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Anonymous ID: c84f93 June 5, 2019, 5 p.m. No.6681180   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>1183

https://outline.com/Dsr6Bn

May 20, 2019

 

The Surreal Life of George Papadopoulos

 

This is a story about stories. Most of them are crazy. Some of them are true. I first met George Papadopoulos, the unlikely trigger of an investigation that many thought would take down Donald Trump, on a balmy California day in December 2018, less than a week after his release from federal prison. He wore a gray suit, a white shirt and a maroon tie, and greeted me with a cheery handshake. He asked about my flight and told me how much he was enjoying life in Los Angeles so far. “I thought people might be hostile,” he said as we took an elevator to the Rooftop Grill at the nearby Montage hotel. Instead, “they’re just intrigued. Basically, ‘Hi, nice to meet you, cool story.’ ” We took a seat at an outdoor table, and he ordered a cafe Americano and a “Green Vitality” smoothie with kale, apple and chlorophyll. “It’s L.A.,” he shrugged.

 

His 12 days in prison, he said, were worst before the fact. The reality of minimum-security confinement came as a relief. “You’re expecting you’re going in to get raped and killed,” he said. “I get inside the prison, and the guards are basically mocking my sentence: ‘You’re more trouble for us than we are for you.’ ”

 

He told me that he and his wife, Simona, had found a rental apartment near the Hollywood sign, and he confirmed a Washington Post report that he was running for Congress. “I have some support,” he said. “There’s a lot of interest, actually, in it.” He had his eye on the 48th Congressional District, where a Democrat had just defeated Republican Dana Rohrabacher (“Ro, Roka, what’s his name — Dana Rakaburger?”).

 

In person, he came across as warm, oddly guileless and eager to please. He made boastful claims. (“I was on a first-name basis with Netanyahu for four years.”) He made ingratiating claims. (“As an individual I’m more comfortable with Washington Post people like you than with, I dunno, the Daily Caller.”) And then there was his central claim: that the entire federal investigation of Trump had its origins in dirty tricks masterminded by a group of foreign and U.S. intelligence entities.

 

If you’re among the Americans who aren’t obsessed with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III or dependent on MSNBC or Fox News — that is to say, the majority — you might need to be reminded that George Papadopoulos is the onetime foreign policy adviser to Trump who pleaded guilty in October 2017 to having lied to the FBI about the timing and extent of his contact with a professor who promised to connect him to high Russian officials. This made him an object of cable-news fascination, a man posited by many to be the long-sought link between the Trump campaign and Moscow, the key to unlocking a Kremlin-Trump conspiracy.

 

Although most people stopped believing anything so grandiose about him long before Mueller released the report of his collusion investigation, Papadopoulos, now 31, has managed to (sort of) stay prominent. He has released a book, “Deep State Target,” that lays out an alternate version of events, in which he was set up in a series of traps laid by the FBI, the CIA and foreign intelligence operatives. It has received enthusiastic endorsements on Fox News, where Papadopoulos has become a regular guest, and other right-leaning outlets.

Anonymous ID: c84f93 June 5, 2019, 5:27 p.m. No.6681369   🗄️.is 🔗kun

>>6681363

By Richard Walker

 

A leading Japanese journalist recently made two incredible claims about the Fukushima power plant that suffered a nuclear meltdown in March 2011, sending shockwaves around the world. First, the former editor of a national newspaper in Japan says the U.S. and Israel knew Fukushima had weapons-grade uranium and plutonium that were exposed to the atmosphere after a massive tsunami wave hit the reactor. Second, he contends that Israeli intelligence sabotaged the reactor in retaliation for Japan’s support of an independent Palestinian state.

 

According to Yoichi Shimatsu, a former editor of Japan Times Weekly, these nuclear materials were shipped to the plant in 2007 on the orders of Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, with the connivance of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. The shipment was in the form of warhead cores secretly removed from the U.S. nuclear warheads facility BWXT Plantex near Amarillo, Texas. While acting as the middleman, Israel transported warheads from the port of Houston, and in the process kept the best ones while giving the Japanese older warhead cores that had to be further enriched at Fukushima.

