(Blog editor sighs in exasperation)
First of all, what divide are they talking about?
Based on their own coverage, it's Trump on one side (almost) and everyone else on the other!! He is literally in the tall grass on this one (it's personal with the Globe), paralyzed, and almost wholly untethered from his administration when it comes to dealing with Moscow (aren't they the ones who are thus untethered from him then?).
So that's how you are going to start it out, 'eh, Globe?
A nice, deceptive, it's all equal on both sides (like the new "war" coming to Gaza) headline??
WASHINGTON — When President Trump directed aides to ask President Vladimir Putin of Russia to the White House this fall, the invitation was his latest attempt to use personal diplomacy in the pursuit of better relations with the Kremlin, but it was also at odds with other moves that served as blunt reminders that the national security establishment appears to be following a radically different Russia policy than the commander in chief.
You mean the US establishment that remains deeply suspicious of Russia, and that is, for lack of a better term, a DEEP STATE?
For example, the Pentagon declared Friday that it would provide $200 million in assistance to Ukraine to help fight the Russia-controlled separatists in the country’s east. “Russia should suffer consequences for its aggressive, destabilizing behavior and its illegal occupation of Ukraine,” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said.
Haven't seen Mattis in print in a while, not since he talked Trump down in Syria. Brought Bolton in right after that, too. The deliciousness of the situation Trump has put him in can't be understated. Bolton is in charge of setting up the meetings with Putin!! Yeah, the same Bolton that has publicly encouraged Trump to keep pressing Russia on election meddling!
Beyond that, it needs to be pointed out that TRUMP needed to SIGN that ORDER for the assistance to be moved, and NYT made it seem like it was Mattis thankfully going rogue! If so, someone in the Pentagon has committed a crime.
Btw, Jim, Russia is NOT occupying Ukraine, sorry.
And a day earlier, the director of national intelligence, Dan Coats, pledged to offer Trump a candid assessment of the vast risks of inviting Putin to the White House.
He needs to be fired does Dan "Deep State" Coats after yucking it up with Andrea Mitchell, screaming blinking lights like Tenet(!!), and rubbing elbows with the traitorous gatekeeper and stonewaller Rosenstein (where is Jeff Sessions anyway, and what does the deep state -- alphabet agencies like the FBI, CIA, NSA, DoJ, all collecting data -- have on him, Nancy Pelosi?)
No wonder Coats is tiptoeing around the sh*tpile in which he now finds himself. What is Coats even doing in Aspen at a conference that was sponsored by Lockheed and Microsoft (or did you miss the corporate logos in the background)?
I'll let you wrestle with that one as the only one denying the “deep state” conspiracy now is the Globe (I can see why they would want to get Jordan. He's a bulldog against the Deep State coverups and shenanigans and constantly calling them out and needs to be removed from office. Where is Hastert these days anyway?).
The disconnect between the policies aimed at curbing Russia and the president’s position has never been wider, a gap that presents serious risks, current and former US officials said.
“If you are not clear about what the policy is, you are going to have an ineffective government,” said John Sipher, a 28-year veteran of the CIA who served in Moscow in the 1990s and later ran the agency’s Russia program for three years. “It is worse than that. Parts of the government are working at cross-purposes to each other.”
Seriously, a CIA agent named Sipher?
That's his CIA code name, right?
He just confirmed your deep state, and beneath it all the Zionist war agenda advances.
Talk about treason! He's the president of the United States, the chief diplomat in foreign relations per the Constitution. The "government" isn't supposed to be working at cross purposes from him. Do they even know what the law is regarding treason?
Next time stop him from going to war, Congre$$. Do your damn duty rather than acting like AIPAC's poodle (and once again, Globe, they did NOT annex Crimea and forget the history of US meddling in foreign elections -- including in Russia. The hypocrisy is gagging)!
Meanwhile, look at who behaved treasonously this past week as he saluted an accused war criminal and spent time with friends in a country still struggling with deep economic inequality 24 years after the end of white minority rule (they now have an elite black cla$$ to match them).
In administration strategy documents, NATO communiqués, and other official orders, Russia is called a growing threat, a potential or actual adversary intent on undermining democratic institutions of the United States and its allies. The Trump administration has imposed sanctions on Russia’s elite, and the special counsel has indicted about two dozen Russians on charges of interfering with the 2016 presidential election, but, “the combination of the president’s repeated attacks on NATO, his repeated failure to hold Putin accountable for the 2016 assault on our elections and his refusal to call Putin out regarding the current efforts to subvert the midterms all raise legitimate questions about what is going on with the president,” said David Laufman, the former chief of the Justice Department’s counterintelligence and export control section.
