Pentagon chief claims US steps ‘put on hold’ Iran’s plans for ‘attacks against Americans’

Washington’s peace-oriented threats towards Iran have paid off – at least according to Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, who says that the Islamic Republic had to “put on hold” its violent plans thanks to US efforts.

While Iran has repeatedly denied allegations that they are responsible for recent tensions and said that they prefer diplomacy to threats, Shanahan on Tuesday was certain that Tehran’s dangerous behavior had only been curbed by the US’s proactive measures.

These peace-keeping gestures presumably include sending a navy strike group to Iran’s border, ratcheting up crippling sanctions and President Donald Trump’s amiable threat to end the country altogether.

“I think our steps were very prudent and we’ve put on hold the potential for attacks on Americans and that is what is extremely important,” Shanahan told reporters at the Pentagon, without providing any specific information as to what they were.

The unexplained “steps” are about as clear as the US’s accusations against Iran in the first place: Trump is on the record saying that there is “no indication that anything is happening or will happen,” in terms of Iranian provocations, but he also promised to use “great force” in the event they do.

https://www.rt.com/news/459927-pentagon-iran-attacks-on-hold/

Elijah Cummings' Wife Accused Of 'Self-Dealing' For 'Illegal Private Benefit'

An ethics watchdog has filed a complaint with the IRS accusing Rep. Elijah Cummings' wife, Maya Rockeymoore, of potentially using a charity to derive "illegal private benefit" for the couple, according to the Washington Examiner.

Cummings, 68, a Maryland Democrat, is chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. His wife, Maya Rockeymoore, 48, is the chairman of the Maryland Democratic Party and briefly ran in the state's gubernatorial race last year. The couple married in 2008. Cummings was once heavily in debt — in part due to hefty child support payments to his first wife and two other women he had children with — but his financial situation has improved considerably over the past decade. -Washington Examiner

Rockeymoore operates two organizations; a nonprofit called the Center for Global Policy Solutions (CGPS), and a for-profit consulting firm called Global Policy Solutions, LLC. (GPS) According to a Monday filing by the watchdog group, National Legal and Policy Center (NPLC), the two entities have overlapping operations, and may have been used for "illegal private benefit."

According to the report, CGPS and GPS "have mutual clients, donors and projects, and were located at the same address and share a phone number."

The NLPC's complaint asks the IRS to investigate allegations of "shared leadership," "integrated operations," and "shared address and physical facilities" of Rockeymoore's operations. The Examiner also points out that since marrying Rockeymoore in 2008, Cummings' financial situation has improved considerably. According to financial disclosures, the couple currently owns two rental properties worth up to $500,000 each, and last year they sold their three-bedroom Victorian row house in northwest Washington DC for $896,000.

According to its website, the Center for Global Policy Solutions is a nonprofit group that seeks to “create healthier communities, strengthen Social Security, and close racial wealth disparities." The for-profit consulting firm, Global Policy Solutions LLC, describes itself as “a social change strategy firm dedicated to making policy work for people and their environments.” The complaint states that they “appear to operate almost as a single entity, allowing for an illegal private benefit for Maya Rockeymoore Cummings and her husband."

Rockeymoore’s consulting firm was selected for a $1 million federal contract with the General Services Administration in 2017 for work on the “Leadership for Healthy Communities” project to combat childhood obesity, according to federal records. At the same time, Rockeymoore’s nonprofit group “served as the national program office for Leadership for Healthy Communities,” according to its website. -Washington Examiner

GPS was awarded over $6.2 million in grants between 2013 and 2016 according to tax filings, while the nonprofit CGPS received backing from the likes of Google, JP Morgan and Prudential - which have business before the House Oversight Committee - currently chaired by Elijah Cummings. The Maryland Congressman has been on the committee for the better part of a decade, where he is now desperately seeking President Trump's tax returns.

Tom Anderson, director of the National Legal and Policy Center’s Government Integrity Project, which has been investigating the nonprofit arrangement and provided research to the Washington Examiner, said the potential for corruption is “off the charts.” He said Rockeymoore declined to let his organization view her nonprofit’s most recent public financial records as required by the IRS. -Washington Examiner

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-05-21/elijah-cummings-wife-accused-self-dealing-illegal-private-benefit

FF?

US Air Force paints F-16 jet to imitate Russia’s new 5th gen Su-57

The US Air Force has gussied up an older fighter jet to make it look like Russia’s new Sukhoi Su-57 stealth fighter with reports in US media suggesting that the paint job is designed to simulate “realistic enemies.”

The US Air Force’s 64th Aggressor Squadron based at the Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada released a video of an F-16C Fighting Falcon getting painted in the digital pixelated camouflage paint scheme of the advanced Russian fighter, which is due to enter service in the Russian Aerospace Forces later this year.

“A new adversary has arrived. The GHOST is here! Be afraid!” The Air Force Base said in a post on its Facebook page.

