Puppet MastersS


Bullseye

Iraq celebrates: Victory over Daesh in Fallujah


Sputnik
Thu, 23 Jun 2016 20:36 UTC
Iraqi army
© AP Photo/ Khalid MohammedA victory two years in the making.
The Iraqi Army has finally liberated the city of Fallujah from Daesh in a historical victory. Member of the Council of Anbar province, Tah Abdel Ghany, spoke to Sputnik about the army's successful operation. For over two years, the city of Fallujah was under the tyranny of Daesh. The civilians were exposed to horrors such as starvation, torture and executions. People were getting publicly executed for false accusations such as "conspiracy with the authorities" and "spying for the army."

In an interview with Sputnik, Tah Abdel Ghany stressed that the city of Fallujah is finally completely freed from Daesh. "All nooks and lanes of the city where the terrorists are hiding are being stripped down by the security forces of the country and soon they will be fully liberated," Abdel Ghany said. He further said that some of the terrorists are hiding in Al Jolan region but they will be eradicated soon.

A source in Iraq's security structure told Sputnik that the armed forces of the country in the past two days liberated territory of over 60 km to the north of Fallujah.

"Right now the military gear is being used to attack the terrorists in al-Jolan, which has been turned into a time bomb because of the amount of mined houses and roads, as well as because of the hidden Daesh snipers," the source said.

According to him, the militants moved their command post to the area of Arzakiya, northwest of Fallujah. Thus, making it their last stronghold, as it will be liberated after Al-Jolan. At the same time, the militants cannot escape, since around Fallujah the Iraqi Armed Forces built a ring together with the people's militia, thus trapping the terrorists inside.

Comment: See also:

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Heart

20 members of Congress send Obama letter requesting protection for Palestinian children living under violent Israeli occupation

Ben Norton
Salon
Wed, 22 Jun 2016 17:27 UTC
palestinian child
© Reuters/Suhaib SalemA Palestinian boy stands behind a fence in the southern Gaza Strip, May 12, 2016
Twenty Congress members have called on President Obama to take action to protect the rights of Palestinian children.

The lawmakers sent the president a letter on June 20, urging him to appoint a "special envoy for Palestinian youth" in order to monitor the Israeli government's violation of Palestinian children's human rights.

The letter (embedded below), notes that Palestinian children are "growing up under military occupation with very few opportunities to improve their lives."

The letter describes the occupation as "an unimaginably difficult and at times hopeless environment," where children "live under the constant fear of arrest detention and violence at the hands of the Israeli military."

Israel's illegal military occupation marked its 49th anniversary earlier this month. Nearly half, 46 percent, of the roughly 4.7 million Palestinians living in the Israeli-occupied territories are minors under 18 years of age.
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No Entry

Supreme Court blocks Obama attempts to grant amnesty to illegal immigrants


RT
Fri, 24 Jun 2016 16:29 UTC
Supreme Court
© Reuters
The US Supreme Court split struck a blow against the White House's immigration agenda with a 4-4 ruling. The split decision affirms the ruling of the lower court, which said the Obama administration overstepped its bounds.

The ruling was announced Thursday morning with only nine words: "The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided court."

The Obama administration in late 2014 began its attempt to bypass Congress with an executive order that would have granted amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants.

The Obama administration in late 2014 began its attempt to bypass Congress with an executive order that would have granted amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants. However, lower courts have since blocked its implementation after 25 states joined Texas in a lawsuit against the order that claimed that such an action was not within the president's power.

The administration continuously appealed as courts ruled against block the order, until it reached the Supreme Court, which has had only eight members since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. A tie vote means that the court can't issue a ruling, which effectively upholds the lower court's ruling against the White House.
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Eye 2

Killary demoralized Secret Service officers who protected her - 'drove them to dangerous habits' says former agent

David Martosko
Daily Mail
Thu, 23 Jun 2016 16:20 UTC
hillary book secret service
© Gary Burne/Hachette Book GroupGary Byrne says he was posted outside Bill Clinton's Oval Office in the 1990s and what he saw 'sickened him'
Blockbuster book due out Monday paints Clinton as a shrewish, paranoid 'Bridezilla' monster who verbally abused Secret Service at every turn

A blockbuster book set for release on Monday paints Hillary Clinton as a shrewish and paranoid monster during her time as America's first lady - so mercurial and antagonistic that some U.S. Secret Service personnel protecting her 'literally went mad'.

'Many turned to alcohol, drugs, performance enhancers, affairs (sometimes at the workplace), and even prostitutes and other dangerous habits,' Gary Byrne writes in the forthcoming memoir Crisis of Character.

