Puppet MastersS


Dollars

Emails appear to confirm Obama's DOJ preferentially funneled 'slush fund' settlement cash to leftist groups

Obama Holder
© Mark Wilson/Getty ImagesFormer president Barack Obama and former Attorney General Eric Holder
A $1 billion settlement with the "big banks" appeared to go directly to left-leaning activist organizations.

On Tuesday, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) revealed that documents obtained in a separate, ongoing investigation show that former President Barack Obama's administration directed money intended for victims of Wall Street mortgage meddling to progressive activist organizations who now form much of the "resistance" to President Donald Trump.

Members of the House Judiciary Committee mentioned several weeks ago that they suspected Obama's Department of Justice had iced out conservative organizations looking for their share of the more than $1 billion legal settlement the DOJ collected from "big banks" who'd played a part in the housing crisis of the late 2000s. The DOJ required banks included in the settlement agreement to make "mandatory donations" to non-profits working on housing and property rights policies.

Stormtrooper

Shades of Nazi Germany: Video shows ICE agents illegally entering home and arresting man

ice raid screenshot
Anyone who has read the Diary of Anne Frank knows that the idea of hiding from agents of the state who claim the authority to enter any private property they wish in an effort to find an 'illegal' individual and put them in a camp is a horrifying thought. Luckily, in the United States, there have been constitutional checks and balances that serve to prevent this most disgraceful history from repeating itself. However, these checks and balances have been withering away for years, and now, that horrifying thought is increasingly becoming a reality in the ostensible land of the free.

Just like the Nazis during their occupation of the Netherlands warrantlessly barged into private property like the place Anne Frank was hiding in, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, is increasingly doing the same thing in America. As the video below shows, the constitution does little to stop armed agents of the state from violating the rights of innocent people.

When ICE agents, dressed in plainclothes, barged into an Oregon home-with no warrant-they weren't looking for some criminal MS13 gang member who was out raping children. No, they were there to arrest Carlos Bolanos, a hard-working painter.

Attention

WaPo reveals: DNC, Hillary campaign paid for dodgy Trump dossier

clintons
One of the major mysteries of the Russiagate scandal looks to have been finally solved with an apparently well-sourced article in the Washington Post confirming what many had long suspected: that it was the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign who funded the "research" which resulted in the Trump Dossier, and who were therefore the ultimate clients of Christopher Steele, the British ex-spy who compiled it.

It seems that the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign took over in April 2016 from a previous unnamed Republican the funding of the 'research' which resulted in the Trump Dossier (the Washington rumour mill says this Republican was Senator McCain).

Comment: In other words, the DNC used dodgy Russian sources (compiled by Steel in his dodgy dossier) to try to swing the election. Precisely what they accused the Trump campaign of doing. Zero Hedge summarizes the situation so far:
  • Hillary Clinton and the DNC paid to uncover and package dirt, whether factual or not, on Trump which eventually found its way in the Trump dossier
  • In doing so, the Clintons and the DNC were effectively collaborating with "deep" sources, both among the UK spy apparatus and inside Russia
  • Once Trump won, the FBI was instrumental in "leaking" the dossier to the mainstream media and select still unknown recipients (the same way Comey "leaked" his personal notebooks just a few months later, following his termination, to launch a probe of Trump).
  • The former head of the FBI who was supposed to probe Clinton's State Department - and the Clinton Foundation - for a bribery and kickback scheme involving Russia's U.S. nuclear business, is now investigating Trump for Russia collusion instead
But wait, it gets better: as Ken Vogel, formerly the chief investigative reporter at Politico and currently at the NY Times just reported, "When I tried to report this story, Clinton campaign lawyer @marceelias pushed back vigorously, saying "You (or your sources) are wrong."

Another NYT reporter, Maggie Haberman, confirmed as much saying "Folks involved in funding this lied about it, and with sanctimony, for a year", and by folks she ultimately means Hillary Clinton herself.

