they ran out of fuel or they were victims of some other fatal mishap.

The number of "ghost ships" is rising with no fewer than 104 found in 2017, which is more than in any previous year, though the real figure must be higher because many boats will have sunk without trace in the 600 miles of rough sea between North Korea and Japan.

The reason so many fishermen risk and lose their lives is hunger in North Korea where fish is the cheapest form of protein. The government imposes quotas for fishermen that force them to go far out to sea. Part of their catch is then sold on to China for cash, making fish one of the biggest of North Korea's few export items.

Comment: It has been shown time and time again that sanctions are a form of economic warfare designed to inflict harm on whole populations. Hardly a 'humane' form of punishment. See also:

Read More...
Snakes in Suits

EU leaders warn against nationalism on eve of Trump trip

Noah Barkin
Reuters
Thu, 25 Jan 2018 09:56 UTC
German Chancellor Angela Merkel
© REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
European leaders warned at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday against a return to nationalism, with France's Emmanuel Macron and Germany's Angela Merkel calling for more global cooperation to harness the forces of globalization.

The speeches by Merkel, Macron and Italy's Paolo Gentiloni -- leaders of the continent's three biggest economies -- came one day before U.S. President Donald Trump arrives at the annual summit in the Swiss Alps to promote his America First policies.

Since taking power one year ago, Trump has pulled the United States out of international agreements on trade and climate, and threatened to torpedo a deal to curb Iran's nuclear program, unsettling partners who have looked to Washington to help shape global rules since World War Two.
Read More...
TV

Davos and WMDs: How the West's mainstream journalists weaponized fake news


RT
Thu, 25 Jan 2018 09:15 UTC
BBC host Zeinab Badawi RT's deputy editor-in-chief, Anna Belkina,
© YouTubeRT's Deputy-Editor-in-Chief has been taking part in a panel on fake news. During the debate, the BBC's representative went out of her way to criticize RT and embarrassingly shows how little she knows about her opponent
The same US intelligence agencies that fed mainstream media the narrative about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction should be trusted when they say RT's critical reporting is propaganda, according to a BBC-hosted panel on fake news.

The four-person panel discussed the phenomenon of fake news on the sidelines of the Davos Economic Forum on Wednesday. Moderating the event was BBC host Zeinab Badawi.

RT's deputy editor-in-chief, Anna Belkina, was on the defensive at the event, arguing that RT deserves the same support of fellow news organizations that the New York Times or CNN enjoy when President Trump labels them fake news. RT was targeted in a similar attack by French President Emmanuel Macron, whose administration has yet to present a single example of RT's alleged false reportage.

Comment: It seems those mainstream journalists responsible for pushing the WMD propaganda, that started the West's illegal wars of terror in the Middle East and led to the deaths of over a million Iraqis, refuse to learn from their egregious mistakes:

Read More...
Chess

Pentagon spokesman Adrian Rankine-Galloway threatens to cut aid to Kurdish units that go against Turkey in Afrin - Washington confirms - UPDATE


Sputnik
Wed, 24 Jan 2018 10:55 UTC
Syrian figters from YPG
© AFP 2018/ Ahmad SHAFIA BILALSyrian fighters from the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) look on during the funeral of a comrade in the Kurdish-majority town of Afrin in northern Syria, on January 23, 2018. as Turkish troops and their Syrian rebel allies pressed an assault on the border enclave
As Turkey continues its offensive against the Kurdish militias entrenched in the Syrian region of Afrin, the Pentagon has reportedly promised to sever all assistance to YPG elements that would move to support their beleaguered brethren in Syria's northwest, as a US delegation has visited Turkey for talks on its offensive, Operation Olive Branch.

Pentagon spokesman Adrian Rankine-Galloway told the state-run Turkish news outlet Anadolu Agency that any element of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) that says "Hey, we'll no longer fight ISIS and we are going to support our brothers in Afrin" would cease to be considered a coalition partner.

"If they [US-backed units operating under the SDF umbrella] carry out military operations of any kind that are not specifically focused on ISIS (Daesh) they will not have coalition support," Rankine-Galloway said.

According to him, if "a unit of YPG says 'Hey, we'll no longer fight ISIS and we are going to support our brothers in Afrin'", it would cease to be a coalition partner.

Comment: Update (Jan. 25): Washington confirmed its commitment to take back the heavy weapons it had supplied to Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) in Syria but did not set a time frame for the process, a US official told Turkish media following a high-level meeting in Ankara.
"We did tell them that we do intend to fulfill that commitment. But I can't give you a specific time frame," a US official told the Hurriyet Daily News on Wednesday, specifying that only heavy weapons delivered to the YPG would be collected.

The official added that Washington would continue to cooperate with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces(SDF) to ensure victory over the Daesh terrorist group (banned in Russia).
See also:

Read More...
Jet1

New Pentagon report reveals that half of F-35 fleet grounded by tech problems


RT
Thu, 25 Jan 2018 10:06 UTC
F-35 fighter jet
© Amir Cohen / ReutersF-35 fighter jet
The most expensive weapons program in the world will not meet its testing schedule and of the Joint Strike Fighters already delivered only half can actually fly, according to a scathing new Pentagon report.

"The operational suitability of the F-35 fleet remains at a level below service expectations and is dependent on workarounds that would not be acceptable in combat situations," said the report published on Tuesday by Robert Behler, the new director of operational testing and evaluation (DOTE) at the Department of Defense.

The 60-page section on the F-35 was part of a larger report on all Pentagon operational testing in the fiscal year 2017.

Last year's report by Director Michael Gilmore identified "2,769 deficiencies" in the fighter jet's performance. Some 1,748 of those have been "closed via the review processes now in place," Behler's report said. However, of the 301 problems identified as Priority 1 and 2, only 88 can be considered in progress, while the remaining 213 are still unresolved.

Comment: See also: Again!? US Air Force to ground over a dozen F-35 warplanes citing poor manufacturing and 'crumbling' material

Read More...
Chess

Trump warns Erdogan to 'exercise caution', and to avoid clash between US, Turkish forces in Syria


RT
Thu, 25 Jan 2018 09:34 UTC
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and US President Donald Trump
© ntv.com.trA phone conversation between Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and US President Donald Trump
In a phone call with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, Donald Trump has raised concerns that Ankara's ongoing military operation in neighboring Syria, if not wound down, may result in a direct clash between the two NATO allies.

"President Trump relayed concerns that escalating violence in Afrin, Syria, risks undercutting our shared goals in Syria," according to the White House readout of the conversation. "He urged Turkey to exercise caution and to avoid any actions that might risk conflict between Turkish and American forces."

Trump has further urged Turkey to deescalate and "limit its military actions" in order to "avoid civilian casualties and increases to displaced persons and refugees."


Comment: Show for the public - BS!


Comment: See also: Turkish military operation in Syria escalates: Is US base of operations Manbij next? [UPDATES]

Read More...
Quenelle

'Punching in the US war face': Pyongyang urges all Koreans to jointly 'smash' any challenges to reunification


RT
Thu, 25 Jan 2018 08:11 UTC
Head of the North Korean delegation, Ri Son Gwon shakes hands with South Korean counterpart Cho Myoung-gyon
© ReutersHead of the North Korean delegation, Ri Son Gwon shakes hands with South Korean counterpart Cho Myoung-gyon
Pyongyang has warned third parties against fueling tensions and interfering in the inter-Korean reconciliation process, claiming it is making a "great effort" to reunify the peninsula against the backdrop of US nuclear threat.

"We will courageously smash all of the challenges of the nation's desire for reunification," the government statement carried by KCNA reads. "Let all the Koreans rise up in the peacekeeping struggle against war to baffle the reckless nuclear war moves of the US which brings disaster to [the] land, setting dangerous flames!"

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in his New Year address signaled his willingness to mend fences with his southern neighbor ahead of PyeongChang Olympics in February. Pyongyang and Seoul immediately agreed to reopen their military hotline, and have been communicating ever since, in an unprecedented level of diplomacy. While the US and its allies are wary of the North's 'true' intentions, South Korea maintains that future dialogue with its neighbor can lead to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

Comment: In fact the US does not want peace, instead it wants further escalation of tensions in order to remain as key player to the 'peaceful solution' of the Korean Peninsula.

Read More...