Аваков о спикере Госдумы РФ: "Очередной русский дурак" - 01/12/19 09:30 from Ukraine News


Аваков о спикере Госдумы РФ: "Очередной русский дурак"

» Аваков о спикере Госдумы РФ: "Очередной русский дурак"
01/12/19 09:30 from Ukraine News
Спикер российской Госдумы заявил, что "национализм и притеснение малых народов может привести к выходу из состава Украины ряда областей"


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Аваков о спикере Госдумы РФ: "Очередной русский дурак" - Центральные новости

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Аваков о спикере Госдумы РФ: "Очередной русский дурак"
Вячеслав Володин (фото — ЕРА)
01.12.2019, 16:30
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Спикер российской Госдумы заявил, что «национализм и притеснение малых народов может привести к выходу из состава Украины ряда областей»
Министр внутренних дел Арсен Аваков заявил, что глава Госдумы РФ Вячеслав Володин своими заявлениями о возможном выходе из состава Украины ряда областей демонстрирует «истинные устремления «русского мира». Об этом Аваков написал в Facebook.
После того, как делегация Украины не дала выступить на форуме ООН по вопросам меньшинств «депутату» от оккупированного Крыма, на сайте Госдумы появилось заявление ее спикера о якобы притеснении нацменьшинств в Украине.
В частности Володин заявил, что «национализм и притеснение малых народов может привести к выходу из состава Украины ряда областей».
«Очередной русский дурак прислал новые стекла для розовых очков сторонникам дружбы с Россией», — так прокомментировал заявление Володина глава МВД Украины.
Аваков намекнул, что Россия все свои акты внешней агрессии всегда оправдывала необходимостью защиты прав русскоязычных, которые якобы нарушаются.
«От себя — господину Володину – говорите чаще! Это помогает нам, украинцам, лучше понимать истинные устремления «русского мира», — написал Аваков.
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Аваков о спикере Госдумы РФ: "Очередной русский дурак" - Google Search

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50 mins ago - Спикер российской Госдумы заявил, что "национализм и притеснение малых народов может привести к выходу из состава Украины ...
21 mins ago - Аваков ответил спикеру Госдумы РФ, который угрожал "выходом ряда ... "Очередной русский дурак прислал новые стекла для розовых ...
1 hour ago - Министр внутренних дел Арсен Аваков назвал спикера Госдумы РФ ... “Очередной русский дурак прислал новые стекла для розовых ...
48 mins ago - Заявления, подобные словам спикера Госдумы РФ Вячеслава Володина, ... Очередной русский дурак прислал НОВЫЕ СТЕКЛА ДЛЯ ...
57 mins ago - Министр внутренних дел Украины Арсен Аваков назвал спикера ... "Очередной русский дурак прислал новые стекла для розовых очков сторонникам дружбы с Россией: глава Госдумы РФ Володин сообщил ...
1 hour ago - Аваков отреагировал на слова спикера Госдумы о "выходе ... Арсен Аваков прокомментировал слова председателя Госдумы РФ ...
1 hour ago - Арсен Аваков прокомментировал слова председателя Госдумы РФ ... Министр написал: "Очередной русский дурак прислал новые ...
13 hours ago - Очередной русский дурак прислал НОВЫЕ СТЕКЛА ДЛЯ РОЗОВЫХ ОЧКОВ сторонникам дружбы с Россией: глава Госдумы РФ Володин ...
43 mins ago - Глава МВД Украины Арсен Аваков на своей странице в Facebook раскритиковал председателя Госдумы России Вячеслава Володина, который заявил, что Киев ... Министр назвал спикера парламента «очередным русским ... «Очередной русский дурак прислал новые стекла для розовых ...
12 mins ago - ... Аваков обрушился с критикой на председателя Госдумы РФ Вячеслава ... В своём Facebook он назвал спикера нижней палаты российского ... Очередной русский дурак прислал новые стекла для розовых очков ...
21 mins ago - Глава МВД Украины Арсен Аваков на своей странице в Facebook ... председателя Госдумы России Вячеслава Володина, который заявил, что Киев ... «Очередной русский дурак прислал новые стекла для розовых очков ... написал Аваков. Он также порекомендовал спикеру российского ...
12 hours ago - Очередной русский дурак прислал НОВЫЕ СТЕКЛА ДЛЯ РОЗОВЫХ ОЧКОВ сторонникам дружбы с Россией: глава Госдумы РФ Володин ...
27 mins ago - Аваков ответил главе Госдумы РФ, о том, что Украина может потерять ... Аваков расценивает слова спикера Государственной думы России ... «Очередной русский дурак прислал новые стекла для розовых очков ...
42 mins ago - ... Аваков из-за нашумевшего заявления спикера Госдумы РФ Вячеслава ... "Очередной русский дурак прислал НОВЫЕ СТЕКЛА ДЛЯ ...
33 mins ago - Глава МВД Украины Арсен Аваков на своей странице в Facebook ... председателя Госдумы России Вячеслава Володина, который заявил, что Киев ... "Очередной русский дурак прислал новые стекла для розовых очков ... написал Аваков. Он также порекомендовал спикеру российского ...
1 hour ago - Аваков отреагировал на слова спикера Госдумы о "выходе областей из ... Арсен Аваков прокомментировал слова председателя Госдумы РФ ... Министр написал: "Очередной русский дурак прислал новые стекла ...
13 hours ago - Аваков відповів спікеру Держдуми РФ, який погрожував "виходом ... Очередной русский дурак прислал НОВЫЕ СТЕКЛА ДЛЯ РОЗОВЫХ ОЧКОВ сторонникам дружбы с Россией: глава Госдумы РФ Володин ... Аваков ответил спикеру Госдумы насчет "притеснения малых народов" в Украине.
1 hour ago - Аваков ответил на слова председателя Госдумы РФ о "выходе ... "Очередной русский дурак прислал новые стекла для розовых очков ...
Missing: спикере ‎| ‎Must include: ‎спикере
9 hours ago - Глава Держдуми РФ В'ячеслав Володін черговий російський дурень, ... Очередной русский дурак прислал НОВЫЕ СТЕКЛА ДЛЯ РОЗОВЫХ ОЧКОВ сторонникам дружбы с Россией: глава Госдумы РФ Володин ... Аваков ответил спикеру Госдумы насчет "притеснения малых народов" в Украине.
Минсельхоз РФ опубликовал проект поправок в закон "О зерне", в рамках которых, ... Аваков о спикере Госдумы РФ: "Очередной русский дурак".
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House Intelligence Committee to meet Tuesday to approve release of Ukraine report — National Politics — Bangor Daily News — BDN Maine

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WASHINGTON — House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-California, set a Tuesday meeting to approve the release of a report expected to detail the panel’s findings on President Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine.
In keeping with committee rules, panel members are expected to be able to review the report starting at 6 p.m. Monday, 24 hours before the scheduled meeting. It comes after closed-door depositions with 17 government witnesses and a series of televised public hearings with several of those officials.
The report is expected to be forwarded to the House Judiciary Committee for consideration of articles of impeachment against Trump. The Judiciary panel has scheduled a Wednesday hearing to consider the historical and constitutional standards for impeachment.
The expected release of the report, coming 11 days after the last public hearing conducted by the Intelligence Committee, continues a breakneck pace for House Democrats as they investigate the potential impeachment of the president. While Schiff and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, have not committed to any firm timeline, Tuesday’s meeting keeps the House on a trajectory to possibly approve articles of impeachment on the House floor before Christmas — setting up a Senate trial on Trump’s removal early in the new year.
Democratic staffers on the Intelligence Committee worked through the Thanksgiving recess completing their report, while lawmakers spent the week at home in their districts. Their exact findings are not publicly known, but the report is expected to lay out a case for Trump’s abuse of his presidential powers — that he used the promise of a White House meeting and the withholding of military aid approved by Congress to compel Ukraine’s government to launch politically motivated investigations into his political enemies.
Schiff wrote in a letter to colleagues last week that “the evidence of wrongdoing and misconduct by the President that we have gathered to date is clear and hardly in dispute.”
“The President has accepted or enlisted foreign nations to interfere in our upcoming elections, including the next one; this is an urgent matter that cannot wait if we are to protect the nation’s security and the integrity of our elections,” he wrote. “What is left to us now is to decide whether this behavior is compatible with the office of the presidency, and whether the Constitutional process of impeachment is warranted.”
It is unclear whether Republicans on the committee, led by Rep. Devin Nunes, R-California, will release a report of their own. But they have put forth numerous arguments against impeachment during the two weeks of public hearings — noting that the aid was ultimately delivered, for instance, and that Trump had good reason to question rampant corruption in Ukraine and put strings on any U.S. aid delivered there.
While Schiff has not ruled out calling additional witnesses should circumstances warrant, the completion of the Intelligence Committee report marks a new phase of the impeachment inquiry — one where the investigatory baton is being handed from Schiff to Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-New York. The Judiciary Committee is expected to use the Intelligence report, along with its own findings, as well as those of other investigating panels, to fashion articles of impeachment that will likely be forwarded to the House floor.
One article, according to lawmakers and aides involved in the impeachment inquiry, is almost certain to include what they consider is Trump’s abuse of power surrounding his dealings with Ukraine — a situation that Schiff and others have called “bribery,” specifically stated as an impeachable offense in the Constitution. House Democrats are also looking closely at other articles centering on Trump’s refusal to cooperate with congressional subpoenas and evidence requests — an offense some Democrats have described as contempt of Congress — as well as whether Trump committed obstruction of justice through the conduct detailed in special counsel Robert Mueller III’s report in March.
Nadler on Friday gave Trump a Dec. 6 deadline to decide whether he would take advantage of due process protections afforded to him under House rules adopted in October, including the right to request witness testimony and to cross examine the witnesses called by the House. It is unclear whether Trump will comply. Thus far he has maintained near total resistance to the impeachment probe, decrying it as a politically motivated “witch hunt.”
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Nineteen people killed in bus crash in Russia's far east: local government

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MOSCOW (Reuters) - Nineteen passengers died when a bus skidded off a bridge in Russia’s far east on Sunday and plunged into a river, local government said.
“According to updated information, 19 people died, 21 have various injuries,” the local government for the Zabaikalsk region said in a statement.
Russia’s emergencies ministry said in a statement on its website that the bus, traveling from the town of Sretensk to the city of Chita, 6,320-km (3,930 miles) east of Moscow, fell from a bridge into the Kuenga river at around 0938 Moscow time (0638 GMT).
It said about 43 passengers and a driver were on the bus.
A police spokeswoman told Russia-24 TV that the cause of the accident was being investigated.
Russia’s record on road safety is one of the worst in the world. According to the country’s traffic police, 18,214 people died in road accidents last year. That is more than the 15,000 Soviet servicemen who were killed during the whole of the Soviet war in Afghanistan in 1979-1989.
Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and Susan Fenton

UK fighter jets scrambled in London after flight from TLV goes silent - Israel News

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British fighter jets were scrambled over London after a Boeing 767 that took off from Ben Gurion Airport on Saturday towards the US suffered a communications error.
Hundreds of London-area residents were shocked awake at around 4:20 am on Sunday by supersonic booms from the Royal Air Force fighter jets after the plane lost connection between the pilots and air traffic control, according to Sky News.
Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service stated that it had received "a large number of calls from across the whole of Hertfordshire regarding a large explosion sound." Metropolitan Police stressed that there was "no cause for concern."
The plane that caused the incident was previously a part of El Al's fleet, but was recently sold to a German leasing company, according to Ynet news. At 2:00 pm Israel time, the plane was continuing on its way to Portsmouth in the US.
"Two Typhoon fighter aircraft from RAF Coningsby were scrambled at 0409 this morning as part of the UK's Quick Reaction Alert procedures after an aircraft lost communications in UK airspace," said an RAF spokesperson, according to Sky News. "The aircraft was intercepted and its communications were subsequently re-established."
In February, El Al 
retired
 its last remaining ER-767-300 after 36 years of service, according to Globes. In April, the company signed a memorandum of understanding in order to sell a 767 to a foreign airline whose identity was not disclosed for a $5.1 million capital gain.
In September, IAF fighter jets took part in the 20-day 
Cobra Warrior
 exercise in the UK along with 50 aircraft of various types from the British, German, Italian and American air forces.
It was the first time that Israeli fighter jets were deployed to the United Kingdom and the first exercise of the IAF and RAF of this magnitude.
Anna Ahronheim contributed to this report.

In the Flynn case, DoJ seeks delay

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I wrote most recently about developments in the case against former Trump national security advisor Michael Flynn in “In the Flynn case, you’ve got to be kidding me.” General Flynn is the preeminent victim of the Russia hoax; the case against him was set up by the dirty Comey brigade in the senior ranks of the FBI (including Comey himself), with the assistance of Acting Attorney General Sally Yates. Flynn nevertheless pleaded guilty in the Mueller miasma, apparently to spare his son from prosecution and avoid further impoverishment at the hands of the government he served in uniform for 33 years with great distinction.
Awaiting sentencing on the false-statements charge to which he has pleaded guilty, Flynn now filed a motion seeking previously withheld exculpatory evidence (so-called Brady material) evidence from the government. He needs such evidence to bring a motion for dismissal of the case on the ground of government misconduct in the case. When he makes such a motion, he carries a heavy burden to establish egregious government misconduct.
District of Columbia District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan has all but invited Flynn to withdraw his guilty plea and litigate the charge against him. Represented by Sidney Powell in this phase of the proceedings, he is instead sticking with his motion for Brady material. I have no doubt that Judge Sullivan would allow Flynn to withdraw his plea, but Flynn has not sought withdrawal. Peter Svab has a good summary of the proceedings on Powell’s motion here at the Epoch Times site.
Judge Sullivan has yet to rule on Flynn’s motion. The government has opposed Flynn’s motion and urged the court to sentence Flynn. At the Federalist Margot Cleveland now reports, however, that prosecutors have filed a motion to cancel the supplemental sentencing memorandum due in mid-December that was to be followed by Flynn’s sentencing on December 18. “[A]fter having previously argued stridently that there was no reason to delay Flynn’s sentencing,” Cleveland writes, “the government has asked the long-time federal judge to put both the briefing and the sentencing hearing on hold.”
Cleveland quotes the government’s two reasons for supporting delay (at long last, so to speak). The first ground is Judge Sullivan’s failure to rule on Flynn’s pending Brady motion. Cleveland caught my eye quoting the government’s second ground: “that the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) is conducting an Examination of the Department’s and the FBI’s Compliance with Legal Requirements and Policies in Applications Filed with the US. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court Relating to a certain US. Person[.]” The government further asserts that “the parties expect that the report of this investigation will examine topics related to several matters raised by the defendant.”
You don’t say. Cleveland comments: “It’s telling that federal prosecutors included this added justification in the joint motion to delay the sentencing proceedings. Until now, government attorneys had argued that Powell’s claims of prosecutorial misconduct were unwarranted or irrelevant or both. Yet now prosecutors are tacitly acknowledging that misconduct in the Carter Page FISA case bears on their criminal case against Flynn.” I think that should read “might bear” rather than “bears,” but we shall see.
One can’t help but wonder if a day of reckoning for the government’s misconduct is ever to come in the Flynn case. Our friend Techno Fog offers additional speculations on what the government might be concealing here on his Twitter feed. The case against Flynn is foul. The day of reckoning for the government’s misconduct is overdue.
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‘Poisoner in Chief': Scientist Behind CIA’s Disturbing Mind-Altering Techniques

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Author Stephen Kinzer boasts stunning knowledge when it comes to writing about terror attacks and coup plots. His most recent work, however, seems to be the most hair-raising, focusing on the puppet master behind the CIA’s poisoning and torture schemes.
“I’m still in shock", writer Stephen Kinzer says of what he learned about the horrid experiments conducted by a US government scientist that few know by name – Sidney Gottlieb.
“I can’t believe that this happened", he recounted as his book with the suggestive title “Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control” saw the light of day.
This is a story about Gottlieb’s 22-year career, as the chemist continuously ran mind-control projects that aimed to assist the US in its fight against international communism from the 1950s to the 1970s.
“The investigation of drug effects on ego control and volitional activities, i.e., can willfully suppressed information be elicited through drugs affecting higher nervous systems? If so, which agents are better for this purpose?” the author cited a CIA memo on the project subsequently called Artichoke.
Kinzer writes that in the 50s and 60s, Gottlieb “directed the application of unknowable quantities and varieties of drugs into” hordes of people as he sought the most suitable conscience-altering recipe to effectively mold subjects’ thoughts and behaviours.
Stealthy Doses
Gottlieb has been widely reported to have performed LSD tests on prisoners, government employees, and hospital patients, with many of them kept in the dark about being fed narcotics.
One of the cited examples is the lethal case of a CIA officer who died in a highly suspicious manner after Gottlieb reportedly laced his drink with LSD. He later designed custom-made poisons when his seniors raised the question of “dealing with” a foreign leader, with the sinister doctor finally portrayed by actor Tim Blake Nelson in Errol Morris’ Wormwood in 2017.
However, Kinzer has outlined quite a few new details in his book, the first proper biography of the scientist. For instance, “Poisoner in Chief” depicts the way Gottlieb tried his hand in torture sessions at US military sites and allowed his colleague, a doctor, to give LSD to children.
Kinzer notes that when “Artichoke scientists came up with a new drug or other technique they wished to test… they asked the CIA station in South Korea to supply a batch [of] ‘expendable’ subjects'".
One CIA memo suggested the subjects were needed for the testing of an unnamed but “important new technique", adding: “technique does not, not require disposal problems after application".
On Duty
Gottlieb’s project notably involved foreign heads of state that belonged to the communist camp. According to colleagues cited by Kinzer, he prepared “a pre-poisoned tube of toothpaste” meant for Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, although it was never used.
He also ran a scientific team working on a bizarre plot to disgrace Fidel Castro: believing that his strength was accumulated in his beard, Gottlieb reportedly sought to have thallium salts sprinkled in his boots to make his beard hair fall out, “leaving him open to ridicule and overthrow".
Kinzer believes his 22 years with the agency left a significant imprint on the CIA as it is today: he says there is “a direct line between Sidney Gottlieb’s work and techniques that US agents taught to Latin American security services in the 1960s and 70s".
“These techniques were also used in Vietnam—and then later on to the techniques of torture and so-called extreme interrogation that were used at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo", Kinzer added.
Given an “effectively unlimited supply” of LSD supplied by the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly to the CIA, Gottlieb became perhaps “the most powerful unknown American of the 20th century", Kinzer states.
After the CIA, the father of four tried to reinvent himself, working with children who have speech problems. “Nobody had any idea of what he had done in the past, but he was tormented by it", Kinzer assumes noting that when he passed away in 1999 no cause of death was officially announced.
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News 12 – Home: House Intel panel sets Tuesday vote on impeachment report | Freedom FM Radio Network

