Puppet MastersS


Attention

Former Bosnian Croat general commits suicide during Hague tribunal sentencing him for war crimes


RT
Wed, 29 Nov 2017 19:59 UTC
Slobodan Praljak drinks poison
© International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia / AFPCroatian former general Slobodan Praljak at the Hague international court on November 29, 2017
A former Bosnian Croat general has died after apparently taking poison during the reading of his verdict at the International Criminal Court in the Hague, Croatia's prime minister has confirmed.

Slobodan Praljak, 72, a former wartime leader, was seen drinking from a small container as he heard the verdict of his appeal hearing. The man's defense lawyer then told the court that the accused had "taken poison." The presiding judge stopped the proceedings and ordered a doctor to be called, Reuters reports.

Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic confirmed Praljack's death in a press conference Wednesday, adding that "we have all unfortunately witnessed his act by which he took his own life."
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Tornado2

Trump appointed budget director Mulvaney tells staff to "disregard" instructions from Leandra English

Erica Pandey
Axios.com
Mon, 27 Nov 2017 00:00 UTC
Mick Mulvaney
© Jacquelyn Martin / APMonday was Mulvaney's first day at the CFPB.
White House budget director Mick Mulvaney, named by President Trump as acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, sent a memo to the agency's staff Monday that read: "Please disregard any instructions you receive from Ms. English in her presumed capacity as Acting Director," Reuters reports. He also brought donuts.

The backdrop: The CFPB currently has two chiefs. Leandra English is former director Richard Cordray's pick to lead the agency, and she has sued the Trump administration over Mulvaney's appointment. Mulvaney told staffers to report any communications from English to the general counsel of the CFPB, who has said she believes Mulvaney has the authority of acting director.


Comment: Acting director of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sues Trump for appointing Mick Mulvaney instead


Comment: As expected, Democrats whose primary mandate appears to be obstructing the Trump administration in any way possible have refused to recognize Mulvaney as active director of the CPFB:
Senators Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D., Nev.) are refusing to recognize Mulvaney, who also heads up the Office of Management and Budget, as the director after President Donald Trump appointed him. English filed a lawsuit against the White House Sunday for this decision, asserting that Mulvaney's appointment is unlawful.

Masto showed her support for English's leadership in a press release Monday. Saying her office will "recognize her [English's] leadership" as "Acting Director."

"Wall Street Reform specifically provides that the Deputy Director of the CFPB will become the Acting Director of the agency in the event of a vacancy. President Trump must respect the law and allow Leandra English to fulfill her obligations to American consumers," Masto said. "She is now the Acting Director of the CFPB, and my office will recognize her leadership."

Warren, for her part, referred to English as the "new director" and the "active director" on cable news appearances throughout the day.


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TV

MSNBC host Joy Reid calls rural Americans a "core threat to democracy"

Cameron Cawthorne
Washington Free Beacon
Mon, 27 Nov 2017 19:21 UTC
joy reid
MSNBC host Joy Reid on Saturday said that rural Americans pose a "core threat to our democracy" because 70 percent of the population is expected to live in the 15 largest states in 2040.

Her comment came in response to a column in the Wall Street Journal in which author Gerald Seib discussed American government and various global threats confronting democracy. Seib used projected population change to argue that many urban Americans will be underrepresented in the Senate in the coming decades.

"Because of the way the Electoral College works, two of the past three presidents first won office while losing the popular vote. And David Birdsell, dean of the school of public and international affairs at Baruch College, notes that by 2040, about 70% of Americans are expected to live in the 15 largest states. They will have only 30 senators representing them, while the remaining 30% of Americans will have 70 senators representing them," Seib wrote.

Reid quoted MSNBC producer Kyle Griffin's tweet, which cited the figures from the Wall Street Journal, and said the rural minority's level of representation constitutes are a "core threat to our democracy." She said rural Americans will continue to "have disproportionate power over the urban majority."

Comment: Reid should get up to speed on why the electoral college was designed the way it was:

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Pirates

FCC chairman plays victim, says family being harassed over net neutrality

Hamza Shaban
Washinton Post
Mon, 27 Nov 2017 18:56 UTC
Ajit Pai
© Zach Gibson/BloombergAjit Pai, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, said protest signs were put up at his home.
After proposing to dismantle net neutrality rules, and setting off a firestorm of criticism, Ajit Pai, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, said his family has become the target of harassment.

During an interview Monday on "Fox & Friends," viewers were shown cardboard signs that host Steve Doocy said were put up at Pai's home in suburban Virginia. One sign, appearing to refer to Pai's children, read: "They will come to know the truth. Dad murdered Democracy in cold blood."

Pai said those signs crossed a line, even as he noted the charged debate over net neutrality. "I understand that people are passionate about policy, but the one thing in America that should remain sacred is that families, wives and kids, should remain out of it. And stop harassing us at our homes."

Comment: Any discomfort from 'activists' mentioning Pai's family is rather minor compared to draconian regulations for the internet. He's using this incident to play the victim and garner sympathy. That certainly is not 'debating the merits of the issue.' There will always be idiots at the fringes who are not representative of the whole, and there will also be bots and dirty campaigns to muddy the waters. Pai would demonstrate more integrity by working with the valid concerns that many people have rather than being a drama queen.

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Gold Seal

Hysteria backlash: Rabidly anti-Russian UK think-tank accused of ... working for the Kremlin!

Paul Robinson
Irrussianality
Sun, 26 Nov 2017 18:59 UTC
There are times when you think that the media in the English-speaking world can't possibly get any worse; that's it's finally plumbed the depths; that the ignorance and hysteria have become so great that it's got to turn around soon. And then you read something which just makes you shake your head in despair, and ask. 'Don't these guys check anything? Don't they know anything? Or do they just not care?' We're told to be endlessly on our guard about 'fake news' and disinformation flooding the internet from troll factories in St Petersburg and the editorial offices of RT, but are they really worse than the Daily Mail? Here's today's Mail on Sunday front page:
daily mail putin boris
In the newspaper's lead story, Simon Walters and Glen Owen recount an alleged link between my old Oxford Union contemporaries and now government British ministers, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove on the one hand, and Russian president Vladimir Putin on the other, telling us breathlessly that,
A Russian link to Boris Johnson and Michael Gove's successful plot to persuade Theresa May to take a tougher stance on Brexit has been uncovered by the Mail on Sunday.
This sounds exciting: Boris and Michael as unwitting agents of the Kremlin! The article continues:
This newspaper has established that a secret letter sent by the Cabinet Ministers to the Prime Minister was co-ordinated by a senior figure in a free-market think-tank founded by a tycoon who made a fortune in Russia following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Sounds damning, huh? So what is the think-tank in question? It's the Legatum Institute, which as the Daily Mail points out, was 'set up using some of the fortune that secretive New Zealand-born tycoon Christopher Chandler made with brother Richard from a string of investments, some of which were made during the "wild capitalism" of the post-Soviet economy.' Christopher Chandler, says the newspaper, 'also helped President Vladimir Putin's associates to take control of Russia's state energy giant Gazprom.'

Comment: One word: hilarious.

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Eagle

US geopolitical 'stability' opens Pandora's Box in Europe

Gregory Barrett
Counterpunch
Wed, 29 Nov 2017 19:38 UTC
An interesting image
© Photo by DAVID HOLT | CC BY 2.0
To some on the geopolitical stage, "stability" is something like a sacred word.

Of course, the devil is in the details. For decades, the word was used by successive US governments in a sense which did not preclude a certain number of wars - as long as those wars, whether officially declared or merely approved by an American President under the terms of some special Congressional authorization such as the one which is behind most current US military activity, were begun and carried out on American terms.

"Stability" was and remains the justification employed in defending United States support for some truly nasty governments, kings and dictators. Their professed opposition to communism or terrorism - as defined by the US government, of course - has been the primary qualification for that support. Although there was often talk of democracy, cosmetic moves purported to lead in that direction would usually suffice to sell the relationship to Congress, and in more than a few cases even the cosmetic mask is absent: it is simply asserted that the nation in question is a crucial strategic domino, the fall of which would put the entire world in jeopardy, and our noble principles must needs be temporarily suspended. Some of these temporary suspensions have lasted for decades now.

The dreaded scourge of instability, however, has now reached the heart of the empire.
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Info

Code Talker Marine Corps vet Thomas Begay wasn't offended by Trump's "Pocahontas" remark

Leah Barkoukis
Townhall
Tue, 28 Nov 2017 18:42 UTC
trump code talkers
While the liberal media continues to pile on President Trump over referring to Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren as "Pocahontas" during an event honoring Native American veterans, it seems one of the only people that truly has a right to weigh in on the issue didn't seem to mind.