The Russian paint scheme was selected following an internet vote and speaking to The Drive, Brig. Gen. Robert Novotny, a commander at the base, said the “aggressor” planes are specifically designed to “realistically simulate” air combat against “probable enemies.”

It seems optimistic to believe that giving a fourth-generation jet a lick of paint will make it a plausible stand-in for the fifth generation Su-57, whose paint is specially formulated to make the jet avoid radar detection, but the US Air Force has tried the experiment nonetheless.

In fact, the 64th Aggressor Squadron regularly paints aircraft with designs that imitate potential adversaries, including Russia and China.

https://www.rt.com/news/459926-air-force-paint-russian-jet/

Rise Of Terror Chemical & Biological Attack Drones: Russian FSB Chief Says Jihadists Have Them

The head of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) has warned that dangerous non-state actors now possess the capability of equipping drones with chemical weapons and biological weapons in order to maximize mass casualty events.

Speaking at a major conference hosting the security agencies of Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) on Tuesday, FSB chief Alexander Bortnikov highlighted the ever growing sophisticated and high-tech arsenal of global terrorists, including that “The criminals have materials, technology and infrastructure for the production of chemical weapons and biotoxins,” according to one Russian English language report.

He specifically highlighted the jihadist threat from the war-torn Middle East in places like Syria and Iraq, where Russia intervened starting in 2015 at the request of Damascus. "Although international terrorist organizations suffered great losses in Syria and Iraq, they still have enough resources, particularly provided by their foreign sponsors, to carry out attacks around the world," Bortnikov said, according to TASS.

The longtime FSB chief said further that, "large jihadist units have been defeated but now they are trying either to regroup in areas not controlled by the Syrian government or to take shelter in refugee camps."

He also sounded an alarm which has now for years been a familiar worry for Europe - the return of foreign fighters who had previously traveled illegally to Europe. “We know about intentions of the leaders of international terrorist organisations to use widows, wives and children of militants who come back en mass,” he said.

Among ISIS' top military leadership, for example, are Russian and Chechen jihadists from Muslim populations along Russia's peripheries.

The FSB chief's highlighting of the "chemical drone attack" threat was likely in response to repeat drone attacks on Russia's main Syrian air base, called Hmeymim air base in Latakia Province, over the past year. As recently as Monday of this week Russia's Defense Ministry said its forces had repelled yet another drone and missile attack from nearby entrenched Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Nusra Front or al-Qaeda in Syria).

Recent international reports have highlighted ISIS' capabilities for deploying weaponized Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs).

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-05-21/russian-fsb-chief-warns-terror-chemical-biological-attack-drones

Republican Google Engineer Writes Open Letter About Company’s ‘Outrage Mobs’ And ‘Witch Hunts’

A Republican Google software engineer has written an open letter describing a culture of left-wing “outrage mobs” that make use of the company’s anonymous bias reporting channels to shut down dissent.

The open letter, published Tuesday morning on Medium, was written by software engineer Mike Wacker, who was reported himself multiple times via the company’s anonymous reporting tools.

“If left unchecked,” Wacker wrote, “these outrage mobs will hunt down any conservative, any Christian, and any independent free thinker at Google who does not bow down to their agenda.”

In one case, Wacker describes a fellow Republican employee who was reported for saying nice things about the University of Toronto academic Jordan Peterson. He was given a note in writing that said, “One Googler raised a concern that you that you appeared to be promoting and defending Jordan Peterson’s comments about transgender pronouns, and this made them feel unsafe at work.”

Wacker himself was twice reported via the company’s anonymous reporting channels.

“You wrote in the activists-us@ group: ‘The definition of ‘Google’s values’ that matters is the one used by Google’s activists, who could only be described as ‘nonpartisan’ in the same sense that the Women’s March could be described as inclusive towards pro-life Jewish women,'” reads a note he received in January. “Other members of the group responded that your statement was percieved [sic] as hateful/incendiary/inflammatory. [redacted].”

In February, he received a note that said, “You received feedback on industry-info@ that your comments were ‘rude, disrespectful, and intellectually dishonest.'”

In an exchange released in Wacker’s medium post, he describes a back-and-forth with Blake Lemoine, the engineer who belongs to a self-described cult led by a former porn star and called Republican Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn a “terrorist.” When Wacker raised issues with how the company had handled the AI ethics board debacle that ended with the company dropping Heritage Foundation President Kay Coles James, Lemoine replied that, “Everyone is aware of your tolerance for bigotry.”

https://dailycaller.com/2019/05/21/conservative-google-engineer-wacker-medium-post-outrage-bias/

Orbán: “Europe is for Europeans, and needs leaders to defend it”, “migration should be stopped, not organised”

In the radio program “Good Morning, Hungary”, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said that a strong message must be sent to Brussels in the EU elections: “we want change, and a Europe that protects its borders on land and at sea”.

