Puppet MastersS


Bad Guys

Politico spouts ridiculous propaganda, says Russian 5th column infiltrating all aspects of US political life including military

American propaganda
Politico has published an exposé about how 'Russian propaganda' is destroying the US military from the inside out and turning servicemembers and veterans into a dangerous 'fifth column'. Speaking to Radio Sputnik, political observer Valery Korovin said that the truth is that US military leaders are just afraid of alternative sources of information.

The Politico piece, coming out the same day that Secretary of Defense James Mattis issued his own letter to Congress about the challenges Russia and China pose to US military dominance, consists of a series of paranoid anecdotes about how the Kremlin appears to be infiltrating all aspects of US political life, including the military.

For example, the article finds it highly suspicious that Veterans Today, an independent news site that offers ex-service members help finding jobs and paying medical bills, occasionally reposts content from Russian-based English-language resources.

Snakes in Suits

Useless bickering: Democrats squabble behind closed doors over Trump impeachment plan

anti-Trump protesters
© Patrick T. Fallon / Reuters
Democrats in Congress almost always unite when it comes to opposing President Donald Trump, but strategy sessions are reportedly blowing up over California Representative Brad Sherman's controversial plan to bring articles of impeachment.

During a weekly meeting of House Democrats, many of Sherman's colleagues protested his decision, according to The Hill. Sherman's articles of impeachment were circulated through the House of Representatives on Monday.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-California) urged her party to steer their energy toward issues such as the economy. Others took issue with other possible consequences of focusing on impeachment.

Light Saber

Trump argues for more generous healthcare during closed-door meeting with senators - calls ACHA bill 'mean, mean, mean'

Trump
© Carlos Barria / ReutersUS President Donald Trump
President Donald Trump has reportedly asked Republican senators to draft a "more generous" healthcare bill than the "mean, mean, mean" American Health Care Act (AHCA) recently passed by the House.

During a private White House lunch with 15 GOP senators on Tuesday, Trump reportedly told his guests that the House bill was "mean, mean, mean," adding that the new bill needs to be "more generous, more kind," Congressional sources told the Associated Press and CNN.

"He made pretty clear that he thinks the House bill leaves people - many of which probably make up his base - in a bad place," one source told CNN.


Bizarro Earth

Get ready for the World Truth Ministry and the unimaginable

Theresa May
What began as Germany's so-called "Ministry of Truth", has now expanded to include spying, censoring, and vetting of citizens worldwide. If "Big Brother" is pulling all the levers of power out there, he's missed his best chance ever to run the entire show. Here's the latest pieces in the zigsaw puzzle of civic control George Orwell prophesied.

When I wrote about Facebook testing new censoring tools before, during, and after the French election process, only a few thousand readers took notice. The main reason the public seems so disinterested is that the sensational news and events, fake and real, over the past four or five years have left them numb. When Edward Snowden revealed the NSA is spying on everybody, the news cycle quickly diverted our attention away from the reality the Obama White House tore up the US Constitution.

Vader

Warmongering liars who lie about nearly everything

trump saudis sword dance
Terrorism supporters in Washington and Riyadh close ranks against Qatar

The United States has been using lies to go to war since 1846, when Americans who believed in manifest destiny sought to expand to the Pacific Ocean at the expense of Mexico, acquiring by force of arms California and what were to become the southwestern states. In 1898 the U.S. picked up the pieces of a dying Spanish Empire in a war that was driven by American imperialists and the yellow dog reporting of the Hearst Newspaper chain. And then came World War 1, World War 2, and Korea, all avoidable and all enabled by deliberate lying coming out of Washington.

More recently, we have seen Vietnam with its Gulf of Tonkin fabrication, Granada and Panama with palpably ridiculous pretexts for war, Iraq with its nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, Afghanistan with its lies about bin Laden, Libya and its false claims about Gaddafi, and most recently Syria and Iran with allegations of an Iranian threat to the United States and lies about Syrian use of barrel bombs and chemical weapons. And if one adds in the warnings to Russia over Ukraine, a conflict generated by Washington when it brought about regime change in Kiev, you have a tissue of lies that span the globe and bring with them never-ending conflict to advance the American imperium.

Black Cat

Obama's former Attorney General Lynch pressured Comey to not investigate Killary

lynch comey
Former FBI Director, James Comey had a second meeting with Barack Obama's former Attorney General Loretta Lynch where he confronted her about her election interference.

According to a breaking report by Circa News, when confronted, Loretta Lynch stared at Comey with a "steely silence that lasted for some time" before she asked him to leave her office.

