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From rumbling robots to hypersonic missiles: Russia celebrates it 73rd Victory Day parade


RT
Wed, 09 May 2018 10:48 UTC
Victory Day may 8 2018
© Grigoriy Sisoev / Sputnik
The traditional Victory Day military parade in Moscow showcased some of Russia's most advanced weapons, including a hypersonic missile, Arctic-rated anti-aircraft systems and a new strike drone.

The parade marking the 73rd anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in WWII (known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War) was divided into three parts. For the first one, each part of the Russian military service, as well as fellow civilian paramilitary units, provided troops to show off their synch-marching skills.


Comment: Watch the full video of the parade:



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Attention

The Deep State's arrogant mishandling of the landmine that is Trump

Victor Davis Hanson
National Review
Tue, 08 May 2018 15:13 UTC
trump
© Yuri Gripas/Reuters
President Trunp and First Lady Melania Trump walk from the Oval Office at the White House, Februrary 5, 2018.
Explosives require careful handling. Sometimes they blow up in your face.

After the 2016 election, the so-called deep state was confident that it had the power easily to either stop, remove, or delegitimize the outlier Donald Trump and his presidency.

Give it credit, the Washington apparat quite imaginatively pulled out all the stops: implanting Obama holdover appointees all over the Trump executive branch; filing lawsuits and judge shopping; organizing the Resistance; pursuing impeachment writs; warping the FISA courts; weaponizing the DOJ and FBI; attempting to disrupt the Electoral College; angling for enactment of the 25th Amendment or the emoluments clause; and unleashing Hollywood celebrities, Silicon Valley, and many in Wall Street to suffocate the Trump presidency in its infancy.

But now the administrative state's multifaceted efforts are starting to unwind, and perhaps even boomerang, on the perpetrators. If a federal judge should end up throwing out most of the indictments of Paul Manafort on the rationale that they have nothing much to do with the original mandate of the special counsel's office, or if Michael Flynn's confession to giving false statements is withdrawn successfully because the FBI politicized its investigation and FISA courts were misled in approving the surveillance of Flynn, then the Mueller investigation will implode.
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Nuke

The untold story of the Iran nuclear scare: Gareth Porter on the fake intel and lies about Iran's non-existent nuclear weapons program

Andrew Cockburn
Harper's
Tue, 06 May 2014 13:39 UTC
gareth porter
In all the discussion of Iran's nuclear program, the consequent international economic blockade directed by the United States, and the ongoing negotiations to resolve the issue, Washington's official history of the program has rarely been challenged. In Manufactured Crisis, The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare (Just World Books), award-winning investigative journalist Gareth Porter traces the true history of the program, as well as how and by whom the official narrative was constructed. I put six questions to Porter about his book.

1. Although the Iraqi nuclear "threat" was discredited as an utter fraud years ago, the idea that across the border Iran has sought, at least in the past, to build a nuclear weapon has long been widely accepted in political and media circles. Are you saying that the claim of secret work on nuclear weapons is equally fraudulent, and that the Iranians have never had a nuclear-weapons program?

Yes. In Manufactured Crisis, I show that the claim of an Iranian nuclear-weapons program has been based on false history and falsified records. The description of the Iranian nuclear program presented in official documents, in commentaries by think-tank "experts," and in the media bears no resemblance to the essential historical facts. One would never know from the narrative available to the public over the years that Iran had been prepared in the early 1980s to rely entirely on a French-based company for enriched uranium fuel for its Bushehr reactor, rather than on enriching uranium itself. Nor would one learn that the Reagan Administration sought to strangle Iran's nuclear program, which was admitted to have presented no proliferation threat, in its cradle by pressuring Germany and France to refuse to cooperate in any way. The significance of that missing piece of history is that Iran was confronted with a choice of submitting to the U.S. effort to deprive Iran of its right to a peaceful nuclear program under the Non-Proliferation Treaty or else acquiring its own enrichment capability.
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Russian Flag

Long live Trump! Russia strikes gold as oil prices skyrocket following US withdrawal from Iran Deal


Sputnik
Wed, 09 May 2018 15:07 UTC
oil tanker
© AFP 2018 / ATTA KENARE
Shortly after President Donald Trump announced that Washington was quitting the Iran nuclear deal, the US Treasury pledged to pursue efforts to significantly reduce purchases of Iranian crude oil.

The oil price has skyrocketed to its highest in more than three years, just 12 hours after President Donald Trump said that that the US is abandoning the "horrible and one-sided" Iran nuclear deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, according to the Financial Times.

During early trading in London on Wednesday, Brent Crude, which serves as a major benchmark price for purchases of oil worldwide, increased by 3.1 percent to 77.20 dollars per barrel, while the US benchmark, WTI, rose by a similar amount, to 70.93. dollars per barrel.
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Airplane

Pompeo meets Kim Jong-Un: Sets date and place for Trump meeting, returns to US with three hostages


Sputnik
Wed, 09 May 2018 15:01 UTC
pompeo kim jong-un

Say chee'!
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is on his way back to the United States from North Korea together with three Americans who had been held hostage in the country, President Donald Trump said in a statement on Wednesday.

