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Ukraine interfering in US elections is not Russia's narrative; it belongs to US media


RT
Tue, 19 Nov 2019 22:25 UTC
PutinVindman
© Global Look Press/Kremlin Pool/CNN/commdiginews.com/KJN
Russian President Putin • Lt. Col. Vindman
Mainstream US media outlets and impeachment witness Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman have called stories of Ukrainian influence in the 2016 US election a conspiracy theory pushed by Russian president. Evidence shows otherwise.

Testifying before the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, Vindman - a National Security Council staffer - argued that any Ukrainian meddling in the 2016 election is "a Russian narrative promoted by [President Vladimir] Putin," rejected by the entire US intelligence community.
This appears to be a reference to what President Donald Trump brought up in the July phone call with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky - which Vindman raised alarms about - involving a "server" supposedly physically located in Ukraine and somehow involved in the alleged hack into the Democratic National Committee emails. It was unclear from the transcript of the call whether Trump was referring to the actual DNC server that US authorities were never allowed to examine, or a server from which the alleged hack originated.

Rather than being a "Russian narrative," however, the story about Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election has been widely reported in mainstream US outlets - the same ones that have pushed the "Russian meddling" conspiracy for years. It doesn't deal with the server, either, but with Ukrainian officials releasing documents to hurt Trump.
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Star of David

Netanyahu doesn't miss a beat: Form a national unity government and 'annex Jordan Valley'


Sputnik
Wed, 20 Nov 2019 02:13 UTC
GantzNetanyahu
© AP/Dan Bailley
Fmr Israeli military chief Benny Gantz and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called on former Israeli military chief Benny Gantz and former defense minister Avigdor Lieberman to create a government of national unity with the goal of extending Israeli sovereignty to the Jordan Valley.

On Monday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the "establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not per se inconsistent with international law." Netanyahu welcomed the change in policy, saying on Monday that it "rights a historical wrong." Netanyahu said in a statement released on his official Twitter account on Tuesday:
"I have called on [leader of the Blue and White alliance] Benny Gantz and [leader of the Yisrael Beiteinu party] Avigdor Lieberman to form a government of national unity that would protect Israel and annex the Jordan Valley."
Netanyahu held a meeting with Gantz late on Tuesday. Gantz was handed the mandate to try to form a 61-seat majority last month, after Netanyahu failed to complete the task in 28 days. At the end of October, Gantz tried to get Lieberman to agree to form a majority coalition.

Secretary General of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) Saeb Erekat said in a Monday statement that the change in the US stance on Israeli settlement activity threatens global stability. Erekat emphasized that under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Israel's settlements activity in the occupied territories "falls within the definition of war crimes."

Comment: Netanyahu is worried he will be left out in the cold and at the mercy of standing indictments. He desperately needs to be integral in the next version of political leadership. To this end he has masterfully played the US and parlayed illegal actions to his advantage. Is Israel immune to international law? With the US tucked conveniently under Netanyahu's arm and in lock-step with Israel's whims and desires, so far it is. Gantz may not have as cozy a relationship with Trump. Neti is counting on it.

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Star of David

Poll reveals Trump's Israel policy is opposed even by Republicans

Eric Zuesse
The Saker
Tue, 19 Nov 2019 00:00 UTC
stolen
© Al Jazeera/KJN
On Monday, November 18th, Reuters headlined "U.S. backs Israel on settlements, angering Palestinians and clouding peace process" and reported that:
"The United States on Monday effectively backed Israel's right to build Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank by abandoning its four-decade-old position that they were 'inconsistent with international law,' a stance that may make Israeli-Palestinian peace even more elusive."
This article made clear that, of all entities Reuters could contact about the matter, only U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo thought that these illegal settlements are legal, and even Pompeo was offering no other reason than:
"'The establishment of Israeli civilian settlements is not, per se, inconsistent with international law,' Pompeo told reporters at the State Department, reversing a formal legal position taken by the United States under Carter in 1978."
It was merely his dictat, as authority for this major U.S. policy-change.

One poll was recently taken of Americans on the matter. It was done by Scarborough Research, a joint venture by The Nielsen Company and Arbitron, and its sample size was unusually large for such a poll and employed rigorous sampling techniques. Thus, its findings should be considered to be close to the reality.

Here is a summary of that poll's methodology and findings. [I add my explanations in brackets].

Comment: It isn't the voters - no matter their political allegiance - who are making these decisions. This train wreck is squarely on the administration, whose vision is myopic with hubris through the roof! Neither annexations nor occupations have legal status as there are no treaties nor agreements between the Israelis and Palestinians, and certainly no dispensations for these activities by any international body of record.

