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Pompeo's 'good news': American shame is over! US occupiers liberators are returning to ME


RT
Thu, 10 Jan 2019 21:49 UTC
USsoldiersIraq
© US Army/Staff Sgt. James Selesnick
US soldiers in Iraq
In his keynote speech in Cairo, the Secretary of State continued with Trump-era policy of not just refusing to read the room, but baiting the audience with cocksure declarations of American greatness verging on the evangelical.
"It's the truth, lower-case 't,' that I'm here to talk about today. It is a truth that isn't often spoken in this part of the world, but because I'm a military man by training, I'll be very blunt and direct today: America is a force for good in the Middle East,"
started off Pompeo, part stern homespun preacher, part P.T. Barnum getting the show back on the road.

And what's the best way of drawing customers to your circus (or church)? It's definitely not focusing on granular analysis of intractable centuries-old geopolitical problems, or admitting that you are just a tawdry freak show.


Comment: Muzzle? Bulk purchase? Good deeds speak for themselves in silence.

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Ice Cube

'Hell will freeze over': Iranian FM Zarif responds to Pompeo's Cairo speech


RT
Thu, 10 Jan 2019 19:49 UTC
Zarif
© Reuters/Murad Sezer
Iranian FM Javad Zarif
Iran's foreign minister fired back at US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's speech in Cairo, Egypt, declaring that hell would freeze over before Iran "mimics US clients."

"Whenever/wherever US interferes, chaos, repression & resentment follow," Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted on Thursday, adding that it's "best for the US to just get over loss of Iran."

"The day Iran mimics US clients and Secretary Pompeo's 'human rights models' - be it the Shah or current butchers - to become a 'normal' country is the day hell freezes over," Zarif said.


Comment: "The world is recognizing the full scope of Iran's threats." Reverse projection from those who need a constant enemy: The US-Israel amalgamation.

See also: Pompeo's 12 demands list for Tehran is 'an ultimatum designed to fail'

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Attention

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard calls out Democrats for 'religious bigotry' in Knights of Columbus flap

Valerie Richardson
The Washington Times
Thu, 10 Jan 2019 00:00 UTC
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard
© AP/Scott Applewhite
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hi)
Sens. Kamala Harris, Mazie Hirono quizzed judicial nominee on affiliation with Catholic men's charity. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii has criticized her fellow Democrats for targeting a judicial nominee over his membership in the Knights of Columbus, calling it "religious bigotry."

Ms. Gabbard wrote in a Tuesday op-ed in The Hill:
"While I oppose the nomination of Brian Buescher to the U.S. District Court in Nebraska, I stand strongly against those who are fomenting religious bigotry, citing as disqualifiers Buescher's Catholicism and his affiliation with the Knights of Columbus."
While Ms. Gabbard mentioned no names, two Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee - Kamala Harris of California and Mazie Hirono of Hawaii - raised the issue of Mr. Buescher's Knights membership last month in written questions.

"If Buescher is 'unqualified' because of his Catholicism and affiliation with the Knights of Columbus, then President John F. Kennedy, and the 'liberal lion of the Senate' Ted Kennedy would have been 'unqualified' for the same reasons," Ms. Gabbard said.

Comment: Tulsi Gabbard is becoming a touchstone, sorely needed in the US government.

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Megaphone

Zakharova: Moscow has impression US trying to back down from withdrawing forces in Syria

Gh.A.Hassoun
Syrian Arab News Agency
Fri, 11 Jan 2019 18:57 UTC
zakharova
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Moscow had the impression that the United States was trying to back down from withdrawing its forces from Syria.

"The presence of US forces is illegal in Syria and does not lead to calming the situation but rather to escalating it and supporting terrorist organizations," Zakharova said at a press conference on Friday.

