Puppet Masters
The US trade representative has released a list of 89 categories of goods featuring an array of European foods and liquor to be added to April's compendium of products subject to proposed import duties, which is already worth some $21 billion, claiming the additional tariffs are "in response to public comments and following initial analysis."
Frozen pig meat, fermented and curdled milk products, Gouda, Edam, and an array of Italian cheeses, olives, coffee, pasta, whisky, certain chemicals and metals appear on the USTR's list of additional products. A public hearing will be held in August to discuss the measures.
Independent politicians Mick Wallace and Clare Daly put all their new colleagues on notice with the eye-catching garments which featured a striking image of Assange, gagged with a US flag, emblazoned across their chests.
"Assange is in prison because he exposed the ugliness of US Foreign Policy. Anyone who cares about a free independent media should challenge the treatment of Julian Assange," Wallace wrote on Twitter.
Comment: The Irish are known for supporting humanitarian causes, being one of the first EU countries to endorse BDS
- Ireland: A special case of Palestine solidarity
- Ireland's lower house approves Palestinian state recognition
- BDS protest over Northern Ireland vs Israel football match to be held at Belfast McDonald's
- Gerry Adams calls for Ireland to expel Israel ambassador over Land Day protest deaths in Gaza
- Israel gets Irish radio presenter suspended from broadcasting after he says on air what everybody already knows, that Gaza is an open-air prison

Failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and Perkins Coie lawyer Mark Elias
Marc Elias, who heads Perkins Coie's political law group, became general counsel for California Sen. Kamala Harris' presidential bid this year. Elias, who held the same position in Clinton's campaign, is named in two pending Federal Election Commission complaints and in a recent federal lawsuit alleging that the Clinton campaign broke campaign finance laws when it used Perkins Coie to hire Fusion GPS.
Fusion GPS went on to hire British ex-spy Christopher Steele, who compiled an unverified dossier allegedly based on sources close to the Kremlin which was disseminated to the media and used by the FBI to obtain Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants targeting former Trump campaign associate Carter Page. Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz is reviewing alleged FISA abuse related to the dossier and Attorney General William Barr launched his "investigation of the investigators" earlier this year.
Comment:
- House Intel Committee issues subpoena and finds Clinton campaign manager paid for Trump/Russia dossier
- Fusion GPS bank records unsealed, show $1million in payments from DNC-hired law firm
- Podesta denies knowing who funded Trump dossier to Senate Intelligence Committee while sitting next to man who funded it
Bukele, who took office June 1, said late Sunday that the drownings were 'a great tragedy.'
On Monday, about 200 relatives and friends followed a hearse bearing the bodies of Óscar Martínez and his 23-month-old daughter Angie Valeria Martínez inside La Bermeja municipal cemetery in the capital city of San Salvador.
The ceremony was private, and journalists were not allowed access.
Comment: The world's problems cannot be understood through black and white thinking, and the migrant crisis is proof of that. It is heartening to see El Salvador's president claim responsibility. More leaders need to do the same. The US bears responsibility here as well, as do many other countries who have participated in creating this mess.
UK Home Office spark outrage after saying Nigerian sex slaves return home 'wealthy' & 'enjoy status'
The Home Office, which is responsible for law enforcement and security, said in its updated policy note that Nigerian human-trafficking victims return home "wealthy from prostitution" where they "enjoy high social-economic status" and are "often held in high regard because they have improved income prospects."
This passage enraged human rights campaigners and politicians in Britain, who demanded that the Home Office delete it and apologize.

Gilad Erdan, minister of strategic affairs, June 16, 2019, Jerusalem Post conference, NY.
Gilad Erdan, minister for strategic affairs and information under Benjamin Netanyahu, addressed the Jerusalem Post conference in New York two weeks ago, and bragged that the Israeli government had taken its fights "to the enemy," and that includes BDS.
When I was charged with leading this fight, BDS leaders operated freely and were largely successful in disguising themselves as human rights organizations... We tore off their masks. We exposed their ties to terror, we exposed their deeprooted antisemitism, we exposed their opposition to peace, and we exposed of course their hypocrisy. They couldn't care less about the real human rights violations, for example in Syria and Iran. All they care about is demonizing and delegitimizing the world's only Jewish and democratic state.
Comment: Gilad Erdan has been at the center of Israel's anti-BDS campaign for years. There is no tactic too low for him. He is also champing at the bit to finish annexing the West Bank, re-invade Gaza, and get the US going to fight Israel's war with Iran. A true fanatic.
- Israel criminalizes conscience: Task force set up to crush foreign BDS activists
- Israel publishes blacklist of twenty BDS groups to be barred from country
- Israeli advocacy group Hatzlacha reports Mossad involved in Israel's anti-BDS efforts
- Israeli minister compares killing unarmed Palestinian protesters to killing Nazis
- Israel plans to launch another large-scale military operation in Gaza - shooting kite flyers
- Israeli Minister: 'It would be better if the Iranian regime would disappear'

“We can’t leave aside talks, but how to talk is another issue," said ex-IRGC naval commander Hossein Alaei.
"We can't leave aside talks, but how to talk is another issue," said ex-IRGC naval commander Hossein Alaei.
"We have to use the tools of power, meaning negotiations," the former deputy defense minister was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA in Tehran on June 30.
Alaei's opinion appeared to be at odds with Iran's highest authority, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has categorically rejected holding negotiations with the United States.
Alaei added that Tehran should have accepted an early offer for talks without preconditions made by U.S. President Donald Trump and then set the agenda.

Satellite photos released by ImageSat International appear to show three out of four missile launchers of the S-300 air defense system in the raised position in Masyaf on February 5, 2019.

Satellite photos released by ImageSat International appear to show all four missile launchers of the S-300 air defense system in the raised position in the northwestern Syrian city of Masyaf on June 30, 2019.
Comment: Flores presumably meant "an urging by the Israeli side that Russians not allow the S-300s to go operational."
Regarding the claims made by ImagSat, while an Israeli company and therefore suspect in its claims, FRN previously found them to be correct regarding the movement of S-300's in Venezuela, which warded off any potential US attack.
There have been a series of attempts in some alternative media, pushing an inflated version of the 'Russia-Israel cooperation' model on Syria and Iran, that the attacks were evidence of the contrary - that Israel and Russia had come to some deal on the reduction of Iranian influence in the region.
This is patently incoherent for a number of reasons, and amount therefore to baseless claims and wild speculation.

Missiles rise into the sky as Israel hits an air defense position and other military bases, in Damascus, Syria, May 10, 2018.
For Israeli officials these raids represent a self-defense, while for the Syrian government they are a clear aggression, and a violation of Syria's national sovereignty.
How does international law define these actions?
Comment: Despite all of the whining about 'existential threats', Israel is still legally in the wrong. Only the protection of the United States has prevented any real action on the part of UN members to discipline what is clearly a rogue country.
They were dismayed at the leading role non-OPEC Russia, once seen as an enemy in oil markets, was playing in shaping the group's policies.
But reality soon set in, and the acceptance that Moscow could help OPEC in its goal of propping up oil prices at a time when it is facing intensifying heat on another front: from U.S. President Donald Trump.
Trump is putting unprecedented pressure on OPEC and its de-facto leader Saudi Arabia, demanding they pump more crude to drive down fuel prices - a key domestic issue for him as he seeks re-election next year.










Comment: For more back and forth on the tariff wars insanity, see also: