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Report on Russian hacking: ‘Case of fake news & propaganda’

By Annie Machon | RT | December 30, 2016

An FBI and DHS report on Russia’s alleged hacking of the US presidential election provides no evidence and is a case of fake news and propaganda aimed, at undermining the legitimacy of Trump’s win, says former MI5 intelligence officer Annie Machon.

The Obama administration on Thursday imposed a set of unprecedented measures against Russia over its alleged attempts to influence the US presidential campaign this year. The new sanctions were unveiled after the release of the report by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.

However, the document significantly lacks specifics. It doesn’t explain how the two hacking groups described are linked to the Russian government.

RT asked whistleblower, and former MI5 intelligence officer Annie Machon what she makes of the evidence.

“This is very much a case of fake news, shall we say. It seems to serve two ends as well,” Machon said.

“On the day when the ceasefire is announced, which has been brokered by Russia and Turkey – this is a story that will run and run in America, not the ceasefire in Syria. It’s all going to be about these Russians, and hacking the election and things like that. I think this is the first stage – this is why it was announced that the Russian diplomats were going to be expelled,” she said.

“On the second point as well, it is a mass expulsion – 35 diplomats being thrown out of the country with no proof, with no sort of real intelligence. I think that has also been done to gain the idea, to solidify in public’s mind in America that actually Russia was involved in hacking the election. Where has that phrase evolved from? We don’t know. It was originally just hacking the DNC [Democratic National Committee] e-mails. So I think it is a sort of two-pronged attack that has been carried out; that has been carefully announced today to achieve that,” she said.

“One further point from that in terms of trying to solidify the fact that the Russians interfered in the democratic process of America – is part of this ongoing process to try to undermine the legitimacy of the election of Donald Trump – the next president,” Machon said.

The Joint Analysis Report (JAR) on “Russian malicious cyber activity” issued by the FBI and the DHS National Cybersecurity & Communications Integration Center (NCCIC) on Thursday begins with a disclaimer which reads: “This report is provided “as is” for informational purposes only. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not provide any warranties of any kind regarding any information contained within.”

According to Machon, the FBI and DHS are “just covering their backs.”

“They know it’s much rubbish… they are trying to blind people with science, but there’s no real evidence,” she said.

“Running in parallel to this is a more serious investigation that Barack Obama apparently asked the CIA to carry out into this alleged Russian hacking of the election. That report is due to be announced no later than January 20 next year,” Machon said, adding that the timing is “interesting” since it’s the date of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.

The report by the FBI and DHS doesn’t give any warranties, which “points to the fact that it is pure propaganda and they know it,” Machon told RT.

Annie Machon is a former intel­li­gence officer for MI5, the UK Secur­ity Ser­vice, who resigned in the late 1990s to blow the whistle on the spies’ incom­pet­ence and crimes with her ex-partner, David Shayler. Draw­ing on her var­ied exper­i­ences, she is now a pub­lic speaker, writer, media pun­dit, inter­na­tional tour and event organ­iser, polit­ical cam­paigner, and PR con­sult­ant. She has a rare per­spect­ive both on the inner work­ings of gov­ern­ments, intel­li­gence agen­cies and the media, as well as the wider implic­a­tions for the need for increased open­ness and account­ab­il­ity in both pub­lic and private sectors.

December 30, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite | , | Leave a comment

Joint FBI-Homeland Security report fails to prove Russians behind Clinton leaks

By Alexander Nercouris | The Duran | December 29, 2016

In conjunction with US President Obama’s announcement of new sanctions against Russia, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security have published a 13 page report into the Russian hacking allegations.

I think it is fair to say that a mountain has moved and produced a mouse.  To get a sense of the absurdity, consider that the report actually begins with a Disclaimer:

DISCLAIMER: This report is provided “as is” for informational purposes only. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not provide any warranties of any kind regarding any information contained within. DHS does not endorse any commercial product or service referenced in this advisory or otherwise. This document is distributed as TLP:WHITE: Subject to standard copyright rules, TLP:WHITE information may be distributed without restriction. For more information on the Traffic Light Protocol, see https://www.us-cert.gov/tlp. Reference Number: JAR-16-20296 December 29. (bold italics added)

After this unpromising beginning, the report – which goes by the frankly weird title “Grizzly Bear” – provides a summary that reads as follows:

Previous JARs have not attributed malicious cyber activity to specific countries or threat actors. However, public attribution of these activities to RIS is supported by technical indicators from the U.S. Intelligence Community, DHS, FBI, the private sector, and other entities. This determination expands upon the Joint Statement released October 7, 2016, from the Department of Homeland Security and the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security. This activity by RIS is part of an ongoing campaign of cyber-enabled operations directed at the U.S. government and its citizens. These cyber operations have included spearphishing campaigns targeting government organizations, critical infrastructure entities, think tanks, universities, political organizations, and corporations leading to the theft of information. In foreign countries, RIS actors conducted damaging and/or disruptive cyber-attacks, including attacks on critical infrastructure networks. In some cases, RIS actors masqueraded as third parties, hiding behind false online personas designed to cause the victim to misattribute the source of the attack. This JAR provides technical indicators related to many of these operations, recommended mitigations, suggested actions to take in response to the indicators provided, and information on how to report such incidents to the U.S. Government.

