Puppet MastersS


Jet3

Shiny new toys to fight 'big bad Russians': Trump signs $700B military funding bill


RT
Wed, 13 Dec 2017 09:34 UTC
Trump $700B military funding bill
US President Donald Trump has signed into law $700 billion in funding to the Pentagon, which includes a pay raise for troops and funding for a number of pet projects. It also breaks the ceiling set by the 2011 law on budget caps.

Congress sent the final version of the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to Trump at the end of November, and he ceremonially signed the bill Tuesday. The White House noted that the bill envisioned the largest pay raise for US military personnel in eight years and the biggest military expansion since the 1980s.

The final markup allocates $634 billion to Pentagon operations and almost $66 billion for the overseas contingency operations (OCO) fund, intended for bankrolling wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. That's about $32 billion more than what Trump initially requested.
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Rocket

IDF spokesperson: Israeli military shoots down rockets fired from Gaza


Sputnik
Wed, 13 Dec 2017 20:33 UTC
Rockets exploding over Israel
© AP Photo/ Adel HanaRockets exploding over Israel
The Israeli Defense Forces thwarted two allegedly Palestinian rocket attacks launched from Gaza Strip Wednesday night, according to an IDF spokesperson.

The rockets were "successfully intercepted," the IDF said in a tweet. A third rocket fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip was also confirmed by the country's military, which said that remnants of that rocket landed in the Eshkol Regional Council, an area in the northwest part of Israel's Southern District.

Residents in southern Israel were alerted to the first rockets by a siren, according to social media users, specifically in the town of Sderot.


Comment: See also: IDF says 2 rockets launched from Gaza but failed to reach the targets, amid violent protests over Trump's Jerusalem decision

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USA

SOTT Focus: The Murder of Daniel Shaver by Criminally Violent Arizona Cops, Philip Brailsford and Charles Langley

Joe Quinn
Sott.net
Wed, 13 Dec 2017 20:18 UTC
Daniel Shaver Laney Sweet
Daniel Shaver, Laney Sweet and family
On January 18, 2016, Arizona police officer Philip Brailsford killed Daniel Shaver at a La Quinta Inns & Suites hotel in Mesa, Arizona, where Shaver was staying. Both men were 26 years old. Shaver, a resident of Granbury, Texas, was a married father of two children, and a pest-control worker who owned two air rifles that he used for his job.

According to a police report released December 7th, a man and woman who were attending a conference and staying at the La Quinta hotel said they met Shaver in the elevator, he asked them if they wanted some shots, they agreed, and went to his 5th floor room where they reportedly played video games and drank alcohol.

While in Shaver's hotel room, the woman saw a case and asked if it contained a musical instrument. Shaver opened the case and revealed his pellet gun and a dead sparrow. Shaver told the woman he was on a business trip with Walmart and that it was his job to kill all of the birds that get inside buildings. The woman said that when Shaver and the other man pointed the rifle out the window, she told them to stop as she was afraid they'd hurt someone because they were drinking. The air rifle was, in fact, seen by another guest at the hotel who notified hotel staff, who then called the police, turning the benign scenario into a possible 'active shooter' situation. It should be noted however that Arizona is an 'open carry' state.
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Bad Guys

Alabama Democrat Doug Jones was backed by George Soros-funded super PACs

Ann
The Political Insider
Tue, 12 Dec 2017 19:09 UTC
Doug Jones
© Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesThe benefactors of the group backing Doug Jones have remained secret until now because federal laws do not require it to disclose its donors until after the election.
In effort to drum up support in the reddest state in America, Democratic Alabama Senate candidate Doug Jones has attempted to portray himself as a person outside Washington special interests - but that couldn't be further from the truth.

Per a Politico report published Monday, the mysterious super PAC that has poured $4 million into the Alabama special election, Highway 31, is a "joint project" of two of the Democrats' largest super PACs - Senate Majority PAC and Priorities USA Action - both of which are funded by liberal one-world billionaire George Soros.

If that's not the opposite of grassroots, I don't know what is.

Comment: Roy Moore defeated by Democrat Doug Jones for Alabama Senate

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Chess

'Our military preparedness is strong, we're ready for direct North Korea talks' - Tillerson


RT
Wed, 13 Dec 2017 19:50 UTC
Rex Tillerson
© Francois Lenoir / ReutersUS Secretary of State Rex Tillerson
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has said all that stands between direct diplomacy with North Korea is their willingness "to come to the table" with a desire to "make a different choice."

"We're ready to talk anytime they'd like to talk," Tillerson said about North Korea on Tuesday afternoon. This shift away from US policy demanding North Korea negotiate on terms of its own disarmament came during the secretary of state's remarks in Washington, DC to the Atlantic Council during an event called Reimagining the US-Republic of Korea Partnership in the Trans-Pacific Century.

He also said that the US has assured China that US troops would return to South Korea afterward if they ever had to cross into North Korean territory.
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Russian Flag

Notes from Putin and Erdogan meeting: High hopes for Syria and condemnation for Trump

Adam Garrie
The Duran
Mon, 11 Dec 2017 18:36 UTC
Putin Erdogan
© Kayhan Ozer/Pool Photo via APTurkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, right, shakes hands with Russia's President Vladimir Putin, left, prior to their meeting at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Monday, Dec. 11, 2017. Declaring a victory against "terrorists" in Syria, Putin earlier on Monday visited a Russian military air base in the country and announced a partial pullout of Russian forces from the Mideast nation.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara, after what has been a whirlwind day for the Russian President. Earlier he met with Persident al-Assad in Syria and President el-Sisi in Egypt.

