Welcome to Sott.net
Mon, 08 Nov 2021
The World for People who Think

Puppet Masters
Map

Arrow Up

House passes GOP tax bill, heading to the Senate


RT
Tue, 19 Dec 2017 15:26 UTC
White House
© Jim Young / Reuters
The House has passed a tax bill that will afford permanent breaks to corporations, temporary respite to individuals, and repeals the Affordable Care Act mandate. The measure is on track to become law before Friday's deadline.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) will now be sent to the Senate. If approved, it will be ready for President Donald Trump to sign Friday, representing the first tax overhaul since 1986. Lawmakers are rushing to pass the bill before the self-imposed deadline of the end of 2017.

The final tally was 227 votes in favor and 203 opposed, with 12 Republicans joining the Democrats in opposing the bill and two Democrats not voting.
      Read More...
Attention

Jagmeet Singh: Trudeau's new rival in the battle for Canada's left

Josh Wingrove
Bloomberg
Tue, 19 Dec 2017 22:38 UTC
Jagmeet Singh
© Chris Roussakis/Bloomberg
Jagmeet Singh
Justin Trudeau swept to power in Canada as a fresh face pledging to tax the rich and help the masses. Now a rival has picked up his playbook.

Halfway through his mandate, Trudeau's two main challengers are in place for the 2019 election, each younger than he is. To the political right is Conservative Andrew Scheer, Trudeau's closest competitor in popular support and number of current lawmakers. But it's the man on the left who could determine the fate of Trudeau's Liberals.

Jagmeet Singh, 38, the trilingual lawyer elected Oct. 1 as New Democratic Party leader, is taking on the prime minister at his own game, preaching left-leaning policies, a friend-of-the-masses mantra and an urban focus, all while indulging a penchant for selfies.

Singh is looking to cash in on disenchantment as Trudeau fumbles his lofty pledges. "They haven't actually invested in the social programs we're proposing or talking about," he said in an interview. "Their commitments haven't really rung true."

Comment: Well, Trudeau is certainly doing a bang-up job as a perfect embodiment of Leftist ideology - can Singh outdo Trudeau's absurdities?

      Read More...
Syringe

Ex-WADA employee: 'Russia ban violates Olympic charter, does nothing to stop rampant doping'

RH
Inside Out
Wed, 20 Dec 2017 15:02 UTC

Comment: The following article was forwarded to us by a former employee of WADA, the World Anti-Doping Agency, which is supposed to impartially monitor sports for the use of performance-enhancing drugs...


wada doping
The World Anti-Doping Agency is completely outdated as it is no longer an effective tool in the fight against doping. Endless doping scandals, bureaucratic acrimony, lost doping samples, inability to protect sensitive data from hackers... WADA mistakes and failures have been numerous in recent years. Today the world sports community no longer regards WADA as the warrant of fair play. Unfortunately, the Agency has ceased to be a body that is capable of dealing with doping at big sports events.

WADA officials strongly believe that any doping problem can be solved just with punitive actions. Unfortunately, such an attitude prevents them from taking really effective measures to reform anti-doping regulation. If WADA can't admit the fact that the problem goes beyond its control, it would be better to rethink the validity of this institution.

Comment: See also:

The US-Inspired Olympic Ban on Russia: Another Pyrrhic Victory for the Ailing Empire of Chaos

      Read More...
Ambulance

UN General Assembly to hold rare special emergency session after US vetoes Jerusalem resolution


RT
Wed, 20 Dec 2017 14:59 UTC
United Nations headquarters
© Carlo Allegri / Reuters
The United Nations headquarters in New York, displaying the UN logo.
The UN General Assembly will hold a special session on Thursday, following a request by Arab and Muslim states. The countries have cited the US decision to veto a draft resolution on the status of Jerusalem.

According to Palestinian UN envoy Riyad Mansour, the General Assembly will vote on a draft resolution calling for Trump's declaration of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel to be withdrawn. The same resolution, put to the UN Security Council, was vetoed by the United States on Monday.

The US - along with Russia, China, the UK, and France - is a permanent member of the Security Council, meaning that resolutions cannot be passed if it exercises its "right to veto."All other UNSC members voted in favor of the resolution on Monday.
      Read More...
War Whore

How history's deadliest bombing campaign created today's crisis in Korea

Ted Nace
CounterPunch
Fri, 08 Dec 2017 14:39 UTC
US firebombing North Korea
As the world watches with mounting concern the growing tensions and bellicose rhetoric between the United States and North Korea, one of the most remarkable aspects of the situation is the absence of any public acknowledgement of the underlying reason for North Korean fears-or, as termed by United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, "state of paranoia"-namely, the horrific firebombing campaign waged by the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War and the unprecedented death toll that resulted from that bombing.

Although the full facts will never be known, the available evidence points toward the conclusion that the firebombing of North Korea's cities, towns, and villages produced more civilian deaths than any other bombing campaign in history.
      Read More...
Popcorn

The meticulously Anti-Trump/Pro-Clinton 'Russiagate' Mueller investigation must end now

Robert Carbery
IWB
Tue, 19 Dec 2017 12:55 UTC
Robert Mueller
As if we needed more evidence of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's bias and overreaching in his investigation into Trump's "ties" to Russia, we have now learned that thousands of emails were taken from the Trump transition team through the General Services Administration. According to a Trump attorney, these emails were improperly obtained through "unlawful conduct."

