Puppet MastersS


Arrow Down

Champion of women? Franken's unapologetic resignation rankles his accusers

Addy Baird
ThinkProgress
Thu, 07 Dec 2017 21:27 UTC
Al Franken
© REUTERS/Yuri GripasSenator Al Franken (D-MN)
On Thursday, in an emotional speech on the Senate floor, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) resigned. The senator was facing a number of sexual harassment allegations, but in his speech, he admitted no wrongdoing and did not apologize for any of his alleged behavior.

"I am proud that during my time in the Senate I have used my power to be a champion of women and that I've earned a reputation as someone who respects the women I work alongside every day," Franken said. "I know there's been a very different picture of me painted over the last few weeks, but I know who I really am. Serving in the United States Senate has been the great honor of my life. I know in my heart that nothing I have done as a senator - nothing - has brought dishonor on this institution."


Comment: Oh, except for calling for a crackdown on the internet to curtail free speech and advocating for even more state surveillance?

Read More...
USA

US lawmaker Trent Franks quits over 'surrogacy' talks with aides


BBC News
Fri, 08 Dec 2017 22:26 UTC
Trent Franks is accused of offering a former aide $5m to act as a surrogate mother
Trent Franks is accused of offering a former aide $5m to act as a surrogate mother
Arizona Republican Trent Franks has resigned amid an ethics investigation into claims he repeatedly asked female staff to be surrogate mothers.

The announcement came after a congressional panel said it was opening an inquiry into sexual harassment allegations against Mr Franks.
Read More...
Snakes in Suits

Selective memory: Obama was worst US postwar economic President, yet richly takes credit for Trump's economic growth

Alex Christoforou
The Duran
Fri, 08 Dec 2017 19:52 UTC
S ovakvim prijateljima ...: Obama je privatno ismijavao
Number don't lie. Barack Obama was the worst US postwar economic president.

Obama was the only US president to never reach at least one year of 3% GDP growth.

Comment: Obama hasn't been able to find anything productive to do with his retirement, so is doing his utmost to stab Trump in the back at every opportunity.

A few reminders of the amount of damage done to the US economy during Obama's reign: The depressing economic realities that Donald Trump will inherit from Obama

Read More...
Calculator

Brexit breakthrough: Talks enter new phase after UK agrees to 'no hard border' in Ireland


RT
Fri, 08 Dec 2017 17:16 UTC
theresa may juncker
Shake on it?
Following Monday's false dawn Britain, the EU and Ireland have finally reached a deal on Brexit, meaning talks can now move onto phase two.

Talks ran through the night between UK Prime Minister Theresa May, leader of the DUP - Northern Ireland's biggest party - Arlene Foster, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and Irish leader Leo Varadkar.

Tensions between the leaders had reached fever pitch during the week as the heads of state fought their country's corner. However, by Friday morning it was announced that marathon all-night talks had culminated in an initial plan on which everyone agreed.

Comment: Technically, Varadkar's message was just to the Irish nationalist community in Northern Ireland, which has been treated abysmally by Dublin govts since the 1980s, when they bowed to the British narrative about 'fighting evil Irish terrorists'.

But that's all water under the bridge now. The 1998 Good Friday Agreements have brought two decades of peace to the north. It's a safe bet that a majority of people, both north and south, do not want what has effectively become an open border to return to being a hard one with checkpoints and customs controls.

And this is why London is having to negotiate a minefield in delivering the mandate British people as a whole gave it in last year's
Brexit referendum. If the UK leaves the EU, it cannot take Northern Ireland with it. But it also won't leave it behind in the EU, so something has to give...

Read More...
Bad Guys

FBI Deputy Director McCabe accused of ordering agents to lie about Benghazi

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Thu, 07 Dec 2017 17:03 UTC
Andrew McCabe
© AP Photo/ Jacquelyn MartinFormer FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe
GOP lawmakers have come forward with new allegations of political bias or interference at the FBI - this time involving the 2012 Benghazi attack. John Solomon of The Hill reports that Rep. Ron Desantis (R-FL) recently interviewed a retired FBI supervisor who told him he was instructed by Deputy Director Andrew McCabe not to call the 2012 Benghazi attack an act of terrorism when distributing the FBI's findings to the larger intelligence community - despite knowing exactly who conducted the attack.
The agent found the instruction concerning because his unit had gathered incontrovertible evidence showing a major al Qaeda figure had directed the attack and the information had already been briefed to President Obama, the lawmaker said. -The Hill
Read More...
Hiliter

The UK can't leave the EU and keep Northern Ireland, so it appears to have chosen to ditch Brexit

Fintan O'Toole
Irish Times
Fri, 08 Dec 2017 19:48 UTC

Comment: Today's Brexit agreement in Brussels - whereby the govts of the UK and the Republic of Ireland agreed that no 'hard border' would reform between the Republic and the British province in the north of Ireland - means, in effect, that the UK government is taking the position of making a 'qualified' Brexit.

This op-ed in the Irish Times goes further, however, saying that today's agreement increases the probability that Brexit won't happen at all.


cartoon brexit
© Dave SimmondsWhat it comes down to, at the end of the day.
Let's not understate the import of what Ireland has just achieved. It has not just secured an outcome that minimises the damage of Brexit on this island. It has radically altered the trajectory of Brexit itself, pushing that crazy careering vehicle away from its path towards the cliff edge.

