Puppet MastersS


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On the offensive: Trump to hit the road for a jobs-focused reset in tough week

Roberta Rampton
Reuters
Sat, 03 Jun 2017 20:53 UTC
Donald Trump
© REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
President Donald Trump will hit the road next week to ramp up his long-promised plan to overhaul the nation's aging airports, roads and railways, a push that could energize his supporters and distract from political intrigue in Washington.

The infrastructure push - which will include a trip to Cincinnati, Ohio - comes as the White House seeks to refocus attention on core promises to boost jobs and the economy made by Trump last year during his campaign for office.

Those pledges have been eclipsed by the political furor over Russia's alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. election. That drama will come to a head on Thursday when former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey, who was leading the Russia probe until Trump fired him, testifies before a U.S. Senate panel.
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Info

Macron invites all Americans disappointed with Trump to France

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Sat, 03 Jun 2017 19:54 UTC
macron
French President Macron invited American citizens - especially those with a higher education - who are disappointed with Trump's decision to pull out of the Paris accord, to help "make our planet great again" by moving to that bastion of liberal global values, France , where they will find "a second homeland."

In a short address to Americans following Trump's announcement to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, the French leader said that while he respects President Donald Trump's decision, he believes it was a "mistake" and invited all Americans (ideally those with a college education) to come join him in France "to work together on concrete solutions, for our climate, our environment."

And, to show just how progressive he truly is, the French president called on all US "scientists, engineers responsible citizens who were disappointed by the decision by the President of the United States, I want to say that they will find in France a second homeland. I call on them: Come and work here with us. To work together on concrete solutions, for our climate, our environment."
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Eye 1

Big surprise: Ex-NSA official admits agency conducted mass surveillance during Salt Lake City Olympics

Lindsay Whitehurst
Associated Press
Fri, 02 Jun 2017 22:04 UTC
nsa spying
© Ints Kalnins / Reuters
A former top spy agency official who was the target of a government leak investigation says the National Security Agency conducted blanket surveillance in Salt Lake City during the 2002 Winter Olympics in Utah, according to court documents.

Ex-NSA official Thomas Drake wrote in a declaration released Friday that the NSA collected and stored virtually all electronic communications going into or out of the Salt Lake City area, including the contents of emails and text messages.

"Officials in the NSA and FBI viewed the Salt Lake Olympics Field Op as a golden opportunity to bring together resources from both agencies to experiment with and fine tune a new scale of mass surveillance," Drake wrote.

Comment: Surveillance State: How the NSA breaks the law - and lies about it

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Radar

'Foolhardy move': US missile interceptor system won't stop N. Korean 'shower of nuclear strike'


RT
Sat, 03 Jun 2017 17:03 UTC
photo of a ballistic rocket test launch released by North Korea
© ReutersUndated photo of a ballistic rocket test launch released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) May 30, 2017.
Pyongyang condemned the successful US ballistic missile interceptor test from earlier this week as a "risky move" which "will only bring earlier the day when the US mainland will turn into ashes."

A spokesman for the Strategic Force of the Korean People's Army told KCNA state news agency that the US ballistic missile interceptor test conducted on Tuesday "is just a serious military provocation that brings to light the US imperialists' wild ambition for igniting a nuclear war."

He called the interceptor test a "risky act" that indicates US "preparations for unleashing a nuclear war against" North Korea. Such "foolhardy moves" of the US military only prove that North Korea's "bolstering the nuclear force for self-defense is entirely just," according to the spokesman.


Comment: Putin clearly explains what forced North Korea to develop nuke program

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Video

Putin to film director Oliver Stone: I suggested Russia joining NATO to Clinton, he 'didn't mind'


RT
Sat, 03 Jun 2017 18:54 UTC
Presidents Vladimir Putin and Bill Clinton
© Vladimir Rodionov / SputnikPresidents Vladimir Putin and Bill Clinton, 06.05.2000
Russian President Vladimir Putin once suggested to then-US president Bill Clinton that Russia join the Washington-led military alliance, Putin said in an interview with American film director Oliver Stone.

"I remember one of our last meetings with President Clinton, when Clinton was still in office. He visited Moscow and during a discussion I said, 'So, what if [we] consider an option of Russia maybe joining NATO,'" Putin said in one of his conversations with Stone.

While Clinton replied that he "didn't mind," the rest of the American delegation became visibly nervous, Putin went on to say, smiling.


The conversation was posted on Vimeo by Daniel Lippman as "an exclusive preview clip" of an upcoming Showtime series on the Russian leader. It is said to be part of a four-night special documentary project, 'The Putin Interviews,' set to premiere on the American cable network on June 12.

In a separate interview in the preview, Putin called NATO "an instrument of America's foreign policy," saying that the US-led alliance "has no allies, but only vassals." According to the Russian leader, some member states find it hard to resist Washington's pressure, and thus "anything can be easily placed" on their territories, including both anti-missile and offensive systems.

Comment: See also:

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Info

100 years later the West has authored a new Balfour Declaration for the Balkans

Adam Garrie
The Duran
Sat, 03 Jun 2017 16:32 UTC
Kosovo church
In 1917, a British aristocrat promised Arab land to European Zionists. The results have been catastrophic. Today, western elites are promising Orthodox Christian lands in the Balkans to Albanians who all ready occupy part of Serbia thanks to NATO. The results will be equally disastrous.

The illegal 1999 NATO war on Yugoslavia caused two parallel crises and is the proximate cause of a third. Most tragically, it caused the displacement of thousands of Serbians from their native Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija to other parts of Serbia. Many still live without permanent homes.