She stressed that if Washington has intentions to withdraw from Syria, it should achieve it because it is a positive step, but the most important is the return of the areas from which the US troops will withdraw to the Syrian State authority,"
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Vader

Foreign Affairs comes right out and says it - Attacks on Russia are because Putin challenges the Western Empire

Peter Harrell
Foreign Affairs
Thu, 03 Jan 2019 17:46 UTC
putin
Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea, its war in eastern Ukraine, its interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and other aggressive acts against the United States and its allies demand a strong Western response.


Comment: There was no Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, the Russian military is not actively involved in any war in E. Ukraine (although the gov't is helping Donbass with its needs), and Russia only came to the aid of Crimea after the people of Crimea voted in a referendum for self-determination to join Russia. The UN has in the past accepted the self-determination of other nation-states. Only sock puppets for the Western Empire call what happened in Crimea "Russian aggression".


For the past four years, that response has been dominated by sanctions and other coercive economic measures. U.S. and European officials have hoped that the economic measures would not only exact a cost for such actions but also deter the Kremlin from escalating its assault on American and European interests.


Comment: Those efforts have been mostly futile. The Western Empire's influence is fading.


The economic pressure has certainly had an effect. The IMF estimated that the sanctions linked to the 2014 invasion of Ukraine cost Russia 1 to 1.5 percent of its GDP by mid-2015. The sanctions also hurt the Russian treasury's bottom line, since Russia had to make up for lost Western capital by spending billions of dollars to prop up large companies that depended on Western funds. The more recent sanctions announced in April 2018 in response to Russia's interference in the U.S. election rattled Russian financial markets and put pressure on the value of the ruble. Specific people and companies have also felt the squeeze: the net worth of Oleg Deripaska, the pro-Putin oligarch, for example, has tumbled because of U.S. sanctions.
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Attention

Skripal family says they have not heard from either Sergei or his daughter since poisoning attack


RT
Fri, 11 Jan 2019 11:36 UTC
Sergei and Yulia Skripal
© REUTERS/Dylan Martinez
(L) Sergei Skripal Global Look Press; (R) Yulia Skripal speaks to Reuters in London, Britain, May 23, 2018.
Sergey and Yulia Skripal, the victims of a high-profile poisoning attack in Britain, have not contacted their family in Russia since the attack in March last year, the double agent's niece told RT.

Viktoria Skripal, Sergey's niece and Yulia's cousin, believes that the British authorities may be covering up Sergey's death. The official narrative is that both he and Yulia survived the poisoning attack, but unlike her, Sergey was never shown alive. Yulia showed up for a single brief carefully orchestrated interview with Reuters in May.

According to Viktoria, the family members living in Russia, including Sergey's elderly mother, have not heard from either of them since before the attack. Viktoria believes this to be suspicious

"Sergey is a family man, very attached to family members and a responsible person. He called his 91-year-old mother every week. After what happened in March, those calls stopped."

Comment: Rob Slane in his most recent analysis concludes that Yulia is 'not a free person' and that Sergei's silence is also 'not voluntary'. See: Summing up the Official Claims in the Salisbury Poisonings: Weighed in the Balances and Found Wanting

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Russian Flag

Russian-Kurdish negotiations underway in Moscow; Turkey has chosen sides

Elijah J. Magnier
ejmagnier.com
Thu, 10 Jan 2019 17:49 UTC
syrian kurds
Secret negotiations are ongoing in Moscow and Damascus between representatives of the Syrian Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and Russian officials concerning the fate of Kurdish militants in Syria. The Kurdish delegation is hoping that Russia - and not the US - will adopt the role of guarantor of their safety and is trying to gain a few more concessions to reduce their losses when the Syrian government forces regains complete control of al-Hasaka province in Northeast Syria.

This will happen only when the US establishment finally decides to pull out its last soldier and ends its occupation of al-Hasaka. PKK representatives have offered a "road map" meant to include promises of protection, the sharing of wealth and the security of borders with Turkey. The US is trying to offload responsibility for the Kurds's safety onto Turkey, while Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has rebuffed US requests to offer this kind of protection to his PKK enemies in Syria. Erdogan is evidently putting his strategic-commercial alliance with Russia ahead of his turbulent NATO alliance with the USA.

