In a perfect world

–>We’re ending the sanctions on Russia. They were counter-productive. Just drove Russia and China into each others arms.

–>We’re going to stop paying jihadis in Syria.

–We’re letting North Korea keep its nukes, so long as they provide nuclear shield to South Korea as they reunify without U.S interference

–>We are going to help rebuild Libya and Syria, along terms Libya and Syria desires.

–We’re rolling out a new policy on energy: Petroleum belongs to the country where it comes from.

–We’re revoking recognition of Guaido as president after no one bought it.

–>Aid to Israel will be reduced by the value of the homes they bulldoze.

–Huawei’s 5G networks will be used by all intel and national security staff

–>Congress, complaining of neo-nazism there, refuses to spend another cent on Ukraine.

–Congressional Democrats and Republicans agree on Russia de-confliction to restore Ukraine to Russian sphere

–>Congress, embarrassed at recognizing Israels military conquest of Golan, recognizes the popular vote of Crimea to be Russia.

–>We’re selling solar technology instead of nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia. Proceeds will go to build Palestinian infrastructure

–>The US and its partners UAE, Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Sudan, Kuwait, and Bahrain, are ending the air and naval blockade of Yemen.

–We’re allowing Cuban doctors to staff clinics in the U.S in under-represented communities

–>Germany, Japan, South Korea, Kosovo, and Romania insist that we get our military bases out their country. We will comply.

–We’re admitting Denver Airport’s underground city was intended as Washington D.C 2.0 and a fall-out shelter for the 1% and their sex slaves

–>The President has fired Elliott Abrams.

–>The President wants my (Bolton’s) resignation on his desk today.

'Shoot to maim': How Israel created a generation on crutches in Gaza

Doctors tell MEE that Palestinian protesters' crippling injuries, especially to lower limbs, were inflicted deliberately

Israeli snipers have intentionally maimed Palestinians protesting in Gaza over the past year, creating a generation of disabled youth and overwhelming the territory's already crippled medical system, frontline doctors tell Middle East Eye.

According to a United Nations inquiry released this month, over 80 percent of the 6,106 protesters wounded in the first nine months of the Great March of Return were shot in the lower limbs.

Israeli soldiers intentionally shot civilians and may have committed war crimes in their heavy-handed response to the protests, which have been held regularly across Gaza since 30 March 2018, the report concluded.

Healthcare providers say the pattern of wounds shows that Israeli soldiers are purposefully shooting to maim protesters, most of whom are in their 20s and now require long-term medical care.

"The soldier knows exactly where he's putting the bullet. This is not random. This is very intimate. This is very planned," said Ghassan Abu Sitta, professor of surgery at the American University of Beirut (AUB), who treated injured protesters for three weeks at Gaza's Al-Awda Hospital last May.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/shoot-maim-how-israel-created-generation-crutches-gaza

Netanyahu to meet Putin in Moscow on Thursday

sraeli leader's office did not elaborate on the nature of the visit; the meeting comes just five days before the April 9 vote, where Netanyahu faces strong opposition from a centrist candidate

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will fly to Moscow on Thursday to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Israeli leader's office said on Tuesday.

The statement did not elaborate on the intended topics of discussion. The two leaders will meet five days before Israel's April 9 election in which the right-wing Netanyahu faces a strong challenge from a centrist candidate.

https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5488261,00.html

In 1999, it was Yugoslavia in the crosshairs of the imperialists, now it’s Venezuela

To mark the 20th anniversary of the start of NATO’s illegal 78-day bombardment of Yugoslavia, over 200 distinguished guests from all over the world gathered for a conference of the Belgrade Forum of the World of Equals.

The gathering titled “Never to Forget: Peace and Progress instead of Wars and Poverty” promoted genuine internationalism. Participants came from Israel AND Palestine. From Iran and Japan. From Britain, Germany, Italy, France and other NATO countries which had taken part in the bombing. From Venezuela, Cuba, Bulgaria, Greece, Brazil, Croatia, Canada and South Africa. India and Nepal, Austria and Switzerland, Ireland, Portugal, Turkey and Lebanon. From the US AND Russia. This was the real ‘international community’ on display.

Speaker after speaker denounced NATO’s unlawful aggression, and stressed the wider significance of the military action of 20 years ago, which not only lacked a mandate from the United Nations Security Council, but was also in breach of NATO’s own charter.

Eva-Maria Follmer-Mueller, president of the Mut zur Ethik Association in Switzerland, described it as “a historic turning point.”