Note that the report is solely concerned with hacking.  It does not discuss who provided the DNC or Podesta material to Wikileaks, it does not say that Russian Intelligence carried out the hacking to influence the outcome of the US Presidential election, and nor does it say that Russian intelligence did this in order to swing the election to Donald Trump – all questions concerning which the FBI is known to have doubts.  On the contrary, it is careful to say that it is the US government (ie. the Obama administration), not the US intelligence community or the FBI or the Department of Homeland Security, which assesses that the Russians passed the DNC and Podesta material on to Wikileaks for onward publication in the media

The U.S. Government assesses that information was leaked to the press and publicly disclosed. (bold italics added)

The report provides no evidence that the hacking was the work of Russian intelligence agencies.  It merely states it as a fact

The U.S. Government confirms that two different RIS actors participated in the intrusion into a U.S. political party.

The two “actors” in question are the two groups of hackers known as Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear.  As I have pointed out previously, the claim that these two groups of hackers act for Russian intelligence has so far been based purely on inference, with no hard facts behind it.

There is nothing in this report that changes that, or which substantiates this claim, and nothing in the report that remotely resembles a hard fact to support it. On the contrary as the paragraph I have quoted above shows, the claim is still based purely on inference . That the claim is entirely inferential, and may be based on completely false reasoning, is it turns out also the opinion of an expert in this field.

The rest of the report  – which is to say nearly all of it – is taken up with technical information intended to confirm the existence of the hacking – something which no-one denies happened – and various suggestions for ways to mitigate against such hacking in the future.  Whilst this is no doubt helpful, it is hardly the issue under discussion.  Frankly it looks like padding, made to make the report look longer and more substantial than it actually is.

Even the Guardian has been forced to admit that this is thin stuff.

Security experts on Twitter criticised the government report as too basic. Jonathan Zdziarski, a highly regarded security researcher, compared the joint action report to a child’s activity center.

Tom Killalea, former vice-president of security at Amazon and a Capital One board member, wrote: “Russian attack on DNC similar to so many other attacks in past 15yrs. Big question: Why such poor incident response?”

If this is the sum total of the evidence upon which the Obama administration is claiming that the Russians were behind the leak of the DNC and Podesta emails, and that they did this to swing the election to Donald Trump, then this “evidence” in no way does that. Indeed if anything what the report shows is how confected this whole scandal actually is.

I would add that the complete absence of enthusiasm on the part of the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security for the Obama administration’s attempts to use the claims of Russian hacking for its own political ends shines through the whole report. Anyone with experience of such reports can spot it immediately. This is very much a report produced to order, which does the absolute minimum it can get away with in order to appear to comply with the order.

Interestingly the NSA, the branch of US intelligence which has presumably the greatest expertise in the area, and which has the most information about it, is not a co-author of this report. I wonder why?

December 30, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | Leave a comment

Israel declassifies 200,000 pages of documents on 1950s ‘kidnapped babies’ scandal

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© AFP 2016/ MENAHEM KAHANA
RT | December 29, 2016

After decades of silence, Israel has moved to bring some closure to the hundreds of parents whose children went missing under mysterious circumstances. Some argue the database on the so-called “Yemenite Children Affair” has only been partially declassified.

The 210,000 pages of declassified documents come as a result of three probes into the mysterious disappearances, which date back to the 1950s.

More than 1,000 families – mostly from the Middle East and North Africa, but also from Balkan countries – had since reported their infants being systematically taken from Israeli hospitals, and put up for adoption. The claims never stood up, and the latest effort to investigate the Yemenite Children Affair in 2001 concluded that the children had either died or been buried with the hospital authorities failing to notify the parents.

“The government is now taking action for the first time. [This step] erases the feeling of an opaque and disconnected establishment,” Minister for Regional Cooperation Tzachi Hanegbi told Army Radio. Hanegbi was also the one appointed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to lead the latest effort, which gave the green light for the release of 70 years of testimony and other evidence collected for the Israel State Archives.

“Today we right a historic wrong,” Netanyahu said, according to the Times of Israel. “For close to 60 years, people did not know the fate of their children, in a few minutes any person can access the pages containing all the information that the government of Israel has.”

The bodies of the children were never released to their parents. No other information, including place of burial, was made available, and multiple administrative mistakes have contributed to an atmosphere of all-out confusion in which the conspiracy had thrived.

Some of the parents received army draft notices for their child 18 years after their presumed death.

On Wednesday, a ceremony was held at Netanyahu’s office to mark the release.

Some critics, however, believe there is still more data that could be released on the matter. Nurit Koren, of Netanyahu’s Likud party, who chaired a task force on the Affair, told Army Radio today there were not 200,000 but 400,000 documents gathered over the years by the three probes.

She also pointed out that the documents only cover the period 1948-1954. Evidence, however, shows the disappearances continued way into the 1960s.

“We are obliged to give these families answers,” Koren said, urging the government to release the rest of the documents.

According to official information, the document database will only contain information for those families who had requested to be included in the initiative. Any others who had failed to do so can call the State Archives directly.

