Puppet MastersS


Bullseye

US President-elect's first press conference: Slams BuzzFeed as 'failing pile of garbage' - Rejects question from CNN, telling reporter 'you are fake news'

Donald Trump speaks during a news conference
© Lucas Jackson / ReutersU.S. President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a news conference in the lobby of Trump Tower in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., January 11, 2017.

President-elect Donald Trump called BuzzFeed a 'failing pile of garbage' over the report that Moscow has been blackmailing him over past sex adventures in Russia. He also refused to answer a question from CNN, another outlet that published the report.

"Be quiet. I'm not going to give you a question. You are fake news," Trump told CNN reporter Jim Acosta at the press conference in New York on Wednesday, where he announced transferring the company to his sons to avoid conflicts of interest.


Comment: Glorious. Just glorious.


Snakes in Suits

Trump treasury pick Steven Mnuchin's Bank OneWest accused of 'widespread misconduct' in leaked memo

Steven Mnuchin
© Brendan SMialowski/Getty ImagesSteven Mnuchin
ONEWEST BANK, WHICH Donald Trump's nominee for treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, ran from 2009 to 2015, repeatedly broke California's foreclosure laws during that period, according to a previously undisclosed 2013 memo from top prosecutors in the state attorney general's office.

The memo obtained by The Intercept alleges that OneWest rushed delinquent homeowners out of their homes by violating notice and waiting period statutes, illegally backdated key documents, and effectively gamed foreclosure auctions.

In the memo, the leaders of the state attorney general's Consumer Law Section said they had "uncovered evidence suggestive of widespread misconduct" in a yearlong investigation. In a detailed 22-page request, they identified over a thousand legal violations in the small subsection of OneWest loans they were able to examine, and they recommended that Attorney General Kamala Harris file a civil enforcement action against the Pasadena-based bank. They even wrote up a sample legal complaint, seeking injunctive relief and millions of dollars in penalties.

But Harris's office, without any explanation, declined to prosecute the case.

Mnuchin, the former CEO of OneWest, was already facing challenges in his upcoming Senate confirmation hearings on account of his bank's ruthless foreclosure practices, ranging from locking out one homeowner during a Minneapolis blizzard to foreclosing on another over a 27-cent payment shortfall.

Cut

Ukraine power cut 'was judged cyber-attack', Russia to blame

Ukraine's energy grid
© Reuters
Ukraine's energy grid has been attacked twice by hackers
A power cut that hit part of the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, in December has been judged a cyber-attack by researchers investigating the incident.

The blackout lasted just over an hour and started just before midnight on 17 December.

The cyber-security company Information Systems Security Partners (ISSP) has linked the incident to a hack and blackout in 2015 that affected 225,000.

It also said a series of other recent attacks in Ukraine were connected.

The 2016 power cut had amounted to a loss of about one-fifth of Kiev's power consumption at that time of night, national energy company Ukrenergo said at the time.

It affected the Pivnichna substation outside the capital, and left people in part of the city and a surrounding area without electricity until shortly after 01:00.

Comment: Of course it's Russia's fault directly or indirectly.


Laptop

Judge Napolitano: FBI releases "smoking gun" documents on Killary

hillary clinton
While millions of Americans were otherwise occupied with football on Sunday, the FBI discreetly released hundreds of additional documents pertaining to its investigation of Hillary Clinton — the contents of which analyst and legal expert Judge Andrew Napolitano described as "the smoking gun if there ever was one."

Indeed the nature of the documents and the method in which they were communicated might be sufficient to bring charges against the former secretary of state and failed presidential candidate.

In an interview with FOX Business' Lou Dobbs on Monday night, Napolitano asserted the 300 documents — released by an unknown source inside the FBI — evince a tremendously divergent characterization of Clinton's handling of sensitive information than portrayed by intelligence agencies and the Democratic establishment.

"The highly sensitive nature," the judge told Dobbs, "was 301 pages of emails, which Mrs. Clinton sent on a regular basis to a non-government person. We have reason to believe that was Sid Blumenthal — with whom she emailed on a daily and regular basis, several times a day."

Judge Napolitano explained, what "[President-elect] Donald Trump feared and argued during the campaign, and what rogue FBI agents who profoundly disagreed with Director Comey's decision to recommend against indictment" had been saying all along, is actually true.

And "the information Mrs. Clinton regularly sent to [the unnamed individual] was hacked by foreign intelligence agencies of countries unfriendly to us, and friendly to us — and sources tell FOX News those were Russia, China [both] unfriendly, and Israel, friendly."



Comment: Despite Napolitano's assertions the released documents are evidence of a 'hack', the real facts point to both a DNC insider leak and a domestic intelligence leak.

Comment: An interesting about face by the good judge, In December, Napolitano had this to say:




Light Sabers

All-out war breaks out between Trump and his supporters against mainstream media; Trump calls CNN "fakenews"

trump
© Shannon Stapleton / ReutersU.S. President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a news conference in Trump Tower, Manhattan, New York, U.S., January 11, 2017
A full-on war broke out between President-elect Donald Trump and the media at the end of his first press conference in 167 days after he called CNN and Buzzfeed "fake news." The battle quickly spread to Twitter, where everyday Americans joined the fight.