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Arrow Up

Ukraine FM: Kyiv is ready to accept a 'reasonable compromise' in upcoming peace talks


RFE/RL
Tue, 19 Nov 2019 19:57 UTC
Prystayko
© AP/Efrem Lukatsky
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystayko
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystayko says Kyiv is ready to accept a "reasonable compromise" next month during the so-called Normandy format talks on ending the bloody five-year conflict in eastern Ukraine.

"We are going to the Normandy meeting with open ideas, an open mind, ready to accept a reasonable compromise," Prystayko told reporters on November 19 in Kyiv during a joint news conference with German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas.

The leaders of Ukraine, Russia, Germany, and France are scheduled to meet in December in an effort to end the conflict between Ukrainian government forces and Russia-backed separatists in parts of the Donbas and Luhansk regions that has killed more than 13,000 people since 2014.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy came to office this year vowing to end the war, but some of his critics have accused him of making too many concessions to Moscow.

Comment: Note to RFE/RL: Russia does not have Kyiv/Ukraine in its sights for 'domination', nor did it steal Crimea.

See also: Ray McGovern offers Congress 'Ukraine for Dummies'

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Handcuffs

Andalucia: Socialist ex-presidents found guilty in €680M fraud case

Sam Jones
The Guardian
Tue, 19 Nov 2019 10:04 UTC
Griñán • Chaves
© RC
José Antonio Griñán • Manuel Chaves
Two former socialist presidents of the southern Spanish region of Andalucía have been found guilty of misconduct and misuse of public funds over their roles in a decade-long, €680m (£582m) fraud that led to one of the country's biggest corruption trials. Twenty-one former PSOE officials stood trial in Seville over their involvement in the so-called ERE case, the Spanish acronym for a workforce dismissal plan.

Prosecutors argued that two successive PSOE administrations in Andalucía oversaw a corrupt scheme in which funds intended to help unemployed people and struggling companies were often diverted to individuals and businesses that were close to the PSOE.

Between 2001 and 2010, the fund received €855m from the Andalucían government. According to anti-corruption prosecutors, €680m was handed out fraudulently through a "totally opaque grants system" that operated free of "all the established control mechanisms".

Manuel Chaves, who was president of the regional government between 1990 and 2009 and chair of the PSOE from 2000 to 2012, was found guilty of misconduct and barred from holding office for nine years. His successor, José Antonio Griñán, who stepped down in 2013 as news of the scam emerged, was found guilty of misconduct and misuse of public funds, jailed for six years and banned from office for 15 years.

Seventeen of the other defendants were convicted of misconduct or misuse of public funds, or both, while two were acquitted.

Comment: The perks of being elected to office? Champagne socialists toasted their windfall wealth, stolen from the constituency who elected them. Perhaps 'the people' should calculate how much each vote cost them. Corruption doesn't fix itself. These high-priced scumbags should never be allowed back into positions of influence.

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Info

All eyes on judge in Michael Flynn case after weeks of shocking developments

Margot Cleveland
The Federalist
Wed, 20 Nov 2019 19:22 UTC
Michael Flynn
© AP/Susan Walsh
Former National Security Advisor General Michael Flynn
After a flurry of court filings and blockbuster developments last month, the Michael Flynn criminal case has been dormant for nearly three weeks. The parties and the public now await word from presiding Judge Emmett Sullivan on the pending motion to compel and motion for sanctions filed by Sidney Powell, the lead attorney who took over Flynn's case shortly after the special counsel team disbanded.

Powell's motion seeks to force federal prosecutors to provide Flynn an array of documents withheld from his attorneys and to sanction government lawyers for their failure to provide relevant evidence to the defense team in a timely manner. When and how Judge Sullivan will rule is unclear.

A Flurry of October Surprises

In late October, Judge Sullivan issued a short order canceling a hearing on Flynn's motions previously scheduled for November 5, 2019, prompting predictions that the long-time federal judge had already made up his mind. This development also triggered a panicked filing by the government complaining that Flynn's lawyers had raised new issues in their reply brief and cautioning the court not to rule without hearing more from the prosecutors. Sullivan okayed a response by the government and a final rebuttal by Flynn's attorneys, but added a terse endnote that no more briefing would be had on the issue.

Then, mere days after the final briefing came in, federal prosecutors found themselves forced to admit that for nearly three years, they had wrongly identified the authors of the handwritten notes taken by the FBI agents during their January 24, 2017, interview of then-National Security Advisor Flynn. Prosecutors had told defense counsel (and the court) that the notes written by Peter Strozk had been compiled by FBI Agent Joe Pietka, and those taken by Pietka had been written by Strozk.