And perhaps most ominously for the agency tasked with the safety of the White House and its occupants, he writes that 'a "f*** it" mentality trickled down' throughout the Service because of Hillary's carelessness with safety and security. 'Mrs. Clinton was a joke,' writes Byrne, a former uniformed Secret Service officer who was stationed in the West Wing of the White House for several years during the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. 'She was a faux leader, all bark, no bite, but in a very real power position as First Lady.'


Comment: Apparently that cavalier attitude hasn't changed at all.

Killary's private server - a massive security headache meant to dodge FOIA requests


Daily Mail Online has obtained a copy of Byrne's book in advance of publication. It paints a picture of Hillary's paranoia about the agents and officers protecting her and her family, describing how it bled through in shouting matches between her and President Bill Clinton.

Byrne writes that strict security protocols dating from long before Hillary arrived in Washington cramped her style.
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Info

Berlin summons Turkish diplomat over canceling visit to Incirlik air base


Sputnik
Fri, 24 Jun 2016 16:46 UTC
Incirlik air base
© REUTERS/ Umit Bektas
A Turkish charge d'affaires was summoned the German Foreign Ministry over cancellation of the German delegation's visit to the Incirlik air base, German Foreign Ministry's spokeswoman Sawsan Chebli said Friday.

The German Spiegel magazine reported on Wednesday that the fact-finding mission headed by Ralf Brauksiepe, parliamentary state secretary for the country's defense ministry, was prohibited from visiting Incirlik, in a signal that German officials were not welcome guests in Turkey. The move by Ankara followed the decision of the German parliament to recognize the 1915-1916 massacre of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire as genocide.

"I can add that the Foreign Ministry looked for a meeting with the Turkish side on various levels yesterday. Finally, we held a conversation with the charge d'affaires in the Foreign Ministry's building in Berlin where we decisively noted that the state secretary can visit the military base in Incirlik. We explained to the Turkish side that visiting military units was a common practice among the NATO allies... We indicated that we were planning the visit," Chebli said at a briefing.

She pointed out that there was no further development of the situation.
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Mail

Killary's private server - a massive security headache meant to dodge FOIA requests

Tim Cushing
Tech Dirt
Fri, 24 Jun 2016 15:45 UTC
hillaryclinton email server
© Keven Siers/Charlotte Observer
From the breaking-badly dept:

More bad news for Hillary Clinton and her ill-advised personal email server. Another set of emails released by the State Department shows the government agency had to disable several security processes just to get its server to accept email from Clinton's private email address.
The emails, reviewed by The Associated Press, show that State Department technical staff disabled software on their systems intended to block phishing emails that could deliver dangerous viruses. They were trying urgently to resolve delivery problems with emails sent from Clinton's private server.

"This should trump all other activities," a senior technical official, Ken LaVolpe, told IT employees in a Dec. 17, 2010, email. Another senior State Department official, Thomas W. Lawrence, wrote days later in an email that deputy chief of staff Huma Abedin personally was asking for an update about the repairs. Abedin and Clinton, who both used Clinton's private server, had complained that emails each sent to State Department employees were not being reliably received.

After technical staffers turned off some security features, Lawrence cautioned in an email, "We view this as a Band-Aid and fear it's not 100 percent fully effective."
While trial-and-error is generally useful when solving connection problems, the implication is undeniable: to make Clinton's private, insecure email server connect with the State Department's, it had to -- at least temporarily -- lower itself to Clinton's security level. The other workaround -- USE A DAMN STATE DEPARTMENT EMAIL ADDRESS -- was seriously discussed.

Comment: More evidence of Killary's pathological narcissism. Her desire for convenience and CYA-ability were more important than keeping State Department information secure.

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Black Magic

Saudis side with dissenting U.S. diplomats, war on Syria will probably escalate

Finnian Cunningham
Strategic Culture Foundation
Thu, 23 Jun 2016 13:10 UTC
carter
Some of Carter's closest friends are head-choppers.
That 51 US diplomats reproached President Obama's Syria policy by calling for greater American military force deployed against the Damascus government was itself a remarkable sign of official dissent within Washington. But the president's authority was further brazenly undermined when a few days later the Saudi rulers endorsed the dissenting US diplomats - while being received at the White House.

Several things can be discerned here. For one, the US policy on Syria is reeling from failure. The objective of regime change - which has impelled the whole war in that country for the past five years - seems to be fading as an obtainable goal. Russia's military intervention beginning last October to stabilize the Syrian state put paid to that. Reports that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the top commander of the so-called Islamic State (IS or Daesh), has been killed in a Syrian/Russian air strike in the group's eastern stronghold of Raqqa suggests that the foreign-backed terrorist insurgency is indeed facing final defeat.

