Puppet MastersS


Георгиевская ленточка

Putin: 'Panama Papers' scandal was US attempt to break Russians' unity (VIDEO)

Inessa Sinchougova
Fort Russ
Sun, 21 Aug 2016 19:42 UTC
anti-putin propaganda
'Informational product', courtesy of The Guardian
In April 2016, the 'Panama Papers' scandal hit the Western mainstream press like there was no tomorrow. It "exposed" a number of high profile individuals to tax evasion practices, hiding their money in overseas accounts. However, there was more to it than met the untrained eye.

It is still murky waters as to what actually occurred with this fake 'leak' project - the most likely circumstance is that US officials purchased certain selections of the information directly from Mossack Fonseca - notice that there is not a single North American businessman named in the 'scandal.'

Vladimir Putin failed to come up in any direct implication to tax evasion - however Mr Poroshenko did not, not that Western media picked up on that. The 'leaks' were published via the "International Consortium of Investigative Journalists", which is - no surprise here - a Soros-linked initiative.
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Rocket

Thaad's enough: Analysis of the Pentagon's Korean missile deployment

Haneul Na'avi
The Duran
Fri, 19 Aug 2016 00:00 UTC
no thaad
© www.cnn.comThaads are useless against North Korea.
US deployment of an ABM system does not protect either South Korea or the US from North Korea. It is an expensive folly aimed at China and Russia. Trolling-in-real-life has become the State Department's favourite pastime, and recent developments on the Korean peninsula have given the State Department the perfect impetus to further political agitation.

Various Pentagon mouthpieces cited North Korea's semi-successful BM25 Musudan missile tests as potential concern for regional security and in response, and coerced Park Geun-Hye into accepting a shiny new Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system to the bemusement of South Korean protesters in the Seongju province. Whilst rightfully acknowledging that the deployment was "a very sensitive issue for the partners throughout the region", US Defence Secretary Ash Carter enthused that the US was "working closely to ensure the swift deployment of THAAD", a Defence News article noted.

Regional superpowers Russia and China have also rightfully expressed concerns over the THAAD systems citing America's Asian Pivot strategy—which feeds off of Pyongyang's oscillation between brinkmanship and detente—which advanced immediately following the UNCLOS arbitration over the South China Sea.

Comment: The US rarely moves in a straight line, nor speaks more truth than lies. Knowing this makes it easier to spot the real targets and true motives. It is wishful thinking on the US's part to assume their thinly veiled intents are invisible and no one suspects otherwise. S. Korea's deployment of the THAAD system is a mere placeholder for the US in its encirclement of Russia and China.

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MIB

When all else fails, Clinton tries to pin her email scandal on the black guy

Rebecca Shabad
CBS News
Mon, 22 Aug 2016 19:25 UTC
Clinton Powell
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell says that Hillary Clinton's aides have been trying to blame her use of private emails servers on him.

In an interview with People magazine Saturday, he explained that he had only recommended that she use a private email as he had in that position.

"Her people have been trying to pin it on me," Powell said.

Powell, who served under President George W. Bush, then said that Clinton had been using private email servers as secretary of state a while before he even advised her to use a private email.

"The truth is, she was using [the private email server] for a year before I sent her a memo telling her what I did," he said.

According to a new book by political journalist Joe Conason, Powell told Clinton at a dinner party she hosted for former secretaries of state that she should use her own email except for classified information. However, his office said in a statement last week that he "has no recollection of the dinner conversation."

Comment: All this drama over Clinton's emails, who told her what and other such nonsense is small potatoes when it comes to how this disastrous creature has wreaked havoc all over the world as Secretary of State. Her email 'scandal' is what concerns people because that is what the US media is covering. Anything more than that and they'd have to look at their own complicity.

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USA

USA! USA! The complete collapse of journalism as we know it

Michael Goodwin
New York Post
Sun, 21 Aug 2016 19:04 UTC
Clinton and Trump
© Getty Images
Donald Trump may or may not fix his campaign, and Hillary Clinton may or may not become the first female president. But something else happening before our eyes is almost as important: the complete collapse of American journalism as we know it.

The frenzy to bury Trump is not limited to the Clinton campaign and the Obama White House. They are working hand in hand with what was considered the cream of the nation's news organizations.

