Welcome to Sott.net
Tue, 02 Nov 2021
The World for People who Think

Puppet Masters
Map

Attention

Here are four legal problems House Democrats have to face at impeachment trial

Jenna Ellis
Fox News
Tue, 21 Jan 2020 06:43 UTC
trump
President Trump's defense counsel has filed their legal brief on impeachment. It lays out a clear argument explaining why the Senate constitutionally cannot even consider the two flimsy articles of impeachment. The Senate, which has the sole power to try all impeachments, must acquit President Trump and outright dismiss this attempt to undermine the Constitution.

Here are the four legal problems the president's brief reveals that House Democrats have:

1. The Substance Problem — The Articles don't identify any impeachable offense or even any crime

Article II, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution clearly and intentionally limits impeachment to instances of "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors." The two articles of impeachment do not allege any conduct that fits within that constitutional definition, or even any crime whatsoever. "Abuse of power" and "obstruction of Congress" are vague allegations and a newly invented theory from the Democrats — not an allegation that is a violation of any actual law.

Trump's brief notes that every prior presidential impeachment in U.S. history has been based on allegations of violations of existing law (specifically, criminal law). For example, though Clinton was ultimately not convicted in the Senate of an impeachable offense, that impeachment still alleged violations of existing federal criminal law — felonies. "Abuse of power" and "obstruction of Congress" are not criminal violations, just catchy phrasing that the Democrats are using to create the public perception of wrongdoing.

Comment: See also:

      Read More...
Attention

Senate impeachment trial: Trump lawyers and Schiff go head-to-head accusing each other of obstruction


RT
Tue, 21 Jan 2020 23:30 UTC
Schiff/Cipollone
© Reuters Handout
House Intel committee chair Adam Schiff • White House Lawyer Pat Cipollone
House intel committee head Adam Schiff clashed with President Donald Trump's attorneys as the Senate impeachment trial began, attempting to spin his party's lackluster articles of impeachment as dire crimes and getting cut down.

Even while insisting the evidence presented during the House hearings was "more than enough" for the Senate to convict Trump, Schiff maintained that failing to include all the witnesses, documents, and other material the Democrats had tried (and failed) to shoehorn into those hearings "only rewards the president's obstruction."

Trump's "refusal to obey subpoenas" was allowing him to "hide all evidence harmful to his position," Schiff insisted, claiming that "the innocent do not act this way."

Americans want a fair trial.

Comment: See also:

      Read More...
Evil Rays

US officials admit fueling Iran protests with covert tech programs to evade government internet controls

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Mon, 20 Jan 2020 00:32 UTC
Iran internet access
© Zuma Press/R. Fouladi
Internet access was disrupted in Iran in response to protests
After major protests hit multiple cities across Iran in November following a drastic government slash in gasoline subsidies which quickly turned anti-regime, broad internet outages were reported — some lasting as long as a week or more nationwide — following Tehran authorities ordering the blockage of external access.

And during smaller January protests over downed Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752, more widespread internet outages were reported recently, likely as Iranian security services fear protest "crackdown" videos would fuel outrage in western media, and after months ago Mike Pompeo expressly urged Iranians in the streets to send the State Department damning videos that would implicate Tehran's leaders and police.

But now Washington appears to have initiated the "Syria option" inside Iran: covertly fueling and driving "popular protests" to eventually create conditions for large-scale confrontation on the ground geared toward regime change.
      Read More...
Black Cat

Sore loser Killary STILL slagging Bernie three years later: 'Divisive', 'nobody likes him'


RT
Tue, 21 Jan 2020 22:53 UTC
hillary bernie 2016
© Reuters / Brian Snyder
Happier times: Sanders campaigns for Clinton in 2016 after she secured the Democratic Party's nomination
Two-time presidential also-ran Hillary Clinton hasn't dropped her grudge against erstwhile opponent and current Democratic frontrunner Bernie Sanders, and her comments on his 'likability' have triggered a backlash from all sides.

Clinton excoriated her former competitor as unlikeable and ineffective, telling the Hollywood Reporter that "nobody wants to work with [Sanders]" in the Senate in an interview published Tuesday ahead of a four-part documentary due to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.

While the former secretary of state has long blamed Sanders, as well as Russia, former FBI director James Comey, WikiLeaks, actress Susan Sarandon, and dozens of other entities, for her 2016 election loss, Tuesday's attack comes on the heels of several polls placing Sanders at the front of the 2020 primary pack in key demographics.

Comment: The 2020 circus rolls on.

      Read More...
Star of David

Everyone I don't like is Hitler: Netanyahu shamelessly compares Iran to Nazis


Sputnik
Tue, 21 Jan 2020 23:56 UTC
netanyahu
© REUTERS / Ronen Zvulun
Israel's prime minister and other officials have repeatedly likened the Islamic Republic of Iran to Nazi Germany in recent years, and successfully lobbied President Trump to pull the US out of the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal, which Tel Aviv has dubbed as 'appeasement'.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the world to remember the Nazis' brutal genocide of millions of European Jews, comparing the event with Iran's nuclear programme.

"Iran is openly declaring every day that it wants to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth - and, by the way, Israel today has a population of more than six million Jews," Netanyahu said, speaking to the US-based Christian broadcaster Trinity Broadcasting Network in an interview expected to air later Tuesday.

The Israeli prime minister recalled that during the Holocaust, "a third of the Jewish people went up in flames; there was nothing we could do. Now, after the Holocaust, the State of Israel has been established - and the attempts to destroy the Jewish people are not disappearing."

According to Netanyahu, "the lessons of Auschwitz are: First, stop bad things when they're small - and Iran is a very bad thing. It's not that small, but it could get a lot bigger with nuclear weapons, and I think the first thing is to stop that. And second is to understand that the Jews will never, ever again be defenceless in the face of those who want to destroy them."


Comment: As always Netanyahu tells the truth - but the truth about Israel, not Iran. Small things should be stopped when they're small, like Israel, the "sh***y little country" that has only grown more evil as it has progressively stolen Palestinian land. And it only got "bigger" with its own illegal nuclear weapons. Netanyahu, your sh***y little country needs to be stopped, before it destroys the Middle East.
map palestine


      Read More...
Airplane

Kosovo-Serbia flights to restart after two decades

Seana Davis
euronews
Tue, 21 Jan 2020 23:36 UTC
Lufthansa BA
© Reuters / Michaela Rehle
Direct flights are to resume between Kosovo and Belgrade for the first time since the start of the Kosovo War more than two decades ago in what is being hailed as an important diplomatic step.

Eurowings, the no-frills subsidiary of German flag-carrier Lufthansa, will fly between the Kosovan and Serb capitals following a deal brokered by US diplomats.

Serbia and Kosovo have remained uneasy neighbours ever since their 1998-99 war that claimed more than 10,000 lives and left over one million people homeless.

      Read More...
Nuke

North Korea says it will not be bound by nuclear testing pledge when the US fails on its commitments


Tasnim
Tue, 21 Jan 2020 23:30 UTC
North Korea
North Korea on Tuesday said that as the United States had ignored its year-end deadline for nuclear talks, it no longer felt bound by commitments, which included a halt to its nuclear testing and the firing of inter-continental ballistic missiles.

"We found no reason to be unilaterally bound any longer by the commitment that the other party fails to honor", Ju Yong Chol, a counsellor at North Korea's mission to the United Nations in Geneva, told the UN-backed Conference on Disarmament, Reuters reported.

Speaking as the envoy from the People's Democratic Republic of Korea (DPRK), he accused the United States of applying "the most brutal and inhuman sanctions", adding: "If the US persists in such hostile policy towards the DPRK there will never be the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula".

"If the United States tries to enforce unilateral demands and persists in imposing sanctions, North Korea may be compelled to seek a new path," Ju added.
      Read More...
Document

Trump's legal team calls impeachment articles 'an affront to the Constitution,' urges quick acquittal in Senate

Rebecca Shabad
NBC News
Mon, 20 Jan 2020 22:47 UTC
Trump Oval Office
© Drew Angerer / Getty Images
President Donald Trump outside the Oval Office of the White House on Jan. 9, 2020.
President Donald Trump did "absolutely nothing wrong," is the victim of a partisan plot to take him down and should be swiftly acquitted in a Senate trial, his legal team argued in a brief Monday.