Meanwhile, Israeli news website Ynetnews ran a story with the reactions of relatives whose siblings went missing in hospitals, with many of them saying the information in the protocols released was neither complete, nor accurate. Some have accused the Israeli government of a deliberate “cover-up” and even of “mockery.”

“There is nothing new here,” said Yaakov Ben Aba from Rehovot, who lost five siblings between 1944 and 1953, and who believes they were kidnapped. “Opening the protocols to the public is mockery. It’s in order to keep covering up the affair. Instead of opening the adoption files, they are throwing a bone at us in the form of protocols that will not really get us closer to the truth.”

Several people interviewed pointed to inaccurate dates or details of their relatives’ illnesses and presumed deaths, even contradicting the state-released death certificates, while some suggested the “unreadable handwriting” of protocols was re-interpreted and even “beautified” for the release. Speaking of their deep mistrust for the state, several relatives vowed to continue trying to find out if their siblings were actually alive, in hopes of meeting them.

December 29, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

US Appeals Court Reverses Decision on Clinton Email Lawsuit Challenging Kerry

Sputnik – 28.12.2016

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia circuit ruled to revive a 2015 litigation demanding that US Secretary of State John Kerry ask the Attorney General for help in recovering more emails from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private server, Judicial Watch announced in a press release.

“Today’s appeals court ruling rejects the [President Barack] Obama State Department’s excuses justifying its failure to ask the attorney general, as the law requires, to pursue the recovery of the Clinton emails,” the release said Tuesday.

In 2015, Judicial Watch has filed a civil suit to retrieve the contents of the emails Clinton was legally required to return to the State Department once she ended her tenure as secretary of state in 2013. The lawsuit was declared moot by the District Court.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton stated in the release that the recent court decision would force US President-elect Donald Trump’s administration to make a choice whether it wants to move forward with a lawsuit against Clinton or not.

“The courts seem to be fed up with the Obama administration’s refusal to enforce the rule of law on the Clinton emails,” Fitton noted.

Clinton’s use of a private email server and account during her tenure as US Secretary of State for work related purposes, contrary to established rules and regulations, became publicly known in 2015.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted a criminal probe into Clinton non-government email account, but, eventually, suggested filing no charges in the case.

Clinton had erased 33,000 of her emails after receiving a subpoena to submit them, while her closest associates destroyed at least 13 blackberry and related devices used to communicate with Clinton.

December 29, 2016 Posted by | Deception | , , | Leave a comment

100% Of US Warming Is Due To NOAA Data Tampering

By Tony Heller | The Deplorable Climate Science Blog | December 28, 2016

Climate Central just ran this piece, which the Washington Post picked up on. They claimed the US was “overwhelmingly hot” in 2016, and temperatures have risen 1,5°F since the 19th century.

The U.S. Has Been Overwhelmingly Hot This Year | Climate Central

The first problem with their analysis is that the US had very little hot weather in 2016. The percentage of hot days was below average, and ranked 80th since 1895. Only 4.4% of days were over 95°F, compared with the long term average of 4.9%. Climate Central is conflating mild temperatures with hot ones.

They also claim US temperatures rose 1.5°F since the 19th century, which is what NOAA shows.

Climate at a Glance | National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI)

The problem with the NOAA graph is that it is fake data. NOAA creates the warming trend by altering the data. The NOAA raw data shows no warming over the past century

The adjustments being made are almost exactly 1.5°F, which is the claimed warming in the article.

The adjustments correlate almost perfectly with atmospheric CO2. NOAA is adjusting the data to match global warming theory. This is known as PBEM (Policy Based Evidence Making.)

The hockey stick of adjustments since 1970 is due almost entirely to NOAA fabricating missing station data. In 2016, more than 42% of their monthly station data was missing, so they simply made it up. This is easy to identify because they mark fabricated temperatures with an “E” in their database.

When presented with my claims of fraud, NOAA typically tries to arm wave it away with these two complaints.

  1. They use gridded data and I am using un-gridded data.
  2. They “have to” adjust the data because of Time Of Observation Bias and station moves.

Both claims are easily debunked. The only effect that gridding has is to lower temperatures slightly. The trend of gridded data is almost identical to the trend of un-gridded data.

Time of Observation Bias (TOBS) is a real problem, but is very small. TOBS is based on the idea that if you reset a min/max thermometer too close to the afternoon maximum, you will double count warm temperatures (and vice-versa if thermometer is reset in the morning.) Their claim is that during the hot 1930’s most stations reset their thermometers in the afternoon.

This is easy to test by using only the stations which did not reset their thermometers in the afternoon during the 1930’s. The pattern is almost identical to that of all stations. No warming over the past century. Note that the graph below tends to show too much warming due to morning TOBS.

NOAA’s own documents show that the TOBS adjustment is small (0.3°F) and goes flat after 1990.

https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/ushcn/ts.ushcn_anom25_diffs_pg.gif

Gavin Schmidt at NASA explains very clearly why the US temperature record does not need to be adjusted.

You could throw out 50 percent of the station data or more, and you’d get basically the same answers.

One recent innovation is the set up of a climate reference network alongside the current stations so that they can look for potentially serious issues at the large scale – and they haven’t found any yet.

NASA – NASA Climatologist Gavin Schmidt Discusses the Surface Temperature Record

NOAA has always known that the US is not warming.

