Puppet MastersS


Bulb

Get your own stolen goods: Dept. of Justice ends asset forfeiture sharing program with local law enforcement due to budget shortage


RT
Thu, 24 Dec 2015 16:02 UTC
cash money
© Reuters
The Department of Justice has announced a moratorium on splitting gains made from its civil asset forfeiture program with local law enforcement. Budget cuts of $1.2 billion made keeping the practice "impossible," the DOJ said, upsetting police groups.

While federal agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the US Marshals will continue using the legal tool, the "equitable sharing payments" will not return until "a later date should the budget picture improve," according to the DOJ.

Civil asset forfeiture is the taking of property by authorities who suspect it has been used in a crime, and it is often a profitable routine. When large sums of cash aren't being directly collected as alleged drug money, other items like cars or houses can eventually be liquidated to fund police pet projects.
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Snakes in Suits

US order of rocket engines from Russia turns McCain red with fury


RT
Thu, 24 Dec 2015 15:43 UTC
rocket launch
© Wikipedia
The US has ordered 20 additional RD-180 rocket engines from Russia, days after US Congress lifted the ban on the use of Russian engines to get American ships into space. However, the move has been lambasted by some politicians in Washington.

United Launch Alliance announced that it placed an order for more RD-180 rockets to be used by Atlas V launch vehicle, on top of 29 engines that the company has ordered before US sanctions against Russia were introduced over Crimea last year.

Under last year's National Defense Authorization Act of 2015, the Department of Defense is prohibited from signing new or modifying existing contracts for launches using engines designed or manufactured in Russia.

angry john mccain
The move brought a fierce response from Senator John McCain, who accused Washington of double standards, saying,"This is the height of hypocrisy."

"How can our government tell European countries and governments that they need to hold the line on maintaining sanctions on Russia, which is far harder for them to do, when we are gutting our own policy in this way?" McCain said on Wednesday, as cited by the Washington Post.

"How can we tell our French allies in particular they shouldn't sell Vladimir Putin amphibious assault ships as we have [told them], and then turn around and try to buy rocket engines from Putin's cronies?"
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Bad Guys

Two unidentified helicopters drop off Daesh terrorists in Afghanistan


Sputnik
Thu, 24 Dec 2015 15:54 UTC
US helicopter
© AP Photo/ Massoud Hossaini
Daesh militants have been transported to the Afghan province of Nangarhar by helicopter, according to reports.

Afghan authorities are investigating reports that two unidentified helicopters have dropped off Daesh (ISIS/ISIL) terrorists in the Afghan province of Nangarhar, Afghan Senator Haji Lutfullah Baba told the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) on Wednesday.

"A number of people in Tor Ghar, Nangarhar Province have contacted me to say that unidentified helicopters have airlifted Daesh militants there," Iran Front Page reported Baba as having said.
"They asked me to follow up the issue and urge security and military officials to look into the militant movements, which pose a threat to the security of the province and the entire nation."
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Attention

Russia sharing information with the Taliban to fight the Islamic State

Andrew Roth
The Washington Post
Wed, 23 Dec 2015 15:36 UTC
Afghan police officer
© Noor Mohammad/AFP via Getty ImagesAn Afghan police officer keeps watch during a battle with the Taliban in Helmand province, where militants stormed a major opium-poppy-growing district this week.
A Kremlin official said Wednesday that Russia was exchanging information with the Taliban, the Islamist insurgency that the United States has been fighting in Afghanistan since 2001, as a bulwark against the spread of the Islamic State militant group in that country.

Zamir Kabulov, a Foreign Ministry department head and President Vladimir Putin's special representative for Afghanistan, told the Interfax news agency that "the Taliban interest objectively coincides with ours" in the fight against the Islamic State, which has captured broad swaths of territory in Syria and Iraq.

"I have already said earlier that we and the Taliban have channels for exchanging information," Kabulov added, in remarks reported by Interfax and confirmed to The Washington Post by a ministry spokesman.

Comment: Is this move by Russia going to make life difficult for the US in Afghanistan? The Middle East battleground is rapidly expanding from Syria to Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan.

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Георгиевская ленточка

Libya requests military assistance from Russia in anti-terror fight


Sputnik
Tue, 22 Dec 2015 15:34 UTC
su-24
© Sputnik/ Vladimir Sergeev
Libya's self-proclaimed government in Tripoli is grateful to Russia for its consent and readiness to help the crisis-hit Libya in its fight against terrorism, Prime Minister Khalifa Ghawi told Sputnik on Tuesday.

Earlier in the day, Tripoli government's delegation held a meeting with the Russian Foreign Ministry's officials in Moscow.

"We have asked the international community, and first of all, Russia, an important country helping the Libyan people to confront terrorism and radicalization, to provide logistical and military support in the fight against terrorism. The Russian response was that they were ready to help any country [in this respect]," Ghawi said after the meeting.

Libya has been in a state of civil war since the 2011 overthrow of the country's long-standing leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Comment: Russia seems to be the country that has to clean up the mess that the West creates. The US murdered Gaddafi, which created the current conditions in Libya. Libya knows that the US isn't interested in making any real progress fighting ISIS, while Russia has put a serious dent in ISIS infrastructure in Syria. Maybe the US should just get out of the Middle East and let the adults in Russia handle things.