Momir Bulatovic, the prime minister of Yugoslavia in March 1999, called the bombing “a crime which only grows in significance”. He pointed out that it was the first step in a still ongoing war against other countries. He and subsequent speakers, (myself included), noted that since 1999 we’ve had US-led attacks on a series of independently-minded, strategically important and resource-rich sovereign states, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria, while others, such as Iran and Venezuela have been subject to intense economic warfare. Each time we’re encouraged to see these conflicts as ‘stand-alones’ with the leader of the target state demonized, usually as the ‘New Hitler,’ and someone who ‘must be stopped’, but actually they are all part of the same war. A war for empire and the global hegemony of the US and rapacious international finance capital.

From Brazil, Socorro Gomes, the president of the World Peace Council, reminded delegates that Yugoslavia was a peaceful country that had not invaded anyone. To get round this, Kosovo was referred to in the US and depicted on maps on the television as if it was a separate country, not as a part of Yugoslavia. The media war on Yugoslavia began long before the bombing.

According to HRW, around 500 civilians were killed in the NATO air strikes. The Russian Foreign Ministry puts the toll much higher, at around 2,000.

In Belgrade’s Tasmajdan Park, there’s a very poignant memorial to the 89 children killed in the bombing, entitled ‘We were just children.’ Among the victims was a brilliant 15-year-old maths prodigy called Sanja Milenkovic, who died along with eight others, when the bridge in Varvarin was bombed at Pentecost. Marina Colic read out a very moving tribute to Sanja from the German politician Willy Wimmer. Sanja’s last words were “Don’t be crazy Mum, who’s going to drop bombs on a small town”. Answer: NATO. That’s who.

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/455256-yugoslavia-nato-crosschairs-venezuela/

James Comey’s Daughter Maurene On NY Posse To Take Trump Down

”Prosecutors in Manhattan’s Southern District aren’t saddled with a limited mandate like special counsel Robert Mueller in his Russia probe; they can follow the trail wherever it leads.” (nbcnews.com , March 25, 2019.)

.

“Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz, whose legal analysis defending Trump has been praised by the president, said the office’s independence is “one of the reasons” the Manhattan investigations provide Trump with “much more to worry about” than the Mueller probe.

“New York has always had a degree of independence, and that’s a reality,” Dershowitz said. “And I think the U.S. attorneys can take advantage of that.”

“They still have to run their indictments up through the hierarchy and get approval,” he added. “No member of the Trump family is going to be prosecuted without it going through the Justice Department.”

With a staff of about 220 assistant U.S. attorneys, SDNY is one of the largest in the country.

“The United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York is the chief federal law enforcement officer in eight New York counties: New York (Manhattan), Bronx, Westchester, Putnam, Rockland, Orange, Dutchess and Sullivan. (Wikipedia)

“Geoffrey Berman currently serves as United States Attorney, since replacing Acting Attorney Joon Kim on January 5, 2018 and being indefinitely appointed on April 25, 2018. Preet Bharara was the district’s previous U.S. Attorney, having been appointed under President Barack Obama in 2009. Bharara served until March 11, 2017, when he was fired by President Donald Trump, shortly after refusing to resign upon request.The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York has jurisdiction over all cases prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney.

“The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (in case citations, S.D.N.Y.), known informally as The Mother Court, is a federal district court.

“The Southern District is one of the most influential and active federal district courts in the United States, largely because of its jurisdiction over New York’s major financial centers.”

From the True Life Is Stranger Than Fiction Department, James Comey’s 30-year-old daughter Maurene Comey is on the SDNY posse that will carry on investigating the Trump-Russia conspiracy.

Like her father who served as a US attorney for SDNY from Jan. 7, 2002 to Dec. 15, 2003, Maurene Comey has been an assistant US attorney in the SDNY office since 2015.

Maurene Comey went to William and Mary School, where she earned a Bachelor’s degree in History & Music and attended Harvard Law School.

Her position at the SDNY office may have gone ignored had not The Daily Mail raked over the coals of the ex-FBI director’s career as “a hedge fund high roller” living high off the hog, in an April 1st story:

“James Comey was a hedge fund high roller when he lived with his family in the tony enclave of Westport, Connecticut until he was tapped to run the FBI in 2013,” the Daily Mail reported. (Daily Mail, April 1, 2019)

“Comey bought the estate on more than three acres not far from where Martha Stewart used to live for $3,050,000 in August 2010.

“But now he’s had to reduce the price four times - down to $2.5 million and he still doesn’t have a buyer for the palatial estate.

“It’s a seven bedroom, nine bath, 7,157 square foot gated home in one of Connecticut’s ritziest Gold Coast towns.

