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Obama White House counsel Greg Craig charged with lying to prosecutors about foreign lobbying

  • Gregory Craig, who was White House counsel under President Barack Obama, is indicted on charges of lying and hiding information related to his foreign lobbying work for Ukraine.
  • Craig, a 74-year-old lawyer based in Washington, faces up to five years in prison for each of the two counts.
  • The charges reportedly stem from the federal investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election led by special counsel Robert Mueller, which came to a formal end last month.
Attorney Greg Craig
© Mark Wilson | Getty Images
Attorney Greg Craig (L) Arrives with Retired Gen. James Cartwright, (R), for a hearing at US District Court, October 17, 2016 in Washington, DC.
Gregory Craig, who was White House counsel under President Barack Obama, was indicted Thursday on charges of lying and hiding information related to his work for Ukraine.

Craig, a 74-year-old lawyer based in Washington, D.C., was charged by the Justice Department's Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA, unit. Craig faces up to five years in prison for each of the two counts.

Light Sabers

Twitter split in half over Omar, again, after Trump posts clip of her 'downplaying' 9/11

Rep. Ilhan Omar
© REUTERS/Jim Bourg
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN)
President Donald Trump has whipped Twitter into a frenzy by posting a video with a quote from Congresswoman Ilhan Omar's speech mixed with footage of the 9/11 attacks, prompting accusations of inciting anti-Muslim violence.

The video that juxtaposes a standalone quote from Omar's speech at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) with footage of the two planes crashing into the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, has been since retweeted over 40,000 times, sparking fierce backlash against both Omar and Trump's condemnation of her.

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Eye 1

Chelsea and Julian are in jail. History trembles

Assange book arrest
© Ruptly
Julian Assange being removed from the Ecuadorian embassy
Tonight both Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange are in jail, both over offences related to the publication of materials specifying US war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, and both charged with nothing else at all. No matter what bullshit political and MSM liars try to feed you, that is the simple truth. Manning and Assange are true heroes of our time, and are suffering for it.

If a Russian opposition politician were dragged out by armed police, and within three hours had been convicted on a political charge by a patently biased judge with no jury, with a lengthy jail sentence to follow, can you imagine the Western media reaction to that kind of kangaroo court? Yet that is exactly what just happened in London.

District Judge Michael Snow is a disgrace to the bench who deserves to be infamous well beyond his death. He displayed the most plain and open prejudice against Assange in the 15 minutes it took for him to hear the case and declare Assange guilty, in a fashion which makes the dictators' courts I had witnessed, in Babangida's Nigeria or Karimov's Uzbekistan, look fair and reasonable, in comparison to the gross charade of justice conducted by Michael Snow.

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Newspaper

Taliban claims it shot down US B-52 bomber in Afghanistan

US B-52
© AP Photo / Mindaugas Kulbis
US B-52
The alleged attack comes days after the Taliban targeted a US convoy in north-eastern Afghanistan, killing three soldiers.

Taliban* militants have claimed they shot down a US B-52 heavy bomber, Syrian news site Muraselon reports.

The incident purportedly took place when the aircraft was departing from the Shawrab Airbase in southern Afghanistan in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

"Mujaheddin (a militia fighter) of the Islamic Emirate targeted a US B-52 bomber with heavy weapons today early morning in Lar area in the Washir district of Helmand Province," a spokesman for the Taliban was quoted as saying.

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Handcuffs

Julian Assange is being held in Belmarsh Prison - Britain's terrorist torture jail

Assange Belmarsh Prison Gitmo
© Reuters/Russell Boyce /File
Julian Assange is being held at the Belmarsh Prison, London
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is being held at Belmarsh Prison, a notorious jail in southeast London that's earned the moniker of 'Britain's Guantanamo Bay' as a holding facility for terrorists and other high-profile prisoners.