He also said that “we want to see leaders in Brussels who don’t want to organize migration, but who want to stop it”.

The Prime Minister added that there is a “liberal mafia” – including politicians, journalists and analysts – who are “flush with money”, and are working to convince the world that there is nothing that can be done to stop migration.

But, he said, when it turns out that there is indeed something that can be done – when Hungary stops migration on land, Italian Minister of the Interior Matteo Salvini does the same at sea and US president Donald Trump decides to build a wall – then these opponents of migration “start to be treated as hate figures”.

Mr. Orbán stated that “the EU elections are about accepting or breaking free” from the way of thinking that such pro-migration people “are trying to force onto us”, he stressed, adding that Europe needs leaders to defend it, because Europe is the home of Europeans and Hungary is the home of Hungarians.

He said that the majority of Hungarians “feel a chill run down their spines” when they hear so many European politicians saying that migration is good, but that it should be better organised than it is today.

Asked whether there is any candidate for the post of President of the European Commission that he would support after having withdrawn his backing from Manfred Weber, Mr. Orbán said, “there will be, after the election”.

He said that two days after the election negotiations will begin for the selection of future European leaders, and “We’ll see how much support has been received by which political figures in which countries”.

https://voiceofeurope.com/2019/05/orban-europe-is-for-europeans-and-needs-leaders-to-defend-it-migration-should-be-stopped-not-organised/

‘Deep Complicity’: US-Supported Saudi Strikes Close Hundreds of Yemeni Hospitals

Yemeni Minister of Public Health and Population Taha Al-Mutwakel recently confirmed that at least 425 medical centers have been targeted by the Saudi-led coalition since the civil war began in Yemen in 2015.

"During the four years of war on Yemen, hospitals have been repeatedly targeted and destroyed by the Saudi-led coalition which does not value human life, and does not observe humanitarian principles, and all Yemeni people including women and children have been attacked in this war," Al-Mutwakel recently told Iran Press.

"Health conditions have suffered a lot in this war, and the Saudi-led military alliance has deliberately carried out several air strikes on the health facilities of the non-governmental organization, Doctors Without Borders of Spain, in the region of 'Abs," he added. Abs is a coastal town located in Yemen's Hajjah Governorate.

Yemen, one of the Arab world's poorest countries, has been engulfed in a violent conflict between a government-in-exile headed by President Abdrabuh Mansour Hadi and the armed Shiite Houthi movement, also known as Ansar Allah and backed by army units loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, since March 2015. The conflict intensified when a Saudi-led, US-backed coalition began launching massive airstrikes against the Houthi faction in 2015.

"The US has been heavily involved in the Saudi coalition's war in Yemen" through targeting assistance, military training, aircraft maintenance and repair and direct arms sales and weapons transfers, Hassan El-Tayyab, co-director of Just Foreign Policy, an organization dedicated to reforming US foreign policy, told Sputnik Monday. "So all of this, I think, adds up to a deep complicity in this horrible war."

https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201905211075178791-us-supported-saudi-strikes-yemeni-hospitals/

Head of Reporters Without Borders says Israel shot journalists intentionally

The director-general of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said yesterday that the Israeli army had deliberately targeted journalists in the occupied Gaza Strip.

Christophe Deloire was speaking to the Jerusalem Post, having received the Dan David Prize in Tel Aviv on behalf of the international press freedoms watchdog.

“It is a war crime to target journalists because they are journalists,” Deloire told the paper. “When Israel shot those journalists [during the Great Return March protests], it was intentional.”

“The journalists could be clearly identified as journalists, with cameras and jackets and it could not be just by chance,” he added.

Referring to the United Nations’ Commission of Inquiry into the Gaza protests, Deloire pointed out that the report “confirmed what we already considered a fact”.

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190521-head-of-reporters-without-borders-says-israel-shot-journalists-intentionally/

Corporate Media Setting Up Iran As New "Threat" That Must Be Confronted

The Washington Post editorial’s headline (5/14/19) had the US “drifting” toward war with Iran—another example, as analyst Nima Shirazi quipped, of the “world’s superpower somehow having no agency over its own imperialism.”

If we can still call things “surreal,” that would describe watching corporate media do the same things they did in the run-up to the Iraq War, things they later disavowed: the credulous repetition of administration claims about the supposed threat; the reliance, for interpretation of “intelligence,” on officials with well known records for manipulating intelligence; the stenographic reporting of ‘troubling’ actions by the enemy state, that later have to be walked back.

A May 13 New York Times piece led with the statement that Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan had “presented an updated military plan that envisions sending as many as 120,000 troops to the Middle East should Iran attack American forces or accelerate work on nuclear weapons, administration officials said.” As researcher Derek Davison reminds, in a piece for LobeLog (5/14/19), there is, as the Times has acknowledged on other occasions, no evidence that Iran is working on nuclear weapons, at whatever pace.

