Puppet MastersS


Arrow Up

Netanyahu announces a three-fold approval of settlement expansion in the West Bank

Allison Deger
Mondoweiss
Thu, 12 Oct 2017 00:00 UTC
West Bank
© nbcnewsAnother illegal settlement, West Bank
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announces yesterday he will approve a bonanza of new settlements in the West Bank in the coming days, bringing the year-end total to 6,500, nearly three times the number of settlements approved in all of 2016.

Netanyahu's office said in a statement Tuesday more 3,736 units will be built in the West Bank, an increase over more than 1,000 from last year. The breakdown of where the settlements will be constructed includes locations important to key figures in the Trump administration and Israel.

Comment: Trump could pull the plug on Netanyahu's American largesse. Perhaps that would get his attention.

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Target

News? Propaganda? Sputnik, RT under investigation

Philip Giraldi
The Unz Review
Tue, 10 Oct 2017 00:00 UTC
DOJ-RT-Sput
© Global ResearchMedia under attack
Somehow everything keeps coming back around to Russia. In one of its recent initiatives, the Justice Department (DOJ) appears to be attacking the First Amendment as part of the apparent bipartisan program to make Vladimir Putin the fall guy for everything that goes wrong in Washington. In the past month, the DOJ has revealed that the FBI is investigating Russian owned news outlets Sputnik News and RT International and has sent letters to the latter demanding that one of its business affiliates register as a foreign agent by October 17th. The apparent line of inquiry that the Bureau is pursuing is that both are agencies of the Russian government and that both have been spreading disinformation that is intended to discredit the United States government and its institutions. This alleged action would make them, in the DOJ view, a propaganda arm of a foreign government rather than a news service. It also makes them subject to Department of the Treasury oversight under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938.

Sputnik, which is owned by a Russian government media group headed by Putin consigliere Dimitri Kiselyov, has been under investigation due to the accusations made by a fired broadcaster named Andrew Feinberg. Feinberg, the former Sputnik White House correspondent, reportedly took with him a thumb drive containing some thousands of internal business files when he left his office. He has been interviewed by the FBI, has turned over his documents, and has claimed that much of the direction over what the network covered came from Moscow.

Comment: The US is looking for any excuse to divert attention away from its policies and deeds of mass deception. The degree of finger pointing and pursuit of dubiously attributed legalities is telling, insomuch as public confidence in the narrative is wearing off and striking out at Russian media outlets buys it a bit more time.

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Attention

Imran Awan accessed House server from Pakistan, Judicial Watch calls for investigation into possible link with DNC 'hack'

Cristina Laila
Gateway Pundit
Thu, 12 Oct 2017 18:53 UTC
tom fitton
© YouTube
As previously reported, Debbie Wasserman Schultz employed Pakistani IT staffers and brothers who were paid over $4 million dollars over the course of their employment even though they were accused of a cyber-security breach.

Imran Awan was arrested as he attempted to flee the U.S. after wiring approximately $300,000 to Pakistan. Fox News is the only cable network covering this huge scandal. When Imran Awan was arrested he was carrying $12,000 in cash on him. His wife was carrying $12,000 of cash when she fled the country too.

Imran and his Muslim brothers, Abid and Jamal accessed unauthorized computers while acting as IT specialists. The three brothers were making $161,000, $165,000, and $160,000 and one of the brothers has a criminal background. Imran's wife, Hina Alvi, who was employed as a staffer since February 2007, was paid $168,300 in 2016. Rao Abbas was paid $85,049 in 2016.

Investigative journalist for the Daily Caller, Luke Rosiak testified Tuesday to four House Republicans who held an impromptu Caucus meeting on the Awan IT scandal on Capitol Hill along with president of Judicial Watch Tom Fitton, Sara Carter of Circa News reported.

Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert was in absolute shock as Luke Rosiak revealed that Imran Awan spent several months each year in Pakistan and was STILL accessing the House server remotely.