Comment: Perhaps Trey Gowdy's assessment of Comey's actions will be proven out.

Trey Gowdy: Hillary Clinton's crimes are much worse than we first thought
"I've had plenty of differences with Jim Comey, I want to be really clear about that, but I think history is going to be much kinder to Comey over his July press conference [in which he declined to prosecute Hillary] than the Democrats were when he had it," Gowdy told Fox News. "I think he had access to information that, because he's a stand-up guy who's not going to decimate classified information although God knows everyone else is, he's not going to [release] it even if it casts him in a negative light."

"...Comey had access to additional [classified] information that I am convinced that left him with no other choice than to make the decision he made in July." And right after that decision, an FBI insider with "intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the Clinton case" revealed the agency's investigation into Clinton's private email servers pointed towards greater crimes involving the Clinton Foundation.



Info

UAE envoy says US should consider moving airbase from Qatar as it gives Doha 'nice insurance'

Al-Udeid air base
© Rabih Moghrabi / AFPAl-Udeid air base
Washington should consider relocating its Al Udeid airbase from Qatar as it gives the gas-rich state "a nice insurance policy" against pressure from Arab neighbors, the UAE ambassador to the US argued as the Gulf political crisis enters its second week.

As the all-out political crisis among Persian Gulf states enters its second week, the United Arab Emirates Ambassador to the US Yousef al-Otaiba threatened Qatar with more punitive actions. He also complained about Washington's massive military presence in the monarchy.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Otaiba said the US and his own country had allowed "bad behavior" by Qatar to continue for "a very long time," as cited by AP.
"If I want to be honest, I think the reason action hasn't been taken against Qatar is because of the airbase," he said, referring to the base near the capital, Doha. "The airbase is a very nice insurance policy against any additional pressure."

Map

Stone documentary: Putin outlines 'red lines' which US and NATO shouldn't cross

Vladimir Putin
© Sputnik/ Dmitry Astakhov
Russian President Vladimir Putin assured US filmmaker Oliver Stone that Russia would create an economical and effective response to US and NATO actions to preserve the global strategic balance. Asked for comment, political scientist Nikita Danyuk explained why the Russian president's message was something Western powers need to hear and understand.

Speaking to Stone in 'The Putin Interviews', a documentary series which started its broadcast on the Showtime television network this week, Russia's president explained that Moscow has the resources to respond to belligerent US and NATO policy, including attempts to ring Russia with missile defense.

Russia, Putin said, is now almost surrounded by US missile defense systems, from ground-based bases in Eastern European countries, to NATO ships patrolling the Mediterranean and the northern seas, and Alaska, where missile defense systems are currently being installed.

Radar

US reinforces southern Syrian base At Tanf with long range artillery

US long range rocket artillery
You would think that when Syrian forces surprised the Pentagon and effectively neutralized the US base in southern Syria by cutting it off from coveted ISIS-held eastern Syria this would have helped to defuse the standoff there.

However, rather than contemplating retreat from what is now an almost completely useless and strategically irrelevant occupation zone the US military is for some reason doubling down instead.

CNN has learned that the US has moved its long range rocket artillery from Jordan to southern Syria:
The US military has moved its High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) from Jordan into southern Syria for the first time, positioning it near the US-Coalition training base at At Tanf, three US defense officials confirmed to CNN Tuesday.

HIMARS, a truck-mounted system which can fire missiles as far as 300 kilometers, represents a major boost to US combat power near At Tanf, a location that has come under the spotlight following a series of recent coalition strikes against pro-regime forces operating in the area.

HIMARS had been previously used to strike ISIS targets from firing positions in Turkey and Jordan. The system has also been deployed in Iraq to hit ISIS positions there.

X

US 'consistently and excessively' secret about drones: Report suggests 80% of strikes unacknowledged

Saudi airstrikes in Sanaa
© AP Photo/ Hani Mohammed
Ever since 2004, the US has carried out drone strikes across the Middle East and Africa, often far away from official theaters of war. Leaders have admitted to killing thousands, many of them innocent women and children - although a report now suggests up to 80 percent of drone strikes have gone unacknowledged and unreported by officials.

The report by Columbia Law School Human Rights Clinic and the Sana'a Center for Strategic Studies notes that while the US has taken and continues to take a lackadaisical approach to drone strike reporting, the program is intensifying — ever since Donald Trump took office, drone strikes per month have increased by almost four times Obama's average. War ravaged Yemen has been a common target of these operations, with at least 11 strikes hitting the country as of June 2017, along with 81 other covert attacks by US forces.