Later, the piece says:

Some senior American officials said the plans, even at a very preliminary stage, show how dangerous the threat from Iran has become. Others, who are urging a diplomatic resolution to the current tensions, said it amounts to a scare tactic to warn Iran against new aggressions.

https://www.blacklistednews.com/article/72808/corporate-media-setting-up-iran-as-new-threat-that-must-be.html

Dutch Politician Arrested in Jerusalem

A Dutch politician was arrested, Friday, by Israeli security forces, while carrying a Palestinian flag, after Friday prayers in the occupied Old City East Jerusalem al-Quds.

Israeli soldiers arrested Tunahan Kuzu, the leader of Dutch political party DENK and a parliamentarian, as he was walking toward the al-Aqsa Mosque with a Palestinian flag in his hand.

The Israeli security forces also seized the Palestinian flag.

The DENK party said Kuzu, who is of Turkish descent, had been taken by a large group of heavily armed soldiers after Friday prayers, and during a working visit to Jerusalem al-Quds, according to Press TV/Al Ray.

Kuzu held some meetings, with civil society representatives, to discuss recent developments in the region, and took part in the 71st anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba, on Wednesday, during his business trip to the occupied city, the statement added.

Palestinians commemorate May 15 as the day of Nakba or catastrophe. The event marks the forced expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homeland, following the creation of Israel, in 1948, and their scattering across refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, and neighboring countries.

Tensions have been running high, near the fence separating Gaza from the occupied territories, since March, which marked the start of a series of protests called “The Great March of Return.” Palestinian protesters demand the right to return for those driven out of their homeland.

More than 300 Palestinians have been killed since then, and over 17,300 have been injured.

Germany designates BDS as anti-Semitic

Separately on Friday, the German parliament voted to condemn as “anti-Semitic” a Palestinian movement that calls for economic pressure on Israel to end the occupation of Palestine’s territories.

In a move welcomed by the Tel Aviv regime, the majority of German lawmakers in the Bundestag voted in favor of a motion that accuses the international Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement of using anti-Semitic tactics to fulfill its political goals.

“The argumentation patterns and methods used by the BDS movement are anti-Semitic,” read the motion submitted by German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives, their Social Democrat coalition partners as well as the Greens and Free Democrats.

The vote was denounced by BDS as anti-Palestinian.

“The German establishment is entrenching its complicity in Israel’s crimes of military occupation, ethnic cleansing, siege and apartheid, while desperately trying to shield it from accountability to international law,” BDS said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the motion in a statement on Twitter, saying, “I hope that this decision will bring about concrete steps and I call upon other countries to adopt similar legislation.”

The BDS movement was initiated in 2005 by over 170 Palestinian organizations and, later, turned international. It is meant to initiate “various forms of boycott against Israel until it meets its obligations under international law,” and ends its occupation of Palestinian lands.

Israel and its allies in Washington have long railed against the BDS movement, which calls for people and groups across the world to cut economic, cultural and academic ties to Tel Aviv.

Last year, Israel published a list of 20 organizations whose activists would be barred from entering the occupied territories, due to their support for boycott campaigns.

Israel’s strategic affairs ministry has been allocated $36m to combat the BDS movement.

https://imemc.org/article/dutch-politician-arrested-in-jerusalem/

Undercover Footage Zionists DON’T Want You to See!

Ukraine opens high treason case against Poroshenko over Kerch Strait incident

KIEV, May 21. /TASS/. Ukraine’s state investigation bureau has opened a criminal case and started probing possible high treason charges against former Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko over the incident in the Kerch Strait, the bureau’s press office reported on Tuesday.

Ukraine’s state investigation bureau investigates crimes committed by the country’s top officials.

"Based on a statement by Andrei Portnov, detectives from the state investigation bureau’s central office entered information on May 21 into the Unified Register of Pretrial Investigations on possible crimes committed by officials holding particularly high posts in the bodies of Ukraine’s state power and stipulated by article 109 ‘Actions Aimed at Violently Changing or Overthrowing the Constitutional Order or Seizing State Power,’ article 111 ‘High Treason’ and article 426-1 ‘The Abuse of Power or the Abuse of Office by a Defense Official’ of Ukraine’s Criminal Code. A pretrial investigation has been launched," the statement says.

The state investigation bureau has opened the criminal case against Poroshenko based on a statement submitted by ex-Deputy Head of the Administration of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich, and attorney Andrei Portnov on May 20. The lawyer requested instituting criminal proceedings against Poroshenko on criminal counts committed by the supreme commander-in-chief in the November 25, 2018 incident when a group of Ukrainian naval ships was transiting the Kerch Strait.

"Poroshenko’s actions were aimed at deliberately provoking the Russian Federation for retaliatory and easily foreseen aggressive actions in a tense situation, which caused losses in the inventory of the Ukrainian Navy," the lawyer’s statement posted on his Facebook says.