I'd laugh over Laufman but..... sigh.
It was a sweeping Kremlin conspiracy called Crimson Hexagon, and as the “evidence is mounting, it is clearly there, that another country — let’s be honest, Russia — exercised its influence to undermine this country’s democracy and indeed this country’s security.”
Of course, the Globe is providing the obligatory disclaimers (OMG, in all the years I have been reading their slop I have NEVER, EVER SEEN THAT in a "report!").
Maybe if they say troll factory enough we will start to believe in the man whose office is adorned with a confederate flag, Trump pictures, and souvenirs and a talking pen that parrots famous Trump quotations (I sure do like the one saying, "I would rather take a political risk in pursuit of peace than to risk peace in pursuit of politics," and you have to ask yourself if the Russians would really be so obvious and sloppy. It looks more like a CIA or Mossad operation!).
Still, the question remains: why would the Russians want to ‘‘sow discord and divisiveness amongst the American people’’ when we have a pre$$ that already does that?
Adding to the difficulty of deciphering American policy toward Moscow is the fact that Trump seems to have told relatively few people about what he and Putin discussed at their one-on-one meeting in Helsinki on Monday.
Trump just echoed all of Putin's empty words as he misspoke, and they don't care when it is the Bilderberg gathering or when Kushner and Greenblatt disappear behind closed doors with Bibi (of whom Putin, according to Trump, is a fan). Heck, my jew$media doesn't even bother to report it.
Coats said he didn’t know what went on in the summit, and other national security officials said they were in the dark as well. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday he had spoken to the president about the meeting, but Trump has not shared his thoughts widely with the government.
He doesn't have to share his thoughts!
I know he yielded to intense criticism to protect McFaul and CIA agent of subversion Bill Browder (and his gifting of $400K to the 2016 Clinton campaign), but he still doesn't accept their findings (and why would he?).
Why isn't the mutual legal assistance treaty between the two countries (signed by Clinton and Yeltsin) being adhered to? Where is the discussion of Browder's role behind the Magnitsky Act? The investigation of the Clinton-paid for and funded through GPS Fusion Steele dossier that was used to gain a FISA warrant to spy on the Trump campaign and transition? The deal they cut for Israel’s security?
Related:
"Israel has refrained from taking sides in Syria’s seven-year-long civil war, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has indicated he does not object to the government’s return to southwest Syria — as long as Israel’s archenemies Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah stay clear of the frontier....."
I'm sorry. I must have misconstrued the effect and intent of the intermittent Israeli airstrikes on Syria (where did those fighters go anyway?). Must be why they have gone defensive now.
As for Lebanon..... who is in the driver's seat again (Putin won from the moment they sat down)?
In other administrations, such a meeting would have produced a plethora of diplomatic cables as well as briefings for national security officials or lawmakers, according to former officials.
“At this point, all I have heard is crickets,” said Eric S. Edelman, a former undersecretary of defense for policy in the George W. Bush administration.
I can see why people call it the Jew York Times. Jesus!
Seeking to clear up one aspect of the confusion, the White House said Friday it ‘‘is not considering supporting’’ a proposal by Putin for a referendum in eastern Ukraine in the aftermath of Trump’s meeting with the Russian president.
Anatoly Antonov, Russia’s ambassador to the United Sates, revealed Friday that the two leaders had discussed the possibility of a referendum on separatist-leaning eastern Ukraine’s future during their Helsinki summit.
Like the one Crimea held?
Antonov’s disclosure had raised new concerns in the United States.
Also, on Thursday, the White House said Trump ‘‘disagrees’’ with Putin’s offer to allow US questioning of 12 Russians who have been indicted for election interference in exchange for Russian interviews with the former US ambassador to Russia and other Americans the Kremlin accuses of unspecified crimes. Trump initially had described the idea as an ‘‘incredible offer.’’
The timing of that was suspicious, as if the “deep state” conspiracy behind the special counsel inquiry and the political forces opposed to a rapprochement had timed the release to “spoil the atmosphere” before the summit, because the "indictment did not include any accusations that the Russian efforts succeeded in influencing the election results, nor evidence that any of Trump’s advisers knowingly coordinated with the Russian campaign. Still, the indictment added curious new details to the events leading up to the November 2016 elections," like the Roger Stone BS (a man who called himself Henry Greenberg?). No proof of any Russian hacking or anything, just what looks like an ‘‘FBI sting operation.’’