U.S. Data Since 1895 Fail To Show Warming Trend – NYTimes.com

All of the claims in the Climate Central article are bogus. The US is not warming and 2016 was not a hot year in the US. It was a very mild year.

December 29, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Why the West is Helping ISIS Spread Hysteria Post-Berlin Attack

By Tony Cartalucci – New Eastern Outlook – 29.12.2016

The Washington Post – among others – hit the ground running in the wake of an apparent terrorist attack in Germany’s capital of Berlin before evidence was forthcoming and even before German police arrested a suspect.

A truck plowed into a crowded Christmas market, killing 12 and injuring many more in what resembled an attack in Nice, France where a truck likewise plowed into a crowd killing 86 and injuring hundreds more.

Spreading ISIS Propaganda

The Washington Post’s article and others like it followed the self-proclaimed “Islamic State” (ISIS) allegedly taking credit for the incident. Undeterred by a lack of evidence, the Washington Post and other media outlets – eager to capitalize on the attack to further Western narratives – concluded that the attack was aimed at “sharpening the divide between Muslims and everyone else.”

The Washington Post’s article, “Truck attack may be part of ISIS strategy to sharpen divide between Muslims and others,” would claim:

The claim on the official Amaq media channel was short and distressingly familiar: A “soldier of the Islamic State” was behind yet another attack on civilians in Europe, this time at a festive Christmas market in Berlin.

The accuracy of the claim remained in question Tuesday as German authorities searched for both a suspect and a motive behind the deadly truck assault on holiday revelers. But already it appeared that the attack had achieved one of the Islamic State’s stated objectives: spreading fear and chaos in a Western country in hopes of sharpening the divide between Muslims and everyone else.

The Washington Post’s “analysis” fails to explain why ISIS would target a nation so far playing only a minor role in anti-ISIS operations or the logic in provoking a wider divide between Muslims and the West. At one point, the Washington Post actually suggests ISIS may be trying to hinder the flow of refugees away from their territory toward nations like Germany with open-door policies welcoming them.

In reality, the Washington Post and the “experts” it interviewed are merely attempting to perpetuate the myth of what ISIS is and what its supposed objectives and motivations are.

Understanding what ISIS really is, and what it is truly being used for, goes far in explaining why the incident has been so eagerly promoted as a “terrorist attack,” and why other incidents like it are likely to follow.

ISIS Was Created By and For Regime Change in Syria and Beyond  

The United States government in a leaked 2012 Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) memo would admit that “supporting powers” including “the West” sought the rise of what it called at the time a “Salafist principality” in eastern Syria, precisely where ISIS is now currently based.

The leaked 2012 report (.pdf) states (emphasis added):

If the situation unravels there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran).

To clarify just who these “supporting powers” were that sought the creation of a “Salafist” (Islamic) principality” (State), the DIA report explains:

The West, Gulf countries, and Turkey support the opposition; while Russia, China, and Iran support the regime.

In 2014, in an e-mail between US Counselor to the President John Podesta and former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, it would be admitted that two of America’s closest regional allies – Saudi Arabia and Qatar – were providing financial and logistical support to ISIS.

The e-mail, leaked to the public through Wikileaks, stated:

… we need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to [ISIS] and other radical Sunni groups in the region.

While the e-mail portrays the US in a fight against the very “Salafist” (Islamic) “principality” (State) it sought to create and use as a strategic asset in 2012, the fact that Saudi Arabia and Qatar are both acknowledged as state sponsors of the terrorist organization – and are both still enjoying immense military, economic, and political support from the United States and its European allies – indicates just how disingenuous America’s “war” on ISIS really is.

The scale of the relatively recent attack on Syria’s eastern city of Palmyra took place along a front 10’s of kilometers wide, involving heavy weapons, hundreds of fighters, and was only achievable through immense and continuous state sponsorship as have been all of ISIS’ gains across the region.

It and “other radical Sunni groups” remain the only relevant armed opposition on the ground contesting the Syrian government.

As early as 2007, as revealed by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh in his 2007 article, “The Redirection: Is the Administration’s new policy benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism?,” it was made clear that the US sought to arm and back Al Qaeda-linked militants to overthrow the government’s of Iran and Syria and to do so by laundering weapons, cash, and other forms of support through allies including Saudi Arabia.

ISIS is the full-scale manifestation of this long-documented conspiracy.

So What Did the Berlin Attack Really Seek to Achieve? 

Sidestepping verifiably false narratives surrounding the myth of ISIS’ origins and motivations, and recognizing it as a whole cloth creation of the West for achieving Western geopolitical objectives, indicates that attacks like those in Nice, France, and now apparently in Berlin, Germany are aimed at perpetuating a lucrative strategy of tension in which Muslims are increasingly targeted and isolated in the West, more readily recruited by terrorists allowed to operate under the noses of Western security and intelligence agencies, and sent to wage the West’s proxy wars in Syria, Iraq, and eventually Iran.

While the excuses made by newspapers like the Washington Post change with the wind on a daily basis to explain ISIS’ creation and actions, the West’s calculus – warned about by Seymour Hersh in 2007, documented in a 2012 US DIA memo, admitted to in a 2014 leaked e-mail, and evident amid ISIS’ current, wide scale operations in Syria only possible through substantial state sponsorship – has been singular in nature and evident for years – even before the Syrian conflict began.

