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Alabama governor defends Confederate monuments, says call for removal 'Politically correct nonsense'

confederated monument alabama
© Hal Yeager / Getty Images / Agence France-PresseFP
A covered confederate monument in Linn Park, Birmingham, Alabama.
Alabama's Republican Governor Kay Ivey released a campaign ad Tuesday, defending a bill she signed last year to protect her state's Confederate monuments. Ivey called demands to remove the monuments "politically correct nonsense."

"Up in Washington they always know better...politically correct nonsense I say," runs the ad. "When special interests wanted to tear down our historical monuments, I said no!"

Last May, Ivey signed the Alabama Memorial Preservation Act, legislation that blocked local governments from removing monuments or renaming public schools that have existed for more than 40 years.

Comment: More libtard snowflake-y nonsense. "If I don't see it, it didn't happen" is the logic of a child.


Pistol

OPCW head: UN security team shot at in Syria's Douma delaying arrival of chemical weapons inspectors

OPCW Syria
© Associated Press / Bassem Mroue
OPCW Director-General Ahmet Uzumcu has told a meeting at the OPCW headquarters in The Hague that the UN security team was forced to retreat, delaying the arrival of chemical weapons inspectors due to visit the site.

The UN team had reportedly arrived in the town to see if it was safe enough to start investigating an alleged chemical attack by the Syrian government. When they were shot at, they decided to withdraw from the city, according to Uzumcu.

Earlier, Syrian Ambassador to the United Nations Bashar Ja'afari stated the UN security team had traveled to the Syrian town of Douma on April 17 ahead of a planned visit by the international chemical weapons experts on April 18 to look into the suspected chemical weapons attack.

Comment: Random violence - or a concerted effort on the part of the White Helmets, head-choppers and Western powers to keep the UN security team and OPCW from getting to the bottom of the "chemical attack" in Douma?


No Entry

Facebook may be banned if it does not comply with Russian data storage law

Facebook ban Russia
© Shailesh Andrade / Reuters
Russian law requires all social networks to move data on Russian users to Russia. Facebook is also obliged to remove all prohibited information.
Facebook has until the end of 2018 to comply with Russia's data storage law, or be banned like messenger service Telegram or professional networking website LinkedIn.

The law requires all social networks to move data on Russian users to Russia. Facebook is also obliged to remove all prohibited information, according to the head of Russian internet watchdog Roskomnadzor, Aleksandr Zharov.

"If none of [the steps are taken by Facebook] or some of this is not fulfilled, or the Russian state is not informed of the intention to do so, then obviously there will be a question of blocking," Zharov told Izvestia daily.

The professional network website LinkedIn has already been banned in Russia for refusing to comply. The popular messenger Telegram was blocked in Russia after refusing to provide Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) with keys to decrypt its messages.

Comment: See also: Moscow blasts Facebook's totalitarian tendencies for banning Russian accounts


Briefcase

Judge rules to unseal 11 cases related to Starr's Clinton investigation, could be possible source of strategies for Mueller investigation

Bill Clinton Monica Lewinsky
© Getty
White House intern Monica Lewinsky with then President Clinton
Eleven court cases associated with independent counsel Ken Starr's investigation into President Bill Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky will largely be made public, a federal judge decided Monday in response to a request from CNN.

The opinion in DC federal court outlines how judges may step in to disclose grand jury matters, especially after enough time has passed and when the public has an interest in them.

Though Chief Judge Beryl Howell's opinion Monday deals with secret legal proceedings from 20 years ago, it could offer a road map for making court records in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation public eventually.

"The district court is notably absent from this list of the persons bound by" rules governing grand jury secrecy, Howell wrote.

Howell also oversees proceedings related to the grand jury assembled by Mueller.

Dollar

Trump admin to ease arms sales policies - more product available, less worry about what buyers will do with them

Mohammed Bin Salman US arms sales
© Bandar Algaloud/Courtesy of Saudi Royal Court / Reuters
Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman is seen during his visit to Lockheed Martin, April 6, 2018.
President Donald Trump will roll out a new weapons sales policy which will make it easier for America's allies to buy weapons from the country's biggest arms manufacturers, a new report says.

The administration is expected to provide a set of guidelines which will "speed up the approval of arms exports" to certain allies, Reuters has reported. Those allies are thought to include NATO member states, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries, as well as Japan and South Korea.

The initiative will also call for members of Trump's White House cabinet to act as "closers" to seal major arms deals, sources said. Top government officials will also be sent to promote American weapons at international air shows and arms expos.

Comment: The defense contractors are popping the champagne corks.


Biohazard

Twenty more Skripal questions: Spies, Novichock, BZ and BS

Skripal crew
© Adrian Dennis / Reuters
While the world's attention has been largely focused on Syria for the past couple of weeks, we must not forget the Skripal case. The reason for this is that the two events appear to be inextricably linked, either because they show that the Russian and Syrian Governments are willing and able to use chemical weapons for their own ends, or because they show that the Governments of the United States, United Kingdom and France in particular are willing to use false accusations for their own ends.

