Puppet Masters

What progressives hopefully learned from Russiagate

Caitlin Johnstone
caitlinjohnstone.com
Mon, 29 Jul 2019 06:01 UTC

The Robert Mueller hearing on Tuesday was widely regarded as a humiliating disaster, not just by critics of the establishment Russia narrative, but by mainstream Democratic pundits. We haven't seen a US official look so befuddled and disorganized during a congressional hearing since that time John McCain started babbling gibberish at James Comey, and he had a tumor eating his brain.

"A frail old man, unable to remember things, stumbling, refusing to answer basic questions," tweeted liberal documentary filmmaker Michael Moore after the circus had ended. "I said it in 2017 and Mueller confirmed it today — All you pundits and moderates and lame Dems who told the public to put their faith in the esteemed Robert Mueller — just STFU from now on."

"Much as I hate to say it, this morning's hearing was a disaster," tweeted virulent Russiagater Laurence Tribe. "Far from breathing life into his damning report, the tired Robert Mueller sucked the life out of it. The effort to save democracy and the rule of law from this lawless president has been set back, not advanced."

"On the optics, this was a disaster," summarized NBC's Chuck Todd.

As you'd expect, this widespread sentiment is shared by Trump himself, who told reporters after the hearing that "We had a very good day today."

Comment: See also:

Crime-Plagued Baltimore received $1.8 Billion of Obama's 2009 stimulus

Hannah Bleau
Breitbart
Mon, 29 Jul 2019 00:06 UTC

Baltimore received $1.8 billion from former President Barack Obama's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), but the city has largely failed to see significant improvements from the massive investment.

The Obama administration allocated $1.8 billion of its 2009 stimulus to Baltimore, including $26.5 million to address crime prevention, $26 million to revamp abandoned properties, and $9.5 million to address homelessness.

According to The Washington Free Beacon, which conducted an analysis of the investment in 2015 after Obama decried Republicans for stiff-arming attempts to make "massive investments in urban communities," the city received $1.8 billion, with $8.4 million going to a single zip code.

The return of Professor Joseph Mifsud and his role in the Russia-gate hoax

Brian Cates
Undercover DC
Mon, 29 Jul 2019 12:00 UTC

The Return of Professor Joseph Mifsud, International Man of Mystery!

The night before Robert Mueller's long awaited Congressional testimony, reporter John Solomon of The Hill broke a very important story.

Several different sources have related to the veteran reporter that the team of investigators assembled by US Attorney John Durham - who has been tasked by Attorney General William Barr with looking into how the FBI handled it's investigation of the Trump/Russia collusion allegations - had reached out earlier this summer to a key figure at the center of the SpyGate scandal : Professor Joseph Mifsud.

"While most of the political world focused its attention elsewhere, special prosecutor John Durham's team quietly reached out this summer to a lawyer representing European academic Joseph Mifsud, one of the earliest and most mysterious figures in the now closed Russia-collusion case."

Comment: See also:

Kremlin critic Navalny suffers 'allergic reaction' in custody - Toxicology results pending

RT
Mon, 29 Jul 2019 17:44 UTC

Aleksey Navalny, a Russian opposition activist currently serving a 30-day sentence, was taken to the hospital on Sunday. Doctors say he had an acute allergic reaction, but some believe he may have been poisoned.

The prominent protest organizer is currently under administrative arrest, to which he was sentenced last Wednesday for calling on supporters to take part in an unsanctioned rally. On Sunday morning, Navalny was moved to a nearby hospital from the detention facility where he is serving his term, after developing a rash and swelling on his face.

The activist was diagnosed with an acute "allergic reaction", Dr. Eldar Kazakhmedov, who works in the therapeutic ward where Navalny was placed, told Interfax. Kazakhmedov said that the medics couldn't immediately say what caused it.

Comment: See also:

MSNBC host incites: 'We're going to put Trump in jail and we're not going to play fair to do it!'

John Nolte
Breitbart
Sat, 27 Jul 2019 00:00 UTC

During a Friday appearance on Morning Joe, MSNBC host Donny Deutsch promised the world, "We're not going to necessarily play fair" to put President Trump "in jail."