“Residents of the neighborhood over the years included such powerful, moneyed Democrat neighbors as Stewart and Harvey Weinstein.

“Comey, who has a net worth of $11 million, lived like a king during the six years he spent at the Connecticut home.

“When he bought the home, he had been hired as general counsel by the Westport-headquartered $150 billion hedge fund Bridgewater Associates.”

“Stewart’s former Turkey Hill estate - which she sold in 2007 - is just a hop skip and a jump from Comey’s sprawling 3.17 acres.

https://canadafreepress.com/article/james-comeys-daughter-maurene-on-ny-posse-to-take-trump-down

Widespread Censorship of Former Government Employees Violates the First Amendment, Lawsuit Says

For officials in the Trump administration, leaving the government and writing a book has become a reliable and lucrative exit strategy — so much so that it has created a small army of literary agents who specialize in snapping up the next tell-all memoir. For anyone with name recognition in D.C., it has perhaps never been easier to scoop up a sizable advance and make the best-seller list.

But for rank-and-file members of the intelligence community, the process is not so easy. Employees who formerly had access to sensitive information must submit manuscripts for a government “pre-publication review,” intended to ensure that they don’t divulge official secrets.

The result has been a massive system that processes thousands of submissions, in which the rules are broad and vague, and vary from one agency to another. The process can drag on for months or, in some cases, years, and can force authors to choose between deleting text or publishing pages of type blacked out by U.S. government censors.

But the American Civil Liberties Union and Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University are challenging this redaction regime. In a lawsuit filed on Tuesday, the groups allege that pre-publication review amounts to a “far-reaching system of prior restraint,” and that the government’s arbitrary and sometimes confounding censorship decisions are unconstitutional under the First Amendment.

“This far-reaching censorship system simply can’t be squared with the Constitution,” Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute, said in a statement. “The government has a legitimate interest in protecting bona fide national security secrets, but this system sweeps too broadly, fails to limit the discretion of government censors, and suppresses political speech that is vital to informing public debate.”

The lawsuit has five plaintiffs, all of whom are former members of the military or intelligence community. They allege that the delays and censorship involved in prepublication review have unfairly damaged their work as academics, authors, and outside experts, and are asking the court to stop the government from enforcing their review agreements.

“To survive First Amendment scrutiny, a requirement of prepublication review would have to, at a minimum, apply only to those entrusted with the most closely held government secrets; apply only to material reasonably likely to contain those secrets; provide clear notice of what must be submitted and what standards will be applied; tightly cabin the discretion of government censors; include strict and definite time limits for completion of review; require censors to explain their decisions; and assure that those decisions are subject to prompt review by the courts,” the complaint reads. “The prepublication review system, in its current form, has none of these features.”

https://theintercept.com/2019/04/02/prepublication-review-government/

McConnell to Trump: We're not repealing and replacing Obamacare

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told President Trump in a conversation Monday that the Senate will not be moving comprehensive health care legislation before the 2020 election, despite the president asking Senate Republicans to do that in a meeting last week.

McConnell said he made clear to the president that Senate Republicans will work on bills to keep down the cost of health care, but that they will not work on a comprehensive package to replace the Affordable Care Act, which the Trump administration is trying to strike down in court.

“We had a good conversation yesterday afternoon and I pointed out to him the Senate Republicans’ view on dealing with comprehensive health care reform with a Democratic House of Representatives,” McConnell told reporters Tuesday, describing his conversation with Trump.

“I was fine with Sen. Alexander and Sen. Grassley working on prescription drug pricing and other issues that are not a comprehensive effort to revisit the issue that we had the opportunity to address in the last Congress and were unable to do so,” he said, referring to Senate Health Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and the failed GOP effort in 2017 to repeal and replace ObamaCare.

“I made clear to him that we were not going to be doing that in the Senate,” McConnell said he told the president. “He did say, as he later tweeted, that he accepted that and he would be developing a plan that he would take to the American people during the 2020 campaign.”

After getting the message from McConnell, Trump tweeted Monday night that he no longer expected Congress to pass legislation to replace ObamaCare and still protect people with pre-existing medical conditions, the herculean task he laid before Senate Republicans at a lunch meeting last week.

“The Republicans are developing a really great HealthCare Plan with far lower premiums (cost) & deductibles than ObamaCare," Trump wrote Monday night in a series of tweets after speaking to McConnell. "In other words it will be far less expensive & much more usable than ObamaCare Vote will be taken right after the Election when Republicans hold the Senate & win back the House.”

Trump blindsided GOP senators when he told them at last week's lunch meeting that he wanted Republicans to craft legislation to replace the 2010 Affordable Care Act.

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/436973-mcconnell-to-trump-were-not-repealing-and-replacing-obamacare

AG says insufficient evidence showing Likud behind fake social media army

Mandelblit issues legal opinion in response to petition by Blue and White following report of online troll network supporting Netanyahu

Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit on Tuesday said there was insufficient evidence to show a series of social media accounts supportive of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were funded by his Likud party and spread election propaganda in violation of electoral law.

Mandelblit’s opinion was included in a letter to Central Elections Committee head and Supreme Court Justice Hanan Melcer and came in response to a petition by the rival Blue and White party following the publication of a report detailing a number of allegedly fake pro-Netanyahu social media profiles.

The report, which was compiled by Israeli social media watchdog Big Bots Project and reported by The New York Times and Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth Monday, identified 154 accounts using false names or identities, and another 400 accounts that were suspected to be fake.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/ag-says-insufficient-evidence-showing-likud-behind-fake-social-media-army/

House Oversight votes to subpoena ex-White House official in security clearance probe

The House Oversight and Reform Committee on Tuesday voted to authorize a subpoena for a former White House official to testify as part of the panel’s investigation into the Trump administration’s security clearance process.

The committee voted 22-15 along party lines to approve a resolution authorizing a subpoena for former White House Personnel Security Director Carl Kline to interview with the committee.

Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) telegraphed plans to subpoena Kline, who worked in the White House Personnel Security Office for the first two years of the Trump administration, in a letter to White House counsel Pat Cipollone on Monday.

Cummings has accused the White House of obstructing his panel’s wide-ranging investigation into the security clearances of Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, and others, which the Democratic chairman launched in late January.

Tuesday’s vote comes after Cummings revealed that a current White House career official spoke privately with the committee about alleged failures in the current security clearance process.

The whistleblower, Tricia Newbold, told committee staff that Trump administration officials overruled her and other career officials in 25 instances in order to grant clearances to officials and contractors despite there being "disqualifying issues" in their backgrounds, such as foreign influence and concerning personal conduct, according to a 10-page memo released by Cummings on Monday.

The White House has blasted the security clearance investigation as "dangerous" and "shameful."

Cummings described Newbold as a "brave young lady" at the outset of Tuesday’s business meeting, noting that she "came forward at great personal risk to warn Congress and the nation about the grave security risks she has been witnessing first hand over the past few years."

"I just want to emphasize that point. She came forward because the system at the White House is so dysfunctional that she believes Congress needs to intervene," Cummings said.

"She is begging us to do something because she simply wants her government to work the way it is supposed to work. She gets it after 18 years," he continued.

Newbold worked under Kline and claims that he overruled her to issue a clearance to a senior White House official and also removed her from a case involving another senior White House official he later approved for a clearance. Newbold also claims that Kline retaliated against her for raising national security concerns about the clearance process, according to Cummings's memo.

https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/436968-oversight-panel-votes-to-subpoena-former-white-house-official-in

==Electoral Dirty Tricks in Israel. Fake Social Media Promoting Likud and PM Netanyahu

==

Why not! Elections in the US, other Western countries and Israel are rife with dirty tricks.

According to Haaretz, the Times of Israel, the Jerusalem Post and other Israeli media, hundreds (maybe thousands) of fake social media accounts are promoting Likud propaganda, Netanyahu’s party, according to the Big Bots Project online watchdog group, saying:

Despite no clearly identifiable links to Netanyahu, the accounts are promoting the same message in cahoots with Likudniks.

Facing bribery, fraud and breach of trust charges, Netanyahu is desperate to cling to power, hoping to mitigate his post-election indictment and prosecution.

The suspect accounts got over 2.5 million hits, activity increasing five-fold since Netanyahu announced April 9 elections last December.

According to the report, the fake accounts are linked to Yitzhak Haddad. A YouTube channel he’s associated with offered money for “responding on Facebook and on the internet with political messages,” he said, adding:

“You just get political messages and you post them,” admitting he created videos, saying he “post(s) them to Twitter (and) all kinds of places.”

“I don’t want to say tens of millions, but loads of money is being invested here. It takes money. There’s no volunteering here,” adding he’s connected to “very senior people” in Likud.

His attorney denied “what was attributed to him” and threatened a million-dollar libel lawsuit against anyone publishing otherwise.

The Hebrew-language report claimed the network of fake social media accounts “operates through manipulations, slander, lies and spreading rumors.”

“On its busiest days, (it) sends out thousands of tweets a day…mobilized at climactic moments for Netanyahu, such as the announcement of the indictment against him.”

According to the report, the network of fake accounts may violate Israeli electoral, campaign finance, privacy and tax laws. A Likud spokesman denied the existence of fake accounts, saying:

“All (party) digital activity is entirely authentic and is based on the great support of the citizens of Israel for Prime Minister Netanyahu and the great achievements of the Likud.”

https://www.globalresearch.ca/electoral-dirty-tricks-israel/5673428

Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna Calls for Bipartisan Coalition to Work with Trump on Ending Foreign Wars: ‘I Think We’re All on the Same Team’ As Americans

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), a progressive Democrat who is the co-chairman of the 2020 Democrat presidential campaign for Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview that he hopes a bipartisan coalition comes together to work with President Donald Trump to end a number of wars and U.S. military conflicts worldwide.

Ro Khanna argued that if the United States stops its backing of Saudi Arabia in Yemen’s civil war, finally ends the war in Afghanistan, withdraws troops from Syria once and for all, resists temptations by some to get militarily involved in Venezuela, and completes successful peace negotiations with North Korea, then the United States could better invest resources wasted abroad into rebuilding America’s infrastructure.

“Here’s my message: We probably all agree that our primary responsibility is to make sure that America and our values lead the 21st century,” Khanna said when asked what his message is to the millions of Trump supporters who read Breitbart News, people who may find it odd that a Democrat is open to working with Trump on at least some things:

Our biggest competitor in my view is probably China in terms of who’s going to win the 21st century. Is it going to be a free enterprise democracy with America, or is it going to be an authoritarian country like China? China has not been in a war since 1979. They are putting all their resources into building good will with other countries and into developing their airports, their bridges, their universities, their artificial intelligence. Why are we involved in wars that are not winnable that are costing us resources that are strategic in winning the 21st century? Instead of all the trillions of dollars that we have spent on these wars, imagine if we built our infrastructure, if we invested in our people, if we helped build our country to make sure that we win in the 21st century. I think that is a message that every American regardless of whether you voted for President Trump or whether you voted for a Democratic member of Congress can get behind because it’s for the national purpose and when it comes to winning in the 21st century I think we’re all on the same team.

In the hyper-partisan era that is the Trump administration, Khanna has emerged as a unique voice in the Democrat Party. While he is certainly a progressive Democrat and harsh critic of the president and his administration on many things, he is also someone who is willing to work with Trump in places where he agrees with the president — particularly on ending wars he, like many in the grassroots of both sides of the aisle, view as endless.

Khanna definitely has credibility on both sides of the aisle and is able to work seamlessly with voices as diverse as House Freedom Caucus chairman Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) and newly elected socialist firebrand Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). In fact, the night before this interview with Breitbart News a little over a week ago, Ocasio-Cortez praised Khanna on her Twitter account — a tweet highlighted by 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/03/31/exclusive-democratic-rep-ro-khanna-calls-for-bipartisan-coalition-to-work-with-trump-on-ending-foreign-wars-i-think-were-all-on-the-same-team/

Turkey's Problems Will Change The Dynamics On The Idlib Front

In Sunday's the local elections in Turkey the opposition parties won in the three biggest cities, Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir. They managed to do that by concentrating their forces. The Kurdish aligned HDP made no nominations in cities where the main opposition party, the Kemalist CHP, already had a strong standing. HDP voters voted for the CHP candidates which brought them over the line. The CHP likewise held back in HDP strongholds which allowed the HDP candidate to win in Diyarbakir.

The elections show that Turkey is not a dictatorship (yet) and that voters still can change the political picture. The opposition parties also showed some unusual flexibility and presented candidates that were acceptable by a wider electorate than previous ones:

The winners of Istanbul and Ankara, Ekrem Imamoglu and Mansur Yavas, are not the typical hardcore Kemalists who despise the women in headscarves and anything that is visibly religious, always alienating the average Turk. Quite the contrary. Yavas is a politician from the nationalist right, and Imamoglu (whose surname literally means, “Son of Imam”) is an unusual figure in his camp who can recite the Quran. During his campaign, Imamoglu recited the Quran in a mosque, to honor the victims of the massacre in Christchurch. Such actions have capitalized on the “religion card” that Erdogan has exploited for too long.

The loss of Istanbul, at a very small margin, is seen as a personal loss for President Erdogan, who started his national political career some 25 years ago as mayor of that city. It is no wonder then that the Erdogan's party, the AKP, is now demanding recounts.

The CHP win in the big cities and in the liberal tourist centers along the Mediterranean coast does not mean that Erdogan is defeated or his power diminished. In total his AKP and its allied parties won 51.63% of the nationwide votes. The municipalities in Turkey depend on handouts from the national government. As Erdogan controls the central purse he can easily squeeze the cities the opposition won. The next nationwide elections will only be in 2022 which gives him time to take on other problems and to recuperate the losses.

There are plenty of problems that demand his attention. Turkey's credit bubble, which helped Erdogan to win the presidency, is bursting:

Turkey's interest rates remained at record low levels from 2009 to 2018, which caused the country's credit bubble to go into overdrive. Turkey's low interest rate era ended in 2018, when the central bank hiked rates from 8% to 24%. Rapid interest rate hikes cause credit bubbles to burst, which then lead to credit busts and recessions.

Over the last two quarters Turkey's GDP declined. The country is in a recession. Inflation is near to 20% which leaves no room to lower interest rates. Before Sunday's election the central bank of Turkey propped up the Lira. It will have to end that or will otherwise diminish Turkey's foreign currency reserves. After the long build up of the credit bubble it will take years for the economy to return to a steady state. There is little room for the government to turn the economy around.

Erdogan's decision to become more independent of NATO is also taking its toll. Buying the Russian made S-400 air defense system secures Turkey from a potential U.S. attack but also means that its access to 'western' weapons ends. Germany stopped cooperation for the production of a new Turkish tank even before the S-400 issue came up. Today the U.S. halted all F-35 fighter plane deliveries and training for Turkey. This will be a loss for both sides but add to Turkey's economic problems:

“Because Turkey is not just an F-35 purchaser, but an industrial partner, blocking delivery of these systems represents a major escalation by the United States as it threatens to impose serious costs on both sides,” Hunter said.

Reuters reported last week that Washington was exploring whether it could remove Turkey from production of the F-35. Turkey makes parts of the fuselage, landing gear and cockpit displays. Sources familiar with the F-35’s intricate worldwide production process and U.S. thinking on the issue last week said Turkey’s role can be replaced.

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/04/turkeys-problems-will-change-the-dynamics-on-the-idlib-front.html

>>6020733

more than one arm up his ass making his mouth move

Declassified Nazi Papers REVEAL ‘How to Take Over a Democratic Country’

The stash of top-secret Nazi documents were seized during a large-scale raid by British Special Forces on Norway's Lofoten Islands in March 1941.

A rare copy of covert Nazi papers, which were recently discovered in the archives of the National Library of Israel (NLI), shed more light on life under the Nazis in occupied Norway during the Second World War, the NLI’s Shai Ben-Ari said in his article published in the Haaretz newspaper.

The documents include instructions from the Wehrmacht’s high-ranking officers to rank-and-file soldiers engaged in the Nazis' occupation of Norway.

“The orders published in the booklet […] essentially constitute a brief, practical manual on how to take over a democratic country and suppress its population”, Ben-Ari underlined.

He recalled that the secret papers, which provide “a glimpse” into the nature of Nazi military occupation of Norway”, were captured by British commandos during a raid on Norway's Lofoten Islands on 4 March 1941.

https://sputniknews.com/world/201904021073759106-nazi-forces-norway-occupation-documents/

Chip Off the Ol' Eastern Bloc: Pete Buttigieg's Dad Was a Marxist

I was baffled last week by Pete Buttigieg's definition of "freedom," which was eloquently stated, rousingly received, and 100% incorrect. To him, any adversity you face in life makes you less "free." To him, being "free" means the government taking care of you from cradle to grave. As a fellow Hoosier, I was taken aback by how much Mayor Pete sounds like a damn communist.

Turns out there's a very good reason for that! Emily Larsen and Joseph Simonson, Washington Examiner:

The father of Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg was a Marxist professor who spoke fondly of the Communist Manifesto and dedicated a significant portion of his academic career to the work of Italian Communist Party founder Antonio Gramsci, an associate of Vladimir Lenin.

Joseph Buttigieg, who died in January at the age of 71, immigrated to the U.S. in the 1970s from Malta and in 1980 joined the University of Notre Dame faculty, where he taught modern European literature and literary theory. He supported an updated version of Marxism that jettisoned some of Marx and Engel's more doctrinaire theories, though he was undoubtedly Marxist.

People keep calling Beto "the white Obama," but Pete is the one with a commie college-prof dad.

So that explains why Buttigieg's definition of "freedom" is the opposite of the one our founding fathers used. He grew up learning about a very different group of dead white guys.

