British Spies Infiltrated Bernie Sanders' Campaign?

The Integrity Initiative, a British pseudo-NGO tasked with running anti-Russian propaganda operation, was recently exposed. Further digging into it revealed a much wider operation. It seems to involve a mole British spies inserted into the Bernie Sanders campaign.

Three weeks ago internal budget proposals and member lists of the Integrity Initiative were posted anonymously on some website. We discussed those in detail under the headline: British Government Runs Secret Anti-Russian Smear Campaigns:

In 2015 the government of Britain launched a secret operation to insert anti-Russia propaganda into the western media stream.

We have already seen many consequences of this and similar programs which are designed to smear anyone who does not follow the anti-Russian government lines. The 'Russian collusion' smear campaign against Donald Trump based on the Steele dossier was also a largely British operation but seems to be part of a different project.

The 'Integrity Initiative' builds 'cluster' or contact groups of trusted journalists, military personal, academics and lobbyists within foreign countries. These people get alerts via social media to take action when the British center perceives a need.

The leaked papers of the Initiative have since been confirmed as genuine. More relevant details continued to emerge:

We have barely scratched the surface of what it, and it’s project Integrity Initiative are. Everywhere we look we find links to what could be described as the ‘deep state’, including, but not limited to (by a long way), the Institute of Modern Russia, 77th Brigade, the Information Warfare Initiative, Prop or Not and a host of other organisations which, rather than protecting us against disinformation, appear to be running covert disinformation operations via the corporate media and on social media.

The Initiative, and its parent organization the Institute for Statecraft, are registered as a Scottish charity at a disused Scottish mill. The mill is owned by one of the institutes directors, Daniel Lafayeedney, who was a member of an SAS Regiment and later of the British Military Intelligence.

The British government confirmed that it paid £2.2 million to the Initiative but it refused to disclose "the nature and purpose" of the funding citing "national security". It also confirmed that three of the employees of the Initiative are members of UK Forces.

The BBC reported on the Initiative but, after talking to the government, completely changed its original story.

Several tweets by the Initiative's Twitter account were directed against the Labour party and its head Jeremy Corbyn:

One tweet quotes a newspaper article calling Corbyn a “useful idiot”, that goes on to state: “His open visceral anti-Westernism helped the Kremlin cause, as surely as if he had been secretly peddling Westminster tittle-tattle for money.”

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/12/british-spies-planted-a-mole-into-the-bernie-sanders-campaign.html#more

Supreme Court Will Consider Case That Could Help Undermine Administrative State

WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court’s decision on Dec. 10 to hear a veteran’s appeal of a bureaucratic denial of benefits could signal the court is considering tearing away at the legal underpinning of the modern administrative state.

Independent executive agencies are sometimes referred to as the “fourth branch” of the federal government in the United States. Critics say the officials in the administrative state are unaccountable to voters and allow unelected bureaucrats to usurp the functions of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. Congress, they say, is supposed to make the laws of the land, but lawmakers have steadily ceded that body’s constitutional powers to the administrative state to the overall detriment of society.

Specifically, the decision to hear the case could foreshadow a narrowing of the application of the so-called Chevron doctrine that it enunciated in 1984.

In the landmark administrative law ruling in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, the high court held while courts “must give effect to the unambiguously expressed intent of Congress,” where courts find “Congress has not directly addressed the precise question at issue” and “the statute is silent or ambiguous with respect to the specific issue, the question for the court is whether the agency’s answer is based on a permissible construction of the statute.”

In other words, Chevron stands for the proposition that an executive agency’s interpretation of a statute it administers is entitled to deference unless Congress has said otherwise.

The current case, Kisor v. Wilkie, was brought by James L. Kisor, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, who seeks disability benefits for his service-related post-traumatic stress disorder. Although the Department of Veterans Affairs agrees Kisor suffers from service-related PTSD, it has refused to award him retroactive benefits.

