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Light Saber

Jonathan Turley: A serial perjurer will try to prove an old misdemeanor against Trump - an embarrassment for the New York legal system

Jonathan Turley
New York Post
Tue, 16 Apr 2024 20:53 UTC
trump court
© Mary Altaffer/Pool via REUTERS/File PhotoA serial perjurer will try to prove an old misdemeanor against Trump in an embarrassment for the New York legal system
The famous Roman philosopher and orator Marcus Tullius Cicero once said, "The more laws, the less justice."

This week, New York judges and lawyers appear eager to prove that the same is true for cases against Donald Trump.

After an absurd $450 million decision courtesy of Attorney General Letitia James, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg will bring his equally controversial criminal prosecution over hush money paid to former porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election.

Lawyers have been scouring the civil and criminal codes for any basis to sue or prosecute Trump before the upcoming 2024 election. This week will highlight the damage done to New York's legal system because of this unhinged crusade. They've charged him with everything short of ripping a label off a mattress.

Comment:





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Target

Iran on the rise: Retaliation, 'important military targets'

Peter Koenig
GlobalResearch
Mon, 15 Apr 2024 00:00 UTC
Map iran
The warning was on the wall. Ever since Israel attacked "out of the blue" on 1 April 2024 the Iranian Consulate in Damascus, Syria, killing 7, including two generals, an Iranian retaliation was to be expected.

The New York Times (NYT) reports
"Iran mounted an immense aerial attack on Israel on Saturday night, launching more than 200 drones [other sources talk about 300 drones] and missiles in retaliation for a deadly Israeli airstrike in Syria two weeks ago, and marking a significant escalation in hostilities between the two regional foes."
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) say there were over 300 areal threats, including some 200 drones, 100 ballistic missiles, and 30 cruise missiles. See this.

Israel and her Western friends claim that many of the drones were intercepted by IDF and the help from allied military support. The latter apparently include the UK, France, and Jordan - and most likely also US-NATO forces that have long been stationed in the region.

Nevertheless, according to several RT reports, a large-scale missile and drone attack against Israel has been a success, Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has said in a statement published by IRNA news agency. The Islamic Republic's military managed to "hit and destroy" some "important military targets," it added, without providing any further details.

Comment: Decades in the making, Israel has left no doubts about its global trajectory, its ability to entangle Western leadership, its agenda. In contrast, Iran plays it close to the vest.

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Cruise Missle

The missiles of April

Scott Ritter
scottritterextra.com
Sun, 14 Apr 2024 00:00 UTC
missile
© UnknownIranian missile launch. Scores of these missiles were used to attack Israel.
Iran's retaliatory attack on Israel will go down in history as one of the greatest victories of this century.

I've been writing about Iran for more than two decades. In 2005, I made a trip to Iran to ascertain the "ground truth" about that nation, a truth which I then incorporated into a book, Target Iran, laying out the US-Israeli collaboration to craft a justification for a military attack on Iran designed to bring down its theocratic government. I followed this book up with another, Dealbreaker, in 2018, which brought this US-Israeli effort up to date.

Back in November 2006, in an address to Columbia University's School of International Relations, I underscored that the United States would never abandon my "good friend" Israel until, of course, we did. What could precipitate such an action, I asked? I noted that Israel was a nation drunk of hubris and power, and unless the United States could find a way to remove the keys from the ignition of the bus Israel was navigating toward the abyss, we would not join Israel in its lemming-like suicidal journey.
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Nuke

IAEA boss: No Russian heavy weapons at Zaporozhye plant


RT
Tue, 16 Apr 2024 20:16 UTC
Zaporozhye Nuclear power plant
© Konstantin Mikhalchevsky / RIA NovostiZaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant
Europe's largest nuclear power plant was attacked by drones last week

Russia has not stationed heavy weapons at Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi told reporters on Monday.

Moscow and Kiev have accused each other of shelling Europe's largest nuclear plant, which sits close to the front line. Ukraine and its Western backers have also accused Moscow of using the facility as cover for its troops.

"There is no heavy weaponry there," Grossi told reporters, after a UN Security Council meeting dedicated to the renewed strikes on the plant.

Although there are Russian "armored vehicles and some security presence at the plant," IAEA monitors did not see any prohibited weapons, such as multiple rocket launchers, tanks, and artillery, Grossi explained.