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The House Intelligence Committee is wrapping up the investigative phase of its impeachment inquiry after recent public hearings and plans a Tuesday evening meeting to vote on its report.
 News 12 – Home

Mueller report sent to attorney general, signaling his Russia investigation has ended

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WASHINGTON – Special counsel Robert Mueller submitted a long-awaited report to Attorney General William Barr on Friday, marking the end of his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible obstruction of justice by President Donald Trump.
The submission of Mueller‘s report ends his closely watched inquiry – a case that has engulfed the Trump administration since its inception, leading to criminal charges against 34 people, including six former Trump associates and advisers.
A senior Justice Department official said the special counsel has not recommended any further indictments – a revelation that buoyed Trump‘s supporters, even as other Trump-related investigations continue in other parts of the Justice Department. It is also unclear whether a Mueller report that does not result in additional charges could still hurt the president politically.
Justice Department officials notified Congress late Friday that they had received Mueller‘s report, but they did not describe its contents. Barr is expected to summarize the findings for lawmakers as early as this weekend.
Only a small number of people inside the Justice Department know the document‘s contents, but it immediately sparked a furious political reaction, with Democrats vying for the presidential nomination in 2020 demanding a public release of the findings and the two top Democrats in Congress, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., calling for the full report and its “underlying documentation” to be provided to Congress.
Trump‘s supporters viewed the news as an optimistic indication that he was on the cusp of being vindicated.
“The fact that there are no more indictments is a big deal,” said David Bossie, a Trump ally. “This president has had his entire two-year presidency under a cloud of this fake, made-up Russian collusion story.”
[]
Trump flew to his Florida resort Friday, accompanied by senior aides and White House lawyers. Trump did not immediately speak or tweet about the report‘s delivery. Privately, some Trump advisers expressed relief that the report had been filed, but the president‘s spokeswoman and lawyers were more guarded in their initial reaction.
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said the next steps “are up to Attorney General Barr, and we look forward to the process taking its course. The White House has not received or been briefed on the Special Counsel‘s report.”
In a letter to the leaders of the House and Senate judiciary committees, Barr wrote that Mueller “has concluded his investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election and related matters.”
Barr wrote that Mueller submitted a report to him explaining his prosecution decisions. The attorney general told lawmakers he was reviewing the report and anticipated that “I may be in a position to advise you of the Special Counsel‘s principal conclusions as soon as this weekend.”
The attorney general wrote he would consult with Mueller and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein “to determine what other information from the report can be released to Congress and the public consistent with the law, including the Special Counsel regulations, and the Department‘s long-standing practices and policies.”
Barr said there were no instances in the course of the investigation in which any of Mueller‘s decisions were vetoed by his superiors at the Justice Department.
“I remain committed to as much transparency as possible, and I will keep you informed as to the status of my review,” Barr wrote.
After a week of growing expectation that Mueller‘s report would soon arrive, a security officer from Mueller‘s office delivered it Friday afternoon to Rosenstein‘s office at Justice Department headquarters, according to spokeswoman Kerri Kupec. Within minutes of that delivery, the report was transmitted upstairs to Barr.
Around 4:35 p.m., White House lawyer Emmet Flood was notified that the Justice Department had received the report. Around that same time, Rosenstein called Mueller to personally thank him for his work, according to a Justice Department official.
About a half-hour after the White House was notified, a department official delivered Barr‘s letter to the relevant House and Senate committees and senior congressional leaders, officials said.
One official described the report as “comprehensive” but added that very few people have seen it.