Trump slammed CNN as "disgraceful" and Buzzfeed as "a failing pile of garbage" for their reporting on unverified accusations that the Russian government is blackmailing Trump with compromising personal and financial information about him, and that a two-page synopsis of the allegations was included as an annex to the classified version of the report prepared by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Russian influence on the 2016 presidential election. The ODNI report was presented to President Barack Obama and Trump.

The president-elect then refused to call on CNN's Jim Acosta during his first press conference since July. "Be quiet. I'm not going to give you a question. You are fake news," Trump said.


Comment: See also:


Snakes in Suits

Obama's hypocritical farewell: US must fight for democracy and not be 'just another big country that bullies'

Barack Obama
© Carlos Barria / Reuters
In his final official remarks to the American people, President Barack Obama explained "why we cannot withdraw from global fights." He returned to Chicago to deliver his farewell address and cap eight years in office in front of tens of thousands of supporters.

"Rivals like Russia or China cannot match our influence around the world - unless we give up what we stand for, and turn ourselves into just another big country that bullies smaller neighbors," Obama said Tuesday evening.


Comment: Russia and China can't match the US' military influence but they certainly do economically. The US really is a 'big' country bullying the world. Congratulations Obama and good riddance.


Newspaper

How will Trump be assassinated? Mainstream media inquisition

Mainstream media assassinating Trump
© Russia Insider
They'll go after his character, like they did to Carter

If Donald Trump actually makes good on his promise to avoid military interventions against nation states he will be burnt at the stake. And the executioners will be well-known journalists, just as it was back in the late 1970s when Jimmy Carter was president.

The former peanut farmer and unapologetic Christian from Georgia committed three capital crimes against the Empire.

But first, some background...

The reason Carter became president was because he represented a new vision for America based upon avoiding costly and unnecessary wars. The American public had become tired of foreign wars in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia as well as the Mainstream media lies that promoted and justified modern Imperial intervention. Our goal, they claimed, was to prevent Koala bear-loving Australia from becoming the next domino to fall to Communism.

Now to those crimes...

When 52 Americans were captured in 1979 in Tehran and held hostage for more than a year, Carter did not unleash the full might of America's military to free them and punish this insubordination and insult on the part of Iran. From the very beginning, the Mainstream Media went on the attack vilifying Carter for his inaction. Each day on the "Nightly News" viewers were greeted with an ominous and dire sounding voice-over declaring "AMERICA HELD HOSTAGE". This was repeated more than 400 times! As the Brits would say "A bit over the top". After all, I was an American and I personally never felt I was being hand-cuffed and blindfolded.

Bulb

Tillerson: Washington should view Russia as partner at times instead of permanent adversary

tillerson
© Jonathan Ernst / ReutersRex Tillerson
Washington should move from viewing Russia as a permanent adversary to a partner at times, Rex Tillerson, nominated to head the State Department under President-elect Donald Trump, said during a hearing of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

"Russia more than anything wants to establish its role in the global world order," said Tillerson. "Russia is here, and Russia matters, and they are a force to be dealt with," he added.

The nominee for State Department head also advocated a deterrent "stick" when asked about sanctions on Russia.

"In carrying out the State Department's diplomacy we need a strong deterrent in our hand...it is useful to have a stick in your hand, whether you use it or not it is useful to have."

Tillerson noted that while in his view Russia "poses a danger," Washington still needs an "open and frank dialogue" with Moscow.

Eye 1

Conflict of interest? Theresa May urged to reveal her financial investments

Theresa May
© Francois Lenoir / ReutersBritain's Prime Minister Theresa May
UK Prime Minister Theresa May is facing calls to reveal her financial interests after it emerged she set up a blind trust of shares when she became prime minister, thought to be worth up to £145,000 ($175,000).

Such a trust, which allows May to keep investments while relinquishing management of them, was revealed in a recent Cabinet Office list of ministerial interests.

A blind trust is controlled by a third party, meaning May will not know when shares are traded and replaced while she is in power.

Opposition MPs say there is a potential conflict of interest, because May would know what her investments were when the trust was created, the Times reports.

MIB

Alex Jones claims Wikileaks, others threatening Obama, Hillary & Kerry with more brutal leaks

Alex Jones
© Russia Insider
"The hammer is over your head right now, make one last move that's wrong - it's ALL going to be released on you."


On Tuesday of last week, Alex Jones, explained that what he was about to release was one of the most important things he has reported ever!

He then said that multiple sources, Wikileaks included, are now issuing actual threats to Obama, Hillary and company: that (more) devastating data will be released if they don't stop these last ditch efforts to discredit Trump, and cause general havoc with the incoming administration.

Jones is in top form here, and if you still don't understand why this guy has become perhaps the most influential single media personality in the US, this is well worth your 2 minutes. It is extremely entertaining television.


An RI source recently provided us with YouTube analytics, unavailable to the public, verifying that the "The Alex Jones" YouTube channel (which is only 1 of his 15) is in fact bigger than CNN's main YouTube channel.