And then, as if on cue we are told that "US prosecutors charged a Russian woman who tried to broker a pair of secret meetings between Trump and Putin during the campaign. Working at the behest of a Russian government official and with help from an unidentified US political operative, Maria Butina worked to infiltrate US organizations as a way to secretly advance Russian interests, prosecutors said. As part of that effort, she tried to establish “back channel” lines of communication with US politicians, according to court records. “These lines could be used by the Russian Federation to penetrate the US national decision-making apparatus to advance the agenda of the Russian Federation,” an FBI agent wrote in court documents.....
Oh, yeah?
Which FBI agent, and was he really up to the job?
A Russian woman charged with secretly acting on Moscow’s behalf was working as a covert agent in the United States and was recently in contact with a suspected Russian intelligence official as part of a “yearslong” conspiracy, prosecutors said on Wednesday. They described a double life in which the woman, Maria Butina, studied at American University and dated a Republican operative from South Dakota, but secretly stayed in contact with a high-ranking official in Moscow and took part in the romance simply as part of the job. She offered sex to another American in “exchange for a position within a special interest organization,” prosecutors wrote. “The defendant is considered to be on par with other covert Russian agents,” prosecutors said. Butina was arrested on Sunday in Washington and accused of being an unregistered foreign agent of Russia.
That's it?
Washington is crawling with those!
Her exploits in the United States were believed to be directed by Alexander Torshin, the deputy governor of the Russian central bank who has ties to the country’s security services.
Believed to be?
Reads like a pretty weak indictment then!
One might wonder why it was brought at all!
“The defendant’s covert influence campaign involved substantial planning, international coordination, and preparation,” prosecutors wrote. FBI agents said they discovered evidence that she had contact information for officials thought to be employed by the FSB, Russia’s domestic intelligence agency.
Thought to be?
As part of the investigation, FBI agents discovered messages between Butina and the official believed to be Torshin in March 2017.
Believed to be?
In one instance, he praised Butina after a series of articles were published about her, likening her to Anna Chapman, another redheaded Russian woman arrested along with others by the FBI in 2010 and charged with being unregistered foreign agents. Chapman was accused of working for Russia’s foreign intelligence service and was later sent to Russia as part of a prisoner swap....."
See:
Russian Coneheads
Israel's Russian Spy Stories
Russians Coming Or Going?
Spy Swap
Stupid Spy Stories
Did you see who wrote it?
Same old Globe! They think the Soviet Union still exists!!
How is that investigation of Kushner going, btw (or Schneiderman, for that matter!)?
The White House backtracking came just before the Senate voted overwhelmingly against the proposal. It was Congress’s first formal rebuke of Trump’s actions from the summit and its aftermath.
Asked about the Putin invitation to Washington, Senator Dan Sullivan, Republican of Alaska, said, ‘‘I wouldn’t do it.’’
Well, YOU are NOT PRESIDENT!
House minority leader Nancy Pelosi on Friday urged House Speaker Paul Ryan to make it clear that Putin won’t be invited to address Congress if he comes to Washington. Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong said Putin should not expect an invitation.....
The applause for Netanyahu took the roof off, remember?
Not as much for Macron, but you know..... the hierarchal pyramid of elite world leadership and the political lackeys.
--more--"
What the hubbub is really all about is softening and cracking the shell of an alliance between Russia and China for a go at Iran. Palestine and Persia must be sacrificed to make Zionist Jewry come to heel. That's what Helsinki was really about.
Of course, Trump still needs to be careful. We all know what happens when you take on the banks (and apparently, so does he).
UPDATE: The Russians just invaded Sweden!
Btw, who lost Turkey?
I'm sure Russia is responsible for the troubles in Montenegro and and Macedonia, too. Before you know it they will be shelling the Atlantic seaboard.
"Israel strikes Gaza after shots fired at soldiers" Associated Press July 20, 2018
GAZA CITY — Israel carried out ‘‘wide-scale’’ airstrikes and deployed tanks against militant sites in Gaza, killing four Palestinians on Friday after gunmen shot at soldiers near the border, officials said.
Israel’s military said it struck eight Hamas positions after its soldiers came under fire. It later said ‘‘fighter jets commenced a wide-scale attack against Hamas military targets throughout the Gaza Strip.’’
The military had not commented on the condition of the soldiers shot but described the attack as ‘‘severe.’’
It said ‘‘Hamas chose to escalate the security situation and will bear the consequences for its actions.”
The Gaza Health Ministry said four Palestinians were killed. Hamas, the militant Islamic organization that rules Gaza, said three of the Palestinians killed were members of the group. Gaza media reported that gunmen had fired mortars toward the border.
Earlier Friday, Israel’s Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman visited Sderot, an Israeli town near Gaza that has been hard hit by Palestinian rockets over the years. ‘‘The heads of Hamas are forcibly leading us to a no-choice situation in which we will need to embark on wide and painful military operation,’’ Lieberman said.