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Info

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zakharova holds weekly press briefing on global events


Sputnik
Thu, 24 Dec 2015 15:17 UTC
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova
© Sputnik/ Ramil Sitdikov
The Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova held a weekly press-briefing in Moscow. Amongst other topics, Zakharova commented on the ongoing operation in Syria, and the ministry's agenda for the week ahead.

Russian, Qatari foreign ministers to discuss bilateral cooperation on December 25.
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Snakes in Suits

Flea crawling up an elephant: Ukiestan 'imposes trade embargo' on Russia


RT
Thu, 24 Dec 2015 13:54 UTC
Ukraine's Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk
© Stringer / Sputnik
Deputies of the Ukraine's parliament have voted in favor of introducing a trade embargo against Russia. This is a response to Moscow cancelling a free trade agreement with Ukraine as the country joins the European market.

According to proposer Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk the embargo will begin on January 1, the same date the Ukraine Association Agreement with the EU comes into force.

The new law allows the government of Ukraine "in case of discriminatory or unfriendly actions by the state, recognized by the Verkhovna Rada as an aggressor country" to introduce reciprocal responses, including the abolition of tariff preferences.

"Over the past three years we have cut the dependence on Russia three-fold. Three years ago, the volume of Ukrainian exports to Russia amounted to about 35 percent. Today, it's only 12 percent. We will protect the domestic market of Ukraine," said Yatsenyuk.

Comment: If the Kiev junta thinks joining the EU will help its economy, it will be disappointed. Ukraine's and Europe's economies are not healthy. Only Russia and China are weathering the global economic storm so far.

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Bell

Russia will consider countermeasures after extension of sanctions by US


RT
Tue, 22 Dec 2015 01:22 UTC
Kremlin
© Evgenya Novozhenina / Sputnik
Moscow says it will consider countermeasures after the US announced an updated sanctions list targeting 34 individuals and entities in order to "pressure Russia" over the Ukraine crisis.

"Today's steps support the US commitment to seek a diplomatic resolution to the crisis in Ukraine by maintaining our sanctions on Russia," the US Treasury Department said in a statement on Tuesday.

The Kremlin, in turn, said it will analyze Washington's decision and may develop countermeasures.

The sanctions imposed on Tuesday are "a continuation of this unfriendly stance towards Russia, a continuation of the stance which has a devastating impact on bilateral relations," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

"Certainly, based on the reciprocity principle, the Russian side will initially review these decisions taken [by the US] and then pool proposals on possible countermeasures," Peskov said.
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Arrow Down

ISIL spreads to Afghanistan, situation "close to critical"


Fars News Agency
Thu, 24 Dec 2015 03:19 UTC
daesh isis isil
The Russian Defense Ministry said ISIL cells have sprung up in Afghanistan increasing terror risks in the region. The situation in Afghanistan is becoming more acute with ISIL presence in the region, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Wednesday, Sputnik reported.
"All prerequisites are in place for us to confidently state that ISIL cells have emerged there. In addition to everything that went on before, we now have additional risks. We as Collective Security Treaty Organization allies," Shoigu said at a meeting with Tajikistan's Defense Minister Sherali Mirzo.
Afghanistan is in a political and social turmoil, as the Taliban and other extremist organizations such as ISIL take advantage of instability in the country. The Taliban has boosted its operations in Afghanistan after NATO ended its military mission in late 2014 and launched a non-combat operation in the country.

In October, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the situation in Afghanistan was "close to critical" as the extremists' activity was gaining momentum. In line with his words, Shoigu said that Russia might resume patrols along the Afghan-Tajik border, which were fully suspended in 2005. Earlier this year, US President Barack Obama said that the US forces would maintain presence in Afghanistan after 2016 because of the weakness of the government army and growing terrorist threat.

Comment: The blood-money-for-oil trade is drying up for ISIL, and so they're moving to new regions seeking their next score.

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Cloud Grey

What fresh horror awaits the US economy now that Fed has raised interest rates?

Brandon Smith
Alt-Market
Wed, 23 Dec 2015 04:00 UTC
Economic collapse dollar
© Unknown
There is one predominant reality that must be understood before a person can grasp the nature of the Federal Reserve and the decisions it makes, and that reality is this: The Fed's purpose is not to defend or extend American markets or the dollar; the Fed's job is ultimately to DESTROY American markets and the dollar. I have been repeating this little fact for years because it seems as though many otherwise intelligent people simply will not accept the truth, which is why they have trouble comprehending the actions that the Fed initiates.

When analysts make the claim that the Fed has positioned itself "between a rock and a hard place" in terms of policy, this is not entirely true. The Fed is exactly where it wants to be in terms of policy; but the central bank has indeed positioned the U.S. ECONOMY between a rock and a hard place, by design.

Globalists see the U.S. dollar and the U.S. economy as expendable (for the most part), and this sacrifice is meant to create distracting chaos as well as geopolitical advantage towards a new fully centralized world economic system. You can read the considerable evidence for this agenda in my article 'The Fall Of America Signals The Rise Of The New World Order'.
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