Russia and Syria have been in the dock and apparently found guilty, but as ever the burden of proof lies with those making the accusations to show the certain evidence they have to back up their claims. However, the only thing that can be said with absolute certainty, regardless of which of these versions is correct, is that those who have made the accusations have not shown anything like the evidence needed to substantiate their claims.

Indeed, the biggest connection between the two events is not the "Who Dunnit" aspect, but rather the fact that guilt has been assigned and reprisals taken prior to the results of the investigations, and therefore before facts could be established with any certainty. Legally, morally and logically this is obvious nonsense, and it is a testament to the decline of educational standards in the West, and the triumph of emotional arguments over ones which appeal to facts and logic, that there are many who appear simply unable to grasp these very basic concepts.

Regarding the Skripal case, there are a mountain of unanswered questions and a multitude of inconsistencies. Yet it is not even this which makes the case so odd. Rather, it is the fact that whenever a question is answered - for example, the medical condition of the Skripals - it merely seems to throw up even more questions, inconsistencies and oddities.

Comment: Another question for the OPCW: which samples, specifically, contained which substances? Was A-234 found in the blood samples, on the door? Both? Where were the "pure" traces found?


Roses

Four Palestinians killed in Gaza Strip explosion

Palestinians attend the funeral ceremon
© Mustafa Hassona/Anadolu Agency
Palestinians attend the funeral ceremony of Marwan Kadeh, who was murdered by Israeli soldiers during "Great March of Return" near Gaza-Israel border, at Al-Taqwa Mosque in Khoza'a town of Khan Yunis, Gaza on 9 April, 2018.
An explosion in the southern Gaza Strip killed four Palestinians on Saturday, the local health ministry said.

Medics at the scene in the Rafah area said it was caused by an Israeli tank shell.

But an Israeli military spokesman said the army was not involved. "We have no knowledge of any Israeli strike in the area," he said.

Local residents at the hospital morgue identified the four dead men as members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group. Islamic Jihad did not immediately confirm the men were members.

Bad Guys

Russian prosecutor says Berezovsky was controlled by and acted with UK intel - paid with life when he decided to return home

Boris Berezovsky
© Olivia Harris / Reuters
Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky
Fugitive Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky worked closely with British intelligence, and paid with his life when he decided to return to Russia, the Russian prosecutor general has said.

The allegation came from Yury Chaika on Wednesday during a report to a joint bicameral session of the Russian parliament. He reiterated a claim previously suggested by some officials in his department, that Berezovsky's death in Britain in March 2013 was the result of foul play.

Addressing lawmakers, Chaika claimed that Berezovsky was part of a conspiracy involving the British government to kill his confidante Aleksandr Litvinenko with radioactive polonium, which London used to accuse Russia of murder.

Comment:


Eye 2

Dirty money? Dirty politics? Both: The UK's hypocrisy over 'Russian oligarchs'

Big Ben in London
© Darren Staples / Reuters
According to Russia's Prosecutor General, 61 criminals who stole up to $10 billion in Russia are enjoying life in the UK. Britain claims to be concerned about 'dirty money,' but has rejected requests from Moscow for extradition.

It was the financial heist of the century. The looting of Soviet Russia's wealth by a group of well-connected oligarchs in the 1990s enriched a tiny few, but impoverished vast swathes of the country's population. The foundations for this massive, reverse-Robin-Hood redistribution of wealth were laid with Gorbachev's 'restructuring' economic reforms of the late 80s. However, the process reached its peak under Boris Yeltsin.

State assets were handed out like confetti to members of Yeltsin's inner circle. By 1996 the Russian people, who had seen their living standards plummet following the end of communism, had had enough. Yeltsin's popularity was down to single-figure ratings - with the Communists riding high in the polls. So the President's oligarch friends - and their Western allies - worked together to make sure the election went the 'right' way.

Comment:


Newspaper

Western media are beginning to challenge "chemical attack" narrative after visiting Douma

douma hospital
After speaking with eyewitnesses on the ground in Syria, even mainstream media are beginning to cast doubt on the West's narrative of an alleged gas attack in Douma, as medics tell French, German and UK media it never happened.

Agence France-Presse (AFP), the world's third largest news agency, and the Independent, a British online newspaper, have each published stories that question whether chlorine or any other chemical was used against Syrians in Eastern Ghouta on April 7.

In a French language video report, AFP spoke with Marwan Jaber, a medical student who witnessed the aftermath of the alleged attack.


Comment: It must be a strange world for Westerners who are stuck in the 80s Cold War mentality when the Russian military breaks news with a quality on par or better than some of most respected Western media sources. For corroborating reports, see: