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A bit overcharged? Defense contractor Navistar faked billing to the Pentagon bilking US gov of $1.28B


RT
Fri, 06 Dec 2019 20:46 UTC
MRAP vehicles
© Reuters/Lucas Jackson
American soldiers walk past a line of MRAP vehicles in Iraq, 2011.
A defense contractor overcharged the Pentagon by more than $1.2 billion for thousands of armored vehicles, a whistleblower's complaint alleges. The company also threatened employees who refused to go along with the grift.

With Improvised Explosive Device (IED) attacks responsible for more than six in ten deaths of US personnel in Iraq and four in ten deaths in Afghanistan in 2007, the Pentagon solicited designs for a Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle to replace its thin-skinned Humvees. The military hoped the vehicles' thickened armor and explosion-deflecting v-shaped hulls would save lives on the battlefield.

Navistar Defense, one of the companies contracted to build the new MRAPs, saw green and decided to milk the government for as much cash as possible, according to a complaint filed by a company whistleblower in 2013 and unsealed this week after the US government intervened in the case.

The whistleblower, Navistar's former contract director Duquoin Burgess, claims that the company overcharged the government by $1.28 billion for the vehicles and parts. The Department of Justice is now seeking to recover three times that amount in damages from the contractor.

Comment: Oversight on spending, taking charge of costs and suppliers, bidding on contracts and simple accountability are ridiculously absent when it comes to Pentagon spending sprees. How wonderful the American public keeps picking up these tabs - the high cost of military appearance in times of no national threat.

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Star of David

US activists report Microsoft is 'taking Israeli occupation to a new level'

Azad Essa
Middle East Eye
Fri, 06 Dec 2019 15:00 UTC
Palestinians ckpoint
© AFP
Palestinian women wait to cross the Qalandia checkpoint between the West Bank city of Ramallah and Jerusalem on 24 June 2016.
Israeli firm funded by US tech giant collects biometric data at checkpoints and helps the government track the movement of Palestinians.

Anger and frustration is growing towards Microsoft for failing to put an end to its funding of an Israeli tech firm found to be conducting secret surveillance of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

Microsoft has been under fire since an NBC News investigation in October found that Israeli start-up AnyVision was not only collecting biometric data of Palestinians at checkpoints but also using facial recognition software to help the Israeli government conduct surveillance on Palestinians in the occupied territories.

Activists from Jewish Voice for Peace, M Power Change and SumOfUs said that Microsoft's continued investment in the Israeli firm contradicted its own policies on facial recognition. The trio have demanded that Microsoft #DropAnyVision immediately.
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Bad Guys

Delusional Dems claim Trump impeachment gaining momentum as vote on charges possible this week

Doina Chiacu
Reuters
Sun, 08 Dec 2019 18:04 UTC
jerry nadler
© Reuters/Loren Elliott/File
U.S. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) speaks at a news conference ahead of a vote on the Voting Rights Advancement Act, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., December 6, 2019.
Democrats in the House of Representatives are drafting articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump and the Judiciary Committee may hold a vote this week, the panel's chairman said on Sunday.

Representative Jerrold Nadler told CNN's State of the Union his committee will not decide on the charges against the Republican president until after a hearing on Monday to consider evidence gathered by the House Intelligence Committee that led the investigation.

The impeachment inquiry that threatens Trump's presidency focuses on his request that Ukraine investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, a leading contender for the Democratic nomination to face Trump in the November 2020 election.

Comment: Get some rest and get out the popcorn. The knock-down, drag-out circus is about to begin.

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Alarm Clock

The 2019 UK General Election: Tough on Hobgoblins; Tough on the Causes of Hobgoblins

Rob Slane
The Blogmire
Sat, 07 Dec 2019 18:16 UTC
goblins
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." - H.L. Mencken.
Mencken died in 1956, in what could still be described as a period of political sanity, when the hobgoblins were much fewer in number. Since then, they have multiplied beyond measure, with politicians inventing, feeding and nurturing new hobgoblins every year, then presenting themselves as the hobgoblin-slayers, ready to vanquish them on our behalf.