"We may not have won the battle of impeachment," Deutsch squealed, "but we're going to win the war of putting him in jail — whatever we have to do, and we're not going to necessarily play fair."

So what you have here is an anchor for a major cable news outlet assuring everyone that when it comes to putting an individual in prison, "we're not going to ... play fair."

This is how far gone the media now are... So angry, so bitter, so demoralized, such a sorry gang of sore losers that they are now promising to put a man in prison, a sitting president, a family man — and, if necessary, rig the proceedings to make it happen.

Trump boots Dan Coats, appoints Rep Jim Ratcliffe new US Director of National Intelligence

RT
Sun, 28 Jul 2019 19:48 UTC

© Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP/ratcliffe.house.gov
Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats • Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Tex)

Dan Coats is expected to step down as the Intelligence Chief in the nearest future, US media reported on Sunday. President Donald Trump is rumored to tap John Ratcliffe, a Texas Republican Rep. to replace the outgoing official.

The change at the helms of the US intelligence appears to have been brewing for some time already. Coats has told Trump his decision to "step down fairly soon" last week, Reuters reported, citing a "source with direct knowledge."

At the same time, the US President has been already seeking a replacement for Coats and reportedly met Ratcliffe to discuss the details of the job, Axios and The New York Times reported.

Comment: More from RT: Trump taps Rep. John Ratcliffe as Coats' replacement for Director of National Intelligence

US President Donald Trump has nominated Congressman John Ratcliffe (Tx-R) for the position of the Director of National Intelligence, confirming that the incumbent DNI chief, Dan Coats, is set to leave the office in two weeks.

Trump watched Ratcliffe grill Mueller (and thus defend him) in Congress last week:

Trump's first term has been incredible on a number of levels, not least because the administration has seen so many people come and go!

The president's critics say that that's down to his character. It is, in a sense, but it's also down to the paucity of capable people in Swampland...

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Academic Alistair Jones: The no-deal Brexit default situation is clear should article fifty not be extended

Sputnik
Fri, 26 Jul 2019 06:01 UTC

Alistair Jones, Associate Professor and University Teacher Fellow Department of Politics, De Montfort University expressed his opinion about further Brexit developments.

Sputnik: Will Boris Johnson's new cabinet be able to deliver Brexit by October the 31st?

Alistair Jones: Boris Johnson is certainly of the belief that his cabinet will do so, and if you look at the membership of the cabinet; all of them have committed themselves to accepting a no-deal Brexit by the 31st of October if a deal cannot be sorted, so they would expect that.

The problem is that the mathematics in parliament are actually worse for Boris Johnson than they were for Theresa May, so if he goes to the EU and gets some tweaks to her deal, he's still got to get it through parliament, and the numbers just don't stack up.

However, in Boris's favour on this, we have a clear situation which says that if there is no extension, and if there is no revoking of Article Fifty, we leave on the 31st of October, so it's a default position and on that position Boris is correct, yes we are going to leave.

Comment: See also:

Rouhani hopes Johnson's 'familiarity' with Iran helps ease tensions

RT
Sun, 28 Jul 2019 18:09 UTC

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has congratulated Boris Johnson on becoming the new British prime minister and expressed hope for improving relations amid an ongoing spike in tensions between London and Tehran.

The president hailed Johnson's "familiarity with relations between Iran and the United Kingdom,"apparently referring to his tenure as foreign secretary. Rouhani also said in a statement released by the presidential office that he hopes this knowledge would help the new prime minister to "greatly contribute to removing the existing obstacles on the path of development of relations between the two countries" and "further deepen bilateral and multilateral relations."

In his capacity as foreign secretary, Johnson visited Iran only once - in 2017. That two-day visit ended without any significant breakthroughs, although he said after his meeting with Rouhani that London and Tehran agreed on their desire to remove "all obstacles in the Anglo-Iranian relationship" - a phrase which the Iranian president apparently referred to in his own address.