If nothing else, they have telegraphed and given fair warning of the upcoming occupation and slaughter.
--more--"
Now Israel's softening up of them last weekend makes a lot of sense, as well as the preparations for invasion this past week.
That's why they just enshrined Jewish supremacism as the law of the land:
"Passage of the law demonstrated the ascendancy of ultranationalists in Israel’s government, who have been emboldened by the gains of similarly nationalist and populist movements in Europe and elsewhere, as Netanyahu has increasingly embraced illiberal democracies like that of Hungary — whose far-right prime minister, Viktor Orban, arrived in Jerusalem for a friendly visit only hours before the vote.
Good Lord, they are all in it together! Right, left, they all bow to Zionist power. Even Putin is a fan of Bibi, from what I have heard.
Notice how the Zionist militants are called ultranationalists?
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, the most right-wing and religious coalition in Israel’s 70-year history, has sought to exercise more control over the news media, erode the authority of the Supreme Court, curb the activities of left-wing advocacy groups, press ahead with moves that amount to de facto annexation of parts of the West Bank, and undermine police by trying to thwart or minimize the effect of multiple corruption investigations against the prime minister, but none of these expressions of raw political power has carried more symbolic weight than the new basic law.
And “symbolism is important.”
Don't expect a rebuke of that move, nor the haranguing of Israel by the AmeriKan pre$$ over their annexations. Looks like Gaza is next.
“This is a defining moment in the annals of Zionism,” Netanyahu said after the bill was enacted in the early morning after hours just before the Knesset went into summer recess. If the new law was meant to give expression to Israel’s national identity, it exposed and further divided an already deeply fractured society.....”
Awwww, poow Iswael!
His defining moment is the beginning of its own self-destruction!
And think of this: unlike the migrants into Europe, Palestinians will literally have nowhere to go. They can't fly out, nor will they even be able to get out on a duck boat (oh, the children!) due to the tightening of Israel's naval blockade.
Does make you understand that the migrations in the western and eastern hemispheres are allowed to happen by governments as they assist "humanitarian nonprofits."
UPDATE: Hamas accepts cease-fire after massive Israeli Gaza strikes
Related:
"14 in Afghan family die in US airstrike" by Najim Rahim New York Times July 20, 2018
KUNDUZ, Afghanistan — Fourteen members of a family, including three small children, were killed in northern Afghanistan when a US airstrike destroyed their home, several Afghan officials confirmed Friday.
In what has become a familiar situation, particularly in Taliban-dominated Kunduz province, Afghan and US officials had initially denied that any civilians had been killed in the strike Thursday, claiming the victims were Taliban fighters.
Then the bodies of 11 women and children appeared at the hospital in Kunduz City, about 4 miles from the site of the attack in Chardara district. The Taliban do not have female fighters and the children were very young.
Soon after the attack, district officials described the incident as an airstrike that went wrong, in which only civilians were killed.
“There were 12 killed and one wounded by American jets in Chardara district, and all casualties are civilians,” said Abdul Karim, the local police chief. Two other children were later counted as dead because they were known to have been in the house, although their remains could not be found in the rubble, residents and relatives said.
A local resident, Rahimullah, 26, drove the tractor used to excavate the bombed house and pull out the bodies. “I don’t know why they attack civilians,” he said. “I lost my nephews, Farid and Zainullah.” (Rahimullah uses only one name, which is common in Afghanistan).
On Friday, the United Nations office in Kabul called the reports “credible” and said it was investigating.
Farther from the scene, however, military officials dismissed the possibility of civilian fatalities.
The executive officer of an Afghan army unit on the front line in Chardara did not mince words. “It is propaganda by the enemy,” the officer, Major Saifuddin Azizi of the 10th commando battalion, said.
“We deny there were any civilian casualties. Foreign troops are our friends and we don’t target civilians,’’ Azizi said. “When the foreign troops decide to attack somewhere, first of all they check everything and then they launch the operation.”
If there were any civilian casualties, Azizi said, the Taliban must have attacked the victims with rockets.
You mean, like a false flag attack?
In Kabul, Lieutenant Colonel Martin L. O’Donnell, a US military spokesman, was also unequivocal. “US forces did conduct strikes in support of Afghan-led ground operations in Chardara district, Kunduz province,” O’Donnell said in an e-mail. “An on-the-ground assessment of those strikes reveals no indications they caused civilian casualties.”
By late Thursday, however, provincial authorities in Kunduz had begun to change their accounts, as angry relatives besieged their offices.
AHA!