At the same time, although the Serbia province of Kosovo and Metohija became fully occupied by ethnic Albanians with the help of NATO forces and EU political enforcers, many decided to take up permanent residency in neighboring countries including in Macedonia.
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Star of David

UN: Israel is the main cause of Palestinian suffering

Charlotte Silver
The Electronic Intifada
Wed, 31 May 2017 00:00 UTC
2kids rubble
© Mahfouz Abu TurkAPA imagesPalestinian children play on the rubble of their family home demolished by Israel occupation forces in East Jerusalem’s Silwan neighborhood, on the pretext it lacked a virtually impossible to obtain permit.
Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which will exceed the 50-year mark in June, is "the main cause" of Palestinian humanitarian needs, the United Nations has affirmed. "The occupation denies Palestinians control over basic aspects of daily life, whether they live in the Gaza Strip or in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem," according to a report released Wednesday by the UN humanitarian coordination agency OCHA.

"At its heart, the crisis in the [occupied Palestinian territories] is one of a lack of protection for Palestinian civilians - from violence, from displacement, from restrictions on access to services and livelihoods, and from other rights violations - with a disproportionate impact on the most vulnerable, children in particular," OCHA head David Carden said. That crisis is particularly acute right now in the Gaza Strip, where a lack of electricity, on top of a 10-year Israeli blockade and successive military assaults, has brought the territory to the brink of collapse.

Comment: The UN is useless in regards to rectifying the wrongs perpetrated on Palestinians, who continue daily to suffer atrocities for scant and insignificant reasons, nor is it likely to have the balls to buck the US-Israeli power command that is strangle-holding international law and justice for the victims. A shameful 'more of the same,' which makes the UN complicit in the fate and suffering of the Palestinians.

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Briefcase

Sanders attorneys: Ex-DNC chair's office attempted 'unsolicited contact'


RT
Fri, 02 Jun 2017 21:13 UTC
DWSchultz
© Brian Cahn/Global Look PressFormer DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz
Three law firms representing plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the Democratic National Committee and former DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz said they received "unsolicited direct contact" allegedly from a phone number connected to her district office.

The law firms are involved in a class action lawsuit against the DNC and Wasserman Schultz that claims seven different violations - including fraud, negligent misrepresentation, unjust enrichment and negligence - connected to revelations that the party essentially rigged its 2016 presidential primary process for the benefit of eventual Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. The firms represent a group of supporters for Senator Bernie Sanders, Clinton's primary opponent.

On June 1, the law firms filed a notice to the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida that alleged "unsolicited direct contact by your client Debbie Wasserman Schultz" through a caller that seemed to use a voice anonymizer. The number where the call originated, the firms said, is the phone number to Wasserman Schultz's district office in Aventura, Florida. The phone number, the notice said, was captured in a screenshot by the firm that received the call.

Comment: There seems to be no limit to the deviousness, corruption and disregard for the law when it comes to the DNC. The moral compass is so off mark that the principals of the organization no longer connect with what is right or wrong.

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Laptop

Judicial Watch: A new Clinton email shows classified info was sent to Clinton Foundation

Todd Shepherd
Washington Examiner
Thu, 01 Jun 2017 06:04 UTC
Clintonred
© Politico
The watchdog organization Judicial Watch released new Hillary Clinton emails on Thursday, including one that the group said shows Clinton sending a classified email in 2010 to two employees of the Clinton Foundation that didn't have a security clearance.

The email in question appears to show a State Department employee first receiving an email from an unidentified person. That exchange was forwarded to Clinton, who then forwarded it to the two people at the Clinton Foundation. The email is presently marked with a "classified" box prominently on the first page of the chain. That email and others add to the tally of documents from Clinton's non-government email account that had not been released yet, even though Clinton had claimed she handed over all relevant emails.

"The casual violation of laws concerning classified material and noxious influence peddling show the Clinton State Department was 'corruption central' in the Obama administration," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a press release.


Comment: To not condemn the actions and evidence in the email crimes of Hillary Clinton and her staff by giving her a fistful of 'get out of jail free cards', is: akin to collusion, a smack to justice and law-abiding citizens of the USA, and an unimpeded permission to continue the devisive double standard evident between the people and the ruling elite.

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Sheriff

Federal "Back the Blue Act" to make it nearly impossible to sue police for rights violations

Josie Wales
AntiMedia
Sat, 03 Jun 2017 15:58 UTC
Police state USA
Last week, Human Rights Watch penned an open letter to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees voicing their strong opposition to a new bill that would make it nearly impossible to sue police for constitutional violations. Senator John Cornyn (R-Tex.) and Representative Ted Poe (R-Tex.) proposed the identical bills on May 16th "[t]o protect law enforcement officers, and for other purposes."

Co-Director of Human Rights Watch Alison Parker writes that H.R. 2437/S.B. 1134, or the "Back the Blue Act," doesn't protect police from danger, but rather "protects police departments from liability, and removes incentives for those departments to monitor themselves and improve the quality of their policing."

The proposed bill would make significant amendments to Sections 1983 and 1988 of the U.S. Code, shielding police officers from civil liability even in cases of grievous misconduct, making new federal crimes out of offenses already covered by state laws and imposing harsh mandatory minimum sentences.

Qualified immunity already provides police with broad protection from liability by requiring proof that not only were an individual's rights violated but whether or not a reasonable officer was aware that their misconduct violated the plaintiff's rights. Qualified immunity has been described by experienced civil rights litigator and professor of law Alan K. Chen as "one of the most impenetrable barriers to liability for constitutional violations." According to Professor Chen, "the Court has shaped the doctrine in ways that make it more closely resemble absolute immunity."
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