As long as Washington and its allies believe it is geopolitically profitable to maintain the existence of ISIS – used as both a proxy mercenary force and as a pretext for direct Western military intervention anywhere the terrorist organization conveniently “appears,” attacks like those in Brussels, Paris, Nice, and now apparently in Berlin will persist.

At any time of Washington and Brussels’ choosing, they could expose Saudi Arabia and Qatar’s role in sponsoring ISIS. At any time of Washington and Brussels’ choosing, they could also expose and dismantle the global network of madrasas both nations – with the cooperation of Western intelligence agencies – use to fill the ranks of terrorist organizations like ISIS and Al Qaeda.

Instead, the West covertly assists Saudi Arabia and Qatar in expanding and directing these terrorist networks – using them as a proxy mercenary force and a ready-made pretext for military intervention abroad and as a constant means of dividing and distracting the public at home.

Were the state sponsors of terrorism fully exposed and removed from the equation, the United States and its European allies would find themselves deployed across the planet, engaged in regime change operations, invasions, and occupations without any credible casus belli.

With the US and its allies determined to reassert and maintain global hegemony everywhere from the Middle East and North Africa to Central and East Asia, the manufactured threat of state sponsored terrorism – sponsored by the West’s oldest and closest Arab allies and the West itself – will persist for years to come.

December 29, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , | Leave a comment

NYT ‘distorted & took out of context’ words of Russian anti-doping agency head – RUSADA

RT | December 28, 2016

The New York Times misquoted the acting head of Russia’s anti-doping agency (RUSADA), Anna Antseliovich, the agency said in a statement, contesting the newspaper’s claim that Russia acknowledged the existence of an institutional doping program.

“The words of the acting Director General, Anna Antseliovich, have been distorted and taken out of context,” the statement issued by RUSADA says.

The agency went on to explain that Antseliovich was actually just drawing attention to the fact that Richard McLaren, the Canadian lawyer who compiled a report detailing the results of an investigation into doping allegations against Russia, used the words “institutional conspiracy” instead of “state doping system” in his latest December 9 report.

At that time, McLaren said at a news conference that “it was a cover-up that evolved from uncontrolled chaos to an institutionalized and disciplined medal-winning conspiracy.”

Antseliovich stressed that McLaren ruled out the possibility of the involvement of the Russian leadership in the alleged doping program but she never confirmed the existence of any “institutional conspiracy,” the RUSADA statement emphasizes.

“Unfortunately, [New York Times journalist] Rebecca Ruiz has taken these words out of context and created an impression that the RUSADA executive group acknowledges the existence of the institutional cheating scheme in Russia,” it adds, stressing that “RUSADA… has no authority to confirm or deny such facts.”

The agency then once again re-affirmed its commitment to the fight against doping and strict compliance with the International Anti-doping Codex and Russia’s anti-doping regulations.

On Tuesday, the New York Times published an article titled ‘Russians No Longer Dispute Olympic Doping Operation,’ in which it claimed that Russia “conceded” that its officials carried out “a far-reaching doping operation.”

In its publication, the newspaper cited Antseliovich, as saying “It was an institutional conspiracy.”

The media outlet also cited McLaren telling the paper that he was pleased Russian officials were no longer disputing his finding.

The article was criticized by Russian Sports Minister Pavel Kolobkov, who said that it is inconsistent and stressed that Russia insists on the absence of any state-sponsored doping system and makes every effort to fight doping.

“There was not, there is not and there could not be any system of supporting doping in Russia,” Kolobkov told R-Sport.

Kolobkov then drew attention to the fact that Antseliovich “is neither a governmental official, nor a civil servant at all,” as RUSADA is not a governmental organization and is not subordinate to the Russian Sports Ministry.

Stanislav Pozdnyakov, a member of the RUSADA supervisory board and the deputy head of the Russian Olympic Committee, also sharply criticized the article published in the New York Times by calling it a “journalistic fake.”

“The quotes featured in the article were taken out of context of the [interview]. That is why I would call this article a journalistic fake, a bogus story,” he told R-Sport, adding that this type of approach does not help solve the problem of doping that “concerns not only Russia but all sports around the world.”

He also expressed confidence that the sports community would agree with him in his assessment of the New York Times article, and called on foreign journalists to “be more scrupulous about the publication of such materials.”

In response, Rebecca Ruiz insisted that she did not take anything out of context and stressed that all the quotes featured in the article are “correct.”

Ruiz also said that she received confirmation of Russia’s acknowledgement of the existence of the doping program from Vitaly Smirnov, the head of the Russian independent anti-doping commission, although her piece in the New York Times does not feature an exact quote that could back up that statement.

Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov earlier told journalists: “It was an interview to the New York Times. One should first check how accurate those words were.”

On December 9, McLaren claimed in his report that over 1,000 Russian athletes – in the summer, winter and Paralympic competitions, including 12 Sochi 2014 Olympic medalists – benefited from the alleged plot to conceal positive doping tests.

It followed another McLaren report published in mid-July which focused on the allegation that the Russian Ministry of Sport took part in swapping test samples in Moscow, also claiming that the Federal Security Service (FSB) assisted in the alleged plot.