I generally try to ignore politicians, but all the more so around election time, when their nauseating PR and snake-oil sales techniques go into overdrive, and we get treated to the spectacle of having promises of the money we have earned, extracted from us upon pain of imprisonment, spent for us multiple times, as if they were doing us some great favour. I say "spent", but please forgive me for using Oldspeak. In Newspeak the word is "invest", because of course "spend" sounds far too much like it is money we earned that they're talking about.

Having seen just a few minutes of the so-called debates between the leaders of the pitiful parties, it rather reminded me of a debate I once took part in around election time at 6th Form College. Somehow, a friend of mine managed to persuade me, about an hour before the debate, not only to take part, but to represent a party that I did not support and had no time for. It was fun. I knew about three things this party stood for - all about how much of other people's money they had pledged to spend of course - and just repeated them over and over again, accusing the others of not spending as much as we were. To my intense surprise and amusement, I found that the representatives of the other parties knew no more than I and my friend, but were slightly less adept at mindlessly repeating the mantras. And yet despite us having no real ideas — just promising to spend, spend, spend other people's money — for some reason the college's students actually bothered to vote, and we won.
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Star of David

Netanyahu demands US backing of Jordan Valley 'annexation plan' after Washington denies he ever spoke of it with Pompeo


RT
Sun, 08 Dec 2019 18:04 UTC
netanyahu jordan valley poster
© REUTERS/Amir Cohen
Benjamin Netanyahu poses with a placard given while visiting a Jordan Valley settlement
The embattled Prime Minister wants Washington to approve of Israel's further expansion into the Jordan Valley, just days after he urged Donald Trump not to miss a rare chance to back Tel Aviv's territorial appetites.

Benjamin Netanyahu, who fiercely fights for re-election, believes that "the time has come to extend Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan Valley," a swath of land spanning between the occupied West Bank and neighboring Kingdom of Jordan. On their part, Israel's closest ally should give a final nod to the move.

"I want American recognition of our sovereignty in the Jordan Valley. This is important," he bluntly told an event set up on Sunday by Israel's Makor Rishon newspaper. As part of the proposed annexation, all Jewish settlements in the area would become part of Israel, he insisted.


Comment:


Woman: Aren't you afraid of the world, Bibi?

Netanyahu: Especially today, with America. I know what America is. America is something that can easily be moved. Moved to the right direction.


Two days ago, Netanyahu claimed he talked the issue with the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at their meeting in Lisbon. Interestingly, the State Department quickly disavowed his report, telling journalists that no such discussion had ever taken place.


Comment: Trouble in paradise?


"I can tell you that there was no annexation plan, full or partial, for any part of the West Bank presented by Israel to the United States during the meeting," Assistant Secretary for Near East David Schenker told an official briefing.

Netanyahu's response to the comment was next to incomprehensible. "It was said that the issue was not raised [at the Pompeo meeting], the issue was raised," he explained. The Americans, he believes, "didn't say it was not raised, they said that a formal plan was not discussed."
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Chess

Analysis: The stakes in the Normandy Four summit on Ukraine's future

Fyodor Lukyanov
RT
Sun, 08 Dec 2019 17:19 UTC
Macron Merkel Zelensky Putin normandy four Ukraine
© REUTERS/Benoit Tessier; AFP / Nicholas Kamm; AFP / Gints Ivuskans; Sputnik / Sergey Mamontov
(L-R) Emmanuel Macron, Volodymyr Zelensky, Angela Merkel, Vladimir Putin
Paris is set to host the first summit of the so-called Normandy Four in over three years. The rendezvous is possible thanks to a change of power in Ukraine and a very active stance by Macron. What are the stakeholders' cards?

Virtual carte-blanche to Zelensky

Volodymyr Zelensky has the biggest interest of them all. By handing him victory in the spring election, the voters hoped for peace, an armistice in Donbass and better ties with Russia. There is no doubt that Zelensky personally, as well as his closest circle, shares these objectives. However, Ukraine's political scene is extremely murky.

Pursuing any policy requires special skills that were masterfully displayed by Ukraine's former president Leonid Kuchma (1994-2004) and to a certain extent by Petro Poroshenko. Zelensky has none.

Comment: Russia's famed diplomatic patience will likely win the day, as Moscow keep making the case for the principles of Minsk Accords in various forms. They are the only sensible solution for Ukraine and the Donbass.

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Megaphone

US government drops case against Max Blumenthal after jailing journalist on false charges

Ben Norton
The Gray Zone
Sat, 07 Dec 2019 00:01 UTC
max blumenthal arrested Venezuela
The US government has dropped its bogus charge of "simple assault" against journalist Max Blumenthal, after having him arrested on a 5-month-old warrant and jailed for nearly two days.

The Grayzone has learned that Secret Service call logs recorded during the alleged incident were either not kept or destroyed. The mysteriously missing evidence included print documents and radio recordings that may have exposed collusion between Secret Service officers operating under the auspices of the US State Department and violent right-wing hooligans in an operation to besiege peace activists stationed inside Venezuela's embassy in Washington, DC.

Blumenthal, who is the editor of The Grayzone, was arrested at his home on October 25 by a team of DC cops who had threatened to break down his door. He later learned that he was listed in his arrest warrant as "armed and dangerous," a rare and completely unfounded designation that placed Blumenthal at risk of severe harm by the police.

Comment: For background on the arrest, see: Political persecution: Grayzone editor Max Blumenthal arrested months after reporting on Venezuelan opposition violence

See also:

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Snakes in Suits

House Judiciary Committee report: President can be impeached for 'motives' without breaking law

Joel B. Pollak
Breitbart
Sat, 07 Dec 2019 14:54 UTC
Nadler
© Brendan Smialowski / AFP / Getty
The House Judiciary Committee released a report Saturday in which it argued that a president may be impeached for "illegitimate motives" even if his actions are "legally permissible."

The 52-page report, written by 20 members of the staff for the Democratic majority, attempts to provide a legal and constitutional basis for the Democrats' ongoing effort to impeach the president.

The report states: "The question is not whether the President's conduct could have resulted from permissible motives. It is whether the President's real reasons, the ones in his mind at the time, were legitimate."
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Black Magic

Will 'get Brexit done' ever end? Johnson provokes haters mocking his campaign slogan with... more Brexit mantra!


RT
Sat, 07 Dec 2019 14:23 UTC
bojo
© Global Look Press / Andrew Parsons
Boris Johnson has been lampooned for repeatedly recycling his Brexit slogan during a debate with Labour's Jeremy Corbyn. Unfazed by his critics, the Tory leader has continued to flood Twitter with his polarizing campaign mantra.

The British Prime Minister locked horns with Corbyn during Friday's BBC debate. While discussing a range of issues, Johnson often steered the conversation back to his rallying cry, "get Brexit done."

According to the BBC, he used the slogan no less than ten times over the course of the evening. He somehow managed to work the pledge into almost every issue, including how rude behavior and threats in politics could be ended by - yes, you guessed right - "getting Brexit done." In fact, he rolled out the phrase so many times that it reportedly began to trend on Twitter - albeit due to the tsunami of social media mockery.

Comment: The Brexit pantomime isn't engendering a positive response from the British public, and so is it any wonder: Most British voters think violence against MPs is 'price worth paying' over Brexit

See also: And check out SOTT radio's: NewsReal: Yellow Vest Protests, Brexit Farce - Revolutionary Climate in Western Europe?

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Recycle

'People are flushing toilets 10 times': Trump mulls pouring conservation rules down the drain & Twitter cannot hold it


RT
Sat, 07 Dec 2019 05:18 UTC
trump toilet
© Reuters / Carlos Barria; Reuters / Thomas Peter
President Donald Trump is taking aim at water efficiency laws, arguing that they paradoxically encourage waste due to weak water pressure. He vowed to seek "commonsense" solutions to America's toilet troubles.

Despite ongoing Democratic impeachment efforts in Washington, a trade row with Beijing and another war of words heating up with Iran, the president took time on Friday to address a problem much closer to home - perhaps lurking in your very own bathroom.

"We have a situation where we're looking very strongly at sinks and showers, and other elements of bathrooms," the president said. "You turn on the faucet and you don't get any water... people are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times, as opposed to once."

Comment: Trump has a point; environmentalists have devised numerous schemes - from wind turbines to nature reserves - that, ultimately, are inefficient, ineffective and even destructive to the very environment they claim to be wanting to save:

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