The 110-page trial memo, prepared for submission to the Senate a day before the president's impeachment trial is set to begin in earnest, counters House Democrats' argument that Trump abused the power of his office for personal gain by working to pressure Ukraine to announce politically advantageous investigations and then, once he was caught, sought to obstruct Congress' investigation.

The two articles, which the House adopted in December, set a dangerous precedent, Trump's attorneys said in the memo, which the White House made public Monday.
      Read More...
Sheriff

Iranian MP offers $3 million bounty to 'anyone' who takes out Trump


RT
Tue, 21 Jan 2020 20:50 UTC
Iran protest Trump
© REUTERS / West Asia News Agency / Nazanin Tabatabaee
Iranian protesters hold a cardboard cutout depicting U.S. President Donald Trump
A member of Iran's parliament has called for placing a bounty on US President Donald Trump's head in response to a drone strike that killed Tehran's senior military commander, Qassem Soleimani.

The statement was made by Ahmad Hamzeh, a lawmaker from the southern Kerman Province, whose namesake capital is Soleimani's hometown.

"On behalf of the people of Kerman Province, we will pay a 3 million dollar award in cash to whoever kills Trump," Hamzeh said in a speech to fellow lawmakers on Tuesday, as quoted by Iranian news outlets.

Comment: The US, without irony, condemned the statement. It seemingly can't connect its murder of an important government figure with an expression of outrage about it. Who is the real terrorist here?
"It's just ridiculous, but it gives you a sense of the terrorist underpinnings of that regime, and that regime needs to change its behavior," US Ambassador to the Conference on Disarmament Robert Wood told reporters in Geneva, Switzerland, on Tuesday, as quoted by Reuters.

The diplomat was commenting on a remark by Iranian lawmaker Ahmad Hamzeh, who promised to pay US$3,000,000 to anyone who kills Trump. Hamzeh said it would be revenge for the death of top Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a US drone strike earlier this month, and called for Tehran to develop nuclear weapons.

After Soleimani was killed, Iran announced it was rolling back its commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal - a step that pushed the European parties to the treaty, such as France, Germany and the UK, to launch an investigation into Tehran's alleged non-compliance. In response, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif warned that the country will ditch the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) if EU states file a complaint with the UN Security Council over its nuclear commitments.

Zarif explained that Iran has been scaling down its commitments under the JCPOA nuclear treatment in accordance with the mechanisms laid out in the agreement, and had only begun to do so after the US abandoned the deal in 2018 and re-imposed sanctions on Iran.

The Iranian FM's words send a "very, very negative message," the US disarmament ambassador told reporters.


      Read More...
Vader

How a Hidden Parliamentary Session Revealed Trump's True Motives in Iraq

Whitney Webb
MintPress News
Fri, 17 Jan 2020 20:39 UTC
Iraq's Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi
© Claudio Cabrera / MintPress News
Iraq's Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi
Since the U.S. killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis earlier this month, the official narrative has held that their deaths were necessary to prevent a vague, yet allegedly imminent, threat of violence towards Americans, though President Trump has since claimed whether or not Soleimani or his Iraqi allies posed an imminent threat "doesn't really matter."

While the situation between Iran, Iraq and the U.S. appears to have de-escalated substantially, at least for now, it is worth revisiting the lead-up to the recent U.S.-Iraq/Iran tensions up to the Trump-mandated killing of Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in order to understand one of the most overlooked yet relevant drivers behind Trump's current policy with respect to Iraq: preventing China from expanding its foothold in the Middle East. Indeed, it has been alleged that even the timing of Soleimani's assassination was directly related to his diplomatic role in Iraq and his push to help Iraq secure its oil independence, beginning with the implementation of a new massive oil deal with China.

While recent rhetoric in the media has dwelled on the extent of Iran's influence in Iraq, China's recent dealings with Iraq — particularly in its oil sector — are to blame for much of what has transpired in Iraq in recent months, at least according to Iraq's Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi, who is currently serving in a caretaker role.
      Read More...
Amazon Smile
Revolt! T-shirts