The shameful display of naked partisanship by the elite media is unlike anything seen in modern America.

The largest broadcast networks — CBS, NBC and ABC — and major newspapers like the New York Timesand Washington Post have jettisoned all pretense of fair play. Their fierce determination to keep Trump out of the Oval Office has no precedent.

Indeed, no foreign enemy, no terror group, no native criminal gang suffers the daily beating that Trump does. The mad mullahs of Iran, who call America the Great Satan and vow to wipe Israel off the map, are treated gently by comparison.

Comment: It really is stunning just how obvious and in-your-face the psywar on the American people has become. Goodwin may have some rose-tinted memories of how the media used to be (newsflash, it has always covered for its corporate/intelligence masters), but he's not wrong about now, not by a long shot. During Bush we had Fox, while other networks still pretended to be impartial. Even then, just recall how they still prostituted themselves out for the WMD lie. But now? They're not even pretending. Something is up here... Meanwhile, some Trump fans shame CNN - rightly deserved.





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Jet5

US $1.5 billion weapons sale to Arabian vassal state exposes massive Saudi losses to Houthis in Yemen war

Marcus Weisgerber
Defense One
Tue, 09 Aug 2016 19:29 UTC
yemen war
Another US tank is destroyed in the Arabian desert
The U.S. State Department and Pentagon Tuesday OKed a $1.2 billion sale of 153 Abrams tanks to Saudi Arabia Tuesday. But that's not the real news.

Turns out: 20 of those tanks, made in America by General Dynamics Land Systems, are "battle damage replacements" for Saudi tanks lost in combat.

Even though the formal announcement of the sales does not say where the tanks were fighting, the Saudi military is believed to have lost some of its 400-plus Abrams tanks in Yemen, where it is fighting Iranian-backed Houthi separatists.


Comment: They're not 'Iranian-backed'; they're 'Yemeni people-backed'.


This revelation was tucked inside a benign Pentagon announcement of the deal, one that for the most part reads just like dozens of other arms sales approved each year. The announcement does not even mention the conflict in Yemen, yet it gives a glimpse into this wildly underreported war between Arab states, the U.S., and the Houthis.
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Attention

Turkey launches artillery barrage on Jarablus, Syria ahead of operation


Sputnik
Mon, 22 Aug 2016 19:25 UTC
Turkish tanks
© AP Photo/ Halit Onur Sandal
The Turkish military has launched strikes against the terrorist group Daesh, also known as IS/Islamic State, as well as the Kurdish YPG in northern Syria, according to NTV.

The howitzer shelling has struck Daesh targets near Jarablus and Kurdish YPG forces north of Manbij.

Turkish officials say that the strikes are aimed at opening a corridor for an "operation."

Comment: Looks like Turkey is moving forward to clean out Daesh but also to prevent Kurds from forming on the Syrian border.
Turkey is calling on Iran, Russia and the United States to open "a new chapter" in the Syrian settlement, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on Monday.

"It is vitally important for Turkey, Iran, Russia and the United States to open a new chapter in Syria without marking time," Turkey's T24 quoted Yildirim as saying.

The Turkish prime minister also described as unacceptable the creation of a Kurdish state entity in northern Syria.
Meanwhile Turkey sends MIT Deputy Chief to Damascus:
Al-Safir newspaper quoted informed sources as saying that one of Fidan's deputies arrived in Damascus on Sunday to meet with the high-ranking Syrian security officials on the latest developments in Northern Syria.

The daily said Turkish officials have repeatedly made similar efforts to reopen communication channels with Damascus in the past, adding that General Ismail Hakki Pekin, who served as the head of the Intelligence Department at Turkish Armed Forces General Staff, visited Syria on May 27


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Wolf

Anti-establishment? Trump's advisory picks have connections to Wall Street, Soros, Blackwater and the CFR

Steven MacMillan
CounterPunch
Mon, 22 Aug 2016 18:53 UTC
donald trump
© GettyRepublican presidential candidate Donald Trump talks to reporters during the 2016 campaign.
Out of all the individuals in the political sphere today, no one stirs controversy and divides opinion more than Donald Trump. For months now, Trump's flamboyant personality and demagogic rhetoric has dominated the media landscape, turning the presidential race into the biggest entertainment event of the year. Hailed as the saviour of America by some, and as a train wreck waiting to happen by others; Trump still remains somewhat of an enigma.

