Puppet MastersS


Footprints

Secret Service under investigation for more breaches - 'This just keeps happening'


RT
Tue, 21 Mar 2017 02:24 UTC
SS at WH
© Getty ImagesMembers of the Secret Service Uniformed Division patrol alongside the security fence around the perimeter of the White House, March 18, 2017.
Three security incidents at the White House in just over a week's time has lawmakers demanding the Secret Service make "major structural changes." Heading up the investigation is Congressman Jason Chaffetz of Utah, a familiar foe of the agency.

Jonathan Tran, 26, scaled several fences at the White House and went undetected on the grounds for more than 15 minutes before the US Secret Service (USSS) was able to apprehend him on March 10. The USSS released a statement in the days following, saying that Tran was able to climb and hop a 5-foot fence near the US Treasury Department next to the White House, then he scaled an 8-foot vehicle gate and another a three-and-a-half foot fence near the East Wing.

"The men and women of the Secret Service are extremely disappointed and angry in how the events of March 10th transpired," the statement said. The agency said they are taking steps to prevent future breaches, including creating additional posts, implementing technology enhancements and new response protocols.

In an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN's The Situation Room on March 17, House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) said that Tran was even "able to get up next to the White House, hide behind a pillar, look through a window, rattle the door handle." "It's just beyond comprehension," Chaffetz said, "especially because it is not the first time this has happened."

Comment: Note to President Trump: Effectiveness of a security fence (or a border wall) is only as good as the personnel that back it up. There is more than one swamp to drain.

See also:

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Arrow Up

Kentucky: Trump gathers thousands in Louisville rally, amid Obamacare and travel ban controversies


RT
Tue, 21 Mar 2017 00:21 UTC
Kentucky Trump rally
© John Sommers II / ReutersTrump supporters, Louisville, KY
Thousands gathered in Louisville, Kentucky, to hear President Donald Trump promote his policy agenda after two months in office. He faces an approval rating drop, federal courts halting executive orders and Republican infighting over healthcare reform.

Monday evening, Trump told his roaring supporters, "it is indeed time" to start rebuilding the country, under the leadership of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao. He also pointed over at her husband, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) and asked whether "healthcare is going well," referring to negotiations in Congress over a new overhaul of health care system. McConnell received some boos from his home state crowd.

Rehashing the campaign and his electoral victory, Trump said "there was a path to 306, maybe not 270," mocking his detractors to the delight of the attendees.

The president suddenly transitioned to North Korea, which he described as "disgraceful," before breathlessly moving on to domestic policy and bringing jobs back from overseas after "horrible trade deals."

"We are going to drain the swamp of Washington, DC," Trump said. He listed goals, including "massively lowering" taxes and increasing support of law enforcement and military veterans. The 45th president also highlighted his repeal of Obama-era coal regulations, promising coal miners would be put back to work.

Comment: Poll numbers - ah, yes, dependent upon whom you poll, what biases are at work, and who does the polling. As evidenced, Trump can raise a maximum crowd and command attention.

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No Entry

Goodwill gesture: Pakistan reopens border crossings with Afghanistan


RFE/RL
Tue, 21 Mar 2017 00:00 UTC
stranded trucks
© RFE/RLTrucks with rotting meat and produce stranded at the Torkham border crossing.
Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ordered the two main border crossings with Afghanistan to be reopened on March 20, calling it a "goodwill gesture." The border closures on February 16 had left hundreds of thousands of people stranded at the two major crossings of Torkham and Chaman.

Pakistan shut the Torkham crossing between Peshawar to Jalalabad and Chaman crossing between Quetta and Kandahar after more than 130 people were killed in a series of attacks by militants that Islamabad said resided in Afghanistan. Afghanistan denies harboring them.

The closures hit travelers and cross-border trade heavily, stranding thousands of vehicles on both sides of the border.

Haji Aslam, head of the Transit Union, representing drivers on both sides of the border, said some 4,000 trucks had been held up on the Afghan side of the border and 6,000 on the Pakistan side, where tons of fresh produce meant for export has rotted and been thrown away.

Sharif's decision to reopen the border came days after top diplomats from Pakistan and Afghanistan met in London for talks to address each other's concerns about alleged terrorist hideouts in the border regions.

Comment: An inconvenient goodwill gesture for the West?