This saga has taken many strange turns, but this is the strangest of all: after one of the most fraught fortnights in the recent history of Anglo-Irish relations, Ireland has just done Britain a favour of historic dimensions. It has saved it from the madness of a hard Brexit. There is a great irony here: the problem that the Brexiteers most relentlessly ignored has come to determine the entire shape of their project. By standing firm against their attempts to bully, cajole and blame it, Ireland has shifted Brexit towards a soft outcome. It is now far more likely that Britain will stay in the customs union and the single market. It is also more likely that Brexit will not in fact happen.

Comment: In short, the only way out of the EU for the UK - assuming it does not allow a border poll; a referendum put to people in Northern Ireland on the question of (re-)unification with the Republic of Ireland - is that the whole of the UK must take on a 'special status'... which means it effectively remains in the customs union, which means it effectively remains in the European Union.

People in favor of Brexit point out that the referendum result represents the will of the people, and thus that a complete break with the EU must happen. But the UK is an unusual country. It is itself a union of four member-states, each with varying degrees of political autonomy, and two of whom made clear that 'the will of the people' was to remain within the EU...

UK Brexit referendum result map


Read More...
Attention

The Federal Government admits it will continue warrantless spying regardless if Congress votes to stop it

Rachel Blevins
The Free Thought Project
Fri, 08 Dec 2017 00:00 UTC
Libertymessage
© integratingdarkandlight.com
U.S. officials admit they are not planning on shutting down the government's warrantless spying program, even if it is not reauthorized by 2018.

As the United States Congress runs out of time to vote on a bill that would reauthorize one of the government's most egregious warrantless spying programs, officials are claiming that those programs won't end anytime soon - even if they are not reauthorized by the end of the year.

The USA Liberty Act will reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which is set to expire on Dec. 31, 2017. While the bill's proponents have claimed it will help ensure "security" in the United States, privacy advocates have warned that will provide additional loopholes for the government to continue conducting warrantless surveillance of innocent Americans.

The assumption may be that if the USA Liberty Act is not signed into law, then the provisions from Section 702 will no longer be legal and the U.S. government will stop collecting data from innocent Americans without warrants - but intelligence officials do not see it that way. A spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Brian Hale, told the New York Times that "the government believes it can keep the program going for months," even if it is not reauthorized.

Comment: Liberties and rights are long gone. The government and public are just catching on.

Read More...
Nuke

Exactly what sort of nuclear attack would be considered legal?

John LaForge
Counterpunch
Thu, 07 Dec 2017 00:00 UTC
chessboardmissiles
© Pinterest
US general says order to launch nuclear weapons can be refused if illegal
-Chicago Tribune, Nov. 18

US nuclear commander would balk at any "illegal" order
-MSNBC, Nov. 18

General heading Strategic Command says illegal nuclear launch order can be refused
-NBC News, Nov. 18

Top general says he would resist "illegal" nuke order from Trump
-CBS News, Nov. 18

Top US general says he would resist illegal nuclear strike order from Donald Trump
-The Independent, Nov. 18
All these headlines give the direct impression that a nuclear attack could be legal in some circumstances. But is this possible?

Air Force General John Hyten, commander of Strategic Command, told the Halifax International Security Forum Nov. 18, that an order from the president to launch nuclear weapons can be refused if that order is determined to be illegal. In the face of an unlawful order, Gen. Hyten said, he would tell Trump he couldn't carry it out. "If it's illegal, guess what's going to happen?" Hyten asked the gathering. "I'm going to say, 'Mr. President, that's illegal.'"

Comment: An absolutely frightening apocalyptic scenario with descriptions of the physical realities of a nuclear detonation. The fact that it is widely deemed illegal - is that enough assurance? Enough deterrence?

Read More...
Snakes in Suits

Nunes cleared by US House ethics panel of classified leak allegations


RT
Fri, 08 Dec 2017 03:02 UTC
DevinNunes
© Joshua Roberts/ReutersChair of House Intelligence Committee Devin Nunes
The US House Ethics Committee has cleared Representative Devin Nunes (R-California) on a complaint that he leaked classified information. The surprise decision paves the way for the firebrand lawmaker to reassume chairing a House intelligence panel.

The ethics committee said Thursday in a brief statement that it determined the Republican congressman did not disclose classified information in March, when he made a surprise announcement about the US government picking up information about President Donald Trump's transition team during a surveillance sweep. Nunes was the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee at the time, and was leading the probe into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

Comment: See also:

Read More...
Attention

Kadyrov blasts Trump's Jerusalem announcement, warns of full-scale ME war


RT
Fri, 08 Dec 2017 11:07 UTC
Kadyrov
© Global Look PressPresident of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov
The head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, has described the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel by the US president as a stab in the back for those who tried to reach a settlement in the Middle East, and a step towards a new war.

In a message posted on his page in Russia's most popular social network VKontakte (In Contact), Kadyrov stated that Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel was made despite the opinion of the international community and in violation of the resolutions passed by the United Nations and other influential international organizations. He added that the decision deprived Palestinians of the last chance to get an autonomous state.

"In essence, this is a stab in the back for those who spent the last decades trying to develop an algorithm for a political and diplomatic settlement in this complicated region," Kadyrov wrote. He noted that the danger of the US step was especially evident because it was made very soon after the Syrian Army, with support of the Russian Air Force, liberated their country from Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS).

"How shall we understand the US president's policy? It is simple - now we lost our last doubts about who had created this terrorist base on the territory of Iraq and Syria in order to establish their 'new world order'," he wrote. "I can state with certainty that by this, to put it mildly, crude decision Trump throws the state of Israel into the abyss of bloody confrontation and puts in under threat of a new, more powerful and organized Intifada. Which means a large-scale war," Kadyrov says.

Comment: Unfortunately there is no 'undo' possible. The corner has been turned and it is impossible to see any upside of this action.

Read More...