Another FORCED ADMISSION in an NYT PIECE!
Villagers shared cellphone photographs of the bomb site and the victims, and witnesses spoke out. “There wasn’t a single armed person in those homes,” said Hajji Sherin Agha, a local elder.
Nimatullah Timory, the spokesman for the Kunduz governor, retracted earlier official denials. “During an explosion, the type of which is not clear, some Afghan civilians were killed and wounded,” he said. “The governor ordered Afghan forces to help people and investigate the incident.”
OH, MAN!
At the national level, doubt began to creep in. Mohammad Radmanish, the spokesman for the Ministry of Defense in Kabul, said that it had been an Afghan operation against terrorists, but added, “as you know, terrorists use civilians as shields.” He said the defense minister had ordered local forces to clarify what had happened.
!!!!!!!!
Later, the Ministry of Defense circulated a statement acknowledging that civilians had been killed and wounded in the attack, without giving details.
“We are really sad about the incident,” the ministry statement read. “A delegation has been sent to the area to investigate and find out why it happened.” The ministry later confirmed that 14 civilians were killed. There were no reports of any insurgent casualties.
The US military, however, maintained that there had been no civilians at the site.
So they are still denying it!
The event was the third time since 2016 that a US airstrike was blamed for civilian deaths in Chardara district.
On at least six occasions since 2015, US airstrikes in Kunduz have been blamed for civilian deaths.....
Wasn't the last one in April?
--more--"
Of course, all this comes on top of Trump ordering peace talks with the Taliban.
The enemy of my enemy, right?
I'm sure the proximity of Afghanistan to Russia has nothing to do with US troops being there.
Related: Taliban say they have halted suicide bombings of Afghan civilians
Oh, then I was lied to yet again by my war pre$$ regarding the Taliban and the truce as things get worse year after year.
Maybe the new mayor of Moscow can challenge Putin in the next election (he's already got the elderly vote in the bag):
"This Mass. mayor moonlights as a ‘Middle East expert’ on Russian state TV" by Michael Levenson Globe Staff July 20, 2018
Paul Heroux, a 41-year-old Democrat who was Attleboro’s state representative before he was elected mayor of Attleboro last year, appears regularly as a “Middle East expert” on Russian state-funded television, considered an arm of Vladimir Putin’s government, to expound on the conflict in Syria, the Iran nuclear deal, and growing unrest on the streets of Beirut.
Heroux — whose unorthodox resume includes a stint working at a Saudi Arabian bank and a master’s degree in international relations from the London School of Economics — says he is happy to have a platform for his views on foreign affairs, even if that platform is a state propaganda network that most American politicians would not touch in the current political climate.
Over here it is the DEEP STATE and ZIONIST JEWRY that mouthpiece for a media that calls itself the free pre$$.
Critics say appearances by Americans on the network, RT International, only legitimize a platform that pushes Putin’s agenda of weakening Western alliances and undermining democracy.
Uh-huh, and this blog giving you links to crap is doing the same.
A US intelligence report declassified last year called RT “the Kremlin’s principal international propaganda outlet,” and said it was part of Russia’s effort to interfere in the 2016 presidential election by harming Hillary Clinton’s candidacy and helping to elect Donald Trump as president.
“The purpose of RT is to promote the Kremlin line,” said Robert Orttung, a professor at George Washington University who studies Russian media. “It’s funded by the Russian government to get the Russian message out there, and what Russia is trying to do at the moment is to divide the West and undermine democratic institutions in the US just to make democracy look bad.”
I suppose it is better than six Jewish companies control 96% of the media so that they can get Israel's message out.
Sorry to make you look bad.
By appearing on the network, Heroux “gives them more authenticity,” Orttung said.
HA!!
Heroux said his Russian TV hits haven’t bothered anyone in Attleboro, a middle-class city of 44,000 near the Rhode Island border, and he has never been paid by the network or experienced any Kremlin control over his comments, which generally echo Democratic Party talking points in support of the Iran deal and in opposition to Trump’s immigration policies and his travel ban targeting predominantly Muslim countries.
OMFG!
“If CNN or MSNBC had me on, I would say the exact same things,” he said.
Then the Globe is not reporting you, though.
He has not appeared on RT since Trump and Putin met in Helsinki this week, but said Trump’s performance there shows “he’s in over his head.”
A vegan who does not smoke or drink alcohol or caffeine, Heroux readily acknowledges that he does not fit the meat-and-potatoes mold of a typical Massachusetts mayor. He has vacationed in North Korea and is planning his next trip to Afghanistan and Pakistan. He also has three master’s degrees and self-published a 500-page book on American involvement in the Middle East from the end of World War I to the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Heroux said he started commenting for RT in 2011, when he began writing for the Huffington Post and was contacted by the network. Since then, he said, he has appeared on the network three dozen times — using Skype at home or a studio in Providence — and has written for RT’s website.
