Puppet MastersS


Snakes in Suits

Trump ally interrogated by FBI at Boston airport

ted malloch
© Hillsdale College/YouTubeTed Malloch
London-based academic and Donald Trump ally Ted Malloch was detained and interrogated by the FBI as he flew into Boston's Logan International Airport.

Malloch, an American citizen, was detained and interrogated on Wednesday, before being issued a subpoena to testify before special counsel Robert Mueller about alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election. Mueller's investigation has been called a politically-motivated "witch hunt" by US President Donald Trump.

Malloch was also interrogated by agents about his links to Republican strategist Roger Stone, and was asked whether he had ever visited WikiLeaks' Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. As special counsel, Mueller is also investigating how WikiLeaks managed to obtain emails from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign team, an investigation Roger Stone is implicated in.

Comment: How many grasped but empty straws does Mueller need to close an investigation without merit?


Sherlock

The newest 'location' of 'novichok' nerve agent in Salisbury just shows the UK govt is making it up as they go along

Sergei and Yulia Skripal
Victims: Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33
I am gullible. Very. I betcha I am more gullible than you. And that tells you something, because you know how gullible you are. Or so you think. Still, as bad as I got it, something physically snapped in the back of my head this morning, I could hear it snap, when I saw this Guardian headline:

Skripals Poisoned From Front Door Of Salisbury Home, Police Say
Detectives investigating the attempted murders of Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia Skripal have said they believe the pair were poisoned with a nerve agent at the front door of his Salisbury home. Specialists investigating the poisoning of the the Skripals have found the highest concentration of the nerve agent on the front door at the address, police said. Counter-terrorism detectives will continue to focus their inquiries on the home address for the coming weeks, and possibly months...
See, because of my gullibility, I've decided that if I'm to have any idea of what really goes on around me, I'm condemned to reading a lot. Obviously, like you, I've found that the vast majority of what passes for news is as fake as it gets. More so by the day. So we have to read between the lines all the time. It's what it is. But this...

If these two people have actually been poisoned, that's a really terrible thing. But maybe lying about such things is much worse. And I doubt that anything at all we've been told about the Skripal case is true. Not because I don't want to believe it, but because the storytellers plant so many trees they're getting lost in their own forest.

Comment: Thankfully there are still a few people with a functional BS meter alive today. And some of them also happen to be on Twitter:






Gear

UN chief calls for Cold War mechanisms to avoid escalation of Russia-West tension, after the White House declares the expulsion of 12 Russian diplomats from the UN

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres
© Xinhua/Li MuziUN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks during a press encounter at the UN headquarters in New York, on March 29, 2018
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on Thursday for restoring Cold War "mechanisms" to avoid escalation of tensions between Russia and the West, after the White House declared the expulsion of 12 Russian diplomats, among others, from its UN mission.

"I am really concerned," he replied when asked if the increased tension warrants a revival of Cold War safety mechanisms.

"I think we are coming to a situation that is similar to a large extent to what lived during the Cold War," the UN chief said.

Comment: See also: Trump caves again, expels 60 Russian diplomats, closes Seattle consulate over fake accusations for Skripal poisoning - 14 EU states follow suit


Eye 2

How kind: UK 'may allow' Russian diplomats to visit poison victim Yulia Skripal

salisbury hospital
© Toby Melville / ReutersAn ambulance drives past a sign indicating an entrance to Salisbury District Hospital, Britain, March 6, 2018.
The British government may allow Russian embassy staff to visit Yulia Skripal, who is recovering after being poisoned. London says the Russian government was behind the incident, while Moscow suspects British complicity.

Yulia and her father Sergei, a former double agent, fell victim to an apparent nerve-agent attack four weeks ago in Salisbury. London claims the toxin was a Soviet military-grade chemical weapon and holds the Kremlin responsible. Despite being exposed to the lethal poison, Yulia is currently recovering and may be allowed to receive a visit from Russian diplomatic staff.

"We are considering requests for consular access in line with our obligations under international and domestic law, including the rights and wishes of Yulia Skripal," a spokeswoman for Britain's Foreign Ministry said on Saturday.

Comment: Every move by the UK government has made in this sordid case just makes them look worse.They are in clear violation of international law
This failure to keep the Skripal family in Russia properly informed of Sergey and Yulia Skripal's condition and of the taking of blood samples from them, is matched by the refusal of the British authorities to allow the Russian authorities consular access to them notwithstanding that Yulia Skripal is a Russian citizen not a British citizen (the Russians say that Sergey Skripal has dual nationality and is also a Russian as well as a British citizen).

This is despite the fact that both a bilateral treaty - the 1965 Consular Convention between Britain and the USSR (of which Russia is legally the successor state) - and an international treaty - the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations - both appear to require the British authorities to grant consular access to the Russian authorities to Russian citizens such Yulia Skripal who find themselves in difficulties in Britain.

The 1965 Consular Convention between Britain and the USSR was moreover presented by the British government to Parliament and came into legal effect in 1968, which presumably makes it a part of British domestic law.



Eye 2

Belligerent Bolton: The 'second most dangerous man in Washington'

John Bolton
© Huffington Post
It is fairly simple to understand what the appointment of John Bolton as the Trump Administration's National Security Advisor is all about. First of all, as there is no congressional approval or confirmation process involved, the announcement made last week, which is being criticized from all sides, is not really subject to debate. Bolton is the new Advisor and will serve at the will of the president. One might note, however, that he is the third Advisor in fourteen months, so the position itself has in practice turned out to be a death sentence for those who have been bold enough to seek it.