Ukraine’s state investigation bureau confirmed on Tuesday it had opened the criminal case related precisely to the Kerch Strait incident late last year.

On November 25, three Ukrainian naval ships violated the procedure for passing through Russia’s territorial waters while sailing from the Azov to the Black Sea.

After having breached the Russian border, the three Ukrainian warships were warned by Russia’s maritime security forces to stop. The intruding vessels ignored the demands, thereby evoking a chase involving gunfire in the Kerch Strait whereupon three Ukrainian naval sailors ended up lightly wounded. They were later given medical assistance. Consequently, the Ukrainian warships were detained and brought to Kerch. A criminal case was opened into the violation of the Russian state border.

The ships’ crewmembers - 24 Ukrainian nationals - are currently being held in a pretrial detention center in Moscow and charged with violating the Russian border under Article 322.3 of the Russian Criminal Code. If found guilty, they may face up to six years in prison.

http://tass.com/world/1059319

Thanks to Facebook, Your Cellphone Company Is Watching You More Closely Than Ever

Among the mega-corporations that surveil you, your cellphone carrier has always been one of the keenest monitors, in constant contact with the one small device you keep on you at almost every moment. A confidential Facebook document reviewed by The Intercept shows that the social network courts carriers, along with phone makers — some 100 different companies in 50 countries — by offering the use of even more surveillance data, pulled straight from your smartphone by Facebook itself.

Offered to select Facebook partners, the data includes not just technical information about Facebook members’ devices and use of Wi-Fi and cellular networks, but also their past locations, interests, and even their social groups. This data is sourced not just from the company’s main iOS and Android apps, but from Instagram and Messenger as well. The data has been used by Facebook partners to assess their standing against competitors, including customers lost to and won from them, but also for more controversial uses like racially targeted ads.

Some experts are particularly alarmed that Facebook has marketed the use of the information — and appears to have helped directly facilitate its use, along with other Facebook data — for the purpose of screening customers on the basis of likely creditworthiness. Such use could potentially run afoul of federal law, which tightly governs credit assessments.

Facebook said it does not provide creditworthiness services and that the data it provides to cellphone carriers and makers does not go beyond what it was already collecting for other uses.

Facebook’s cellphone partnerships are particularly worrisome because of the extensive surveillance powers already enjoyed by carriers like AT&T and T-Mobile: Just as your internet service provider is capable of watching the data that bounces between your home and the wider world, telecommunications companies have a privileged vantage point from which they can glean a great deal of information about how, when, and where you’re using your phone. AT&T, for example, states plainly in its privacy policy that it collects and stores information “about the websites you visit and the mobile applications you use on our networks.” Paired with carriers’ calling and texting oversight, that accounts for just about everything you’d do on your smartphone.

More

https://theintercept.com/2019/05/20/facebook-data-phone-carriers-ads-credit-score/

7 days in May: Moshe Kahlon’s chance to save Israeli democracy from Netanyahu

Finance minister said last year the PM would have to go if he were indicted. As Netanyahu now seeks legislation to keep himself out of the dock, Kahlon is best-placed to stop him

As corruption investigations into Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gathered pace through 2018, a key ministerial voice in the coalition government made clear that it would be unacceptable for Netanyahu to remain in office if charges were brought against him.

While the law does not definitively require a serving prime minister to step down if put on trial, Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon was adamant that, as he phrased it in a March 15, 2018, television interview, “if a trial against the prime minister begins, he will not be able to serve.” Either Netanyahu would step down of his own volition, said Kahlon, “or everyone else will.”

Seven months later, shortly before police recommended that Netanyahu indeed stand trial for bribery in Case 4000, the most serious of the cases against him, Kahlon went further. Reiterating that a prime minister cannot stay in office when on trial, the finance minister promised in an October 9 TV appearance that he’d bring down the government if Netanyahu was indicted and didn’t step down.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/7-days-in-may-moshe-kahlons-chance-to-save-israeli-democracy-from-netanyahu/

Establishment Narrative-Managers Struggling With New Syria Plot Holes

It has been about a week since the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media (WGSPM) published a leaked internal document from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) investigation into an alleged chemical attack in Douma, Syria last year. The document, whose authenticity the OPCW has confirmed, contends that the official story which was used to justify an air strike by the US, UK and France about poison gas being dropped on civilians from Syrian government helicopters is scientifically implausible, saying “In summary, observations at the scene of the two locations, together with subsequent analysis, suggest that there is a higher probability that both cylinders were manually placed at those two locations rather than being delivered from aircraft.”

The document, titled “Engineering Assessment of Two Cylinders Observed at the Douma Incident”, was signed by a man named Ian Henderson, whose name is seen listed in expert leadership positions on OPCW documents from as far back as 1998 and as recently as 2018. The OPCW hid this information from the public, for reasons it has yet to attempt to justify.