I suppose it's a moot point, since Buttigieg has very little chance at the Dem nomination. But if he wants to be taken seriously as a candidate, that means people are going to take a serious look at his background. And if he doesn't want to be labeled a Marxist like his pop, he should stop saying stuff like this:

https://pjmedia.com/trending/pete-buttigiegs-dad-was-a-marxist/

Former Congressional Staffer Sentenced to Prison for Extensive Fraud and Election Crimes Scheme

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-congressional-staffer-sentenced-prison-extensive-fraud-and-election-crimes-scheme-0

The Founder and Chairman of a Multinational Investment Company, a Company Consultant and Two North Carolina Political Figures are Charged with Public Corruption and Bribery

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/founder-and-chairman-multinational-investment-company-company-consultant-and-two-north

US spies helped UAE hack phones of Al Jazeera chairman, BBC host & other journalists - report

Former US intelligence hackers helped the United Arab Emirates spy on Al Jazeera’s chairman, a BBC host, and other media figures as part of a secret Emirati intelligence program called Project Raven during the blockade on Qatar.

At least 9 former National Security Agency (NSA) and US military operatives worked within Project Raven, which was exposed in January after spying on US journalists and a British activist, along with dissidents and opponents of the UAE royal family.

The targeting of Arab media figures began during the 2017 diplomatic dispute with Qatar, which saw the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt and others turn against the small Gulf nation after accusing it of supporting terrorism. The countries imposed an air, sea and land blockade on Qatar and demanded it shut down Al Jazeera, which is funded by the Qatari government.

It was then that Project Raven hacked into the iPhones of at least 10 journalists and media executives to see if they had ties to the Qatar government or the Muslim Brotherhood in order to uncover something that would show Qatar royal family influence over Al Jazeera and other media outlets, a Reuters investigation has revealed.

They used a program called Karma, which gives access to a target’s phone by simply inputting their email and phone number. There is no need for the target to click a link or download anything to gain access. They then passed the data gathered on to UAE intelligence.

Among those targeted were BBC Arabic host Giselle Khoury, Al Jazeera host Faisal al-Qassem, and Al Jazeera chairman Hamad bin Thamer bin Mohammed Al Thani.

Abdullah Al-Athba, editor of Qatar newspaper Al-Arab, Al Araby TV director Abdulrahman Elshayyal and Al-Araby Al-Jadeed founder Amzi Bishara were also targeted, along with journalists from London-based Al-Araby TV and Al-Hiwa media outlets.

The revelation that former US government employees are working with a Gulf monarchy to spy on the media raises questions about US oversight over its former employees, who are sharing the hacking capabilities they learned while working for the US government to assist a foreign government to spy on media and dissidents.

Project Raven was set up in 2009 with the assistance of former George W Bush White House officials and US intelligence contractors, it was originally meant to track terrorism but soon evolved into spying on opponents.

https://www.blacklistednews.com/article/71924/us-spies-helped-uae-hack-phones-of-al-jazeera-chairman-bbc-host–other-journalists-.html

Sanders Brings in $18+ Million in First Quarter With Nearly 900,000 Donations Averaging $20

Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign announced Tuesday that it has raised $18.2 million from just under 900,000 individual donations since launching 41 days ago.

Sanders' first quarter haul tops all other 2020 Democratic candidates who have reported their fundraising totals. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) raised $12 million in the first quarter, and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg raised $7 million.

Faiz Shakir, Sanders' campaign manager, said during a press call that 88 percent of the donations were $200 or less, and the average donation was $20.

The profession with the most donors to Sanders' campaign was teachers, according to Shakir.

In total, 525,000 individuals donated to Sanders' campaign during the first quarter of 2019.

Real change always takes place from the bottom on up, not the top on down. We are building an unprecedented coalition to not only defeat Trump but transform the country into one that works for all people.

Thank you to all who are a part of this movement. Let's keep going. https://t.co/FATWexiL7Q

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) April 2, 2019

With $28 million on hand, the Sanders campaign is far ahead of where it was in 2016, Shakir said.

Nina Turner, an adviser to the Sanders campaign, said on the press call that "people power is just as important as the money," but the sheer number of small donations show the "energy and synergy this campaign is reflecting all over the country."

https://www.blacklistednews.com/article/71921/sanders-brings-in-18-million-in-first-quarter-with-nearly-900000-donations-averaging.html

American Idiocracy: 50 Years Later, We’re Still Stranded in the Twilight Zone

“We’re developing a new citizenry. One that will be very selective about cereals and automobiles, but won’t be able to think.”—Rod Serling

Have you noticed how much life increasingly feels like an episode of The Twilight Zone?

Only instead of Rod Serling’s imaginary “land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas,” we’re trapped in a topsy-turvy, all-too-real land of corruption, brutality and lies, where freedom, justice and integrity play second fiddle to political ambition, corporate greed, and bureaucratic tyranny.