Comment: Russian UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia at the UN:

Full text:

Good morning begins with "peaceful atom":

Permanent Representative of Russia Nebenzya - at a meeting of the UN Security Council on the situation around the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant:

"With the connivance of its Western sponsors, Ukraine is systematically carrying out irresponsible and reckless attacks on the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant and the adjacent territory. The Russian Armed Forces recorded and suppressed more than a hundred unmanned aerial vehicles in week.

Our Western colleagues, without noticing it themselves, spoke out today in the form of an ultimatum: "Transfer control of the Zaporizhia NPP, and then they will stop shelling it." Thus, they not only betrayed the Zelensky regime, but also actually admitted to complicity in these irresponsible attacks.

I would like to believe that our European neighbors have not yet atrophied the instinct of self-preservation and that they will not jeopardize the lives and health of their own citizens. After all, if Ukrainian attacks on the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant continue, no one can completely rule out a nuclear disaster on a regional and even global scale."


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Arrow Up

Mobilizing for defeat: The Zelensky regime insists more Ukrainians must die before it's all over

Tarik Cyril Amar
RT
Sat, 13 Apr 2024 19:52 UTC
patch
© Wojtek Radwanski/AFPA patch with the Ukrainian flag on a trooper's arm as Ukrainian soldiers take part in a military training in Poland • April 4, 2024
Kiev's new effort to scoop up more bodies for the front is a response to looming catastrophe - and a catastrophe in itself...

Ukraine's situation is extremely precarious, if you want to put it optimistically. A more realistic term is "catastrophic." The country faces steady, accelerating advances of Russian forces that are well-motivated and trained and superior in quantity and equipment. Even Ukraine's commander-in-chief has admitted that "the situation on the eastern front has significantly worsened in recent days." A massive understatement but still proof that things are even worse.

We also know - from Ukrainian polls - that ever more Ukrainians are open to ending the war by making concessions. Yet the Zelensky regime is doubling down. Instead of entering serious negotiations - the kind where you adjust your aims to your losses so as to avoid even greater ones - it is seeking to throw more lives into a war that has become a meatgrinder for Ukrainian troops.

That is the main purpose of a new mobilization law that has just passed the Ukrainian parliament. (In addition, President Zelensky has already signed off on additional measures that will be integrated into the new law once he signs that as well. In essence, though, this is one integrated bundle, which many Ukrainians and outside observers refer to as one and the same law, as will be done here.)
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Arrow Down

Russia tells Israel to condemn Ukraine


RT
Sun, 14 Apr 2024 17:06 UTC
Zakharova
© Stanislav Kraslinkov/SputnikRussian FM spokeswoman Maria Zakharova
Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova made the remark after West Jerusalem's envoy urged Moscow to denounce Iranian strikes...

Russia does not feel obliged to condemn Iran's missile and drone strikes on Israel on Saturday, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said. The diplomat explained that West Jerusalem has never denounced Ukraine's attacks on Russian civilians.

According to Israeli estimates, Tehran's latest show of force involved hundreds of rockets and missiles, as well as kamikaze UAVs. Iran announced that the strike was in response to the "Zionist regime's numerous crimes, including the attack on the consular section of Iran's Embassy in Damascus."

A presumed Israeli airstrike hit Iran's consulate in Damascus, Syria on April 1, killing seven officers of Iran's elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force, including two high-ranking generals. Iranian state media has claimed that a number of Israeli military facilities were struck in Saturday's attack. The Israeli military, in turn, has insisted that its air defenses shot down nearly all of the incoming projectiles.
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Helm

China reveals plan to end Ukraine conflict


RT
Tue, 16 Apr 2024 19:10 UTC
scholz jinping
© Michael Kappeler/Getty ImagesGerman Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) sits opposite Xi Jinping, President of China
World powers should focus on restoring peace and stability in Ukraine rather than seeking "selfish gains," Chinese President Xi Jinping said during a meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Tuesday.

The chancellor arrived in China on Sunday, accompanied by a large delegation of ministers and business executives.

Meeting with Scholz at Beijing's Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, Xi told the German leader that all parties should work together to restore peace in Ukraine as soon as possible. The Chinese leader also outlined four principles that he believes will prevent the conflict from escalating.

"First, we should prioritize the upholding of peace and stability and refrain from seeking selfish gains," Xi said, as quoted by the Xinhua news agency.
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Chess

'Only good for WW3': Slovakia to oppose Ukraine's NATO membership bid

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Tue, 16 Apr 2024 18:50 UTC
Robert Fico
© EPASlovakian PM Robert Fico
Last October saw a significant shift in Slovakia's trajectory related to its stance on the Ukraine war, after the populist left-wing party Smer took the most votes in the country's national election. Its head, who ascended to his fourth term as prime minister, Robert Fico, advanced a platform of pursuing peace in Ukraine rather than continuing to pour weapons into an increasingly hopeless campaign to evict Russian forces from the country's eastern provinces.

In the wake of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier this month controversially declaring "Ukraine will become a member of NATO" - Slovakia under PM Fico is pushing back. He said in fresh comments at a press conference that Slovakia will stand firmly against any efforts to pursue Ukraine's accession into NATO.

"Ukraine may say: 'We want to join NATO.' This will be their own decision. We are saying that we will not ratify [the documents on Ukraine's accession to NATO] in parliament because Slovakia needs a neutral Ukraine. Slovakia's interests will be threatened if Ukraine becomes a NATO member," Fico said.

Comment: Looks like the Slovaks elected a leader with a decent head on his shoulders.

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Attention

How Iran's 'strategic patience' switched to serious deterrence

Pepe Escobar
The Cradle
Mon, 15 Apr 2024 17:01 UTC
Iran's retaliatory strikes against Israel were not conducted alone. Strategic partners Russia and China have Tehran's back, and their role in West Asia's conflict will only grow if the US doesn't keep Israel in check.

The Drone Wars
© The Cradle
A little over 48 hours before Iran's aerial message to Israel across the skies of West Asia, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov confirmed, on the record, what so far had been, at best, hush-hush diplomatic talk:
The Russian side keeps in contact with Iranian partners on the situation in the Middle East after the Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in Syria.
Ryabkov added, "We stay in constant touch [with Iran]. New in-depth discussions on the whole range of issues related to the Middle East are also expected in the near future in BRICS."

He then sketched The Big Picture:
Connivance with Israeli actions in the Middle East, which are at the core of Washington's policy, is in many ways becoming the root cause of new tragedies.
Here, concisely, we had Russia's top diplomatic coordinator with BRICS - in the year of the multipolar organization's Russian presidency - indirectly messaging that Russia has Iran's back. Iran, it should be noted, just became a full-fledged BRICS+ member in January.

Iran's aerial message this weekend confirmed this in practice: their missile guidance systems used the Chinese Beidou satellite navigation system as well as the Russian GLONASS system.

This is Russia-China intel leading from behind and a graphic example of BRICS+ on the move.

Ryabkov's "we stay in constant touch" plus the satellite navigation intel confirms the deeply interlocked cooperation between the Russia-China strategic partnership and their mutual strategic partner Iran. Based on vast experience in Ukraine, Moscow knew that the biblical psychopathic genocidal entity would keep escalating if Iran only continued to exercise "strategic patience."

The morphing of "strategic patience" into a new strategic balance had to take some time - including high-level exchanges with the Russian side. After all, the risk remained that the Israeli attack against the Iranian consulate/ambassador's residence in Damascus could well prove to be the 2024 remix of the killing of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
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Quenelle - Golden

Iran REJECTS US request to allow 'symbolic strike' by Israel


The Cradle
Tue, 16 Apr 2024 16:16 UTC
iran soldier
© Tasnim News AgencyWashington used diplomatic backchannels to ask Tehran not to retaliate to an Israeli strike, which would allow Tel Aviv to 'save face' following the massive retaliatory attack launched by Iran
An Iranian military security official has revealed exclusively to The Cradle that the US contacted the Islamic Republic, asking the nation to allow Israel "a symbolic strike to save face" following Iran's retaliatory drone and missile barrage this weekend.

"Iran has received messages from mediators to let the regime do a symbolic strike to save face and asked Iran not to retaliate," the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, revealed to The Cradle.

He added that Tehran "outright rejected" the proposal, delivered by mediators, and reiterated warnings that any Israeli attack on Iranian soil would be met with a decisive and immediate response.

Comment: Whilst Israel may have had some success with its Western-backed genocide in Gaza, it made little headway in its efforts against Hamas there. And now, following Iran's exploratory, and rather humiliating, retaliation, Tel Aviv has allegedly chosen to pause its Rafah offensive.

Taken together, Israel seems to be losing any semblance of dominance over its chaos creation, and which is possibly the point when the situation becomes even more dangerous:


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