“It’s gotten to the point where they just call me on my phone and I have them on speed dial,” he said.
Heroux is by no means the only American on RT. Larry King, the former CNN host, anchors a show on the network, as did Ed Schultz, formerly of MSNBC, until his death earlier this month.
Wasn't it Ed Schultz that called Laura Ingraham a “right-wing slut?”
Larry is a Jew, so no kerfuffle.
The network, formerly Russia Today, is slick, sophisticated, and sometimes sardonic, not like crude Soviet-era propaganda, said Daniel Drezner, a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.
Just who is Daniel Drezner?
Isn't that a Jewish name?
Drezner said he appeared on RT once in 2016, when he was assured his comments would not be edited, but that he would not do so again.
“The question is, if you go on a program and you’re saying what you would say otherwise, and you’re not being edited, is that in and of itself fine, or have you legitimized a network that doesn’t always play fair?” he said. “I have my own answer. By and large, I wouldn’t do it,” but Cynthia Hooper, associate professor of Russian and Eastern European Studies at the College of the Holy Cross, said she appreciates RT’s critical coverage of American social and economic problems.
“I don’t think you can say that people should censor their opinions by not commenting for it,” she said. “But you have to keep in mind, it has an agenda that makes us look bad and it will expose hypocrisy in the US in a way it’s not willing to do with its funding country, Russia.”
That's what you can count on here: the free pre$$ won't flog the endle$$ corruption of the corporate cla$$ that lords over us.
Heroux’s appearances resemble many that be might seen on American cable TV.
In one appearance, the mayor and a conservative American comedian heatedly debated immigration policies, complete with indignant sniping.
It's all a joke, folks.
In another appearance, Heroux discussed the global implications of growing tensions between the United States and its European allies.
In Attleboro, the mayor’s side gig as a Russian TV talking head seems to elicit more eye-rolling than serious concern.
“People who see it are like, ‘Oh, that’s Paul,’ ” said Todd Kobus, an Attleboro city councilor, adding that he’s watched a few of the appearances and finds them “a little weird and awkward.”
“They’re so removed from what’s happening locally,” he said.
Richard Conti, another city councilor, chuckled when asked about Heroux going on RT.
“People just accept that that’s what he does and that’s his little hobby,” Conti said, adding that he’s not concerned at all. “I’m fascinated with astronomy,” he said. “What does that have to do with anything? Nothing.”
--more--"
Democrats have no one to blame but themselves.
&&&&&&&&&&
NEXT DAY UPDATES:
"Russia shapes narrative of Helsinki summit" by Karen DeYoung Washington Post July 21, 2018
You jealous, WaPo?
WASHINGTON — Russia spent the past week providing details of what it said were agreements made at the presidential summit in Helsinki, with no confirmation or alternative account from the Trump administration.
Not surprisingly, the Russian story line tended to favor the Kremlin’s own foreign policy prescriptions. Russia has sent formal proposals to Washington for joint US-Russia efforts to fund reconstruction of war-ravaged Syria and to facilitate the return home of millions of Syrians who fled the country.
The war is mercifully over!
Those plans were drawn up in accordance with ‘‘agreements reached’’ by President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to General Mikhail Mizintsev, the three-star head of the Russian National Defense Management Center.
Mizintsev, speaking Friday in Moscow at a meeting of planners from the Defense and Foreign Ministries, said Russia had already begun work on the ground in both areas but that international help was needed. Russia’s US ambassador, Anatoly Antonov, said Syria had been the primary topic in the Trump-Putin conversations.
Meaning ISRAEL'S CONCERNS were the MAIN CONCERN!
It was an exercise in Khazar management!
Administration officials have said repeatedly in the past that no US or European reconstruction assistance will go to any part of Syria that remains under the control of Russian-backed President Bashar Assad. Asked about Russian claims that agreements had been reached, a National Security Council spokesman said: “There were no commitments to undertake any concrete action, beyond agreement that both sides should continue discussions.’’
Babble from Bolton!
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, speaking to reporters at the United Nations after meetings on North Korea, said he was ‘‘happy’’ that Trump wants the Russian leader to visit Washington this fall to continue talks. ‘‘I think it’s all to the good,’’ he said. Some Republican lawmakers have joined Democrats in saying inviting Putin to Washington would be a bad idea.