The fact that a longtime OPCW-trained investigator wildly dissented with the OPCW’s official conclusions within the OPCW’s own investigation should obviously have been made public knowledge, and this revelation should obviously have made headline news throughout the western media. Instead, it’s been completely ignored. Only a few alternative media outlets and the usual Russian publications have covered it.

“According to ProQuest database, [Peter] Hitchens’ piece is the only mention in any UK corporate newspaper so far,” tweeted media analysis site Media Lens yesterday

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-05-21/establishment-narrative-managers-struggling-new-syria-plot-holes

>>6551642

I Don't trust anything going in in Ukraine now with their new Jewish leader.

Might be a dog and pony show

Tom Fitton: Obama CIA Chief John Brennan was ‘Key Ringleader of Cabal’ against Trump

Judicial Watch Sues for Secret FBI Chart of Potential Violations of Law by Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

Also suing for Comey’s Talking Points On Clinton Email Decision

(Washington, DC) — Judicial Watch announced today it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of Justice seeking draft copies of FBI charts containing information on potential “statutory violations” committed by Hillary Clinton in the former secretary of State’s use of a non-secure, non-government email server to conduct government business.

Judicial Watch is also suing for draft copies of talking points prepared by the FBI for its officials to use following then-Director James Comey’s July 2016 press conference during which he recommended against prosecuting Clinton for mishandling classified information.

Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia after the DOJ failed to respond to a December 3, 2018, FOIA request (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:19-cv-00800)). Judicial Watch seeks:

All final and draft copies of talking points prepared by the FBI for its Executive Assistant Directors (EADs) relating to the “Mid-Year Exam” investigation (“MYE Talking Points) following the July 5, 2016 James Comey press conference in which he indicated he would not recommend prosecuting Hillary Clinton.

All final draft copies of a one-page version of the aforementioned MYE Talking Points created for FBI Special Agents-in-Charge (SACs).

All final and draft copies of charts of the “statutory violations considered during the investigation [of Hillary Clinton’s server], and the reasons for the recommendation not to prosecute.”

Judicial Watch recently uncovered DOJ records in a related lawsuit showing that three days after then-FBI Director James Comey’s press conference announcing that he would not recommend a prosecution of Clinton. On July 8, 2016, the Special Counsel to the FBI’s executive assistant director in charge of the National Security Branch, whose name is redacted, wrote to Strzok and others that he was producing a “chart of the statutory violations considered during the investigation [of Clinton’s server], and the reasons for the recommendation not to prosecute…”

Neither these talking points nor the chart of potential violations committed by Clinton and her associates have been released.

“Judicial Watch will continue pressing for the secret FBI chart of potential Hillary Clinton crimes,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said. “The FBI should focus on this Clinton ‘matter’ now that it is unencumbered by the corrupt partisanship of Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Page, etc.”

https://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-sues-for-secret-fbi-chart-of-potential-violations-of-law-by-former-secretary-of-state-hillary-clinton/

Former Georgia County Commissioner Indicted on Extortion and Bribery Charges

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-georgia-county-commissioner-indicted-extortion-and-bribery-charges

All the Times John Bolton Called for War with Iran

The fact that Donald Trump’s recent hawkish stance on the Syrian government coincided with John Bolton’s first day as national security advisor is most likely no accident. Syria and Iran have been bound by a mutual defense treaty for some time, and there are a significant number of Iranian military advisors and Iranian-supported militia on the ground in Syria for that very reason.

People like Bolton know this all too well, which is why Syria was targeted so heavily for regime change in the first place. This is from the Hillary Clinton email archives:

“Iran’s nuclear program and Syria’s civil war may seem unconnected, but they are. For Israeli leaders, the real threat from a nuclear-armed Iran is not the prospect of an insane Iranian leader launching an unprovoked Iranian nuclear attack on Israel that would lead to the annihilation of both countries. What Israeli military leaders really worry about — but cannot talk about — is losing their nuclear monopoly…Bringing down Assad would not only be a massive boon to Israel’s security, it would also ease Israel’s understandable fear of losing its nuclear monopoly.” [emphasis added]

Bolton, who can boast on his illustrious political CV his overwhelming support for the invasion of Iraq, wants to see done to Iran what he proudly advocated for in Iraq.

In 2015, Bolton wrote a New York Times op-ed entitled “To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran.” In this article, Bolton makes it quite clear that “only military action” could accomplish what is required to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

Never mind that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) formed in 2015 has been working to curb any international fears of an Iranian nuclear program. Both the Trump administration and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have found that Iran has been compliant with the terms of the agreement. According to these assessments, Iran has dismantled thousands of its centrifuges and moved as far away from building a nuclear weapon as is possible, yet people like Bolton are still not content.

