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US judge refuses to dismiss Mueller's case against Manafort


RFE/RL
Wed, 16 May 2018 04:48 UTC
Manafort
© Brian Snyder/Reuters
A U.S. judge has refused to dismiss Special Counsel Robert Mueller's case against President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, on the grounds that it has nothing to do with alleged Russia meddling in the 2016 election.

In a pointed rejection of Manafort's claims late on May 15, Judge Amy Berman Jackson of U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia sided with Mueller, ruling that his case against Manafort is not overly broad or improper despite not being directly connected to the election.

Manafort was charged in connection with his lobbying work for a pro-Russian former Ukrainian president years before serving briefly as the head of Trump's campaign in mid-2016.
The charges against him include conspiring to launder money, conspiring to defraud the United States, and failing to register as a lobbyist for a foreign government. He faces a second set of charges in Virginia that include bank fraud and filing false tax returns.
Manafort has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges, none of which are directly related to work he performed for Trump's campaign.

Comment: Still wrestling with legalities, Manafort may be going down for 'the counts'.

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Stock Down

Sweden's welfare state is headed toward collapse

Amanda Billner
Bloomberg
Tue, 15 May 2018 17:24 UTC
Rinkeby suburb, outside Stockholm, Sweden
© Christine Olsson / Reuters
Rinkeby suburb, outside Stockholm, Sweden February 21, 2017.
Sweden's got a major supply and demand problem.

By 2025, its entire workforce is expected to grow by 207,000 people-yet it needs more than that number just to staff its fabled welfare state. The worker shortfall could crimp services and raise labor costs, especially in a political environment less hospitable to immigration.

The mismatch is one of the biggest headaches facing Sweden's next government. Past precedents don't bode well. The workforce rose by 488,000 between 2007 and 2017, with less than a third of that increase absorbed by the public sector.
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Bad Guys

American 'democracy' doesn't measure up when looking at the facts

Eric Zuess
The Duran
Tue, 15 May 2018 17:23 UTC
trump putin
There are multiple quantitative measures for a given nation's degree of democracy, in comparison with that of other nations, but perhaps the best is the job-approval that the nation's citizens give of the head-of-state. On that measure, Russia is far more of a democracy than is the U.S., and is second only to China worldwide.

On 6 March 2016, the Washington Post bannered, "How to understand Putin's jaw-droppingly high approval ratings", and opened, "Russian President Vladimir Putin has an 83 percent approval rating."

It found a way to blame Russian culture for this, because they couldn't find a way to deny that Putin is extremely favorably viewed by the Russian people, and the WP is rabidly against Russia's Government; so, blaming Russia's culture (essentially, blaming Russians) for the findings was the best they were able to do.
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Bad Guys

Blood on their hands: 68 Gazans have died while Israel's High Court deliberates if it's legal to kill them

Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man
972mag.com
Mon, 14 May 2018 19:38 UTC
A medic carries a Palestinian child during a protest in the Gaza Strip
© Mohammed Zaanoun/Activestills.org
A medic carries a Palestinian child during a protest in the Gaza Strip, as part of the Great March of Return, May 14, 2018
The High Court has refrained from ruling on an urgent petition about whether it is legal for the army to shoot unarmed, civilian protesters who pose no threat to human life. They have the blood of 68 people on their hands.

The Israeli army has shot and killed 68 unarmed Palestinian protesters in Gaza while the Israeli High Court deliberates whether or not it is legal to shoot unarmed civilian protesters who pose no threat to human life. That number has likely gone up in the time since this article was published.

When a handful of human rights groups filed an urgent petition to the High Court on April 15, demanding that it strike down the army's open-fire regulations that authorize shooting unarmed civilians just because of their proximity to the Gaza border fence, army snipers had already gunned down 33 unarmed protesters in the Great Return March, including three minors.
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Info

Syrian army discovers hidden tanks, medicines and large amount of ammunition and weapons in eastern Qalamoun

Manal al-Frieh/Manal
Syrian Arab News Agency
Wed, 16 May 2018 18:53 UTC
Heavy weapons, ammunition and tanks
© SANA
Units of Syrian Arab Army on Wednesday seized large numbers of heavy vehicles and amounts of ammunition and weapons during combing operations in Eastern Qalamoun region.

The seized amounts were hidden by terrorists of Jaish al-Islam and Jabhat al-Nusra within secret caches in al-Batra and al-Rhaiba Mountains to the northeast of al-Qutaifa area before they were evacuated to northern Syria.

A field commander told SANA that the uncovered amounts included tanks, rockets, mortar cannons, anti-armor missiles, machineguns, rifles, rocket shells, mortar rounds, RPG rounds and locally-made rocket launchers in addition to a robot which was used by terrorists to detonate explosive devices remotely.
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Arrow Up

Terrorism and US invasion pushes Iraq closer toward Iran as Shiite parties win Parliamentary victory


Sputnik
Wed, 16 May 2018 15:54 UTC
Shiite leaders
© AFP 2018 / Haidar HAMDANI
The outcome of the May 12 parliamentary vote in Iraq plays directly into the hands of Tehran, analysts told Sputnik predicting that Iran's influence in the region would increase as Iraq's leading Shiite parties are about to take the majority of the seats in the country's parliament.

The success of Shiite parties in the May 12 Iraqi parliamentary elections was predictable from the outset, analysts told Sputnik Persian, stressing that they have long enjoyed support from Iran.

"The outcome of the parliamentary elections... was obvious, since Shiite Muslims constitute the majority of the population of Iraq," says Emad Abshenas, the editor-in-chief of the Iran Daily newspaper, chairman of NGO International and leader of the Iranian Reporters Without Borders group. "Daesh [ISIS/ISIL] destroyed infrastructure in many regions of the country with a predominantly Sunni population. Many residents fled, so, unfortunately, not all of them were able to vote."
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Star of David

Psychopathy on parade: Israelis lob death wishes at Holocaust survivors for protesting Gaza massacres

Ami Kaufman
972mag.org
Mon, 25 Aug 2014 00:00 UTC
Israeli operation Protective edge in Gaza
© Unknown
Nope, it's not The Onion.

A few days ago some 300 Holocaust survivors placed an ad in the New York Times condemning the massacre in Gaza. My colleague from Local Call, John Brown, has selected a few of the responses on Facebook that Israelis posted in response to the ad.

I've translated a few from John's selection:

David Cohen: Those aren't Holocaust survivors those are probably collaborators with the Nazis.

Shmulik Halphon: He's invited to go back to Auschwitz.

Itzik Levy: These are survivors who were Kapos. Leftist traitors. That's why they live abroad and not in the Jewish State.

Vitali Guttman: Enough, they should die already. They survived the Holocaust only to do another Holocaust to Israel in global public opinion?

Meir Dahan: No wonder Hitler murdered 6 million Jews because of people like you you're not even Jews you're disgusting people a disgrace to humanity and so are your offspring you are trash.

Comment: Such pathology in Israel appears to be widespread:

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Heart - Black

Nope, still crazy: Ann Coulter calls for Israeli-style border killings in US


RT
Tue, 15 May 2018 16:37 UTC
Ann Coulter
© Desconocido
Drawing inspiration from the conduct of the Israeli military at the Gaza border, conservative pundit Ann Coulter took to Twitter to call for similar shootings of migrants at the US-Mexican border.

After Israeli forces opened fire on a mass of Palestinians attempting to cross the border fence into Israel, reportedly killing at least 28, Coulter posted a link to a New York Times article about the shooting along with the text "Can we do that?"


Israel's heavy-handed clampdown on Palestinian protests - some of them violent and linked to terrorist organization Hamas - has been condemned by human rights watchdogs. Amnesty International called the Israeli response "another horrific example of the Israeli military using excessive force and live ammunition in a totally deplorable way." The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said that Israel was committing "outrageous human rights violations."

Comment: Coulter is a troll. The irony is that many over-the-top conservatives like her, who rightfully point out all the flaws in Leftist ideology, would be the ones cheering on the executioners in a totalitarian state like that of the Nazis or the Soviets. They might even be the ones pulling the trigger, and enjoying it.

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Bad Guys

US protecting thousands of detained terrorists in Syria from legal charges


RT
Wed, 16 May 2018 15:20 UTC
terrorist
© EPA/MOHAMMED BADRA
The United States has remained mum about several thousand militant extremists detained in Syria whom Washington would like to let off scot-free, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday.

"We have taken note of the fact the US administration is keeping quiet about the several thousand foreign terrorists, who have been detained by the US-led coalition and the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces in Transeuphratia," she said. "The explanation that it is allegedly impossible to agree on extradition procedures and parameters of legal assistance with the countries of origin are totally far-fetched."

"Apparently this legal vacuum is being created deliberately with the aim to conceal the real aim: to let the militants dodge responsibility. It is noteworthy that in defiance of complicity in terrorism no charges are put forward or investigative measures taken."
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Star of David

Reporters Without Borders requests ICC investigation for Israeli war crimes against Palestinian journalists in Gaza


RSF.org
Tue, 15 May 2018 00:00 UTC
IDF snipers kill journalist Gaza
© MAHMUD HAMS / AFP
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) today formally asked the International Criminal Court to investigate what it regards as war crimes by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) against Palestinian journalists covering protests in Gaza since 30 March.

Submitted to ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda a few hours before today's UN Security Council meeting and based on article 15 of the Rome Statute (which established the ICC), the request concerns the direct shots that IDF snipers have fired at some 20 Palestinian journalists during the "March of Return" protests in Gaza.

In RSF's view, these are crimes that clearly fall under the ICC's competence.

"The Israeli authorities could not have been unaware of the presence of journalists among the civilian demonstrators, and therefore failed in the elementary duty of precaution and differentiation when targeting these protected persons with live rounds," RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said.

"These deliberate and repeated violations of international humanitarian law constitute war crimes. While referring them to the International Criminal Court, RSF calls on the Israeli authorities to strictly respect international law."

Comment: To silence the press: Six journalists shot by Israel during Gaza protests

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