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Propaganda

A look at far-right news sites included in FBI's Russian-influence probe

Peter Stone, Greg Gordon
McClatchy
Mon, 20 Mar 2017 05:05 UTC
reeking news
© Chicago Tribune,Breaking News, Pinterest
Federal investigators are examining whether far-right news sites played any role last year in a Russian cyber operation that dramatically widened the reach of news stories — some fictional — that favored Donald Trump's presidential bid, two people familiar with the inquiry say.

Operatives for Russia appear to have strategically timed the computer commands, known as "bots," to blitz social media with links to the pro-Trump stories at times when the billionaire businessman was on the defensive in his race against Democrat Hillary Clinton, these sources said.


Comment: Isn't this strategy regularly applied in an election cycle to combat bad press and increase good press...a no-brainer option equally pursued by both candidates, no matter the simplicity or sophistication of the method?


The bots' end products were largely millions of Twitter and Facebook posts carrying links to stories on conservative internet sites such as Breitbart News and InfoWars, as well as on the Kremlin-backed RT News and Sputnik News, the sources said. Some of the stories were false or mixed fact and fiction, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the bot attacks are part of an FBI-led investigation into a multifaceted Russian operation to influence last year's elections.


Comment: More anonymity...unidentified sources...the hallmark of this vendetta.



Comment: Necessity is the 'Mother' of invention. 'Somewhere' 'someone' may have done 'something' that 'someone' should be investigating. The best camouflage for illegal activities or agendas gone awry is to plant doubt, loudly and consistently accuse the opponent of false actions, convincing authorities to investigate thereby gaining temporary plausibility, polar momentum, blind belief by the gullible. Truth and provability are not necessary.

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Pirates

Russia to relate fighting terrorists experience in N. Caucasus with Syria


Sputnik
Mon, 20 Mar 2017 20:24 UTC
Russian terror fighter
© The Moscow TimesRussian counterterrorism unit
Russia is ready to share its experience of fighting against terrorism with the Syrian authorities to help them tackle the crisis in the country, Vladimir Vasilyev, the deputy speaker of the Russian lower house, said Monday.

Russia's State Duma lawmakers and members of PACE, including President Pedro Agramunt, had a meeting with the local authorities in Damascus on Monday.

"We have paid a terrible cost for stopping the international terrorism in North Caucasus. We have the certain experience that we are ready to discuss and implement together with you," Vasilyev said at a meeting between the Russian lawmakers, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) members and the speaker of Syrian People's Council, Hadiya Khalaf Abbas.

In 2016, Russian security services thwarted a terrorist attack and eliminated 98 militants in North Caucasus. Dagestan is a hotbed of Islamist insurgency in the North Caucasus. Multiple violent attacks have plagued the region over the past decade.
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Newspaper

Damascus: Lawsuit to be filed against states and individuals who facilitated terrorism


Sputnik
Tue, 21 Mar 2017 20:09 UTC
wartorn city
© AFP 2017/ Joseph Eid
Damascus will file a lawsuit against local and international courts after having prepared dozens of documents proving that the crimes against the Syrian people and the country were committed by these individuals and states, Syrian Justice Minister Najm Hamad Ahmad said.

Ahmad noted that the Syrian Court regarded the terrorist crimes as criminal offenses, while Syrian President Bashar Assad had adopted a number of decrees on amnesty for militants who surrender and hand over their weapons, "which comprised thousands of people."

"There are dozens of documents proving that the crimes were committed in Syria. A lawsuit will be filed to the local, regional or international courts against the people, as well as Arab and other foreign states which committed terrorist attacks in Syria," Ahmad told Sputnik.
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Red Flag

The black plague of terrorism is spreading throughout the world

Jean Perier
New Eastern Outlook
Tue, 21 Mar 2017 19:59 UTC
terrorist
It's been noted time and time again that extremist terrorist groups are shifting their main targets from the Middle East - where they have suffered heavy losses - to other parts of the world.

According to the Cheng Guoping, state commissioner for counterterrorism and security matters, a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and former vice foreign minister, as progress is being made in the anti-terrorist fight in Syria and Iraq, international terrorism is entering a new phase, in which extremist and terrorist groups are tweaking their strategies, Cheng warned that an ever increasing number of terrorists are penetrating and gathering momentum in Southeast Asia, Central Asia and South Asia.

It's hardly a secret that ISIS attaches a great deal of importance to the "daulah" - the territories physically controlled by this quasi-state. It was the main advertising points for the Islamic State, due to which it was able to gain new supporters in various regions of the world. Now that the territories controlled by ISIS are doomed to fall, the "good old days" of 2014-2015, when ISIS militants were trying to show that the Islamic State is an invincible force that attracts thousands of fighters every month, have long but passed.

But even when ISIS will lose its "base of operations", it will not disappear from the face of the earth. Most likely, the militants will find hideouts in the faraway desert and mountain regions and then try to carry on their struggle from there. The grouping will evolve from a quasi-state into a regular terrorist force, but it will not cease its activities.
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Footprints

Terrorists leave Homs as the Syrian Army regains control


Sputnik
Tue, 21 Mar 2017 19:52 UTC
Homs
© Sputnik/ Michael Alaeddin
On Monday, the Russian Defense Ministry reported on the organized withdrawal of more than 400 terrorists and members of their families from the northwestern suburb of Syrian Homs. The al-Wyer district remains, in fact, the last stronghold of the armed opposition in this administrative center of the country's largest province.

Withdrawal was preceded by almost a month of tense negotiations because the terrorists put forward their conditions while the Reconciliation Center and Syrian side put forward others," said Lieutenant General Aleksey Kim, head of the Russian Center for the Reconciliation of Warring Parties in Syria.

He added that it was necessary to come to a common denominator so that both sides were satisfied with the fulfillment of these requirements. The negotiation process was very difficult.

According to the center, the terrorists who have not yet left al-Wayer are also preparing to lay down their arms. Many of them will go to militia or replenish the ranks of the Syrian police in the framework of amnesty announced by the Syrian president.
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Info

Denmark's Foreign Ministry summoned Turkey's charge d'affaires over hotline for snitches


RT
Tue, 21 Mar 2017 20:21 UTC
Danish Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen
© Getty ImagesDanish Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen
Denmark has summoned Turkey's charge d'affaires on the heels of a report that Danish citizens of Turkish origin might have been blacklisted and accused of treason on the basis of tips submitted by Turkish government sympathizers via a special hotline.

The Danish Foreign Ministry "made it clear that it saw with great concern reports alleging that citizens of Denmark report on the other citizens to the Turkish authorities in this manner because of a person's political affiliation," the ministry said in a statement on Monday, following a meeting between the Turkish charge d'affaires and the Danish ministry's foreign policy director, Lone Dencker Wisborg.

It further pointed out that any request coming from Turkish authorities to Danish citizens to unveil the identities of fellow Danes would be deemed "unacceptable," noting that an act of informing foreign governments, including that of Turkey, will be considered a criminal offense.

The reprimand follows the report in the Danish Berlingske newspaper on Sunday that at least 10 people contacted by the outlet, including former and current Danish MPs, have received online threats from apparent supporters of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, vowing to denounce them to the Turkish authorities as critics of his government.

Among those who have been served with such warnings are former Danish MP Özlem Cekic and Lars Aslan Rasmussen, an MP from the Social Democratic Party. Cekic told Berlingske she had received a comment on Facebook from an unknown person, who messaged her that he would "report [Cekic] to the authorities in Turkey and hope that you are put on their clean-up list, so you get blacklisted."

Comment: Speaking in Ankara on Tuesday, the Turkish president sounded certain that his country's citizens will give him additional powers, despite the European resistance.
Following the referendum on April 16, "it will be a different Turkey," he said, as cited by Anadolu news agency.

Erdogan said he would have more leverage when negotiating with Brussels on Turkey's accession to the EU. Turkey applied for membership in 1987, but talks stalled in 2007, as Germany and France opposed full membership for its NATO ally.

"That's not how it works. We will do whatever is necessary [in Turkey's interests]," Erdogan said.

"Once April 16 is over, we will sit at the table. This cannot continue this way. We, as Turkey, will do what is necessary," he said, as cited by Hurriyet Daily News.


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Arrow Up

Mark Steyn: US Dems have gone clinically insane over Trump and Russia

Alex Christoforou
The Duran
Tue, 21 Mar 2017 19:39 UTC
trump russian doll
US Democrats have turned Russian President Putin into a Bond villain.

Here is something you do not see everyday from a mainstream media network...a logical and grounded take on US-Russian relations.

Conservative author and commentator Mark Steyn makes sense, in what is otherwise a hysterical Washington DC establishment, reeling from a Trump election victory, and ready to do anything to delegitimize the current US President...even if it means conflict with Russia.

Steyn believes that Democrats have indeed lost their minds, wanting to believe that someone 'stole' the US election from Hillary Clinton.


Comment: He's right. Literally.

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