It’s not merely that life in the American Police State is more brutal, or more unjust, or even more corrupt. It’s getting more idiotic, more perverse, and more outlandish by the day.

Somewhere over the course of the past 240-plus years, democracy has given way to idiocracy, and representative government has given way to a kleptocracy (a government ruled by thieves) and a kakistocracy (a government run by unprincipled career politicians, corporations and thieves that panders to the worst vices in our nature and has little regard for the rights of American citizens).

Examples abound.

In Georgia, political organizers posted a “Black Media Only” sign outside a Baptist Church, barring white reporters from attending a meeting about an upcoming mayoral election.

In Arizona, a SWAT team raided a family’s home in the middle of the night on the say-so of Child Protective Services, which sounded the alarm after the parents determined that their 2-year-old—who had been suffering a 100-degree fever—was feeling better and didn’t need to be admitted to the hospital.

In Virginia, landlords are requiring dog-owning tenants to submit their pets’ DNA to a database that will be used to track down (and fine) owners who fail to clean up after their dogs poop in public.

In Texas, a police officer who allegedly gave a homeless man a sandwich with dog feces won’t be held accountable for his actions.

In Illinois, Chicago police used a battering ram and a sledgehammer to crash into a family’s home with weapons drawn, terrorizing the young children gathered for a 4-year-old’s birthday party, only to find that they were at the wrong house.

In Kansas, a 61-year-old back man in the process of moving into his new house found himself held at gunpoint and handcuffed by police, who refused to believe he was a homeowner and not a burglar.

If you’re starting to notice a pattern here, it speaks to the fact that nearly 50 years after Serling’s creative brainchild, The Twilight Zone, premiered on national television, we’re still fumbling around in the dark, trying to make sense of a world dominated by racism, cruelty, war, violence, poverty, prejudice, intolerance, ignorance, injustice and a host of other social maladies and spiritual evils.

The Twilight Zone was an oasis in television wasteland: a show that captured imaginations; challenged moral hypocrisy and societal prejudices; and railed against inhumanity, racism, prejudice, the mechanization of human beings by way of their technology, tyrants of all shapes and colors, a passive populace, war, injustice, the surveillance state, corporate greed.

Fifty years later, with so much having changed legally, technologically and politically, so much still remains the same. Fear is the same. Prejudice is the same. Ignorance is the same. Hate and war and tyranny are unchanged. Police officers are still shooting unarmed citizens. Bloated government agencies are still fleecing taxpayers. Government technicians are still spying on our communications. And American citizens are still allowing themselves to be manipulated by their fears and pitted one against the other.

All of these themes can be found in The Twilight Zone.

https://www.activistpost.com/2019/04/american-idiocracy-50-years-later-were-still-stranded-in-the-twilight-zone.html

3 Reasons Why Facebook’s Zuckerberg Wants More Government Regulation

One: Regulations Will Give Facebook More Monopoly Power

Many Facebook critics like to claim that Facebook is a natural monopoly. That is, they think Facebook is so dominant in the marketplace, that it can use its supposed market power to keep out competitors. We’re told that Facebook has so many users, no serious competition will ever be possible.

But remember MySpace? People used to say exactly the same thing that that social media platform. A recently as 2007, The Guardian was asking “Will Myspace ever lose its monopoly?” Xerox corporation was once a tech powerhouse, as well. It has now all but disappeared.

Obviously, the answer to the Guardian‘s question is “yes.” But we’re now hearing about how Facebook is a monopoly. The reality, however, is that unless governments artificially erects barriers to entry, no firm can expect a safe place as a dominant firm. Other firms with new ideas will come along, threatening the older firm’s dominance.

The answer to this problem, from the point of view of a firm like Facebook, is to make things for expensive and difficult for smaller startups and potential competitors.

Facebook knows that if government regulations of tech firms increase, the cost of doing business will increase. Larger firms will be able to deal with these additional costs more easily than smaller start ups. Big firms can access financing more easily. They have more equity. They already have sizable market share and can afford to be more conservative. Large firms can absorb high labor costs, higher legal costs, and the higher fixed costs brought on by regulation. A high-regulation environment is an anti startup, anti-entrepreneurial environment.

https://www.activistpost.com/2019/04/3-reasons-why-facebooks-zuckerberg-wants-more-government-regulation.html

>>6021024

Dear Mr Comey.

Fuck off! Please crawl under a rock and await your trip downward for eternity.

Eat a bag of dicks,

Q's Anon's