RT's Ruptly agency live-streamed footage from Belmarsh on Friday, after Assange was apparently taken there. Bloomberg reported the same information later, citing Assange's friend Vaughan Smith. Both Assange's lawyers and the UK authorities are yet to publicly confirm his whereabouts.


Comment: Of course it's still only a Russian news agency that cares about Assange's fate; Western presstitutes are too busy popping champagne back at the office...


Comment: Angel Fox blog provides more information on Belmarsh. Known to its inmates as 'Hellmarsh', Assange has been housed with some of the most dangerous offenders in the UK.
When I found out where Assange was being kept prisoner, I decided to investigate the facility itself. I found the information very disturbing. One of the links was for a "A tour of the jail within a jail that houses Britain's most dangerous".

According to wikipedia seen here:
"In November 2009, an inspection report fromHer Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons criticised the "extremely high" amount of force used to control inmates at the prison.[5]The report also stated that an unusually high number of prisoners had reported being intimidated or victimised by staff at Belmarsh."
Why are they putting a man in jail for a simple bail breech in a top security prison? I find this very disturbing and unfair. As though Assange did not suffer enough during his 7 year stay at Ecuadorian's "House of Horrors" in the last year, they are placing him in "The Gitmo of England".

Here is a link to a youtube video titled "Inside Britain's Toughest Prison.


According to the Sun it is "Belmarsh prison: Home to terrorists, killers and rapists"

Just the title says more than any words can say. Belmarsh is also known for it's overcrowding and lack of guards.

According to Howard League for Prison Reform
Belmarsh is a Category A prison.

Category A: Category A prisons are high security prisons, holding those individuals considered the most threatening to the public should they escape. Category A prisons should not be overcrowded, given the high levels of security required.
I am still baffled as to why Assange has been placed in a prison full of prisoners who are considered a threat to the public. He is a journalist arrested for publishing war crime documents. Is this how they treat the press in England? Is this how they deal with free speech advocates? Apparently the UK government is terrified by Assange and what he represents.

We as a people need to be outraged they put a man only convicted of a bail breech in such a prison. It is like putting your mother in solitary confinement for scolding you.

Though Assange's health care issues may be treated here, I only pray they keep him out of the general violent population. He is not safe in this prison. If they treat him as they have many others, he will be intimidated and physically assaulted or worse.

Britain is nothing more than a tiny tool that the US is using to destroy a threat to their corruption. If he is treated like this for a bail breech, what will he endure under US jurisdiction? We must fight for no extradition to save Assange, our free speech and our human rights now.



Snakes in Suits

From 'Comrade Bernie' to 'Dildos Against Democracy': The top 5 Democrat conspiracies ranked

tin foil hat
© Reuters
A man wears a tin foil hat to the Roswell UFO Convention
The earth is flat; FEMA is controlled by shape-shifting reptilians; water additives are turning the freaking frogs gay... Conspiracy theories used to be the preserve of hippies and kooks, but now the Democratic party wants in.


Comment: Actually, the understanding of conspiracies and their part in US politics has a solid history, and rightly so: Conspiracy theories abounded in 19th-century American politics


Although Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report has put to pasture the idea that President Donald Trump conspired with Russia to steal the 2016 election, there's something about the 'Russiagate' conspiracy that just won't die. For the Democratic Party and its cheerleaders and supporters in the media, the Russians are still the sinister force behind everything bad and rotten in American politics.

We've gathered and ranked five of the best here. Strap on your tinfoil hat and enter the twilight zone of the American establishment.

Spying is lying

Propaganda

Ray McGovern: Unaccountable media is faced with dilemma in next phase of Deep State-gate

ClapObam
© Burst Updates/WordPress.com
Obama's National Intel Director James Clapper, and Former President Barack Obama
Now that the media has been exposed for wrongly siding with the intelligence agencies, how will it handle Devin Nunes's criminal referrals in Deep State-gate?, asks Ray McGovern.

Readers of The Washington Post on Monday were treated to more of the same from editorial page chief Fred Hiatt. Hiatt, who won his spurs by promoting misleading "intelligence" about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and suffered no consequences, is at it again.