 

 

Shimatsu credits retired CIA agent and mercenary Roland Vincent Carnaby with learning the warheads were being transported from Houston. In a strange twist, Carnaby was mysteriously shot dead less than a year later by Houston police at a traffic stop. He was shot once in the back and once in the chest. He did not have a weapon in his hands. Intelligence sources said he had been tracking a Mossad unit that was smuggling U.S. plutonium out of Houston docks for an Israeli nuclear reactor.

 

In an even more explosive charge, the journalist says that 20 minutes before the Fukushima plant’s nuclear meltdown, Israel was so upset with Japanese support for a Palestinian declaration of statehood that it double-crossed Japan by unleashing the Stuxnet virus on the plant’s computers. The virus hampered the shutdown, leading to fallout from a section of the plant housing uranium and plutonium retrieved from the warheads supplied in 2007.

 

While it is impossible to verify some of Shimatsu’s claims, there was a massive cover-up at the time of the Fukushima disaster in March. Explosions at the site were immediately downplayed. While it was subsequently reported that three reactors suffered meltdowns, Japanese authorities tried to rate the disaster as a Level 4 on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale, although outside experts declared it a 7, which is the highest level.

 

 

 

Something worth noting is how in 2009, two years after Shimatsu says the warheads were secretly moved to Japan, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) issued a veiled warning to Japan not to abandon its anti-nuclear weapons policy.

 

The IAEA had to know, however, that Japan has long retained the potential to build nuclear weapons. That was made clear as far back as 1996 when a leaked Ministry of Foreign Affairs document exposed how Japan had been promoting a dual strategy in respect to nuclear weapons since the mid-1960s. It would often publicly profess a non-nuclear policy while maintaining the ability to build a nuclear arsenal. The Liberal Democratic Party, which has dominated Japanese politics, has always said there is no constitutional impediment to nukes.

 

A factor that undoubtedly would have encouraged the Bush-Cheney White House to provide Japan with the means to secretly build nukes was the growing power of China. Cheney and Bush sought to arm Japan and India with nuclear weapons as a means of curbing China.

Anonymous ID: c84f93 June 5, 2019, 5:57 p.m. No.6681588   🗄️.is 🔗kun

https://news.yahoo.com/netanyahu-appoints-israels-first-openly-gay-minister-194304522.html

 

Jerusalem (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday tapped Amir Ohana as acting justice minister, the first openly gay minister in the country's history.

 

The appointment of Ohana, from Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party, comes as Jerusalem prepares for its annual Gay Pride celebrations on Thursday.

 

"Amir Ohana is a jurist who knows the legal system well," the premier's office said in a statement.

 

He takes up the position from Netanyahu's right-wing rival Ayelet Shaked, fired by the premier on Sunday along with education minister Naftali Bennett after the prime minister failed to form a government following April elections.

 

Netanyahu opted for parliament to dissolve itself and approve new elections, preventing Israeli President Reuven Rivlin from selecting someone else to form a government.

 

Shaked and Bennett had left the Likud years earlier, but their New Right party failed to win enough votes in April's poll to clear the threshold to join Israel's parliament.

 

Israeli ministers remain in their posts immediately after elections, until the formation of the next administration.

 

But Netanyahu's office confirmed their sackings at the weekend.

 

Justice ministry hopeful Betzalel Smotrich, of the religious far-right alliance United Right, said Monday the country should be run according to biblical laws, sparking outrage among secular Israelis.

 

Netanyahu responded by saying "the state of Israel will not be a halakha state", referring to Jewish law.

 

Thousands of people are expected to converge on Jerusalem on Thursday for its "march of pride and tolerance" to support the rights the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) community, amid tight security.

 

In 2015, a 16-year-old demonstrator at the march was stabbed to death by an ultra-orthodox Jew.

 

Israel has presented itself as a pioneer in LGBT rights in the region, but homosexuality is deeply rejected by conservative religious parties whose support Netanyahu is likely to need in order to form his next government.

 

It has also been accused of "pinkwashing", or pushing its reputation for tolerance, in an effort to restore a liberal image tarnished by its occupation of Palestinian territories.

 

Netanyahu's failure to form a coalition was due to strongly secular right-wing former defence minister Avigdor Lieberman's refusal to back down on demands for legislation to force religious Jews to serve in the army along with other Israelis.

Anonymous ID: c84f93 June 5, 2019, 5:59 p.m. No.6681606   🗄️.is 🔗kun

https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-appoints-loyalist-amir-ohana-as-justice-minister/

 

Netanyahu appoints Amir Ohana justice minister, first openly gay cabinet member

 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday confirmed loyalist Amir Ohana as justice minister in the run-up to elections on the September 17.

 

Ayelet Shaked formally departed from the Justice Ministry on Tuesday, two days after she was fired by Netanyahu in a cabinet reshuffle that also targeted her political ally education minister Naftali Bennett. The move was widely seen as a bid to prevent the once-popular right-wing duo from using their cabinet positions to bolster their campaigns ahead of the new national vote.

 

Ohana is a lawyer by training who became the first openly gay MK in a right-wing party when he was elected to the Knesset in 2015. In announcing his appointment Wednesday, the Likud party noted that he would also be the first openly gay minister in Israel’s history.

 

“Good luck to Justice Minister MK Amir Ohana!” Netanyahu tweeted Wednesday evening.

 

Thanking the prime minister, Ohana said in a tweet that it was “a great honor to serve the State of Israel in the role of justice minister.”

 

Ohana is among the only senior members of Likud to have publicly backed Netanyahu’s drive to secure immunity from prosecution in the cases against him. Earlier this year, he struck out at legal authorities over the Netanyahu investigations, charging that judicial officials, who have announced their intention to charge the prime minister pending a hearing, were usurping the will of the Israeli voters.

 

“This is what happens when bureaucrats who are not chosen by the public and don’t have to ask for its trust once every four years decide to take for themselves the reins of the state,” he was quoted as saying by the Ynet news site.

 

Netanyahu is suspected of corruption — including one count of bribery — in three cases, one of which involves gifts from wealthy associates, with the other two involving potential quid pro quo deals for regulatory favors in exchange for positive media coverage.

 

The prime minister has long accused police, the media, judicial officials and the political left of conducting a witch hunt against him, and has denied any wrongdoing.

 

Following Shaked’s dismissal, the position of justice minister reverted to Netanyahu, who as well as prime minister, already holds the defense and health portfolios.

 

Initially, the Prime Minister’s Office said Netanyahu would temporarily assume the mantles of education and justice minister, but that sparked a backlash, with critics saying he could not hold the latter portfolio with an indictment hanging over his head. His office then backtracked and announced that interim ministers would be named within 48 hours.

 

Bezalel Smotrich of the Union of Right-Wing Parties on Monday called on Netanyahu to appoint him as Shaked’s replacement, later saying he wanted to impose Jewish religious law on the country. In response, Likud sources were quoted as saying there was no chance Smotrich would get the position after his comments, which Netanyahu also criticized in a Facebook post.

 

Likud’s Yariv Levin, currently minister of tourism as well as immigration and absorption, has long been angling for the Justice Ministry, but on Sunday said he had no interest in serving there in an interim capacity ahead of the elections.

 

After Wednesday’s announcement, Smotrich tweeted that Ohana was a friend and worthy recipient of the post, but charged that Netanyahu was discriminating against his religious Zionist partners.

 

“But he isn’t the story,” he added. “The story is that Netanyahu wouldn’t treat any of his other partners like he allows himself to treat religious Zionists.”

 

“The time has come to draw our own conclusions,” said Smotrich, who had also demanded to be appointed justice minister in the wake of the April 9 elections.

 

Shaked wished Ohana luck, tweeting, “It is an important and challenging ministry with the most talented staff. I’m at his disposal for any help or questions.”

 

On May 29, the Knesset voted to disband and called new elections for September 17 after Netanyahu failed to build a coalition due to an impasse between the secular Yisrael Beytenu party and ultra-Orthodox parties.

 

Given the seven-day post-election advisory period for the president’s appointing a PM-designate, and the roughly seven-week period usually granted to premiers to negotiate a coalition, Ohana could serve in the position well into mid-November.

Anonymous ID: c84f93 June 5, 2019, 6:05 p.m. No.6681659   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>1688 >>1694 >>1752

https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/5/18652576/youtube-supremacist-content-ban-borderline-extremist-terms-of-service

 

YouTube is changing its community guidelines to ban videos promoting the superiority of any group as a justification for discrimination against others based on their age, gender, race, caste, religion, sexual orientation, or veteran status, the company said today. The move, which will result in the removal of all videos promoting Nazism and other discriminatory ideologies, is expected to result in the removal of thousands of channels across YouTube.