Comment: In related news:
Saudi Arabia Declares Cease-Fire in Oil War

The new Saudi oil minister, Khalid Al-Falih, says the oil glut is over. That means the kingdom's war against U.S. shale producers is coming to an end, too. Who won it is a tough question to answer; on balance, it's probably the Saudis, but they have paid a huge price, and the surviving U.S. frackers have also benefited.

In September 2014, Saudi Aramco, the kingdom's state oil company, simultaneously increased output and discounts to Asian customers, making it difficult for producers with higher costs to compete. The U.S. shale industry responded with desperate bravado, cutting costs, perfecting technologies and pumping like crazy to avoid defaulting on its debts. Yet, according to Haynes and Boone's Oil Patch Bankruptcy Monitor, 81 North American oil and gas companies have filed for bankruptcy since the beginning of 2015. In Texas alone, there have been 41 bankruptcies, representing $24.3 billion in debt.

As a result, U.S. oil production has declined to late 2014 levels, while Saudi Arabia has defended and indeed increased its market share. Last year, it maintained its export volume to the U.S., while sales to China grew by 4.5 percent and to India by 18 percent.

The North American shale industry knows now that it's at the mercy of Saudi Arabia. The kingdom has more than two million barrels a day -- perhaps even three million if necessary -- of spare production capacity that it can use to flood the market again, drive down prices and render any ambitious American plans useless.


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Question

The War on Weed is winding down, but is Monsanto behind the push to legalize?

Ellen Brown
The Web of Debt Blog
Fri, 24 Jun 2016 14:38 UTC
marijuana leaf
The war on cannabis that began in the 1930s seems to be coming to an end. Research shows that this natural plant, rather than posing a deadly danger to health, has a wide range of therapeutic benefits. But skeptics question the sudden push for legalization, which is largely funded by wealthy investors linked to Big Ag and Big Pharma.

In April, Pennsylvania became the 24th state to legalize medical cannabis, a form of the plant popularly known as marijuana. That makes nearly half of US states. A major barrier to broader legalization has been the federal law under which all cannabis - even the very useful form known as industrial hemp - is classed as a Schedule I controlled substance that cannot legally be grown in the US. But that classification could change soon. In a letter sent to federal lawmakers in April, the US Drug Enforcement Administration said it plans to release a decision on rescheduling marijuana in the first half of 2016.
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Stormtrooper

Delusional Ukraine says Russia not only has to return Crimea but also pay Kiev over $100 billion "for using" the peninsula

J. Arnoldski (Translator)
Fort Russ/Ru Vesna
Fri, 24 Jun 2016 14:56 UTC
ukraine flag
The Ukrainian government has come up with yet another "brilliant" way to improve the unenviable financial situation in which the country has found itself thanks to their "talent.

They argue that Russia should not only return Crimea to Ukraine, but also give Kiev money "for using" the peninsula.

This was stated today by the first deputy minister of justice of Ukraine, Natalya Sevostyanova. The amount which Ukraine wants to receive, according to preliminary estimates, is 1 trillion hryvnia [around $122 billion - JA].

"You will immediately ask me about the amount, as different amounts have been suggested, but the estimated amount which we have today amounts to one trillion," Sevostyanova announced to journalists.

Comment: Crimea is not "occupied" by Russia. The Crimean vote to rejoin Russia via right of self-determination, a cardinal principle of international law signed in the UN charter, means that the people of Crimea chose to leave Ukraine of their own accord. Russia was responding to the Crimean people's wishes. Since Ukraine wants to join the West and become more "democratic", it would be rather hypocritical of them to deny Crimea those very same democratic rights that they supposedly want to enjoy.

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Snakes in Suits

Surprise, surprise: Clinton failed to hand over key email to State Department

Michael Biesecker
Associated Press
Fri, 24 Jun 2016 14:15 UTC
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton
© AP Photo/Richard Drew, File
Former Secretary Hillary Clinton failed to turn over a copy of a key message involving problems caused by her use of a private homebrew email server, the State Department confirmed Thursday. The disclosure makes it unclear what other work-related emails may have been deleted by the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

The email was included within messages exchanged Nov. 13, 2010, between Clinton and one of her closest aides, Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin. At the time, emails sent from Clinton's BlackBerry device and routed through her private clintonemail.com server in the basement of her New York home were being blocked by the State Department's spam filter. A suggested remedy was for Clinton to obtain a state.gov email account.

"Let's get separate address or device but I don't want any risk of the personal being accessible," Clinton responded to Abedin.

Clinton never used a government account that was set up for her, instead continuing to rely on her private server until leaving office.
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