This time he is trying to adjust to the fading prospect of a Deus ex Mueller to lessen Hiatt's disgrace for being among the most shameless in promoting the Trump-Russia collusion narrative.

He is not giving up. When you are confident you will not lose your job so long as you adhere to the agenda of the growing Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think-Tank complex (MICIMATT if you will), you need not worry about being a vanguard for the corporate media. It is almost as though Hiatt is a tenured professor in an endowed chair honoring Judith Miller, the New York Times reporter who perhaps did most to bring us Iraqi WMD.

Pirates

Pompeo labels Iran's Qassem Soleimani as 'equivalent' to ISIS leader Baghdadi

Suleimani
© AFP
Maj Gen Qassam Suleimani to be treated like a fugitive ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi.
During remarks early this week in a Fox News interview following Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) being formally designated by the United States as a foreign terrorist organization, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo confirmed that the US will view Iran's elite force just as it does ISIS.

Specifically Pompeo agreed that the commander of Iran's elite Quds Force, Maj Gen Qassem Soleimani, is a "terrorist" on the level of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi during a Fox News interview on Monday.

Fox's Bret Baier posed the question to the Secretary of State:
"The head of the IRGC, this man Qasem Soleimani, is by all accounts a bad character and has led all kinds of attacks. But are you saying that he now is equated to, let's say, the head of ISIS, al-Baghdadi, in U.S. policy perspective?"
Responding to whether Suleimani is now "equated" to notorious "caliphate head" Baghdadi, Pompeo affirmed, "Yeah. He is a terrorist."

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Attention

Zarif lambastes US' IRGC 'terrorist' label: Without it, Daesh 'would have held two Arab capitals'

Iran Coffins
© AP Photo/Vahid Salemi
Civilians carry coffins of slain Revolutionary Guards, including General Mohsen Ghajarian killed fighting in Syria.
Washington can't salvage its raison d'etre for Middle East intervention - the continued existence of Daesh - by scapegoating Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which has been on the front lines of the fight against Daesh since that group was created, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Thursday.

"Losers of our region's War on Terror cannot rescind history. Targeting #IRGC won't revive ISIS and Nusra - their clients and very creations," Zarif tweeted on Thursday. "Game over, ladies and gentlemen: time to face the fact that you've exhausted every wrong choice and scapegoating won't be your panacea."

"When @realdonaldtrump insisted that 'Iran is killing ISIS', exactly who did he think was doing the fighting & making the sacrifice?" the diplomat continued, noting that "ISIS would've held two Arab capitals & fielded a Terrorist Army on Europe's doorstep had #IRGC not fought alongside brave peoples of Iraq & Syria."

Rocket

Kim Jong-un: US has until end of 2019 to change its 'posture' or NK will boost defenses

Kim Jong-un
© Business Insider
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un
The failed face-to-face talks with President Donald Trump raise doubt whether the US is really committed to improving relations with North Korea, its leader Kim Jong-un said, while promising to beef up the nation's defense.

Pyongyang will give the US till the end of the year to drop "its current calculation method" with regards to bilateral talks and come up with "a correct posture" instead, Kim said, the state-run KCNA news agency reported on Saturday. In that case, North Korea will consider holding a third summit with President Trump sometime in the future, he explained.

Addressing the nation's parliament, Kim said that his talks with US President Donald Trump in February raised "a strong question" whether the country was right in making concessions. The meeting, which was cut short by the White House and ended without an agreement, also cast doubt on the "true willingness" of Washington to improve relations with North Korea.

According to Kim, the problem lied in the "American-style way of dialogue" which amounted to making "unilateral"demands without being ready to "sit face-to-face with us and settle the problem."

As Pyongyang waits for the US to change its stance, it will "keep increasing the defense capabilities," the North Korean leader stressed. He didn't specify what branches of the military will be strengthened and how.

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