Reportedly, in October last year, Bolton spoke to Sheldon Adelson, a very powerful pro-Israel casino magnate with ties to Trump to get Trump’s ear regarding his stance on the JCPOA. Bolton was then able to speak to Trump by phone after meeting with Adelson. According to Politico, Bolton advised Trump prior to delivering an anti-Iranian speech in October to include a line that Trump reserved the right to scrap the JCPOA entirely, despite chief of staff John Kelly limiting Bolton’s contact with Trump.

In January 2017, Bolton went on Fox News to denounce the nuclear deal stating that it was a “strategic mistake.” In July 2017, speaking at the National Council of Resistance of Iran’s “Free Iran Gathering” in Paris, he also called for regime change as the only viable solution and that this should be America’s “declared policy”, alleging that Iranian President Hasan Rowhani cannot be trusted. In doing so, Bolton was heavily supporting the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), a group that not too long ago was actually designated as a terrorist entity by the United States. The MEK is even believed to be behind the deaths of American civilians in Iran in the infamous 1980 U.S. embassy siege.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/all-times-john-bolton-called-war-iran/5677912

Congressional Letter Urges Trump to Keep US Troops in Syria

Lawmakers call on Trump to 'increase pressure on Iran and Russia'

A bipartisan letter signed by nearly 400 US Congress members is calling on President Trump to remain militarily engaged within Syria, while claiming to be “deeply concerned” about extremists in the country.

President Trump had announced a pullout from Syria in December, but had already disavowed it repeatedly by February. Still, lawmakers want to keep emphasizing how enthusiastic about the Syrian War they are, and push Trump into escalating it against various other parties.

Once a war about ISIS, the letter urges Trump to “increase pressure on Iran and Russia with respect to their activities in Syria.” The US already treated Syria as something of a proxy war, and the letter suggests they do away with all pretext and just make it into a war against Iran and Russia over Syria.

The lead signers of the letter were top party leaders and ranking committee members in both the House and the Senate. This once again underscores that on matters of war, Democrats and Republicans within leadership positions are almost completely in-line on keeping the wars going.

https://news.antiwar.com/2019/05/20/congressional-letter-urges-trump-to-keep-us-troops-in-syria/

Haaretz: 'Netanyahu's Iran Dilemma - How to Get Trump to Act Without Being On Front Line'

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz ran a piece on Monday saying that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's "Iran dilemma" is "how to get Trump to act without putting Israel on the front line."

From Haaretz, Amos Harel, "Netanyahu's Iran Dilemma: Getting Trump to Act Without Putting Israel on the Front Line":

Ever since Trump was elected president two and a half years ago, Netanyahu has been urging him to take a more aggressive line toward Iran […]

Trump acceded to this urging a year ago when he withdrew America from the nuclear agreement with Iran. That was followed by tighter sanctions on Iran, as well as publication of a plan by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo detailing 12 steps Tehran must take to satisfy Washington.

But Israel isn't interested in being part of the front. That is why Jerusalem has issued so few official statements on the Iranian issue, and why Netanyahu has urged ministers to be cautious in what they say.

On Sunday, Haaretz's Chemi Shalev wrote an article saying Netanyahu will be the "prime suspect" if the US goes to war with Iran.

https://www.informationliberation.com/?id=60231

Are You Sure You Want to Play Russian Roulette with Your Child's Values?

Most Americans are not aware how morally and intellectually destructive American colleges – and, increasingly, high schools and even elementary schools – have become. So, they spend tens of thousands of after-tax dollars to send their sons and daughters to college.

But today, to send your child to college is to play Russian roulette with their values. There is a good chance your child will return from college alienated from you, from America, from Western civilization and from whatever expression of any Bible-based religion in which you raised your child.

If you think this is in any way an exaggeration, here is some of what has happened on campuses in recent months:

Harvard University fired law professor Ron Sullivan from his position as faculty dean of Winthrop House, a student residential hall, because he was one of Harvey Weinstein's lawyers. (He has since resigned from the Weinstein legal team.) Some female Harvard students said they felt "unsafe" with Sullivan as a faculty dean.

Alan Dershowitz, a professor emeritus at Harvard Law, said the decision "may be the worst violation of academic freedom during my 55-year association with Harvard." Laurence Tribe, also a professor at Harvard Law, said he could not recall a "worse" blunder in his 50 years as a professor there.

Also at Harvard, all-black graduation exercises were initiated. And like most other colleges, Harvard has long allowed an all-black student dorm to exist on campus.

If nothing else, this provides additional proof of the vast difference between liberalism and leftism. That is why liberals such as Dershowitz, Tribe and numerous liberal writers have condemned Harvard's cowardly capitulation to a few female students. Unfortunately for America, however, most liberals will not confront the fact that they have far more to fear from the left than from the right. Conservatives are not the enemy of liberalism; the left is.

In Minnesota, some students at South St. Paul Secondary petitioned the administration to allow students to wear sashes – stoles – with ethnic and LGBT colors to celebrate their identities. As one student said in leftist English, "I'm able to repurpose what was once an obstacle into a source of energy and pride."