Axios reported that the transition emails contain sensitive information such as matters on potential appointments, gossip about particular senators, speculation about Trump nominees' vulnerability, and strategizing about everything from press statements to war to policy planning and taxes.

"Mueller is using the emails to confirm things, and get new leads," a transition source added. Likely because he has no other leads to pursue. The investigation smells of desperation at this point.


Comment:

In a letter obtained by Fox News, the transition team's attorney says that "unlawful conduct" by the left-leaning staff at the General Services Administration handled the handover of transition documents to the special counsel's office horrifically. According to Kory Langhofer, counsel to Trump for America, the special counsel's office is aware the GSA "did not own or control the records in question." What has Mueller's team done with these emails that were obtained illegally and who will keep this overreaching investigation in check if not the president?

Comment: As an actual investigation this is truly going nowhere. However, as a source of gossip, propaganda and wishful thinking for anti-Trump people and fake news mainstream media outlets, this has still so much to give! Isn't that the whole point?

      Read More...
Attention

The FBI's 'Insurance Policy' Against a Trump Presidency Was The Russian Collusion Investigation

Matt Vespa
Townhall
Mon, 18 Dec 2017 19:00 UTC
Trump AOK
We all had our suspicions about what FBI agent Peter Strzok meant by "insurance policy," which he wrote in a text to bureau lawyer Lisa Page, a woman with whom he was having an extramarital affair. The text was one of 10,000 that were sent between these two FBI officials from August 15, 2015-December 1, 2016; this one was sent to Page in August of 2016.

The Wall Street Journal reported that according to agents familiar with Strzok's account, he was referring to the Russia investigation when he mentioned "insurance." He was removed from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation in August once he was informed about these communications; the DOJ inspector general was looking into their texts. Strzok, who was in counter-intelligence, was part of two key FBI investigations. He was involved in the Hillary Clinton email probe and the bureau's counterintelligence investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians during the 2016 election, which he signed off on making this inquiry official back in July of 2016.

Comment: Very interesting. Even if the "insurance policy" referenced in Strzok's texts don't point to Deep State efforts to prevent a Trump win, it seems like a plan was afoot to take him down even if he did win. It's still playing partisan games by an agency that's supposed to be impartial and, given the complete lack of any evidence of Russian collusion, it shows the "insurance policy" was entirely subterfuge.

See also:

      Read More...
Flashlight

Rep. Jim Jordan: 'Everything points to plan' within DOJ and FBI to prevent Trump from becoming President (VIDEO)

Pam Key
Breitbart
Tue, 19 Dec 2017 12:28 UTC
Rep. Jim Jordan
© Fox News
Tuesday on Fox News Channel's "Fox & Friends," Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) said he believed people in the FBI and the Justice Department were involved in "an orchestrated plan" to keep President Donald Trump from becoming president.

Jordan said, "I think they were putting together a plan to stop Donald Trump from being the next president of the United States. I think it's amazing in spite of the fact that the Democrats were against him, the Republican establishment was against him, the mainstream press was against him. and now I believe the FBI and the Justice Department were against him, the American people still said that's the guy we want to be the next president."


Comment: See also: Rep. Jim Jordan challenges Sessions to appoint special counsel to probe Clinton campaign or step down

      Read More...
Sheriff

$200bn to reconstruct war-torn Syria: The US and its allies are responsible and should be charged for war crimes

Finian Cunningham
RT
Mon, 18 Dec 2017 16:51 UTC
$200bn to reconstruct war-torn Syria… the US and its partners should pay
© Karam Almasri / Global Look Press
Aleppo, Syria
With Syria's nearly seven-year war now virtually over, the process of rebuilding the devastated country comes to the fore, with the financial cost of that effort put at $200 billion. Who pays for it?

When you view the ruins of Aleppo alone, Syria's second biggest city, plus the carnage across the entire country, from towns, villages, bridges, roads, public utilities, hospitals, schools, and so on, the real figure for reconstruction could be far higher than $200 billion.

Then there is the inestimable cost of human suffering and families decimated. All told, the reparations could amount to trillions of dollars.


Comment: Syrian war has orphaned a million children - UN


Comment: Also See:

      Read More...
Alarm Clock

Democrats hate Democracy and America is a corporatist oligarchy

Caitlin Johnstone
Medium
Wed, 20 Dec 2017 11:28 UTC
documentary filmmaker Josh Fox
© MSNBC
Documentary filmmaker Josh Fox recently joined the McResistance pile-on attacking 2016 Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein in the wake of the Senate Intelligence Community's attempts to bully and harass her campaign with a senseless high-profile and time-consuming document search.

In a spectacular display of unfathomable narcissism, Fox publicly cited the fact that the Stein campaign ignored his offer to help build the Green Party in exchange for dropping out in swing states as evidence that it was "NOT a serious campaign" and "a sham".


Like that's a thing. Like any serious presidential campaign anywhere would consider dropping out of multiple states in exchange for the help of some random documentary guy.

Comment: More Caitlin Johnstone on the ridiculous campaign against Jill Stein: Further reading on the illusion of American democracy:

      Read More...
Amazon Smile
Revolt! T-shirts