The probe was based on accusations made in the New York Times by Grigory Rodchenkov, the former head of the Moscow Anti-Doping Laboratory, who is due in court in Russia on charges of abuse of authority and his own involvement in doping schemes.

In response, the Russian Sports Ministry said “there is no state-run program promoting doping in sport” and pledged to “fight doping with a zero-tolerance policy.”

Following the release of the second part of McLaren’s findings, Russia was stripped of the Bobsleigh and Skeleton World Championships, which was scheduled to take place in Sochi in February 2017.

December 28, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | Leave a comment

Accidental torpedo launch & radioactive leaks ‘no nuclear safety significance,’ UK regulator says

RT | December 28, 2016

Britain’s nuclear regulator is under government investigation for reportedly dismissing several serious accidents as posing no safety risk.

The government launched the investigation after a report by the Times revealed the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) has ignored serious mistakes at power plants and military bases, including the accidental discharge of a torpedo at a nuclear submarine base.

Experts accuse the regulator of being cozy with the nuclear industry and too reluctant “to frighten the horses.”

The Times reports officials at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), which is responsible for the ONR, are investigating the regulator following the newspaper’s disturbing revelations.

The ONR says all of its safety classifications follow international guidelines and insists it is a robust and independent regulator.

However, the rate of incidents deemed to be “of no nuclear safety significance” has increased to more than one per day over the past five years, raising questions as to how seriously the regulator is treating accidents.

Between 2012 and 2015, these incidents included at least 30 fires, a dozen leaks, three road accidents involving nuclear material, and the inadvertent discharge of a torpedo at Plymouth nuclear submarine docks.

Other serious incidents deemed to be of a no concern include the contamination of at least 15 workers with radioactive material and a complete power cut at a nuclear weapons base.

Dr David Toke, a reader in energy politics the University of Aberdeen, said the revelations indicated safety issues were a “low priority” for the ONR.

Nuclear expert Professor Stephen Thomas said the reports reinforced his suspicions that “the first priority for the ONR is not to frighten the horses.”

“Ironically, since they became an independent body rather than being part of the Health and Safety Executive [in 2014], they seem to have got worse,” Thomas told the Times.

“Independence is just a cheap and easy way for government to wash its hands of its rightful responsibility.”

The University of Greenwich academic added: “Independent regulators must be accountable to the public and if it is not through a democratically elected government, who is it through?”

Thomas said the ONR had previously ignored warnings about the safety of tending the lifespan of an old reactor design, the AGR, that is still in use in the UK, as well as the reliability of the newer EPR model reactor, which will be used at Hinkley Point C.

December 28, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Militarism, Nuclear Power | | Leave a comment

Final Christmas Of The Global Warming Fraud

By Tony Heller | The Deplorable Climate Science Blog | December 25, 2016

“Early in life I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper” – George Orwell

Recognizing that their time is up on January 20, 2017, global warming fraudsters have turned the volume up to eleven with fake news that the Arctic is hot at Christmas.

The Arctic is extremely cold, but there is a very narrow band of relatively mild air running along the Prime Meridian across the pole.

https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/map/images/fnl/sfctmp_01.fnl.html

Greenland is extremely cold, and has gained a record amount of ice this year.

http://www.summitcamp.org/status/weather/index?period=1week

http://beta.dmi.dk/en/groenland/maalinger/greenland-ice-sheet-surface-mass-budget/

It was all-time record cold -80F in Siberia this week, as the fraudsters behind the climate scam tell the public the Arctic is “super-hot.”

In Surgut a woman was cycling at minus 43C.

Biting cold below minus 60C brings out the best in Siberian face fashion

There are only 90 days per year when the North Pole can melt, and those dates have been running colder than normal in recent years.

http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php

Heatwaves in the Arctic have been occurring for as long as people have been visiting there.

Actress Sunburned In Heat Wave At North Pole

The Phoenix – Google News Archive Search

Ice at the pole is currently two meters thick, the same as it was in 1940.

http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icethickness/thk.uk.php

In 1940, the ice at the pole was also two meters thick.

screen-shot-2016-10-29-at-4-05-21-am-down

23 Feb 1940 – THE NORTH POLE

The fake news press has been pulling this same Arctic scam for as long as anyone can remember.  Arctic conditions are the same as they were 60 years ago, and they have been predicting an ice-free Arctic for as long as anyone can remember.

screen-shot-2016-10-29-at-4-28-17-am-down

The Changing Face of the Arctic; The Changing Face of the Arctic – The New York Times

December 26, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

‘US mercenaries stumbling block to peace in Syria’

Press TV – December 25, 2016

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Russian President Vladimir Putin have held their third telephone conversation over the past month. They exchanged views about the latest developments in Syria, particularly since the full liberation of the strategic city of Aleppo from the grip of militants. The two presidents also stressed the importance of boosting cooperation to help resume dialogue among all Syrian factions to find a political solution to the nearly six-year-long crisis.

In an interview with Press TV, Max Igan, radio host and political commentator, cast doubt on the likelihood of a successful peace negotiation between Syrian opposition groups and the government, asserting that many of these groups are not genuine opposition groups.