During the press conference, both Putin and Erdogan spoke of their positive feelings regarding a sharp increase in bilateral trade between the two nations.

Both leaders also praised the recovery of Turkey's tourist industry which is heavily reliant on Russians.

Russia's bilateral relations with Turkey, include an agreement whereby Russian experts will construct what will be Turkey's first ever nuclear power plant. Both leaders expressed their positive views on this while President Putin also spoke highly of the progress made on the Turk Strem gas pipeline which will deliver Russian natural gas to both Turkey and Europe.

Comment: Turkey twists the truth: There isn't going to be a joint anti-Kurdish op with Russia

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Mr. Potato

The Russia investigation circus is over. Will they hold a parade?

John Linder
The Daily Caller
Wed, 13 Dec 2017 18:36 UTC
mueller circus clowns
© Getty Images/Alex Wong, Shutterstock/Ollyy
You will recall that former Director of National Intelligence Jim Clapper, today's P.T. Barnum, set the stage for this circus when he claimed that the intelligence Community was unanimous in its assessment that Russia influenced the election. For months the Democrats and the media - but I repeat myself - told us that 17 intelligence agencies agreed. They did not, of course. The only agencies involved were the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency - and the NSA had only moderate confidence in the estimate.

Later Clapper admitted that the conclusion was not even arrived at by the agencies, but by a handful of selected players in these agencies.

I'm willing to bet that the FBI's head of counterintelligence, Peter Strzok, was one of those players.

This entire narrative rests on the assertion that Russia hacked the Democrat National Committee computer server and released, over the course of the campaign, emails that put Mrs. Clinton in a bad light.

How do we know that? Why, we took the word of the private company hired by the DNC attorneys who told us that.
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X

Washington's visa suspension for Cubans "seriously hampering" ties


TeleSUR
Wed, 13 Dec 2017 17:40 UTC
Josefina Vidal
© ReutersCuba's Foreign Ministry Chief for U.S. Affairs, Josefina Vidal
"Politics always ends up affecting the poorest, the people," said Jessica Aguila, a Cuban worker planning to visit her family in the United States.

Cuban officials have told their U.S. counterparts that Washington's decision to reduce its embassy staff in Havana by more than half and suspend visa processing is "seriously hampering" ties between the two countries, as well as causing distress for family members. Josefina Vidal, Cuba's Foreign Ministry Chief for U.S. Affairs, and John Creamer, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, headed the talks, according to PressTV.

Cuba's Foreign Ministry released a public statement after the meeting which read, in part, that "the Cuban delegation expressed deep concern over the negative impact that the unilateral, unfounded and politically motivated decisions adopted by the US government... have on migration relations between both countries."

Comment: See also:

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SOTT Logo S

SOTT Focus: Last-Ditch Effort: As Russiagate Falters, MSM and Soros Try to #MeToo Trump

Harrison Koehli
Sott.net
Tue, 12 Dec 2017 21:09 UTC
Trump posed for this photograph during the Miss Universe pageant
Miss Universe pageant, Moscow, November 2013.
Globalist operation 'Git Trump' continues apace. Russiagate turned up nothing but Democratic collusion with dodgy British and Ukrainian foreign agents, so now they're back to leveraging popular appetite for salacious scandal.

Yesterday, TV airhead Megyn Kelly interviewed Jessica Leeds, Samantha Holvey, and Rachel Crooks, all of whom accused Donald Trump of "sexual harassment" during the crescendo to last year's astonishing US presidential campaign.

This comes as Democrats are being plagued by an avalanche of similar accusations, and as the Trump witch-hunt, otherwise known as Mueller's "Russian collusion probe", has probed further than the average proctologist and come up with a whole lot of nothing. Anyone with a passing interest in mental health will notice that these two trends have something in common: hysteria.

Collusion is bad (hello, Israel), and rape is evil. But the anti-Russia and #MeToo hysteria(s) go far beyond their declared bounds, conflating unwanted sexual advances with assault, and ordinary diplomacy with criminal conspiracy. And often, there's actually nothing behind the accusations in either category.

The sexual accusations against Trump came before Weinstein-gate unintentionally initiated #MeToo, but it was only a matter of time before the mainstream media rehashed old 'news' and dressed it up for the new fad.

Here's a clip of Kelly's show:

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Snakes in Suits

Glenn Greenwald: CNN's "multiple sources" spreading fake news are actually Congress members (VIDEO)

Alex Christoforou
The Duran
Tue, 12 Dec 2017 18:26 UTC
Glenn Greenwald Ingraham Angle Fox News
Glenn Greenwald delivered a blistering rebuke of mainstream media and the lies they consistently disseminate...from ABC to CNN and even Fox News, where Greenwald was appearing on the Ingraham Angle...no one was spared from Greenwald's criticism.

After CNN's latest fake news debacle, Greenwald rightly believes that the "multiple sources" used by CNN (all of whom coincidently misread the date passed on to CNN), need to be outed.

Best of all, Greenwald believes these anonymous "multiple sources" to be US House and Senate members.
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