According to Kisor’s petition, the government’s “decision turns on the meaning of the term ‘relevant’ as used in” a federal regulation. “On that basis alone, the court held that the regulation is ambiguous, and … deferred to the VA’s interpretation of its own ambiguous regulation.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/supreme-court-will-consider-case-that-could-help-undermine-administrative-state_2738606.html

WTF is this supposed to be???

Demon

Massive haul of meth, cocaine, heroin seized at US-Mexico bridge

A drug bust at the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas earlier this week exposed nearly $7 million worth of narcotics at a cargo facility.

Border agents at the Pharr-Reynosa International Bridge cargo facility were alerted to a commercial shipment of stone blocks on Monday. Officers with drug-sniffing dogs discovered packages of narcotics hidden within the shipment.

The bridge crosses the Rio Grande, connecting Texas with Mexico.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/massive-narcotics-haul-seized-at-us-mexico-bridge

Zombie

US Senate Votes to End Military Assistance in Yemen War

S.J. Resolution 54, "a joint resolution to direct the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities in the Republic of Yemen that have not been authorized by Congress," passed the US Senate on Thursday afternoon.

The chamber voted back to back on two resolutions related to Saudi Arabia: one to end US support for the kingdom's war in Yemen and a second to hold Saudi Arabia's crown prince responsible for the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. The later, in particular, is seen as a reprimand to US President Donald Trump's for his noncommittal stance on crown prince's involvement in the death.

The Senate voted unanimously to condemn the crown prince for the columnist's death.

The final vote on the bill to end support for the war in Yemen was 56 voting in favor, 41 against. The resolution needed a simple majority to squeak through.

Technically, Congress never authorized the use of the military in Yemen. The resolution forces Trump to withdraw any US forces involved in the conflict within 30 days.

Senator Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican who chairs of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations told reporters this week the move is "a strong denouncing of a crown prince and holding them responsible for the murder of a journalist. It's a pretty strong statement for the United States Senate to be making, assuming we can get a vote on it."

Corker is also fighting for a one-year ban on weapons sales with Saudi Arabia, which could be included as an amendment in a separate bill, The Hill reported. Corker and Senate Democrats are still negotiating whether this will pan out, however.

"I am optimistic that a bipartisan coalition of senators will vote to make clear that the United States will no longer support Saudi Arabia's despotic regime in its incredibly destructive war," said Senator Bernie Sanders, an Independent from Vermont and a potential 2020 presidential candidate.

The resolution stipulates that the White House must withdraw any US military forces in Yemen unless they are engaged in operations against Al-Qaeda, the president makes a new request for troops in Yemen and Congress authorizes the request, or Congress passes a declaration of war or a bill authorizing the use of military force in Yemen.

https://sputniknews.com/world/201812131070666254-us-senate-vote-end-assistance-yemen-war/

Nancy Pelosi is Willing to Keep US ‘Government Closed Forever’ Before She’ll Fund Border Wall

Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) declared that she will not negotiate border wall funding and will instead keep the “government closed forever.”

Asked by a reporter if having government shutdown will impede the Democratic Party agenda when she takes the gavel in January, Pelosi declared that “it’s just what we have to do.”

“Does he want to have government closed forever? What’s this about?” Pelosi asked.

On Tuesday, President Trump said that he would be proud to shut down the federal government if Democrats don’t agree to fund border security, especially the border wall.

“Let’s hope that there won’t be a shutdown of the government. That’s a very bad thing to do. Maybe the president doesn’t grasp that, but that is very harmful to our country,” Pelosi told reporters.

Pelosi flatly refused the $5 billion President Trump has requested towards a border wall.

“We’re not going for the $5 billion for the wall,” Pelosi said. “We simply are not.”

“[Republicans] do not have the votes to pass the president’s proposal — $5 billion dollars, whatever it is — for the wall,” Pelosi said. “Nothing is going to change in that regard.”

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/12/watch-nancy-pelosi-is-willing-to-keep-us-government-closed-forever-before-shell-fund-border-wall/