Which in light of the latest news suggests that Clinton was lying, which is not surprising, especially when considering the recent "revelations" that the Clintons may themselves have been involved in collusion with Russia over the infamous uranium deal.
Then there's the FBI angle in all of this. As the Post pointed out: "After the election, the FBI agreed to pay Steele to continue gathering intelligence about Trump and Russia, but the bureau pulled out of the arrangement after Steele was publicly identified in news reports."

From the WSJ (with commentary by Zero Hedge):
Let's give plausible accounts of the known facts, then explain why demands that Robert Mueller recuse himself from the Russia investigation may not be the fanciful partisan grandstanding you imagine.

Here's a story consistent with what has been reported in the press - how reliably reported is uncertain. Democratic political opponents of Donald Trump financed a British former spook who spread money among contacts in Russia, who in turn over drinks solicited stories from their supposedly "connected" sources in Moscow. If these people were really connected in any meaningful sense, then they made sure the stories they spun were consistent with the interests of the regime, if not actually scripted by the regime. The resulting Trump dossier then became a factor in Obama administration decisions to launch an FBI counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign, and after the election to trumpet suspicions of Trump collusion with Russia.

We know of a second, possibly even more consequential way the FBI was effectively a vehicle for Russian meddling in U.S. politics. Authoritative news reports say FBI chief James Comey's intervention in the Hillary Clinton email matter was prompted by a Russian intelligence document that his colleagues suspected was a Russian plant.

OK, Mr. Mueller was a former close colleague and leader but no longer part of the FBI when these events occurred. This may or may not make him a questionable person to lead a Russia-meddling investigation in which the FBI's own actions are necessarily a concern. But now we come to the Rosatom disclosures last week in The Hill, a newspaper that covers Congress.

Here's another story as plausible as we can make it based on credible reporting. After the Cold War, in its own interest, the U.S. wanted to build bridges to the Russian nuclear establishment. The Putin government, for national or commercial purposes, agreed and sought to expand its nuclear business in the U.S.
Ah yes, the Clinton's own Russia collusion narrative which recently emerged to the surface and which as of today is being investigated by the House ... As the WSJ correctly notes, "for anyone who cares to look, the real problem here is that the FBI itself is so thoroughly implicated in the Russia meddling story."

Which then shifts the focus to the person who was, and again is, in charge of it all: former FBI director, and current special prosecutor Robert Mueller:
The agency, when Mr. Mueller headed it, soft-pedaled an investigation highly embarrassing to Mrs. Clinton as well as the Obama Russia reset policy. More recently, if just one of two things is true - Russia sponsored the Trump Dossier, or Russian fake intelligence prompted Mr. Comey's email intervention - then Russian operations, via their impact on the FBI, influenced and continue to influence our politics in a way far more consequential than any Facebook ad, the preoccupation of John McCain, who apparently cannot behold a mountain if there's a molehill anywhere nearby.

Which means that Mr. Mueller has the means, motive and opportunity to obfuscate and distract from matters embarrassing to the FBI, while pleasing a large part of the political spectrum. He need only confine his focus to the flimsy, disingenuous but popular (with the media) accusation that the shambolic Trump campaign colluded with the Kremlin.

Mr. Mueller's tenure may not have bridged the two investigations, but James Comey's, Rod Rosenstein's , Andrew Weissmann's , and Andrew McCabe's did. Mr. Rosenstein appointed Mr. Mueller as special counsel. Mr. Weissmann now serves on Mr. Mueller's team. Mr. McCabe remains deputy FBI director. All were involved in the nuclear racketeering matter and the Russia meddling matter.
The punchline: it's not the Clintons that should be looked at, at least not at first - their time will come. It's the FBI:
By any normal evidentiary, probative or journalistic measure, the big story here is the FBI - its politicized handling of Russian matters, and not competently so. To put it bluntly, whatever its hip-pocket rationales along the way, the FBI would not have so much to cover up now if it had not helped give us Mrs. Clinton as Democratic nominee and then, in all likelihood, inadvertently helped Mr. Trump to the presidency.
We eagerly look forward to Trump's furious tweetstorm once he learns of all of this... and how long before he fires Mueller, in this case with cause.
Update

The "new" DNC is scrambling to do damage control. They've just put out a press release denying any involvement.
In a brief statement from DNC Comms Director Xochitl Hinojosa,
"Tom Perez and the new leadership of the DNC were not involved in any decision-making regarding Fusion-GPS, nor were they aware that Perkins Coie was working with the organization."
Of course, the DNC then added - for good measure...
"But let's be clear, there is a serious federal investigation into the Trump campaign's ties to Russia, and the American public deserves to know what happened."
All of which is quite ironic following Perez' comments during the week:
"We have the most dangerous president in American history and one of the most reactionary Congresses in American history," Democratic Chairman Tom Perez said during his speech.

Perez also labeled Trump an "existential threat" with no apparent worry that his words could be taken, along with those by Waters and other liberals in the media, as ammunition for a crazy leftist to once again attack Congress or even the White House.
And even more ironic in light of the increasing evidence and investigation surrounding Hillary Clinton's dealing with the Russians over Uranium One.



Question

Why the West is silent about Ukraine and Saakashvili's new Maidan

Euromaiden
© WIkipediaEuromaidan in Kiev, 19 February 2014. Labor Unions' House on fire.
When Euromaidan kicked off almost exactly 4 years ago in Ukraine's capital of Kiev, you could hardly move for western correspondents there covering it, telling us all about the heroic protesters wishing to overthrow the awful regime of Yanukovych and his government (both, democratically elected, btw) -

What happened next? Maidan and the West got their way, Yanukovych and his government were booted out, the West's people were installed. What happened after that? Well, going on 4 years of chaos, inflation, unemployment, in Ukraine, and war in Donbass, of course. All of which the west have been a bit shy in telling you about, given it's their guys at the wheel....

All of this has contributed to 80% of Ukrainians now being against president Poroshenko, again, something the western press are strangely reticent to report on. Actually, there's a long list of things the West would rather you didn't know about their new Ukraine. Such as this, on October 14th, that open neo-Nazis now brazenly march through Kiev in their thousands -

Black Cat

As the US agenda unfolds in Myanmar blame is being shifted away from Suu Kyi's government where it really belongs

Aung San Suu Kyi
© United Nations/Cia PakAung San Suu Kyi, State Counsellor and Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, addresses the general debate of the General Assembly’s seventy-first session.
As violence continues to unfold in Myanmar's western Rakhine state against the nation's Rohingya ethnic minority, the agenda driving the conflict is likewise unfolding in a more transparent and direct manner.

As was predicted - the US is shifting blame away from the US-backed client regime headed by Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League of Democracy (NLD) party the US installed into power in 2015 - and toward Myanmar's independent institutions, including the nation's still powerful military.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in a recent talk before the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington D.C. (PDF) laid the blame squarely on Myanmar's military, claiming:
...we're extraordinarily concerned by what's happening with the Rohingya in Burma. I've been in contact with Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the civilian side of the government. As you know, this is a power-sharing government that has - that has emerged in Burma. We really hold the military leadership accountable for what's happening with the Rakhine area.
Reuters in an article titled, "Lawmakers urge U.S. to craft targeted sanctions on Myanmar military," would report:
More than 40 lawmakers urged the Trump administration on Wednesday to reimpose U.S. travel bans on Myanmar's military leaders and prepare targeted sanctions against those responsible for a crackdown on the country's Rohingya Muslim minority.
And Freedom House - a subsidiary of the US government and corporate-funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED) - would also publish a piece titled, "Does Democracy's Toehold in Myanmar Outweigh the Lives of the Rohingya?," shifting the blame away from the very regime it worked for decades to put in power, and target Myanmar's military.

Document

Shocker! NYT journalist swims against the tide, objectively investigates mysterious illnesses affecting US diplomats in Cuba

american embassy cuba

Exclusive: When the Trump administration blamed Cuba for a "sonic attack" on U.S. diplomats, a
New York Times reporter did something unusual for his newspaper: he tried objectively to assess the evidence, as Robert Parry reports.