Comment: For his part, Tom Fitton told the meeting the following:
"I don't know if the alleged DNC hacks or the hacks we've seen recently are tied to the Pakistani family crime ring that we have found here in the House, but to the extent Mr. Mueller is doing a competent job, it seems to me that he'll at least want to ask some questions to see if there is an intersection between the hacks of Democratic officials including Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the Awan family," Fitton said.


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Newspaper

Hypocritical journalists covering 'Russian influence' on social media not bothered by US government online psyops

Danielle Ryan
RT
Wed, 11 Oct 2017 18:35 UTC
young people coffee shop
© Global Look Press
American journalists are having a field day with the latest accusations of "Russian influence" in social media during last year's presidential election. It would be great if they cared as much about how their own government tries to manipulate them online.

First, some recent history.

On July 2, 2013, the United States Congress silently legalized the use of American propaganda on the American people. Until then, there had been something known as the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, which prevented the government from broadcasting its propaganda aimed at foreigners within the US itself. A bipartisan amendment to the 2013 defense authorization bill undid that - and so the ban on dissemination of propaganda produced by the US State Department and the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) was no more.

What's interesting about this is that the very people in Congress who are complaining night and day about the nefarious influence of Russian propaganda actually don't have a problem with American citizens being targeted with fake news and propaganda at all - just so long as it's coming from their own government. What's more, since this amendment was tucked into the defense authorization bill with relatively little fuss being made, one can assume that journalists charged with disseminating the real news aren't too bothered by it either.

The coverage it did receive was amusing in that journalists appeared to be completely fine with disseminating pro-US government propaganda to foreign audiences, which is precisely what they accuse Russia of doing, and which they pretend to find so uniquely heinous.
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Better Earth

Despite Trump, a U.S.-Russia detente is still absolutely necessary

Katrina vanden Heuvel
National Interest
Sun, 27 Aug 2017 18:26 UTC
putin kremlin
U.S.-Russia relations are in a perilous state. Any wisp of hope coming from Donald Trump's "summit" with President Vladimir Putin at the G-20 was dispelled by breaking news on potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, this time implicating Donald Trump Jr., among others. William Perry, a former secretary of defense under Bill Clinton, terms the situation "worse than the Cold War." Sober realism about U.S. policy towards Russia has seldom been more imperative and less evident. Instead of the characteristically hyperbolic "fantastic relationship" Trump anticipated with Russia, or the "fundamentally adversarial" relationship that Obama's National Security Council deemed inevitable, we need clear thinking on how to rebuild a viable détente with this nuclear power.

On January 26 of this year, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists reset the Doomsday Clock from 11:57 to 11:58:30 (midnight represents nuclear apocalypse). The Bulletin considers these days more dangerous than the Cuban Missile Crisis, and for good reason. The new cold war between Russia and the United States is punctuated by perilous military face-offs in three arenas: in Syria; in the skies over the Baltic Sea, on Russia's western border with three hundred thousand NATO troops on high alert and both Russia and NATO ramping up deployments and exercises; and in Ukraine.

Comment: Unfortunately, there is no room for common sense in U.S. foreign policy.

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Handcuffs

New UK legislation seeks tougher penalties for any type of involvement in terror plot


RT
Thu, 12 Oct 2017 18:21 UTC
UK police
© Peter Nicholls / Reuters
New, tougher sentences have been proposed to deal with "less sophisticated" yet "equally dangerous" terror plots.

The Sentencing Council, which draws up penalty guidelines for England and Wales, issued the first draft of sentences for terrorism-related offences ever handed to a court.

In view of the heightened terrorist threat in the UK, stricter punishments may now apply to anyone who is even slightly involved in a terror plot.

Under the guidelines, minimum terrorism sentences would extend from the existing minimum of between 21 months and five years, to between three and six years.

Comment: Seems the Sentencing Council is frustrated that they're never able to get their hands on the real culprits of these terror attacks, so they're going after anyone they can get their hands on so they can claim 'justice served'.

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Bad Guys

US has already 'lit fuse of war,' nuclear arms not subject to negotiations, says N. Korea's FM


RT
Thu, 12 Oct 2017 18:27 UTC
North Korea missile military parade
© KCNA / Reuters
Pyongyang will not give up its nuclear program under any conditions, North Korea's Foreign Minister has emphasized, stating that the US has "lit the fuse of war" and that Washington should cease its hostile actions first.

