Puppet MastersS


Attention

Former Trump aides will go on trial right before the 2018 elections

Ryan Sit
Newsweek
Wed, 17 Jan 2018 08:55 UTC
Muellerfingers
© Win McNamee/Getty ImagesFBI Special Counsel Robert Mueller
In a nightmare scenario for congressional Republicans, the trial for two former Trump campaign advisers who were indicted by the special counsel investigating Russian collusion with the campaign will start right before the 2018 midterm elections.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson rejected special counsel Robert Mueller's request to schedule Paul Manafort and Rick Gates's trial on May 14. The rejection sets the stage for a September or October trial-the most intense time for campaign season.

The trial is sure to dominate news headlines and presents another barrier for Republicans trying to distance the party from the Trump-Russia investigation or downplay it altogether.

Republican strategist John Weaver, who worked on both of Arizona Senator John McCain's 2000 and 2008 presidential bids as well as Ohio Governor John Kasich's 2016 White House run, told Politico the trial will likely affect early voting. "The timing of the Manafort-Gates trial will dictate major coverage going into early voting," he said. "And this is without knowing for certain how many more indictments and how much closer this Siberian political cancer gets near the Oval Office."

Comment: Have to wonder about the trial schedule timing...as in how the calendar runs or who runs the calendar!

See also:

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Stock Up

Optimism from pros: Stock market highest level in nearly 32 years

Jeff Cox
CNBC
Wed, 17 Jan 2018 07:27 UTC
upward trend
© Alternet
Stock market optimism among professional investors just keeps on surging, and is now at the highest levels since before the crash of 1987.

Bullishness, or the belief that the market is heading higher, is now at 66.7 percent in the latest Investors Intelligence survey, a widely followed gauge of sentiment among investment newsletter authors.

That's the highest level since early April 1986 - a potential warning sign that the rush into equities is getting overdone. After all, a year after the bulls had reached this level came the infamous Black Monday crash that sent the Dow Jones industrials down nearly 22 percent in a single day.

"Sentiment readings have roughly followed their 1986/87 pattern. Then the bulls peaked with initial market highs early that year and they returned to above 60% levels months later after more index records," John Gray, editor of the Investors Intelligence (II) weekly report, said in the latest issue Wednesday.

"In 1987 stocks crashed a few months after that. A repeat of that scenario suggests potential danger, especially as the market moves become parabolic," he added. "Those recently holding cash appear to be chasing a rallying market, adding fuel to the fire."

Comment: Trump effect is reaching for the 'financial sound barrier'.

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Attention

Damascus warning: 'We will shoot down Turkish jets attacking Kurds within Syrian borders'


RT
Thu, 18 Jan 2018 13:20 UTC
military stuff
© Mikhail Voskresenskiy / Sputnik
The Syrian government warned Turkey against launching a bombing campaign in the Syrian province of Afrin, saying its air defenses may be used. Ankara had threatened airstrikes against Afrin-based Kurdish militias.

"We warn the Turkish leadership that if they initiate combat operations in the Afrin area, that will be considered an act of aggression by the Turkish Army," Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Meqdad said in a statement reported by state media. "The Syrian air defenses have restored their full force and they are ready to destroy Turkish aviation targets in Syrian Arab Republic skies," it added.

The statement comes after Turkish officials threatened to attack Kurdish militias in the area to prevent the creation of a US-backed "border force" based in the Afrin area in northwest Syria. Washington has since tried to downplay the planned 30,000-strong force, which Ankara branded a "terror army."
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Brick Wall

Trump and Kelly hit a Wall: Trump blasts Kelly's claims of Mexico border rollback


RT
Thu, 18 Jan 2018 15:38 UTC
TrumpKelly
© Vanity FairPresident Trump and Chief of Staff John Kelly
US President Donald Trump has strongly reasserted his commitment to building a wall along the Mexican border after White House Chief of Staff John Kelly said he had changed his mind on one of his main campaign pledges.

Speaking to Hispanic lawmakers on Wednesday, Kelly said Trump was not "fully informed" about the situation when he pledged to build the wall along the 2,200 mile (3,550km) border.

The promise to build the wall, and have Mexico pay for it, was one of the central planks of Trump's campaign - yet no major movement has been made on the project in the year since Trump's inauguration.

In a later interview with Fox News, Kelly, who was previously secretary of Homeland Security, said Trump "has evolved in the way he has looked at things. Campaign to governing are two different things and this president has been very, very flexible in terms of the realm of what is possible."

Comment: See, the president has little power. That's because you're ruled by a secret govt...

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Attention

Kiev's new sovereignty law could be prep for war


RT
Thu, 18 Jan 2018 16:08 UTC
Poroshenko
© Dan Kitwood/Getty ImagesUkrainian President Petro Poroshenko
The newly-adopted Ukrainian law on 'restoring sovereignty over the Donetsk and Lugansk regions' shows that Kiev is determined to resolve the conflict in eastern Ukraine by force, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

The law grants Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko "unlimited powers to silence dissent, similar to those of a dictator," the Russian Foreign Ministry said. "It cannot be described otherwise than as preparation for a new war," it added.

The law calls Russia an "aggressor" and defines the authorities of the self-proclaimed Lugansk and Donetsk People's Republics as "occupying administrations." The ministry said the law constitutes Kiev's attempt to shun responsibility for the destruction of eastern Ukraine and the suffering of its people wrought by the Kiev-launched military operation. The Ukrainian government prefers seeking to shift the blame to Russia, the ministry added.

The new law also disregards the Minsk Agreements that had been universally recognized as the basis for the resolution of the Ukrainian conflict, with no alternative. The legislation in fact would not lead to any "re-integration" of eastern Ukrainian territories but would instead only deepen the rift in Ukrainian society and push the people of Donbass further away from Kiev, the ministry argued.