“It would be really good if this would happen but getting all groups to attend is going to be a problem. Also the problem is what these groups are and where they’re coming from, [and] who’s funding them,” the analyst said.

“It is all very well to have groups with some sort of political ideology attend, but when you have groups such as many of these terrorist forces [which] are in fact a mercenary army, they are going to go where the money leads them. They’re just going to do what they [are] paid to do. That is the unfortunate reality of what is happening in Syria,” Igan underscored.

There are rogue elements within the US establishment who have been funding these groups since the beginning of the war in Syria but the government is not in a position to expose them because it’s going to be the source of massive embarrassment for the whole country, Igan argued.

“I don’t think much will come out of this because you’re going to continue to have this underlying force which is funneling money and weapons in there with one clear goal which is to bring about regime change and to get what they want in Syria. The danger is that this could turn into a global conflict. If the United States is not prepared to address this corruption within its own government and root wrap these criminals,” it could end up in a major conflict between the East and the West, he warned.

Since March 2011, Syria has been gripped by militancy it blames on some Western states and their regional allies.

The Takfiri terrorists operating in the Arab country have suffered major setbacks over the past few months as the army has managed to liberate a number of areas from their grip.

December 25, 2016 Posted by | Deception, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

‘Neiman Marcus selling West Bank imports as products of Israel’

Ma’an – December 24, 2016

BETHLEHEM – A major American department store chain has been selling products imported from Bethlehem as products of Israel, despite Bethlehem being located in the occupied Palestinian territory, according to a report from a public radio station in Texas, US.

KETR reported last week that Bethlehem mayor Vera Baboun was “astonished” after she discovered that Neiman Marcus, which is based in the Texas city of Dallas, was selling nativity scenes that were crafted from olive wood in the occupied West Bank town, but labelled as products of Israel.

“This is illegal,” Baboun told KETR. “It’s not Israel. Bethlehem is Palestine.”

“It’s unacceptable … From our side, from the olive wood store and from their side,” she added. “God knows how much we are working in order to keep this a traditional and a national Bethlehemite product. And this is very important.”

PLO official Xavier Abu Eid viewed the case as an attempt to “normalize” Israel’s illegal annexation of Palestinian territory.

“To say that Bethlehem is part of Israel is not only an attempt to normalize the annexation of occupied territory. But it’s also an attempt at fooling the consumers. The consumers have the right to know from where the product is coming. And this product in particular is coming from Bethlehem, Palestine,” KETR quoted Abu Eid as saying.

A Neiman Marcus spokesperson did not directly respond to KETR’s request for comment, and only informed the radio station that their import division was “in charge of making sure all of our imported products, fashion, fur, home goods, etc. are properly labeled in accordance with all applicable laws.”

However, Katrina Skinner, a spokeswoman for the US Customs and Border Protection, told KETR that origin labels bearing the name “Bethlehem, Israel” would not in fact be in compliance with federal regulations.

“With respect to the specific inquiry concerning the use of the marking ‘Made in Bethlehem, Israel,’ the language would be considered not legally marked in accordance with the policy stated in T.D. 97-16 because Bethlehem is within the West Bank,” she said.

According to KETR’s report, Neiman Marcus could face fines for not complying with the regulations, which increase “for egregious violations like undermining foreign sanctions, or for mislabeling products to indicate they were from areas subject to less taxes.”

US policy mandates that products made in in the occupied West Bank cannot bear the label “Made in Israel” — guidelines established mainly to prevent Israeli settlers from using the label, as the US views Israel’s settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem to be illegitimate.

However, the guidelines also apply to products made in the West Bank by Palestinians.

Regulations distinguishing Israel from the Palestinian territories date back to the 1990s. The Clinton administration issued the rules in 1995 and 1997 requiring unique origin labels for imports manufactured in Israel, as opposed to those produced in the West Bank or Gaza Strip.

According to the Palestinian Postal Services, demand from online shoppers for Palestinian products — specifically olive wood handicrafts — have noticeably increased during 2016.

Meanwhile, Palestinian policy network Al-Shabaka reported earlier this year that the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestine has stifled Palestinian economic growth while producing billions of dollars in Israeli revenue.

 

December 24, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

Impeachment: the new plan to stop Trump’s Presidency

By Alexander Mercouris | The Duran | December 23, 2016

As predicted, the campaign against Donald Trump’s coming Presidency continues unabated, notwithstanding the failure of the attempt to persuade Republican electors in the Electoral College to switch their votes away from him.

The objective now is his impeachment, with the most cited reason being the so-called Emoluments Clause in Article 1 of the US Constitution. This reads as follows

No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States: and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.

As is now becoming traditional, advocates of impeaching Trump under this clause also cite in their support The Federalist Papers, a series of articles written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay promoting ratification of the US Constitution. The article cited in this case is Federalist No.22, in which Alexander Hamilton wrote the following

One of the weak sides of republics, among their numerous advantages, is that they afford too easy an inlet to foreign corruption. An hereditary monarch, though often disposed to sacrifice his subjects to his ambition, has so great a personal interest in the government and in the external glory of the nation, that it is not easy for a foreign power to give him an equivalent for what he would sacrifice by treachery to the state. The world has accordingly been witness to few examples of this species of royal prostitution, though there have been abundant specimens of every other kind.

