This is it! NY Times reveals Michael Cohen secretly taped Trump

Published time: 20 Jul, 2018 18:08

Donald Trump was secretly recorded by his personal attorney Michael Cohen discussing a proposed hush payment to a Playboy model, the New York Times reported, setting off a new cycle of media frenzy.

The tape was among the files the FBI seized in the April raid of Cohen’s office, the Times reported on Friday, citing “lawyers and others familiar with the recording.” Cohen is being investigated for potential campaign finance violations, over allegations that he paid off one or more women who claimed to have had affairs with Trump.

Although nobody has heard the content of the recording yet, the Times story spurred frenzied speculation among the anti-Trump crowd that this was finally it, the smoking gun they’ve been looking for, the one thing that will finally overthrow Trump and, uh, make Mike Pence president.

Even the Times reporters seemed excited by the discovery, writing that Cohen “is now seen as increasingly willing to consider cooperating with prosecutors.”It wasn’t clear by whom, exactly.

Trump’s current personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, seemed just as happy about the story - albeit for different reasons.

“In the big scheme of things, it’s powerful exculpatory evidence,” Giuliani told the Times on Friday. He confirmed the existence of the tape, and said it would show Trump had discussed the payment with Cohen but the payment was never actually made. The recording is less than two minutes long and proves the current president had done nothing wrong, Giuliani told the newspaper.

Cohen was first dragged into the limelight over the payment he allegedly made to adult actress Stephanie Clifford, aka Stormy Daniels. Now that she is out of the headlines – sort of – the focus has shifted to Karen McDougal, a Playboy model who claims to have had an affair with Trump in 2006.

Just a day ago, the outrage machine was all over Trump’s alleged intent to send US diplomats to Russian dungeons. Before that, it was his “treason” of daring to disagree with US intelligence agencies during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland. Before that, it was over Trump “insulting”European allies. And so on, every day for the past 546 days Trump has been president.

https://www.rt.com/usa/433835-michael-cohen-tape-trump/

Disney fires ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ director over tweets about pedophilia & rape

Published time: 21 Jul, 2018 00:13Edited time: 21 Jul, 2018 00:19

James Gunn, the director of two ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ movies, has been fired by Disney from the sequel after his tweets referencing pedophilia and rape were dug up by conservative journalists.

“The offensive attitudes and statements discovered on James’ Twitter feed are indefensible and inconsistent with our studio’s values, and we have severed our business relationship with him,” Walt Disney Studios chairman Alan Horn said in a statement on Friday.

Gunn’s tweets going back a decade were highlighted on Thursday by several conservative journalists, including Mike Cernovich and Jack Posobiec.

Gunn first deleted thousands of tweets, then posted an explanation on Thursday evening, saying he started his career making movies and telling jokes “that were outrageous and taboo” but he has since grown as a person.

“I am very, very different than I was a few years ago; today I try to root my work in love and connection and less in anger,” he continued. “For the record, when I made these shocking jokes, I wasn’t living them out.”

“I don’t blame my past self for this, but I like myself more and feel like a more full human being and creator today,” Gunn added.

Disney apparently did not buy Gunn’s Joy Reid defense, just like its subsidiary ABC refused to accept Roseanne Barr’s apology in May, canceling her hit sitcom over a “racist” tweet targeting a former Obama administration adviser.

Many on social media defended Gunn, suggesting the Marvel director was targeted for his political views. The director is an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump, declaring him an “operative for a foreign nation.” His Twitter feed is also populated by retweets of #Resistance activists, interspersed with clips of Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC show.

https://www.rt.com/usa/433848-disney-gunn-guardians-fired/

US releases $200mn in military aid to Ukraine

Published time: 20 Jul, 2018 23:54

Just days after the Helsinki summit between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Washington has cleared the transfer of $200 million in military assistance to Ukraine.

The sum, earmarked for “security assistance,” was allocated months ago, but was kept on hold pending “a series of defense reforms” the US demanded of Kiev. On Friday, the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington announced that the funds have been released - which was soon confirmed to CNN by Major Sheryll Klinkel, a Pentagon spokeswoman.

Citing another unnamed Pentagon official, CNN reported that the funding will be used for training, counter-artillery radars, high mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicles (“Humvees”), night vision goggles, as well as communications and medical equipment.

Kiev qualified for the funding by passing a new national security law in early July. Full implementation of the law will “further deepen Ukraine's Western integration," State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said.

In Pentagon terms, the law “provides a legislative framework for aligning Ukraine’s national security architecture with Euro-Atlantic principles” and is a major step towards Ukraine reaching “NATO interoperability.”

Washington has provided Ukraine with more than $1 billion in “security assistance” funds since February 2014, when US-backed nationalists overthrew the elected government in Kiev. The new government faced dissent in the eastern provinces of Donetsk and Lugansk, on which it cracked down using the military and “volunteer battalions” that often sported the Nazi insignia. Another Ukrainian region, Crimea, chose to split from the country altogether.

Crimea voted to rejoin Russia in March 2014. Washington has sided with Kiev in refusing to recognize the referendum and accusing Moscow of occupation and “annexation” of the peninsula. Government officials in Kiev and a US pundit have even called for bombing the bridge connecting Crimea to the rest of Russia, which opened in May.

The US is also following Kiev’s lead in accusing Russia of “aggression” in Donetsk and Lugansk. The two provinces have banded together to resist several attempts by Ukraine’s army and “punisher” irregulars to conquer them by force. Moscow insists it is merely providing aid to the civilians besieged by the government that claims to be their own.

Last month, President Putin offered as a possible solution granting the two regions extended autonomy of the kind enjoyed by Chechnya in the Russian Federation. Such a model could also apply to areas with Romanian, Hungarian, Ruthenian and Polish minorities in Ukraine, he added.

Washington and Kiev have rejected the offer, however, insisting the only solution was the 2015 ceasefire arranged in Minsk, Belarus. Kiev has continued military buildup in the region, with more than one official arguing for a “Croatian” model, referring to the 1995 US-backed attack on Serb-majority areas during the wars in Yugoslavia.

https://www.rt.com/usa/433847-ukraine-aid-200-million/

Lobbyists rejoice as US sells more arms in 6 months than in whole of 2017

Published time: 20 Jul, 2018 21:20

Despite the tariff standoff with the EU, the US has sold more weapons to its foreign allies in the first six months of the year than in the whole of 2017 much to the delight of military industrial complex lobbying groups.

The figures from the last fiscal year, which stood at $41.9 billion, have already been surpassed by $5 billion and were reached in just the first two quarters of 2018, Lt. Gen. Charles Hooper, Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), told Defense News at the Farnborough International Airshow in the UK.

“Defense exports are good for our national security, they’re good for our foreign policy. And they’re good for our economic security. And as the administration and our leadership has said, economic security is national security,” Hooper said.

The Trump administration views arms trade as one of the main driving forces to assure the growth of the US economy. Earlier this week, the State Department announced its action plan to implement the Conventional Arms Transfer policy (CAT), which adds “economic security” as a factor when the government is considering the approval of arms sales and urges the executive branch to more aggressively advocate on behalf of the US defense industry in its competition with Russia and China.

“So I think the overwhelming response to these changes from our partners has been very positive. In fact, now they’d like to know: ‘How this is going to affect me, how can I take more advantage of receiving the best equipment and best capabilities from the United States?’” the DSCA head said.

However, Defense News said that the buyers of US weapons expressed concerns at Farnborough over Trump’s general economic policies, including the introduction of harsh tariffs on steel and aluminum against the EU, and said that the industry was currently in “wait-and-see mode.”

When addressed on the issue, Hooper replied that he “personally [has] not encountered” such attitudes.

“I have talked to many of our partners from around the world and of course our partners in this part of the world, and many of them remain convinced that the U.S. solutions to their security problems are the solutions they’re looking for and the best solutions to their problems,” he said.

Defense News also pointed out that this year’s high arms sales weren’t entirely due to the current administration, as a significant part of the sum came from deals that were signed under Obama, but were closed in 2018. The publication also said that defense total figures have a tendency to fluctuate year by year, saying that they stood at $47 billion in the fiscal year 2015 but then dropped to $33.6 billion a year later.

Also on Friday, America’s largest business lobby, the US Chamber of Commerce Defense and Aerospace Export Council (DAEC), voiced its satisfaction over the planned implementation of CAT.

The council president, Keith Webster, described the White House initiative as “a major first step toward improving government decision processes and policies.”

The Conventional Arms Transfer includes policy changes prioritized by DAEC that will “improve bid timeliness while reducing costs to industries, place emphasis on economic considerations in the federal transfer decision process, and expand trade promotion," Webster said in a statement.

https://www.rt.com/usa/433843-us-arm-sales-farnborough/

>>2227757

>>2227762

>>2227781

No comments on the rest? Not much to say now? Laughable.

>>2227801

>>2227783

>>2227755

>>2227853

Make America Great Again.

Detroit

Ukraine gets 200 million

Make Ukraine Great Again? Regime change.

Notes of nuclear? Fukushima radioactivity found in California wine

Published time: 20 Jul, 2018 17:13

Radioactive levels are increasing in wine from California's Napa Valley, thanks to the radioactive cloud that drifted from the Fukushima disaster in 2011.

Researchers from the University of Bordeaux Centre d'Études Nucléaires de Bordeaux-Gradignan (CNRS) in France tested California wine from before and after the Fukushima disaster and found there was double the amount of cesium-137 in its Cabernet Sauvignon after the 2011 tsunami caused the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors to leak.

The radioactive cloud released by the plant drifted all the way to California’s Napa Valley. There, trace amounts of cesium-137 made its way into the vineyard grapes.

The levels varied depending on the wine, researchers found, with Cabernet Sauvignon reds having a higher amount and rosé having the least.

While the idea of drinking radioactive wine is enough to make anyone consider going teetotal, the presence of cesium-137 in wines is actually a handy way to test whether vintage wine is as old as it is said to be. This is because since 1952, every bottle of wine has had some level of cesium-137, thanks to the development of nuclear weapons and testing. Radioactive levels vary from the 50s onwards, allowing wine to be dated by its radiation levels, which can be tested without opening the bottle and ruining its vintage. The method was discovered by Philippe Hubert in 2001, and he is one of the pharmacologists of the study.

"With a sensitivity of the order of 0.05 Bq/l, this technique allows dating for vintage wines between 1952 and 2000, but above all it is very effective for very old vintages: indeed any bottle before 1952 does not, can not contain cesium-137, even in the trace state." the study reads.

Despite Fukushima's radioactive cloud increasing radioactive levels in wine, the cesium levels in wine at the height of the nuclear testing period were far higher, so there’s no need to panic.

France’s wines detected a similar bump in cesium levels after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

Time to find a new place. Peace peeps.

>>2227979

U.S is the lie. It's not aide it's funding.

>>2227997

No. But I'm sure you will find one here that wants too.