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/are-you-sure-you-want-to-play-russian-roulette-with-your-childs-values/

Iraq sending teams to Tehran, Washington to 'halt tension' between two sides: Prime Minister

Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi says his country is set to send delegations to the US and Iran to help “halt tension” between the two sides amid growing concerns over a military conflict as Washington ratchets up its belligerent rhetoric against Tehran and builds up its military presence in the region.

“Iraq has high-level contacts (with both parties), and its vision is very close to that of the European Union, which seeks to settle the crisis in the region,” Abdul Mahdi said at a weekly press briefing in the capital Baghdad on Tuesday.

“US and Iranian officials have assured us that they do not want to go to war,” he pointed out.

Abdul Mahdi added, “Iraq is in the stage of transferring messages between Washington and Tehran. It tries to defuse crisis between the two sides. It is our responsibility to defend Iraq and its people, and ensure security in the face of the threat of war.”

He went on to say that there were no Iraqi groups that wanted to push towards a war between Tehran and Washington.

https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/05/21/596527/Iraq-sending-teams-to-Tehran-Washington-to-halt-tension-between-two-sides-Prime-Minister

Bill to stop Netanyahu corruption indictment reaches Knesset

The immunity bill comes after Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit recommended to indict Netanyahu for three counts of fraud and breach of trust and one of bribery, pending a pre-indictment hearing.

The Knesset officially listed legislation this week meant to grant Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and all MKs immunity from criminal proceedings, after it was submitted by Likud MK Miki Zohar.

The initiative came days after Netanyahu’s office denied the immunity bill would be included in coalition agreements, though that does not preclude the coalition from passing it anyway.

Zohar rebuffed accusations that he is doing Netanyahu’s bidding in submitting the bill. “The prime minister blocked the immunity bill in the last Knesset,” said Zohar. “He said he’s not interested, which is why I was not successful in promoting it.”

Speaking at the opening of a Knesset House Committee meeting, Zohar noted that the passage of the bill “is not part of coalition negotiations. I am trying to convince the prime minister to support it in the current Knesset… We are sick of political persecution, and therefore, the immunity bill is right and I plan to try to promote it even without instructions from Netanyahu.”

Blue and White MK Pnina Tamano-Shata retorted: “Citizens aren’t allowed to steal, but MKs are.”

Zohar’s remarks sparked a heated debate in the House Committee meeting, which convened on a different matter entirely: canceling the 18-minister limit in the size of a government.

The immunity bill comes after Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit recommended to indict Netanyahu for three counts of fraud and breach of trust and one of bribery, pending a pre-indictment hearing.

Zohar argued that Netanyahu’s case proves the necessity of his bill, because “this is the first time someone is being accused of bribery without putting an agora in his pocket. I have two law degrees and I know the legal definition of a bribe.”

The legislation – which Zohar proposed last month, but was only put in the Knesset’s public database on Monday – is identical to one he submitted late last year, which states that “an MK will not be put on trial for crimes committed while he was an MK or before he was an MK, unless his immunity was removed for the accusation being discussed.”

Immunity would not apply to traffic violations and cases in which the law states that the punishment is to pay a fine.

If someone was under indictment when he or she is elected to the Knesset, all criminal proceedings would stop from the time he or she becomes an MK. For an MK’s immunity to be revoked, the attorney-general would have to submit a request with the indictment to the Knesset House Committee, which would then bring it to a vote before the entire Knesset.

https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Bill-to-stop-Netanyahu-corruption-indictment-reaches-Knesset-590308

Israel and the war on Iran

An American-led war on Iran is still a possibility, despite the fact that US President Donald Trump has openly expressed his lack of enthusiasm for it now, in contrast to his National Security Advisor John Bolton. Israel comes to mind in this instance, despite the unlikely possibility of Israel participating directly in a military confrontation, especially after Washington explicitly asked Israel not to interfere in the event of a war. This is similar to the position during the second Gulf War in 1991.

However, Israel is an influential factor in the US escalation against Iran. No one can ignore the satisfaction and joy of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government at Trump’s more hostile policies towards Iran — which have not been without incitement by the Israeli Prime Minister — compared to those of his predecessor Barack Obama. Trump took the US out of the nuclear deal with Iran, and then designated the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terrorist organisation, before imposing sanctions on Iranian oil.

Netanyahu believes that Iran is at the heart of the challenge posed by Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the other resistance groups. For him, tackling the perceived Iranian threat is a priority because it is the spearhead and supporter of Hamas; if it is weakened and reined in, he thinks, Hamas can be dealt with more easily. However, despite the importance of the support that the movement and other groups receive from Iran, Hamas and Islamic Jihad have managed to develop their own capabilities and have adapted to the siege conditions. They have already passed the self-formation phase

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190521-israel-and-the-war-on-iran/