In republics, persons elevated from the mass of the community, by the suffrages of their fellow-citizens, to stations of great pre-eminence and power, may find compensations for betraying their trust, which, to any but minds animated and guided by superior virtue, may appear to exceed the proportion of interest they have in the common stock, and to overbalance the obligations of duty.

This is supposed to the explain the reason for the Emoluments Clause, though it is nowhere referred to in Federalist No. 22, and though the Federalist Papers are anyway no more than journalistic essays, and are not part of the US Constitution.

That Donald Trump’s opponents are already talking about his impeachment even before he is inaugurated is completely unsurprising.  As a matter of fact I predicted it would happen before the election

If [the next President] is Donald Trump, then he will have to contend with the fact that he is the candidate Hillary Clinton, her campaign, most of the political establishment, nearly all the media, and the US intelligence community, have publicly claimed Russia is helping to win. 

How  in that case, if Trump does win, would he as President be able to command the respect and loyalty of the foreign policy bureaucracy, of the intelligence community, of the military, of the media, and of Congress, when they have all been told that he is the preferred candidate and quite possibly the agent of a foreign power?  Would they not see it as their duty to obstruct and disobey him at every turn, so as to stop him selling out the country to his foreign puppet-masters?

How does Trump contend with the insinuation, which will be hanging over his Presidency from the first day if he is elected, that it was only because of Russian help (right down to the hacking of voting machines) that he won, and that he is not therefore the true choice of the American people? Would not Trump have to fear possible impeachment proceedings in the event that he made the smallest mistake, with many Americans feeling that any steps were justified to remove a President who they had been told was the agent of a hostile power?

(bold italics added)

Nor is it surprising that they have latched on to the Emoluments Clause.  Donald Trump is a very wealthy businessman with international connections. Almost by definition that has involved him in commercial dealings in foreign states. There continues to be a quiet drumbeat of allegations that his business was bailed out by Russian banks and that he has some mysterious business connection to Russia, which he is trying to conceal by withholding his tax returns. The fact the FBI investigated this allegation before the election, and found it groundless, needless to say in no way prevents it being repeated.

For the record, though I am not a US constitutional lawyer, I don’t think the Emoluments Clause has any bearing on Donald Trump’s previous business activities or his connections, real or alleged, with foreign states or foreign businessmen or with Russia.

Its wording seems to me clearly intended to defeat bribery, in which a foreign state buys the services of a US official in return for a title or a fee.  This is incidentally the point made by Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 22 in the following words, which directly follow his words which I have quoted above, but which advocates of using the Emolument Clause to impeach Donald Trump who cite Federalist No. 22 seem to overlook

Hence it is that history furnishes us with so many mortifying examples of the prevalency of foreign corruption in republican governments. How much this contributed to the ruin of the ancient commonwealths has been already delineated. It is well known that the deputies of the United Provinces have, in various instances, been purchased by the emissaries of the neighboring kingdoms. The Earl of Chesterfield (if my memory serves me right), in a letter to his court, intimates that his success in an important negotiation must depend on his obtaining a major’s commission for one of those deputies. And in Sweden the parties were alternately bought by France and England in so barefaced and notorious a manner that it excited universal disgust in the nation, and was a principal cause that the most limited monarch in Europe, in a single day, without tumult, violence, or opposition, became one of the most absolute and uncontrolled.

There is a fundamental difference between money transferred as a result of bona fide business transactions – which is all that Donald Trump seems to have been engaged in – and money paid as a bribe in return for a favour from a present or prospective office holder. If anything the payments made to the Clinton Foundation by various foreign citizens and governments look far more like bribes than any of the payments Donald Trump is known to have received.

None of this of course is what the talk of impeachment in really about.  Wealthy men with international connections have been Presidents of the United States before without anyone suggesting that the Emoluments Clause applied to them. The true reason there is already talk of impeaching Trump before he is even inaugurated is because a dangerously large proportion of the US political elite refuses to admit his legitimacy despite the fact he was lawfully and constitutionally elected, and the Emoluments Clause is simply the most convenient tool to hand.

In the short term attempts to impeach Donald Trump face a probably insurmountable obstacle in the form of House of Representatives, in which the Republicans have a majority. It beggars belief that an impeachment bill will pass the House of Representatives against a Republican President who has just been elected.

However not all Republicans support or are sympathetic to Trump.  On the contrary, there is a solid block of Republicans who dislike him intensely. Though Trump seems to have more support amongst Republicans in the House of Representatives than he does in the Senate, should things turn difficult there is no certain guarantee that all the Republicans in the House of Representatives will stand by him.

There is to my knowledge no precedent for talk of impeaching a newly elected President before he is inaugurated. Many Democrats point rightly to the implacable hostility shown to Democratic Presidents like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama by the Republican Party. However in neither case did the Republicans dispute the legitimacy of their election, attempt to lobby Democratic electors in the Electoral College to get them to change their votes, or talk of bringing impeachment proceedings before Bill Clinton or Barack Obama had even been inaugurated.

Donald Trump is going to require exceptional political skill if the four years are not going to be crisis ridden and extremely rocky.

December 24, 2016 Posted by | Deception | , | Leave a comment

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