US President Donald Trump, who has been eagerly exchanging personal insults with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and threatening military action on multiple occasions, is the one who "lit the fuse of war," Pyongyang's top diplomat, Ri Yong-ho, told TASS in an interview released Wednesday.

Therefore, "our nuclear arsenal is a deterrent that guarantees peace and security in the region and the right of the Korean nation to exist and develop," Ri said.

The punitive sanctions, imposed by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) are also a product of Washington's hostility against North Korea, the diplomat claimed, adding, that the US is trying to gather more nations under its banner to further tighten the restrictions.
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Info

Author of dodgy anti-Trump dossier slapped with congressional subpoena

Dan Boylan
Washington Times
Thu, 12 Oct 2017 18:19 UTC
Glenn Simpson Fusion GPS
© Youtube screen grabFusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson
The Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee has subpoenaed the head of the Washington firm that commissioned the sensational anti-Trump campaign research dossier - adding fresh intensity to the behind-the-scenes scramble among lawmakers to grasp how the infamous document fits into the Russian election meddling investigation.

The subpoena issued for Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson comes as special counsel Robert Mueller's separate investigation interviewed the former British spy, Christopher Steele, who worked with Mr. Simpson in compiling the dossier of negative intelligence on Mr. Trump.

The CIA and FBI saw the dossier's allegations as so sensational and sensitive last year that they excluded any mention of it from the intelligence community's highly publicized accusations back in January about Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Meanwhile, Carter Page, a former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser who filed one of several slander lawsuits because of the dossier, reportedly has said he will not appear before the Senate intelligence committee's Russia probe. While unconfirmed whether the committee formally requested his testimony, the energy investor with Russia ties did inform the panel he won't show if they do ask him.
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Arrow Up

After 14 years of US-led devastation in Iraq, Russia leads reconstruction of energy sectors freed from ISIS control


RT
Thu, 12 Oct 2017 17:53 UTC
Gazprom Iraq
© AFPGazprom employees near a drilling platform for Gazprom company at an oilfield in Badra, Iraq
After 14 years of conflict and insurgency, Iraq is recovering the oil-producing areas seized by ISIS. Gazprom Neft is one of the Russian companies helping the country rebuild its oil and gas industry. RT's Daniel Hawkins went to the town of Badra to see the work in progress.

The Badra oil field is located near the Iranian border and was recently on the frontline of the battle against Islamic militants. It holds reserves of around three billion barrels of crude.

The Gulf Wars and the Iran-Iraq conflicts make this one of the most dangerous places in the world to operate with landmines and explosives littering the desert.
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Star of David

US pulls out of UN cultural body UNESCO over "anti-Israeli bias" - Israel to soon follow suit


RT
Thu, 12 Oct 2017 17:51 UTC
unesco
© Global Look Press
The US State Department confirmed the country is officially withdrawing from UNESCO, the UN's cultural body it helped found in 1945, citing "anti-Israeli bias" and the need for reform. The move will take effect on December 31, the US announced.

"This decision was not taken lightly, and reflects US concerns with mounting arrears at UNESCO, the need for fundamental reform in the organization, and continuing anti-Israel bias at UNESCO," the State Department said in a Thursday statement cited by Reuters.

Washington will remain in the organization "as a non-member observer state in order to contribute US views, perspectives and expertise," the statement said. There has been no immediate comment from the US government.

Earlier, Washington officials told AP that the United States is withdrawing from UNESCO after repeated criticism of resolutions that the Trump administration perceived as anti-Israeli.

Comment: Seems the announcement was timed with a similar one made by Israel:
"Prime Minister Netanyahu welcomes [US] President [Donald] Trump's decision to withdraw from UNESCO, and instructed the Foreign Ministry to prepare Israel's withdrawal from the organization alongside the United States," the prime minister's press service stated.
So the US and Israel are taking their ball and going home because the UN has the temerity to condemn the illegal Israeli settlements in Palestine and support Palestinian independence. The rest of the world should simply say good riddance!

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