Iran to Pompeo: Don't come here. Interview with Press TV reporter insultingly detained and discriminated upon by US

Sputnik
Sun, 28 Jul 2019 16:39 UTC

Relations between the two countries have been building up to boiling point since the Trump administration's withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or 'Iran Nuclear Deal' and the imposition of tough new US sanctions on Iran.

According to IRNA on Sunday, Iranian government spokesman Ali Rabie said that formerly-detained Press TV reporter Ms Marzieh Hashemi "can go and interview (Pompeo)" so he can explain the "economic terrorism" imposed on Iran by the US.

He said that Iran does not "shy away from hearing what people say, (even though) what they did to our reporters... is an insult to both the media and discussions."

The move comes after Pompeo told Bloomberg on Thursday that he would "happily" travel to Iran to use Iranian national TV as a platform to explain the reasons for US-imposed sanctions on the country.

Comment: See also:

New audio: Radio chatter between UK and Iranian warships during Gulf standoff

RT
Mon, 29 Jul 2019 14:40 UTC

HMS Montrose • tanker Stena Impero • IRGC patrol boat

Audio, allegedly of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) warning a British warship not to interfere in high-profile tanker incidents near the Strait of Hormuz, has been shared by Iranian media.

The recording, published by the Iranian Tasnim News Agency on Monday, appears to contain brief excerpts from the radio exchanges between IRGC patrol boats and a British warship, which occurred during two separate incidents near the Strait of Hormuz earlier this month.

Tensions between Tehran and London escalated on July 4 after British Royal Marines seized Iranian supertanker Grace 1, off the southern coast of Spain, which was suspected of transporting oil to Syria in violation of EU sanctions. Iran denied any wrongdoing.

On July 11, the British government said its frigate HMS Montrose was forced to intervene to prevent three Iranian boats from blocking the path of UK-flagged oil tanker British Heritage. The IRGC denied this claim, saying they had "no encounters" with foreign ships that day.

In the audio, however, an IRGC officer can be heard warning a British ship, referred to as F-236 in the recording, which is Montrose's hull number. "The tanker British Heritage is under my control. You are ordered: do not interfere in my operation," the Iranian officer says, according to the audio.

Comment: More from Sputnik: Audio, Video show guards warning UK warship during seizure of tanker

The video follows the IRGC detaining the Stena Impero on 19 July over alleged violations of maritime laws after the vessel reportedly ignored warnings, switched off its positioning device, and collided with an Iranian fishing boat.

Despite Tehran's warnings that it may detain a British vessel over a conflict with London regarding previous seizure of the Iranian supertanker Grace 1, Iran's officials insisted that the Stena Impero's detention was not a "retaliation".

The British Defence Ministry, in turn, said that a British Royal Navy vessel has been assigned to accompany all vessels under the country's flag sailing through the Strait of Hormuz following the detention of the Stena Impero.

Winternights3 There's probs a good connection! Just think about it.

sbc

Moving the goalposts. and people are too shit stupid to notice or care

sbc

Hang em... All the jab pushers. At this point they are trying very hard to continue blatant bullshit lies in a bid for total societal control

sbc

It was interesting when the brothers (their family owns the dealerships/service center that were vandalized - something of like 130+ cars burned...

Scoot Over

I ain't going to watch any more than I didn't watch the OJ trial, which ended exactly as I predicted. The thing is that the state should have...

Rowan Cocoan

Puppet Masters

What progressives hopefully learned from Russiagate

Crime-Plagued Baltimore received $1.8 Billion of Obama's 2009 stimulus

The return of Professor Joseph Mifsud and his role in the Russia-gate hoax

Kremlin critic Navalny suffers 'allergic reaction' in custody - Toxicology results pending

MSNBC host incites: 'We're going to put Trump in jail and we're not going to play fair to do it!'

Trump boots Dan Coats, appoints Rep Jim Ratcliffe new US Director of National Intelligence

Academic Alistair Jones: The no-deal Brexit default situation is clear should article fifty not be extended

Rouhani hopes Johnson's 'familiarity' with Iran helps ease tensions

Iran to Pompeo: Don't come here. Interview with Press TV reporter insultingly detained and discriminated upon by US

New audio: Radio chatter between UK and Iranian warships during Gulf standoff

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