Trump said that Mike Pompeo was on his way back to the United States from North Korea together with three Americans who had been held hostage in the country.

"Secretary Pompeo and his "guests" will be landing at Andrews Air Force Base at 2:00 a.m. [7:00 a.m. GMT] in the morning. I will be there to greet them. Very exciting!" Trump said in a Twitter message.

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No Entry

Attorney: Deep State has weaponized security clearances to block Trump appointees


Fox News
Wed, 09 May 2018 11:51 UTC
Trump
© Carlos Barria | Reuters
Entrenched bureaucrats are using the vetting process for security clearances as a "weapon" in order to block President Trump's appointees, according to a new Wall Street Journal piece.

In the op-ed, security clearance defense attorney Sean M. Bigley writes about representing a senior Defense Department official who called out "cronyism" at a Pentagon office and faced clearance revocation as a result.

In the course of representing Adam S. Lovinger, Bigley wrote that he has had a "front-row seat to behavior that only a year ago I would have dismissed as a conspiracy theory."
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MIB

US diplomats spied on UN leadership and foreign governments

Robert Booth and Julian Borger
The Guardian
Sun, 28 Nov 2010 11:10 UTC
Ban Ki-moon
© Bernat Armangue/AP
Washington is running a secret intelligence campaign targeted at the leadership of the United Nations, including the secretary general, Ban Ki-moon and the permanent security council representatives from China, Russia, France and the UK.

A classified directive which appears to blur the line between diplomacy and spying was issued to US diplomats under Hillary Clinton's name in July 2009, demanding forensic technical details about the communications systems used by top UN officials, including passwords and personal encryption keys used in private and commercial networks for official communications.

It called for detailed biometric information "on key UN officials, to include undersecretaries, heads of specialised agencies and their chief advisers, top SYG [secretary general] aides, heads of peace operations and political field missions, including force commanders" as well as intelligence on Ban's "management and decision-making style and his influence on the secretariat". A parallel intelligence directive sent to diplomats in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi said biometric data included DNA, fingerprints and iris scans.
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Info

Israeli military on 'high alert': Reservists, bomb shelters and defensive systems primed over Iran 'irregular' activity in Syria


RT
Tue, 08 May 2018 10:21 UTC
Israeli soldiers
© Baz Ratner / Reuters
Israeli soldiers walk near the frontier with Syria near Majdel Shams in the Golan Heights
Israel's military is on high alert after allegedly spotting irregular Iranian military movement in Syria, with reservists called up and bomb shelters in the Golan Heights readied in anticipation of an Iranian attack.

Israel has deployed its defense systems and Israeli forces "are on high alert for an attack," according to a military statement obtained by Reuters. The Israeli government has also reportedly instructed local authorities in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights to "unlock and ready (bomb) shelters."


Comment: The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have been instructed to open their bomb shelters in the occupied Golan Heights after reports of "unusual Iranian activity" in Syria, Ynet News reported tonight.
"In addition, defensive systems are deployed, the IDF forces are on high alert for the attack," the military said.

Iran has yet to comment on this latest claim by the Israeli military.




Comment: See also: Reports indicate no casualties as Israel has struck Syrian army positions again

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Airplane

Large Syrian cargo plane carrying supplies from Iran arrives in Damascus shortly after Israeli attack

Leith Aboufadel
Al Masdar News
Wed, 09 May 2018 10:06 UTC
Syrianair Ilyushin Il-76T
© Sergey Ryabtsev
Syrianair Ilyushin Il-76T

A large Syrian cargo plane left Iran on Tuesday night for the Damascus International Airport, Yoruk Isik of the Bosphorous Observer reported.

According to Isik, the IL-76-T cargo plane of the Syria Arab Air Force's (SyAAF) 585th Transport Squadron of the 29th Air Brigade left Tehran's Mehrabad Airport on Tuesday night and arrived in Damascus shortly after the alleged Israeli attack.

Comment: See also: Reports indicate no casualties as Israel has struck Syrian army positions again

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Bulb

Senator Ted Cruz gets it right: Demands answers from big banks on their new anti-gun rules

Michael Barnes
Liberty Headlines
Mon, 07 May 2018 00:00 UTC
Ted Cruz
© Gage Skidmore
Senator Ted Cruz

'The Bill of Rights should not be subject to corporate pressure or financial coercion...'

(Michael Barnes, Liberty Headlines) CitiBank and Bank of America are two of the largest financial institutions in the country.

They recently set off a firestorm of controversy after the banks' corporate management announced policies aimed at restricting legal gun activities.

Now, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, wants answers.

"The Bill of Rights should not be subject to corporate pressure or financial coercion," Cruz said in an official letter to the banks' CEOs on Friday.

Cruz is the chairman of the Subcommittee on the Constitution, which deals with civil rights, including Second Amendment rights.

The Subcommittee falls under the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee.

The financial behemoths are leveraging their respective market power to restrict gun sales and gun purchases beyond what state and federal laws require.

Comment: Cruz is making the right inferences and asking the right questions here, because behind the facade of social conscientiousness (which as we know is impossible for big banks) there would appear to be a larger effort on the part of certain cliques in power to disarm Americans.

See also:

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