Puppet MastersS


Handcuffs

Texas governor Abbott threatens Austin sheriff for 'sanctuary city' policies


RT
Wed, 25 Jan 2017 14:26 UTC
Travis County TX jail
© Travis County TX / YouTube
In response to an Austin sheriff implementing a 'sanctuary city' policy, Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) threatened to withhold funding to the county unless the policies are reversed by February.

Shortly after being elected as Travis County Sheriff, Sally Hernandez kept her campaign promise to scale back aid to federal immigration agents, in the form of detaining suspects who may be in the country illegally.

In the past, the Travis County Sheriff Department took "detainer requests" from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). These detainer requests asked police to keep possible illegal inmates in detention so their legal status could be investigated.

Effective February first, the Travis County Sheriff department would overturn this policy.

Comment: Also see: Donald Trump lays out his immigration policy at Phoenix rally

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Info

Kuwait hangs royal family member in first mass execution in three years


RT
Wed, 25 Jan 2017 14:15 UTC
Sheikh Faisal
© Al Arabiya English / Twitter
Kuwait has hanged seven prisoners, including a member of its esteemed royal family, in the first mass execution carried out in the oil-rich state since 2013.

Sheikh Faisal, a captain in the Kuwaiti army, was sentenced to death in October 2011 for the premeditated murder of his nephew, as well as the illegal possession of a firearm, AP reported.

Faisal shot his nephew, who was the grandson of Kuwait's 12th emir, several times at close range in 2010, according to a local news outlet.

He was unsuccessful in appealing the death sentence, which was upheld in 2013. It's unclear what Faisal's motives were for the murder.
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Arrow Up

Trump meets biggest US automakers: Urges them to bring production back to America


RT
Wed, 25 Jan 2017 13:54 UTC
Ford American flag
© Larry Downing / Reuters
US President Donald Trump has met the chief executives of the big three American car producers - General Motors, Ford and Fiat Chrysler - to urge them to build more cars and create more jobs in the country. Trump, who has threatened the automakers with a 35 percent tariff on cars produced outside the US, held a meeting at the White House with General Motors' Mary Barra, Ford Motor's Mark Fields, and Fiat Chrysler's Sergio Marchionne.

"We have a very big push on to have auto plants and other plants," Trump told reporters at the start of the meeting.Tuesday was Trump's first chance to meet executives face-to-face to urge them to support his "buy American, hire American" policy. It was also the first time since 2011 the CEOs of the big three - Ford, GM, Chrysler - jointly met with a US president.

Comment: Car wars: Trump tells Germany to buy American automobiles, Germany tells Trump to 'build better cars'
See also:

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Attention

Trump to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel: 'Fix crime rate or I'll send in feds'


RT
Wed, 25 Jan 2017 14:04 UTC
Chicago police
© Reuters
US President Donald Trump has warned Chicago he will "send in the feds" if city officials fail to bring the crime rate under control. The city has so far had more shootings and homicides in 2017 than at the same time last year, according to reports.

In a tweet on Tuesday, Trump stated that if Chicago doesn't fix the growing crime problem, which he slammed as "horrible carnage," he will resort to federal intervention to quell the violence.

The newly-inaugurated president did not specify, however, the kind of federal intervention he meant - whether it is federalization of the local police, sending in the FBI or another federal agency, or some other course of action.
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Bad Guys

McCain: Base closures on the table, will work with Trump on rebuilding military


RT
Wed, 25 Jan 2017 13:00 UTC
John McCain
© Kevin Lamarque / ReutersSenate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain.
Congress should take up the issue of closing unneeded US military bases, leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee have said, urging any savings from the process to be directed to funding troops and equipment upgrades.

"We need to talk about it, I think it has to be considered as all things should be on the table," said committee chairman John McCain (R-Arizona), during Tuesday's hearing on the 2018 military budget.

The Department of Defense has repeatedly asked for a review of military bases scattered across the US, aiming to save about $12 billion a year by closing underused or outdated facilities, Military Times reported. The figure is based on the five previous rounds of base closures since 1990.

Comment: For more on McCain's crazy antics, check out:

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Eye 1

70 million cyberattacks, mostly foreign, targeted Russia's critical infrastructure in 2016


RT
Wed, 25 Jan 2017 00:00 UTC
cyber attacks
© Michael Weber / Global Look Press
Over the past year, Russia had to repel a whopping 70 million cyberattacks endangering its critical information infrastructure, Federal Security Service (FSB) communications and security spokesman Nikolay Murashov revealed on Tuesday.

"Seventy million cyberattacks [targeted] relevant facilities of the Russian Federation during this year," the official told a State Duma committee for Information Policy, adding that the bulk of the attacks originated from abroad.

Touching on Russia's readiness to ward off the mounting number of cyber threats, Murashov insisted that "at present, Russia has sufficient potential in the development of means of information security."

However, while many major Russian companies, such as state-controlled energy giant Gazprom and those in charge of critical railway infrastructure, are considered well-protected, there are enterprises that remain particularly vulnerable to such attacks.
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Newspaper

U.S. Senate Confirms Haley, Ukraine Sovereignty Advocate, As UN Envoy


Radio Europe
Wed, 25 Jan 2017 00:00 UTC
Nikki Hale
© AFPThe new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley
The U.S. Senate confirmed President Donald Trump's pick to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations by a decisive 96-to-4 vote on January 24.

South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley won support from most Democratic senators because she testified that she does not support Republican efforts to slash U.S. funding for the UN.

Democratic Senator Ben Cardin said Haley also said that "Crimea is not Russian" despite Moscow's annexation of the peninsula in 2014, and she spoke "very strongly" about defending Ukrainian sovereignty.
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Newspaper

Oliver Stone: The Russians Are Coming

Oliver Stone
medium.com
Fri, 06 Jan 2017 00:00 UTC
Vladimir Putin
© Getty
As 2016 closes, we find ourselves a deeply unsettled nation. We're unable to draw the lines of our national interest. Is it jobs and economy, is it national security, or is it now in our interest to ensure global security — in other words, act as the world's policemen?

As the "failing" (to quote Trump) New York Times degenerates into a Washington Post organization with its stagnant Cold War vision of a 1950s world where the Russians are to blame for most everything — Hillary's loss, most of the aggression and disorder in the world, the desire to destabilize Europe, etc. — the Times has added the issue of 'fake news' to reassert its problematic role as the dominant voice for the Washington establishment. Certainly this is true in the case of Russia's 'hacking' the 2016 election and putting into office its Manchurian Candidate in Donald Trump. Apparently the CIA (via various unnamed intelligence officials), and the FBI, NSA, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper (who notoriously lied to Congress in the Snowden affair), President Obama, the DNC, Hillary Clinton, and Congress agree that Russia, and Mr. Putin predominantly, is responsible.
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Attention

"Rebel" infighting breaks out as Russia finally manages to separate the "moderates" from the terrorists in Syria

Bernhard
Moon of Alabama
Tue, 24 Jan 2017 02:48 UTC
nusra
© AFP 2016/ Omar haj kadour
On the last days of the Obama administration the U.S. military hit a large Al-Qaeda training camp in Idleb governate in Syria. The camp was known as a training area for European fighters. B-52 strategic bombers dropped a large amount of bombs on the camp. Over 100 people were killed in the attack. The camp's existence, though probably not the exact location, was known since 2013 but the U.S. had not touched it before. Some suggested that the attack had the purpose of destroying evidence of U.S.-al-Qaeda cooperation in Syria.

The Turkish, Russian and Iranian governments had agreed on talks in Astana in Kazakhstan between delegations from "moderate" militant groups in Syria and the Syrian government. Ahrar al Sham, which ideologically borders between al-Qaeda and the "moderates", was also invited. It declined to take part in solidarity with the not-invited designated terrorist group Jaish Fateh al-Sham (the former Nusra Front aka al-Qaeda in Syria).

Russia had suggested the talks with the intent of separating the "moderate" Takfiris under Turkish control from the designated "terrorist" Takfiris. The talks had no immediate results but still achieved their purpose. Shortly after the talks began al-Qaeda attacked Ahrar al Sham. After some on and off fighting al-Qaeda started yesterday to attack all "moderate" Takfiri groups in Idleb and Aleppo governate. (Al-Qaeda is allied with Jund al-Aqsa, an ISIS splinter group, and with the Zinki group, a CIA-vetted "moderate" gang known for receiving TOW missiles from the CIA as well as for the beheading of a Palestinian child.) As al-Qaeda is the biggest group on the rebel-held ground it can only be fought by a united opposition. That fight is currently ongoing.

Comment: More on the infighting, from Sputnik:
Heavy fighting broke out on Tuesday in northwestern Syria between a major jihadist organization, formerly known as the Nusra Front, and more moderate rebel groups.

The clashes reportedly began after the jihadists, now called Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, attacked a base belonging to the Jaish al-Mujahideen faction, one of the rebel groups fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army (FSA).

According to Rami Abdulrahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, reporting on the conflict, Fateh al-Sham appeared to believe that the rebels were providing coordinates for airstrikes recently launched against the former Al-Qaeda affiliate.

"It's an open war on the Nusra Front," Abdulrahman said, adding that the morning attack triggered further battles that continued Tuesday afternoon along the border between Idlib province, under control of Fateh al-Sham, and northern Aleppo province.

The ongoing conflict, between the jihadist group and other rebel forces, has increased, after Syrian government forces backed by Russian air power liberated Aleppo last month. In a statement, Jaish al-Mujahideen called for other factions to "stand as if they are one man" against Fateh al-Sham.
And remember that Abdulrahman IS the SOHR. And his sources are almost exclusively "rebels" and other jihadis.

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Black Cat

Broken Democratic party's new message: Donald Trump is really the 'establishment,' not really 'populist'

Matthew Boyle
Breitbart
Tue, 24 Jan 2017 00:50 UTC
Donald Trump
© desconocido
Leaders of the broken Democratic Party have a new message to try to stop Republican President Donald J. Trump: He's a part of the political "establishment" and is not really a "populist" president.

"Let me just say about his address, it was populist, but I'm worried he's using populist rhetoric to cover up a hard-right agenda," Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told CNN's Jake Tapper on Sunday. "If you look at his Cabinet appointments, so many of them are not populist, but hard-right."

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), a leading candidate for the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and hardcore progressive leftist, actually Tweeted that Trump is not really a populist. Ellison's argument is because President Trump raised Federal Housing Administration mortgage fees back to the levels they were at before former President Barack Obama, on his way out of office, slashed them.


Schumer similarly hammered Trump for this, but even the anti-Trump and highly liberal editorial board of the Washington Post—which is funded by Trump detractor and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos—stood up for Trump in this regard with a scathing editorial bashing Democrats for criticizing Trump over this.
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