Bolton is in place because his belligerent worldview coordinates very well with and validates that of the president, though it remains to be seen if that will translate into action. Trump's harsh rhetoric has so far not produced a new war, though there are plenty of threats being flung about regarding Iran and North Korea, and there have been some unfortunate incidents in Syria and with Russia. But so far Donald Trump has, if anything, been more moderate than Hillary Clinton would likely have been.

Comment: This psycho should be nowhere near any position of power.


Lemon

A lemon defense system: Patriot missiles are made in America and fail everywhere

US Patriot missile defense system
The missile defense system the US and its clients rely on is a lemon
There is good reason to believe Patriots have never ever successfully intercepted an enemy missile including last week in Riyadh

On March 25, Houthi forces in Yemen fired seven missiles at Riyadh. Saudi Arabia confirmed the launches and asserted that it successfully intercepted all seven.

This wasn't true. It's not just that falling debris in Riyadh killed at least one person and sent two more to the hospital. There's no evidence that Saudi Arabia intercepted any missiles at all. And that raises uncomfortable questions not just about the Saudis, but about the United States, which seems to have sold them - and its own public - a lemon of a missile defense system.

Social media images do appear to show that Saudi Patriot batteries firing interceptors. But what these videos show are not successes. One interceptor explodes catastrophically just after launch, while another makes a U-turn in midair and then comes screaming back at Riyadh, where it explodes on the ground.

Comment: Maybe the PATRIOT Advanced Capability-2 (PAC-2) has been made to intercept the birds. It's 'just another batch of lemon tree'.

See also: Years behind the competition: US raises white flag, wants talks with Russia over arms race


Map

Is Trump seriously thinking of pulling the military out of Syria?

trump syria
US President Donald Trump has told his advisers that he wants the US to leave Syria soon, two senior government officials said on Friday, an opinion likely to bring him into a controversy with US army officers who believe that the fight against the Islamic State (IS) is not over.

Earlier next week, the US National Security Council is about to discuss the Washington-led campaign against IS in Syria, according to US officials who are familiar with the case.

Two other government officials yesterday confirmed to the Wall Street Journal, according to which Trump called on the State Department to freeze more than 200m euros of funds to rebuild Syria for as long as its government is reviewing its role Washington to the warring country.

The US president has asked to freeze these funds after reading a press article stating that the US has recently pledged to provide an additional $200 million to stabilize the areas recaptured by the US-led coalition, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Former US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had announced this sum at a conference of the International Coalition Against Foreign Affairs held in Kuwait in February.

Comment: Then again, Trump seems to do what his generals tell him. They're the ones with the gun, after all. As Marko Marjanović pointed out, Trump was saying the same things about Afghanistan: A false military pullback: Trump will 'leave' Syria like he 'left' Afghanistan. This is probably the case. The U.S. military doesn't seem to have any intention of leaving. But Syria is not Afghanistan. The Russians and Syrians maintain a level of control and sovereignty that Afghanistan lacks. Basically, the U.S. doesn't have a lot of leverage when it comes to Syria. They lost, and those in the military with any common sense know it. So while if the past is any indication, the U.S. will NOT leave, there's always the possibility.


2 + 2 = 4

SOTT Focus: Moscow Confronts London With 14 questions on 'Fabricated' Skripal Case, France Implicated

Chemical suits
Russia's Embassy in London has sent a list of 14 questions to the UK Foreign Ministry, demanding that it reveals details of the investigation into the nerve-agent poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter.

The questions, provided in full below, include a demand to clarify whether samples of the nerve agent "Novichok" have ever been developed in the UK. The embassy's statement calls the incident that started the recent diplomatic row a "fabricated case against Russia."

Biohazard

Why did fmr Secretary of State Hillary Clinton order diplomats to suppress 'novichok' discussions?

Obama, hillary clinton
© Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
While the last act of the 'Novichok' drama, the seasonally appropriate resurrection of the Skripals, proceeds, some additional details of the history of 'Novichok' nerve agents come to light.

Details on 'Novichok' nerve agents were published in a 2007 book by Vil Mirzayanaov, a Soviet scientist offered asylum in the United States.

After the publication the U.S. and the UK actively suppressed international discussions about the book and the 'Novichok' chemical weapon agents. Documents from the U.S. State Department published by Wikileaks show that then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton directed her diplomats to not talk about Novichok and to play down the matter should it arise in chemical weapon control talks.

Caesar

SOTT Focus: "Putin" - The new documentary sure to change everything you thought you knew about Russia's president

Vesti News Putin documentary
A groundbreaking new film by Andrei Kondrashev. "Putin" dives into depth about the man who we all hear so much about, but who we know so little about. From the early tumultuous days of the presidency - dealing with the terrorist situation, the Kursk tragedy and a demoralized Russia - to Putin now, the leader of a reenergized and recovered Russia. A year in the making with personal stories that have never been told on camera before. Some will be shocking and stunning. Attempts on the president's life and the toll of the presidency on Vladimir Putin himself - all of it has been brought together in the most complete portrait of Vladimir Putin that has been done to date.