Comment: Self-absolution, absolutely.

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Target

Fed is ready to crack down on sanctuary cities

Seraphim
redpilltimes
Wed, 17 Jan 2018 06:21 UTC
Kierstjen Nielsen
© DHSKirstjen Nielsen, Secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security
Department of Homeland Security requests federal prosecutors to lodge criminal charges against sanctuary cities for violating Federal law on deportation.

California passed a state law defining itself as a "sanctuary state." This law went into effect on January 1 of this year. However, this is defiant act against U.S. Federal law governing the treatment of illegal immigrants into the United States of America, of which California is still part.

The Trump Administration is not taking this lying down.

On January 16th, DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen confirmed that her department asked Federal prosecutors to see if they can criminally charge sanctuary cities for their refusal to follow federal immigration laws.

The California law acts to severely restrict the cooperation that state and local law enforcement is allowed to offer the federal government in executing immigration and deportation laws.

While the US Constitution is arranged to severely restrict the powers of the Federal government, giving the bulk of authority of law to the States or the people of the United States of America (Amendment X), the matter of immigration is a matter that even recently has been held to be in the purview of the Federal government of the United States of America.

Comment: See also:

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Stop

Hungary: MPs put forward 'Stop Soros' bill to limit immigration


RT
Thu, 18 Jan 2018 00:11 UTC
soros
© Activist PostWhere God leaves off and Soros begins...
Hungarian lawmakers have presented new legislation aimed at curbing immigration and which also affects foreign funded NGOs. The legislation, dubbed the 'Stop Soros Act' references the US-Hungarian tycoon, George Soros.

Following a cabinet meeting Wednesday, Interior Minister Pinter Sandor and government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs announced the proposed 'Stop Soros Act.' Details will be presented Thursday, but local media said it has three main points.
The first is that all NGOs which "support illegal immigration" need to be registered and must submit data on their activities.

The second is that any NGO which receives money from abroad must pay the government 25 percent tax.

Finally, foreign nationals and Hungarian activists who support illegal immigration may be hit with a restraining order that keeps them away from the border.
"If Soros is found to have engaged in such activity, meaning he organizes illegal immigration, then the rules will apply to him," Reuters quoted Kovacs as saying, raising speculation that the new bill could be used to stop Soros himself from setting foot in Hungary.

Comment: An attempt to homogenize populations and break down countries in prep for a NWO? Hungary does not think Soros is a god that can dictate what countries can or cannot do.

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Bad Guys

Twitter takes action on conspiracy theories about Russia, plans to contact users who interacted with 'Russian trolls'


RT
Thu, 18 Jan 2018 20:32 UTC
twitter
© Reuters
Following in Facebook's footsteps, Twitter has announced it will let users know if they had interacted with content generated by "Russian trolls" during the 2016 US presidential election.

Executives from Twitter, Facebook and YouTube testified before the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday on whether 'Big Tech' was doing enough to "combat the spread of extremist propaganda" on the internet. Yet much of the proceedings revolved around conspiracy theories about "Russian trolls."

"I'm assuming that none of you have any doubt that the Russians meddled in our 2016 election and attacked our democracy," Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) told the witness panel, going on to ask what the social media companies were doing to deal with "false, misleading and inflammatory posts generated by Russian agents," in particular the Internet Research Agency (IRA), an entity presented by US lawmakers and mainstream media as a "Russian troll factory" sitting in St. Petersburg.

Comment: So great for Twitter to finally be doing something about those devious and crafty Russian Twitter trolls, who pose perhaps the greatest threat to the general functioning of Twitter as well as all of freedom and democracy in the United States.

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Eye 1

Google and Facebook detail to Congress how they have built their all-pervasive system of censorship

Andre Damon
World Socialist Web Site
Thu, 18 Jan 2018 20:15 UTC
facebook twitter congress
© AP/Jacquelyn MartinFacebook’s General Counsel Colin Stretch, Twitter’s Acting General Counsel Sean Edgett, and Google’s Senior Vice President and General Counsel Kent Walker, are sworn in for a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill, Nov. 1, 2017
Behind the backs of the US and world populations, social media companies have built up a massive censorship apparatus staffed by an army of "content reviewers" capable of seamlessly monitoring, tracking, and blocking millions of pieces of content.

The character of this apparatus was detailed in testimony Wednesday from representatives of Facebook, Twitter, and Google's YouTube before the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, chaired by South Dakota Republican John Thune.

The hearing was called to review what technology companies are doing to shut down the communications of oppositional political organizations. It represented a significant escalation of the campaign, supported by both Democrats and Republicans, to establish unprecedented levels of censorship and control over the Internet.

Armed with increasingly powerful artificial intelligence systems, these technology companies are free to remove and block the communications of their users at the behest of the government, in a seamless alliance between Silicon Valley and the major US spy agencies.
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Document

France and England sign joint security measures to deal with migrant crisis they helped create


RT
Thu, 18 Jan 2018 20:53 UTC
British PM Theresa May and French President Emmanuel Macron
© Ian Langdson / AFP
British PM Theresa May and French President Emmanuel Macron have signed a treaty that will see the UK increase funding for security measures along France's border.

After the pair negotiated foreign policy measures during a summit at the Sandhurst military base in England, a British official announced that the UK government will provide a further £44.5 million to help bolster border controls between the two nations. The extra funding will reportedly go towards CCTV and fencing on the French side.

Speaking at the UK-France Summit, May said Brexit would not impact the relationship between Britain and France, or indeed the rest of Europe.
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