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The Washington Post's mission statement should read: 'Confessions of a free press killer'

Tim Nuell
Ghion Journal
Sat, 13 Jan 2018 00:00 UTC
Jeff Bezos
While "Democracy Dies in Darkness" serves as a catchy tagline for the Washington Post, these days the masthead reads more like a threatening mission statement as the paper slogs down a path of propaganda, censorship, and renewed McCarthyism.

The Post is perfectly positioned to capture the nation's "paper of record" heavyweight title from the New York Times. Post owner Jeff Bezos has Amazon-sized pockets, and a $500 million computing contract with the CIA that brings unique access to government sources and information. Mix in a Meryl Streep/Tom Hanks Hollywood blockbuster that harkens back to its glory days of journalism, and the Post is sitting pretty.

Unfortunately, the paper appears more intent on being a tool of government elites than an independent journalistic enterprise. The Post has been burned repeatedly by parroting claims of anonymous "intelligence" officials, particularly in regard to Russia. In an interesting plot twist, the Post is now leading the way in debunking much of the same Russia nonsense it's been front and center selling us for more than a year.

Just after the 2016 election, the Post broke an "exclusive" about a Vermont power company "hacked" by the Russians and the infamous Grizzly Steppe computer virus. And this was right after the Russians were deemed to have used those same evil Bears to hack the DNC, and it all just looked so bad, so everybody reported it, and repeated it, because hey, the Washington Post said so.
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Arrow Down

Evaluating 2017: The Ukrainian economy's most dismal year yet

Alexander Mercouris
The Duran
Sun, 14 Jan 2018 23:38 UTC
Ukraine worker economy
The Ukrainian economy continued to weaken as inflation rose and living standards fell

In an article which I wrote about Ukraine on 13th December 2017 and in which I spoke of Ukraine's continuing downward spiral I speculated that the situation might be even worse than it appeared since conditions in Ukraine meant that Ukraine's already dismal statistics could no longer be relied upon.
This is of course always assuming that the statistics are being collected and collated properly, which in countries such as Russia was in the 1990s and such as Ukraine is now they never are.

That Ukraine's statistics are not reliable has in fact been confirmed by studies of its population statistics, which show massive distortions intended to conceal how bad the country's demographic situation has become. There is no reason to suppose that the same distortions do not affect the economic data.
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Dollar

Pentagon audit already found $830 mln in "missing" helicopters, $trillions spent on "mysterious" items

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Thu, 11 Jan 2018 22:38 UTC
Blackhawk helicopter
© U.S. Air Force 145
U.S. Army soldiers from the 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division, dismount a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter during an air assault in the Al Jazeera Desert, Iraq
After several decades of nation-building and trillions of dollars missing or improperly recorded, the long-awaited audit of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has finally begun. On Wednesday, the Defense Department Comptroller David Norquist told lawmakers in Washington that the DoD's first-ever department wide audit will cost about $367 million in 2018 and an additional $551 million to fix the problems.

Norquist, who testified before the House Armed Services Committee, said Defense Secretary James N. Mattis and Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick M. Shanahan are in full support of the audit. Back in May 2017, President Trump appointed Norquist to finally put the military's financial house back in order after many years of delays.

What is surprising, if only in retrospect, is that according to the World Economic Forum, U.S. Department of Defense has been named the largest employer in the world with some 3.2 million members on its payroll and $2.4 trillion in assets but has never administered a full audit.

"This is the first time the department will undergo a full financial statement audit,"he said. "A financial statement audit is comprehensive and occurs annually and it covers more than financial management," Norquist explained to Lawmakers.

The purpose of the audit will document military equipment and real property along with condition and location. "It tests the vulnerability of our security systems and it validates the accuracy of personnel records and actions," Norquist said.
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Info

Senators Cotton and Perdue: "Trump didn't say shithole"

Josh Delk
The Hill
Fri, 12 Jan 2018 22:03 UTC
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.).
© Michael Vadon / Wikimedia Commons
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.)
Two GOP senators said Friday they "do not recall" President Trump's reference to "shithole countries" during an Oval Office meeting on immigration.

Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and David Perdue (R-Ga.) issued a joint statement saying they did not recall the president making the exact comments and called out Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) for confirming the comments.

"In regards to Senator Durbin's accusation, we do not recall the President saying these comments specifically but what he did call out was the imbalance in our current immigration system, which does not protect American workers and our national interest," the senators wrote.