There is no doubt that his straight-talking style has resonated with many Americans who are tired of career politicians more concerned with political correctness than confronting real issues. Many Americans are also encouraged by some of Trump's stances on certain issues - including his comments on improving relations with Russia, and his seeming opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) - yet his constant flip-flopping on issues makes it impossible to decipher what his actual policies will be if elected.

Trump's chances are emboldened by the fact that his major competitor in the race is so hated by every thinking person in the world, that many Americans may support Trump purely as the lesser of two evils. With Hillary at the helm, the American people know exactly what they are going to get: more war, more corruption and more policies that will only benefit special interests.

Trump: The Anti-Establishment Candidate?

Trump supporters are often very vocal in their belief that the real estate magnate is an anti-establishment outsider. In many of his speeches and comments, Trump plays up to this (probably carefully constructed) persona. Judging by the nature of people advising the presidential candidate however, Trump's anti-establishment populism looks anything but genuine.
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Info

Yemeni army downs Saudi Arabia's Apache military chopper near Najran border


FARS News Agency
Mon, 22 Aug 2016 19:08 UTC
Saudi Arabia's Apache Military Chopper
The Yemeni army and Ansarullah fighters continued their advances against the pro-Saudi forces across Yemen, and inflicted heavy losses on their military hardware, including a US-made Apache helicopter.

"Yemen's air defense system destroyed an Apache helicopter in Najran region," the Arabic-language media outlets quoted an unnamed source as saying on Monday, August 22, 2016

There are no further details available on the incident.

Earlier on Monday, a senior Yemeni commander announced that the Yemeni army and popular forces inflicted heavy losses and casualties on the pro-Saudi forces in Ma'rib, Ta'iz and al-Jawf provinces.

"Over 20 pro-Saudi forces were killed in an ambush of the Yemeni army and popular forces," Senior Ansarullah Commander Ali al-Houthi told FNA.
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Briefcase

Judge orders State Department to speed up latest Clinton e-mail review

Andrew M Harris
Bloomberg
Mon, 22 Aug 2016 18:11 UTC
clinton
© Denis Balibouse / Reuters
A federal judge has ordered the U.S. State Department to accelerate its review of almost 15,000 previously undisclosed documents recovered by the FBI from private e-mail servers used by Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state.

Those documents are among tens of thousands of records the State Department is sifting through to cope with the demands of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the conservative group Judicial Watch as the presidential race between Democrat Clinton and Republican Donald Trump enters a crucial phase.

U.S. District James Boasberg on Monday ordered the State Department to process that first batch of records by Sept. 22 and report back to him that day. While he didn't set a schedule for their being made public, a Justice Department lawyer proposed a phased release beginning Oct. 14, a rate that raised the ire of Judicial Watch lawyer Lauren Burke.

"What have they been doing for the past four weeks?" she asked Boasberg, complaining that the government will have had the recovered records for 10 weeks before any of them are released.
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Light Sabers

Japan planning to deploy new missiles in East China Sea by 2023

Ben McGrath
World Socialist Web Site
Fri, 19 Aug 2016 17:53 UTC
japan
Japan is planning to deploy a new type of missile to the East China Sea, where Tokyo is engaged in a tense territorial dispute with Beijing. The decision marks a significant milestone in the drive by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to remilitarize Japan. The planned missile system will be designed locally, by the country's expanding defence industry, rather than being supplied by the United States or another ally.

The Yomiuri Shimbun reported on August 14 that the new surface-to-ship missile will have a range of 300 kilometres, the longest of any missile currently in Japan's armament. The weapon will be GPS-guided and vehicle-based, making it easy to deploy. Placed on islands in the East China Sea, any Chinese or other vessel approaching the disputed Senkaku (Diaoyu in China) Islands would fall within its range.

Later this month, the government intends to request funding for its new missile in the military budget for the 2017 - 2018 fiscal year. Japan has steadily increased its budget in recent years, including record-high military spending in March of this year.

Comment: Further reading: China warns Japan: Joining U.S. 'freedom of navigation' provocations is a red line

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