Russia and Iran have enabled Assad to decimate Syrian opposition forces with airstrikes and ground forces that have been blamed for much of the civilian displacement and deaths in Syria’s seven-year civil war. Withdrawal of Iranian forces in Syria is at the top of the administration’s Iran strategy, most recently spelled out in a major speech by Pompeo in May, and persuading Russia to help accomplish that goal has been a key rationale for administration outreach to Moscow.
He said, and I quote, ‘‘we will crush them.’’
The Pentagon and US allies in the region have pushed back at Trump’s stated desire to withdraw the relatively small American military contingent currently in Syria, where it has organized and armed local proxy forces to fight against the Islamic State. Removal of US forces on the ground, currently about 2,200, is seen as reducing whatever leverage the United States has to press both Russia and Iran.
And there "they" are again!
National Intelligence Director Dan Coats was among several senior national security officials who have said they have not yet been briefed on the Helsinki summit. While Defense Secretary Jim Mattis met with Trump on Thursday, other top military officials are still expecting a readout from the president or his national security adviser, John Bolton, this week.
Pompeo, who participated in an expanded meeting with aides after the one-on-one between Trump and Putin, is scheduled to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday.
Pompeo told Sergey Lavrov, his Russian counterpart, that Russia’s top officials for the Ukraine, Vladislav Surkov, needed to engage with US envoy Kurt Volker over introducing UN peacekeepers in eastern Ukraine, where government forces continue to battle Russian-backed separatists.
Aaaaaaah!
Note that Ukraine was of secondary concern as the neocon plan becomes clearer still!
The White House on Friday rejected a proposal by Putin to hold a referendum to settle the future of that region.....
Like what Crimea got?
After screaming annexation for a whole week you would think the WaComPost wouldn't leave that out!
--more--"
I'm surprised the Globe kept that article behind closed doors.
What a bunch of hypocrites!
"Hamas accepts cease-fire after massive Israeli Gaza strikes" by Aron Heller Associated Press July 21, 2018
JERUSALEM — Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers said Saturday they had accepted a cease-fire ending a massive Israeli onslaught on militant positions after a soldier was shot dead, once again pulling the sides back from the brink of a full-fledged war.
Does my Jewi$h War Pre$$ ever say that about the blood-soaked, militaristic, war-criminal leaders of USrael? That they are militant rulers?
Hamas agreed to the second such cease-fire in a week under heavy Egyptian and international pressure. Even after last week’s cease-fire ended the fiercest exchange of rocket fire and Israeli airstrikes since the 2014 war, incendiary kites and balloons continued to float from Gaza into Israel, setting off damaging fires to farmlands.
In what is known as the Palestinians Air Defense System -- going against F-16s, drones, missiles, and the like. The attempt of being taken seriously by this pre$$ would be laughable were it no so tragic.
Palestinians reacted after their relative was shot dead by Israeli forces during protests east of Gaza City on Friday (ANAS BABA/AFP/Getty Images).
That's all real, and the reason they react that way is because their children are all they have.
Israel has stepped up strikes since then to signal its new threshold for engagement after months of largely refraining to act.
Basically amounting to if any Palestinian farts, burps, or even twitches, then BAM!
The "new threshold" is meant to justify the invasion and occupation of Gaza before it is subsumed into greater Israel. That is the price of Israel's capitulation regarding Assad in Syria.
Israel says it has no interest is engaging in another war with Hamas but says it will no longer tolerate the Gaza militant campaign’s flying the incendiary devices into Israel.
On Friday, a Palestinian sniper killed an Israeli soldier along the border — the first casualty it has sustained in four years — and Israel unleashed an offensive it says destroyed more than 60 Hamas targets, including three battalion headquarters.
The first Israel casualty (at the hands of a sniper, no less) is met with a barrage like that, huh? Disproportionate is too kind a word, and what have those Israeli snipers been up to the last few weeks?
Four Palestinians were killed, of which three were Hamas militants.
The Israeli military said in a statement that the strikes ‘‘will intensify as necessary.’’
Israel’s top leadership convened late into the night Friday at military headquarters to discuss potential actions.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and his defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman, spent hours at the military headquarters in Tel Aviv holding emergency meetings with top officials, a highly unusual event for the start of the Sabbath.
The question is, will they break the law to declare war?
In a brief statement early Saturday, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said the movement accepted the cease-fire brokered by Egyptian and United Nations officials and that calm had been restored.
Later, the Israeli military announced a return to civilian routine along the volatile border.
WTF does that mean?
Things have returned to "normal?"
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Saturday he was ‘‘gravely concerned’’ about the escalation and called on both sides to step back from the prospect of another devastating conflict.
‘‘Any further escalation will endanger the lives of Palestinians and Israelis alike, deepen the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and undermine current efforts to improve livelihoods,’’ he said.
What I would like to note here is I have not seen nor heard one bleat of tepid criticism coming from either the administration, Congre$$, or pre$$. Not an editorial, not a statement, not a thing.
The recent outburst of violence comes after months of near-weekly border protests organized by Hamas aimed in part at protesting the Israeli-Egyptian blockade of Gaza. More than 130 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since the protests began on March 30.
All ancient history now, right?
Israel and Egypt have maintained a blockade on Gaza for over a decade in an attempt to weaken Hamas. The blockade has caused widespread economic hardship in the Palestinian territory.
In times past, that would have been considered an act of war.
Israel says the naval blockade is necessary to protect its citizens from weapons smuggling.
Israel says it is defending its sovereign border and accuses Hamas of using the protests as cover for attempts to breach the border fence and attack Israeli civilians and soldiers.
‘‘Hamas terrorists opened fire today on Israelis. Those are not ‘protesters,’ ’’ Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon wrote Friday on Twitter.
‘‘We will not tolerate attacks endangering Israelis. Under no circumstance,’’ Nahshon said.
Aaah, go plant a tree!
The Israeli retaliation Friday to the soldier’s killing was fierce, but Hamas’s response was far meeker, with just a few projectiles launched that were intercepted by Israel.....
But they can't knock down kites and balloons that come floating in?
--more--"
Oh, sorry, I forgot about the Israeli soldier.
Meanwhile, along the Syrian border..... pffft!
Related:
"At least 10 Iranian border guards were killed by unidentified gunmen near the Iraqi border, Iranian media reported Saturday. The attack took place the night before near Marivan, about 385 miles west of Tehran. The dead were Revolutionary Guard members. The semiofficial Fars news agency said several attackers were killed. The military has previously clashed with Kurdish separatists and Islamic State fighters in the area (AP)."
Gee, I wonder jwho could have been behind that?
Oh, and why all that was happening China has invaded Africa (just ignore that new US drone base in Niger), we lost Vietnam, and there are US destabilization efforts underway in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Brazil.
***********
Meanwhile, I've got clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, and here I am stuck in the middle with you:
"Trump does not appear to put a premium on diversity on the bench. Out of his 44 judges who have been confirmed, only five have been minorities — four Asians and one Hispanic — and none have been black, according to figures kept by the Federal Judicial Center, which is the research and education agency of the judicial branch. Less than one-fourth of the judges have been women. Those numbers put him far below presidents Obama and Bill Clinton at this point in their terms but close to George W. Bush....."
But after Charlottesville, the Bushes were great defenders of diversity despite charges of racist WASPism in the past, and Kavanaugh helped with the Vince Foster cover-up, meaning all the Bush-Clinton skullduggery, from Iran-contra on, shall be buried and protected.
"For George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the idea of crying children torn from their parents’ arms was simply too inhumane — and too politically perilous — to embrace as policy....."
Streamlined that Operation for you, and they had no problem lying us into wars and permanently separating so many families in so many far-flung places.
Of course, that was last week's kerfuffle and now a footnote in the bottom-lefthand corner on page A9.
I wonder what will be causing a storm this week, and what the special counsel’s office interest is in issuing a subpoena to Kristin Davis, a woman who gained notoriety a decade ago for running a prostitution service in Manhattan. What does that have to do with the 2016 campaign and alleged Russian interference? Even if the above story is true (remember, Enquirer scooped the pre$$ on John Edwards' love child), it is nothing more than a campaign violation -- even if Trump lied about it. It doesn't rise to the level of impeachable crimes, sorry, and if partisan media is going to disqualify the pre$$ then the Globe, NYT, and Washington ComPost are out of business!
What I wonder with Trump is how long before we see a horrendous false flag foisted upon him to yank him in line, or even just as horrific:
A Tuesday evening at some point in the near future. Just after 6:30 p.m., breaking news flashes across the networks and cable news programs: President Trump has been rushed to Bethesda Medical Center. Over the next couple of hours, as the talking heads chatter and the news networks scramble, we are gradually told that President Trump has suffered a heart attack and will be subjected to medical diagnoses by experts in their field. The signs were there and the seriousness will grow by the second.
Then, at 9:11 p.m., after looking down at his monitor, Lester Holt will inform the nation that the word is now official: President Trump has died. The official time of death was 8:33 p.m. Eastern time. Vice President Mike Pence has already taken the oath of office and is now the 46th president of the United States.
What will be strange is, like in the immediate aftermath of the JFK assassination, many in this nation will ecstatic that he is dead.