Trump, in a Thursday meeting that also included Durbin, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) - whom Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) said confirmed the remarks to him - and Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), reportedly referred to immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and certain African nations as coming from "shithole countries."

"Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?" Trump said, according to The Washington Post.

Comment: See also:

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Attention

By accusing Russia of meddling in Mexican elections, US is doing just that

Andrew Korybko
Oriental Review
Sat, 13 Jan 2018 21:58 UTC
amlo

Andrés Manuel López Obrador
US National Security Advisor McMaster claimed that Russia is meddling in the upcoming Mexican elections.

This explosive news was shared by Reuters, which in turn was reporting on a mid-December video of a speech that McMaster gave to the Jamestown Foundation and which was just posted on a Mexican journalist's Twitter account over the weekend. In it, one of the US' most influential security figures says in relation to the unsubstantiated claims of Russian interference in foreign elections that "you've seen, actually, initial signs of it in the Mexican presidential campaign already", but to Reuters' credit they added that he didn't elaborate on this afterwards and even cited an expert who remarked that "so far, it's just speculation".

That said, Reuters attempted to propel the paranoia forward by remarking that the leftist populist-nationalist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, commonly known by his abbreviated initials as AMLO, is "seen by some analysts as the Kremlin's favorite, given the positive coverage he has received from government-funded media outlets like Sputnik and Russia Today", thus relying on the conspiracy theory that everything on Russia's publicly funded international media outlets is apparently aired on direct orders of the Kremlin, which isn't true at all. Nor, for that matter, is the inference in the report that Russia is backing AMLO because of its desire to sow problems between the US and Mexico.

Comment: If a candidate is pro-Russian in any way, he or she must be a Russian agent. There is no other explanation. If voters agree with the Russian point of view on any topic, they must be victims of Russian propaganda. There is no other explanation. If a "pro-Russian" candidate wins an election, it must have been as a result of Russian meddling. There is no other explanation. These are the key tenets of Russian meddling.

Western opinion makers have set up the perfect system. They lie, make sure only lies get any air time, then slam anyone who points out the lie or tells the truth as a Russian tool, simply because Russian sources also point out the lie or tell the truth. Since the truth is not available from Western sources, the source of such insidious truth must come from Russia. And that's bad. Even though it's the truth. Doesn't make sense? Maybe you're a victim of Russian mind control.

See also: Euroskeptic Zeman leads in Czech polls amid anti-Russian hysteria about "Russian meddling"

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Briefcase

Deadline: FBI has to turn over Comey's "classified" memos this week

Katie Pavlich
Townhall
Fri, 12 Jan 2018 21:54 UTC
Trump and Comey
© The Hill
A federal judge has ruled the FBI must turn over memos written by former FBI Director James Comey about a meeting with President Trump. The decision comes as a result of a lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch, which has been seeking the documents for months.

The FBI has been ordered to turn over the documents by January 18, which is next week.

"The court, in seeking to review the documents, shows it doesn't trust the FBI or Justice Department's representations about the infamous Comey memos. We hope now that Americans are one step closer to knowing the facts about these memos, which were written and leaked for pernicious purposes to target a sitting president with a criminal investigation," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement. "It's high time they begin to see the light of day. We're glad the court followed up on our specific suggestion that it review the documents directly."

Department of Justice attorneys, who are defending the FBI in the lawsuit, asked the court for the case to be dismissed. That request has been denied and Comey's memos must be turned over for review.

Comment: All the good bits will probably be redacted: All of seven Comey documents labeled classified.

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Clipboard

Syria: Russian journalists report on alleged US terrorist training network, civilian hell


Sputnik
Sun, 14 Jan 2018 18:01 UTC
US/militant in vehicles
© AP Photo/ Hammurabi's Justice News
Two Russian Syria-embedded journalists have put together a damning firsthand report on the true purpose of the secrecy-laden US military mission at At-Tanf, southern Syria.

The Pentagon was forced to go into full public relations mode late last month amid fresh allegations by the Russian General Staff that US instructors were providing training assistance for some 350 ex-Daesh (ISIS) militants at the US Army's al-Tanf garrison in the southern Syrian province of Homs. Chief of Staff General Valery Gerasimov accused Washington of intending to use the militants to create a so-called 'New Syrian Army', a military formation aimed at further destabilizing the war-torn country after Daesh had been defeated.

A Pentagon spokesperson soon responded, telling Sputnik that Moscow's allegations were "false and absurd," and stressing that the US and its allies engage in capturing and killing Daesh, not training them.