This embarrassing mea culpa surely added strength to Powell's plea for access to other withheld evidence. After all, if federal prosecutors made such a basic blunder concerning key evidence, what other mistakes lay buried in the undisclosed evidence?
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Propaganda

Oops, wrong narrative! AFP & Reuters scrub story about 100,000 detained migrant children - because it happened on Obama's watch


RT
Wed, 20 Nov 2019 19:14 UTC
migrant children
Several news agencies have opted to delete a story stating that 100,000 migrant children were detained in US border facilities after the United Nations clarified that the number is years old, predating the age of Trump.

After media outlets published stories trumpeting the 100,000 figure earlier this week, based on the word of UN refugee specialist Manfred Nowak, the expert was forced to correct his initial statement on Tuesday. As it turns out, the figure Nowak cited to reporters dates back to 2015, meaning the dramatic number of detentions he revealed occurred under the watch of President Barack Obama, rather than Donald Trump, who is often assailed by progressive critics over his border policies.

Instead of issuing corrections, however, Nowak's clarification prompted several outlets to withdraw their stories altogether, including Reuters and AFP, who both said no replacement story would be forthcoming.


At the time of publishing, AFP's version of the story containing the outdated figure was still live on its website.
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Pirates

Swedish media outs Iraqi Defence Minister as Stockholm citizen with criminal record


Sputnik
Wed, 20 Nov 2019 18:39 UTC
IraqDefense Minister Najah Hassan Ali al-Shammari
© News Front
Iraq’s Defense Minister Najah Hassan Ali al-Shammari
According to Swedish media reports, Najah al-Shammari has Swedish citizenship and is listed as a Swedish resident on a disability allowance. During his time in Sweden, he was reportedly on full-time sick leave due to memory problems, but had a criminal record.

Iraqi Defence Minister Najah al-Shammari is a Swedish citizen registered in a suburb of Stockholm, something his party, al-Wataniya or the National Coalition, denied when his candidacy for the ministerial post was proposed, the Swedish news outlet Nyheter Idag reported following an Iraqi AFP journalist earlier this year.

According to Nyheter Idag, al-Shammari came to Sweden in 2009. His family came three years later, and in 2015 he became a Swedish citizen, despite documents showing that he had failed to understand simple Swedish, even after several years of language courses designed specifically for immigrants.
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Sherlock

FBI investigating possibility of 'criminal enterprise' in Jeffrey Epstein death, prisons chief admits

Greg Norman
Fox News
Tue, 19 Nov 2019 17:47 UTC
epstein
© Global Look / Uma Sanghvi
FBI investigators probing the death of Jeffrey Epstein are looking into whether a "criminal enterprise" may have played a role, the Bureau of Prisons' director revealed Tuesday during testimony in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Kathleen Hawk Sawyer, who described the death as a "black eye on the entire Bureau of Prisons," made the admission when questioned by Sen. Lindsey Graham.

"With a case this high profile, there has got to be either a major malfunction of the system or criminal enterprise at foot to allow this to happen. So are you looking at both? Is the FBI looking at both?" the South Carolina Republican asked.

"The FBI is involved and they are looking at criminal enterprise, yes," Sawyer responded.
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Safe

'No evidence of meddling': Boris Johnson defends decision not to publish Russian influence report before election


RT
Wed, 20 Nov 2019 17:36 UTC
UK Johnson
© UK PM Boris Johnson, Sky News
UK PM Boris Johnson
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he has never seen "any" evidence of Russian interference in British democracy and defended his decision not to publish a parliamentary report into the subject before the December 12 election

Asked Wednesday about his decision to wait until after the election to publish the controversial report, Johnson said he saw no reason to change the timeline for publication.
There's absolutely no evidence that I've ever seen of any Russian interference in UK democratic processes.
Johnson's decision to shelve the 50-page report compiled by the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) sparked outrage from the opposition, despite the fact that all public indications so far appear to suggest that it contains no evidence that Moscow meddled in either the 2016 Brexit referendum or the 2017 general election.


Comment: Just like those "WMDs" in Iraq, we're sure the paranoid wonks and spooks will continue searching for the mythical Russian Interference for the foreseeable future... It maybe be decades before they give up - no lack of evidence will deter them in their quixotic quest. At least BoJo is saying what all reasonable people have known for years. But that won't deter the delusional idiots in the slightest.

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