The Kurdish militant group known variously as YPG, the People's Protection Units, and the PKK (Syrian branch) is convinced the time has come to climb off the US's shoulders onto Russian ones since Washington has decided to drop them off the Turkish cliff. Nevertheless, Syrian officials are also determined to give no concessions to the Kurds notwithstanding the Russian mediation with Damascus.
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2 + 2 = 4

What a coincidence! Fusion-GPS-linked group worked with group behind Russian 'false flag' op

Chuck Ross
The Daily Caller
Thu, 10 Jan 2019 17:25 UTC
warner burr
© Jim WATSON / AFP
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-NC, talks with Vice Chairman Mark Warner, D-VA during Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on September 5, 2018.
  • A non-profit group linked to Fusion GPS has ties to a cybersecurity firm recently implicated in a self-described "false flag" operation in the Alabama Senate race.
  • The Democracy Integrity Project, which works with Fusion GPS and dossier author Christopher Steele, partnered before the 2018 midterms with New Knowledge, an Austin-based firm that has been tied to an operation that created fake Russian bots in Alabama's December 2017 special election.
  • New Knowledge recently produced a report for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and TDIP's founder was in contact with two Democrats from the committee.
A nonprofit group linked to Fusion GPS and partially funded by George Soros worked in recent months with a technology company implicated in a scheme to use fake Russian bots during Alabama's special Senate election.

The groups, the Democracy Integrity Project (TDIP) and New Knowledge, partnered before the 2018 midterms to track alleged Russian disinformation networks, a website the organizations collaboratively run shows.

Both organizations have links to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), which is investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election, as well as possible Trump campaign collusion.

SSCI provided New Knowledge with data from various social media companies as part of an investigation into Russian disinformation networks, according to a report New Knowledge released Dec. 17. Two days later, news broke that New Knowledge's chief executive was involved in a self-described "false flag" operation in the special election for a Senate seat in Alabama, as was another staffer who was the lead author on the Senate report.

Comment: See also:

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Bad Guys

Slimy Trudeau defends Canada's refugee program, as he addresses a teen girl's killing by Syrian refugee

Jesse Ferreras
Global News
Fri, 11 Jan 2019 17:26 UTC
Trudeau
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau faced questions on several topics at a town hall held at Thompson Rivers University (TRU) in Kamloops, B.C. on Wednesday night.

They covered areas such as climate change, First Nations and international students. But one question in particular had Trudeau reminding his audience they were going to hear from a "wide range of perspectives."

One audience member asked him about the killing of Marrisa Shen, a 13-year-old girl who was found dead in Burnaby, B.C.'s Central Park in July 2017.

Ibrahim Ali, a 28-year-old Syrian refugee who arrived in Canada in March 2017, has been charged with first-degree murder in connection with her death.
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Bad Guys

Ecuador FM: WikiLeaks' Assange should surrender to UK rather than stay at embassy indefinitely


RT
Fri, 11 Jan 2019 17:12 UTC
assange support
© Reuters / Peter Nicholls
The UK will never let Julian Assange just leave the country, so he should surrender, Ecuador's foreign minister said. The only other option is life self-imprisonment at the Ecuadoran embassy.

"Mr. Assange has basically two options: to stay indefinitely because the British authorities have told us ... that they will never authorize a safe passage for him to leave the embassy to a third country, and the other alternative is to surrender," Foreign Minister José Valencia FM Mundo.

While securing safety assurances from the British side would be ideal, "you cannot continue insisting on something that will not happen," Valencia stressed, noting that Ecuador believes that it will be "most positive" for Assange to leave the diplomatic compound and face the British law - and by extension a possible extradition to the US.
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