When asked by CNN political analyst Joshua Green whether he was offended by the president's remark, Marine Corps veteran Thomas Begay said he was not, only that he was "puzzled" by it.

He also told Green that while he was serving in the Marines he was forced to yell "Geronimo" but that didn't bother him either.

Geronimo, used as a battle cry for paratroopers jumping out of a plane, was an Apache Indian chief.


Comment: The funny thing is, Begay was probably only confused because he didn't know that Trump calls Warren "Pocahontas" because she pretended to be Native American. Joshua Green should have asked him about that. See also: Triggered: Liar Elizabeth Warren lashes out at Trump after his Pocahontas slam (VIDEO)

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Book 2

German author: 'Mr. Putin's Geopolitics Is Predictable'


Sputnik
Fri, 24 Nov 2017 08:31 UTC
Vladimir Putin
© Sputnik/ Michael Klimentye
Gabriele Krone-Schmalz, who worked in Russia as a correspondent during the perestroika era, is considered one of the leading German experts on Russian politics. In an interview with Sputnik, she presents her new book "Ice Age: How Russia is Demonized and Why It is So Dangerous" and shares her opinion about conflict between Moscow and the West.

Professor Dr. Krone-Schmalz, the world is nowadays becoming increasingly complex, yet we finally seem to have something to rely on: the good old enemy - Russia. When something bad happens in the world, it does not take long to say: blame the Russians. Is it time for us to get anxious or is it better to just laugh about it?

It's too dangerous to laugh because too much depends on it. One has to get anxious because the world is not that simple. Wrong assumptions lead to wrong decisions. In business, wrong decisions cost money, and in politics - the price sometimes is peace.

Comment: So far the book by Gabriele Krone-Schmalz is only available in German: Eiszeit: Wie Russland dämonisiert wird und warum das so gefährlich ist
Gabriele Krone-Schmalz


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Sherlock

Gloria Allred will only allow handwriting analysis on alleged Roy Moore yearbook signature if he testifies under oath

Jeff Poor
Breitbart
Tue, 28 Nov 2017 18:25 UTC
allred nelson
Tuesday on CNN's "New Day," Gloria Allred, a lawyer representing Alabama U.S. Senate hopeful Roy Moore accuser Beverly Young Nelson, declined to offer up a high school yearbook for a third-party analysis she presented as evidence to strengthen her client's claim that she was sexually harassed by Moore as a minor.

The yearbook in question purportedly has Moore's signature, which has been called into question by those with the Moore campaign. Allred told "New Day" co-host Camerota she would only allow a handwriting analysis if Moore agreed to testify under oath.


Partial transcript as follows:

Comment: If it were revealed to be a fake before the election, it would surely boost Moore in the polls - something Allred probably wouldn't like very much. So by refusing to allow the yearbook to be analysed, she is making sure that the signature can be milked as supporting evidence until then. We wouldn't have expected anything else from Ms. Allred:

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Bad Guys

UN considering sanctions on Libyans in order to fight "slave trade"

Creede Newton
Al Jazeera
Wed, 29 Nov 2017 17:57 UTC
Libya slave market
© Reuters
France's ambassador to the UN has urged the Security Council to impose sanctions on the people involved in Libya's slave trade of African refugees and migrants.

Francois Delattre's comments come as human trafficking in Libya has become a burning topic since a CNN investigation produced footage of West Africans being sold at slave markets in November.

"France will propose to assist the sanctions committee ... in identifying responsible individuals and entities for trafficking through Libyan territory," he told the council on Tuesday.

The UN Security Council held an emergency session to discuss the possibility of sanctions against individuals and entities, and of applying the full range of international law including the use of the international criminal court - but the session ended without resolution.

The head of the UNHCR has called for funds, in addition to words, to fight the modern-day slave trading.

"We count upon support of the members of the council to make headway to that end."

Comment: According to Jim and Joanne Moriarty, this is fake news:
The Great Tribes of Libya have confirmed to me personally that the slavery stories out of Libya are fake. The photos and videos are old and re-edited. I know this is true because I have some of the photos and videos in my files from 2011. Since the Zionists do not have Ghadafi to slander, they are now attempting to gin up hatred for Libya again - accusing the Libyans of doing what their own mercenaries did in 2011.


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