In a special investigative report for Russia's Federal News Agency, embedded Syria correspondents Igor Petrashevich and Roman Martynovich made their way south to try to figure out what was really going on in the US-occupied area with their own eyes.

Comment: Is the US changing its footprint or just making what it has denied in the past more obvious? Perhaps it no longer needs to create the illusion of world 'approval'.

See also:
US de facto occupies part of Syria, hinders humanitarian aid

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Dominoes

Iran claims 'Trump failed', 'Iran wins' in diplomatic battle over JCPOA accord


RT
Sun, 14 Jan 2018 10:28 UTC
Rouhani
© Iran Commentary - WordPress.com
Iranian regime president Hassan Rouhani
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani says that Washington failed to tear up the nuclear deal, which he calls a "long-lasting victory" for Tehran. Earlier, Trump vowed to pull out of the accord unless its "flaws" are fixed.

"The American administration has failed to undermine the nuclear deal... Trump, despite his repeated efforts, has failed to undermine the accord," Rouhani said Sunday on state TV. The Iranian leader called the deal "a long-lasting victory for Iran," following Trump's latest attack on the accord, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

On Friday, the US president threatened to not waive economic sanctions anymore, saying that America's European allies have one last chance to fix the "disastrous flaws" of the deal, otherwise Washington will withdraw from it. Trump's ultimatum was followed by new sanctions against Tehran, targeting 14 individuals and several entities for alleged links to ballistic missile development and human rights abuses.

The move immediately triggered an angry reaction from Iran, with its foreign ministry refusing to accept any changes to the long-negotiated deal and stating that it will "not take any measures beyond the commitments it has made."

Comment: Trump says the obvious or the outrageous and everyone else polarizes into positions. For good or bad, his bravado makes others review and commit.

See also:

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Tornado1

Obama said Libya was a Sh*t Show, Trump said Haiti a Sh*thole, US ensured both are true

Rachel Blevins
The Free Thought Project
Fri, 12 Jan 2018 00:00 UTC
Trumbama
© THEFREETHOUGHTPROJECT.com
U.S. foreign policy decisions in both Haiti and Libya have been far cruder than the comments made by Presidents Trump and Obama.

The mainstream media is horrified by the idea that President Trump would refer to Haiti as a "Sh*thole" country - but they seem to have forgotten that President Obama referred to Libya as a "Sh*t show," and that the United States has had a hand in ensuring that both countries continue to be plagued with problems.

The media launched a firestorm after a report from the Washington Post claimed that during a meeting with lawmakers in the Oval Office on Thursday, Trump said, "Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?"

The comment was reportedly in reference to a discussion on "protecting immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and African countries as part of a bipartisan immigration deal." Trump became "frustrated" with the lawmakers in the meeting, and proposed that the U.S. should prioritize immigrants from Norway, over countries such as Haiti, according to the report.

While mainstream media outlets were quick to criticize Trump's comments on Haiti, they were not nearly as offended when reports claimed that Obama referred to the state of affairs in Libya after Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown as a "sh*t show" in March 2016.

Comment: Perhaps the presidents should reflect on neglected 'S-H' communities at home before making derogatory comments about countries the US has left in ruins.

See also:

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Propaganda

A new low: CNN's meltdown over Trump is deranged, selfish

Seraphim Hanisch
The Duran
Sun, 14 Jan 2018 01:28 UTC
CNNflame
© Western Journalism
The MSM reaction to Trump's alleged curse is FAR worse and more disrespectful than his private closed-door meeting comment

Following the reported profanity that President Trump supposedly uttered in a closed door meeting, the mainstream media has sunk to a new low, and taken the United States public with them. The expressed "outrage" over Trump's use of a profanity-laced term in a private meeting that was NOT for the press is already kind of suspect. After all, closed-door meetings are not for the public eye or ear, and things get said in closed-door meetings that are not meant to be for the ears and eyes of babes. So when the media tries to capitalize on this situation, they end up making everything far, far worse.

Enter the stream of hypocrites on the Left.

CNN is the biggest offender. Now, please, consider this: CNN has national reach. This network is usually the network of choice played in airports various public venues, usually with families and children present. And yet, in full knowledge of this, the CNN anchors repeated Trump's vulgarity at least 36 times on the air in the day following this incident. They did this with impunity. Perhaps it is because CNN knows that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) does not regulate cable and satellite programming (which is why you can see any manner of filth "on cable"), but they violated their already eroding trust with the American populace by placing their virulent apoplectic hatred of a sitting president over anything else.

Comment: It may be time to create a news category level below MSM.

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