I often criticize The New York Times, Washington Post and other major mainstream media outlets for a very simple reason: they deserve it - especially for their propagandistic, unprofessional and reckless coverage of foreign crises.

But there are occasional moments when some reporter at an MSM outlet behaves responsibly and those instances should be noted at least under the classic definition of "news" - something that is unexpected - or as the old saying goes, "dog bites man is not news; man bites dog is news."

One such moment occurred earlier this month when a Times science editor assigned science reporter Carl Zimmer to look into the mysterious illnesses affecting U.S. diplomats in the recently reopened U.S. embassy in Cuba.

Rocket

Russia to test new RS-28 Sarmat intercontinental missile that can beat US defense shields

RS-28 Sarmat
Russian RS-28 Sarmat
Russia is preparing to test-launch its new generation of nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which it has claimed will be able to penetrate the US' defensive shield.

Delayed several times, the tests of the RS-28's launch and first few seconds of flight are to be carried out at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, in Russia's north-west, before the end of the year.

The trials had been postponed because launch silos and the projectiles themselves were not ready, according to the state-controlled Sputnik website, which cited the Kommersant newspaper.

Comment: See also: Russia's new ICBM Sarmat can penetrate defense shields


Blue Planet

Duterte welcomes flotilla of Russian Naval ships to Philippines as military cooperation pact is signed

Rodrigo Duterte Kalashnikov AK-47
Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has welcomed a flotilla of Russian Naval ships to Manila as a formal military cooperation pact is signed between the two countries.

Duterte personally toured the Russian destroyer Admiral Panteleyev as Philippines received a free shipment of weapons from Russia, including 5,000 Kalashnikov riffles and military vehicles.

Duterte has hailed new fruitful relations with Russia, something which encapsulates his policy goals of expanding Philippines' relations with countries in the wider so-called 'global east'.

Russia's Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu has travelled to Manila as part of the third large Russian military contingent to visit Philippines since Duterte took office in the summer of 2016.

Blue Planet

Anti-Empire Report: Trump, Russian trolls and power aspirations, and US hypocrites

Donald Trump
© Joshua Roberts / Reuters
Capturing the wisdom and the beauty of Donald J. Trump in just one statement escaping from his charming mouth:

"Our military has never been stronger. Each day, new equipment is delivered; new and beautiful equipment, the best in the world - the best anywhere in the world, by far."

Here the man thinks that everyone will be impressed that the American military has never been stronger.

And that those who, for some unimaginable reason, are not impressed with that will at least be impressed that military equipment is being added EACH DAY. Ah yes, it's long been a sore point with most Americans that new military equipment was being added only once a week.

And if that isn't impressive enough, then surely the fact that the equipment is NEW will win people over. Indeed, the newness is important enough to mention twice. After all, no one likes USED military equipment.

And if newness doesn't win everyone's heart, then BEAUTIFUL will definitely do it. Who likes UGLY military equipment? Even the people we slaughter all over the world insist upon good-looking guns and bombs.

And the best in the world. Of course. That's what makes us all proud to be Americans. And what makes the rest of humanity just aching with jealousy.

Vader

Russia blasts US for mishandling and denying access to its seized diplomatic archives

russia diplomatic archives
© Embassy of Russia in the USA / Facebook
Moscow has accused Washington of denying access to and mishandling of diplomatic archives which remained in the Russian Consulate General in San Francisco after the building was seized by US authorities amid the ongoing diplomatic row.

On August 31, Donald Trump's administration ordered the closure of the Russian Consulate in San Francisco, as well as a consular annex in New York and a chancery annex in Washington DC. Giving Russian diplomats less than three days to halt their operations, on September 2 US federal agents seized control of the properties and all the documents that were left behind during the hasty evacuations.

The San Francisco Consulate, which handled work from seven western states, and was the oldest and most established of Russia's consulates in the US, was forced to leave some of the paperwork behind.