Even with the report‘s filing, Mueller is expected to retain his role as special counsel for a wind-down period, though it is unclear how long that may last, officials said. A small number of his staffers will remain in the office to help shut down the operations.
“The investigation is complete,” said Kupec.
Two of the president‘s lawyers, Rudy Giuliani and Jay Sekulow, said in a joint statement: “We‘re pleased that the Office of Special Counsel has delivered its report to the Attorney General pursuant to the regulations. Attorney General Barr will determine the appropriate next steps.”
Giuliani said he did not know if he would get a briefing this weekend on the report‘s contents.
Well before its completion, Mueller‘s report was a hotly debated issue. Lawmakers sought to wrest guarantees from the Justice Department that the special counsel would give a complete public accounting of what he found during the two-year inquiry.
According to Justice Department regulations, the special counsel‘s report should explain Mueller‘s decisions – who was charged, who was investigated but not charged, and why.
Mueller‘s work has consumed Washington and at times the country, as the special counsel and his team investigated whether any Trump associates conspired with Russian officials to interfere in the election.
It is unclear how much of what Mueller found will be disclosed in Barr‘s summary for Congress. Congressional Democrats, anticipating an incomplete accounting, have already sent extensive requests to the Justice Department for documents that would spell out what Mueller discovered.
Five people close to the president have pleaded guilty:Trump‘s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort; former deputy campaign manager Rick Gates; former national security adviser Michael Flynn; former personal attorney Michael Cohen; and former campaign adviser George Papadopoulos.
A sixth, Trump‘s longtime friend Roger Stone, was indicted in January and accused of lying to Congress. He has pleaded not guilty.
More than two dozen of the people charged by Mueller are Russians, and because the United States does not have an extradition treaty with Russia, they are unlikely ever to see the inside of a U.S. courtroom.
None of the Americans charged by Mueller is accused of conspiring with Russia to interfere in the election – the central question of Mueller‘s work. Instead, they pleaded guilty to various crimes including lying to the FBI.
The investigation ended without charges for a number of key figures who had long been under Mueller‘s scrutiny, including conservative writer Jerome Corsi, who said Friday that he felt “vindicated” by the development.
Corsi met with prosecutors repeatedly about communications he had before the November 2016 election with Stone about the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks. In November, Corsi took the unorthodox step of publishing draft court documents Mueller‘s team had provided to him, as they urged him to plead guilty to lying in an October 2018 debriefing. He said his memory had been faulty but he had not intentionally lied and refused to take the deal.
“They lost. They tried to give me a plea deal that was a lie and I exposed it,” he said. “They wisely left me alone. Seven months through absolute hell when all I did was try to cooperate.”
The special counsel‘s investigation was launched May 17, 2017, in a moment of crisis for the FBI, the Justice Department and the country.
Days earlier, President Trump had fired FBI Director James Comey. The purported reason was Comey‘s handling of the 2016 investigation of former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, but Trump said in an interview with NBC News shortly after the firing that he was thinking about the Russia inquiry when he decided to remove Comey.
Comey‘s firing set off alarms in the Justice Department and in Congress, where lawmakers feared the president was determined to end the Russia investigation before it was completed.
After then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation, Rosenstein chose Mueller as special counsel in part to quell the burgeoning political crisis.
The Mueller investigation pursued a number of investigative tracks, including whether the president‘s behavior leading up to and after Comey‘s firing amounted to an attempt to obstruct justice.
As the investigation proceeded, Republican opposition to Mueller‘s work grew, encouraged in part by the president‘s repeated declarations that the investigation was a “witch hunt.”
While those fights raged on, Mueller said virtually nothing. In part because of this silence, political factions tended to say almost anything they wanted about his work. Republicans in the House Freedom Caucus called it a money-wasting farce; Democrats touted every new investigative step as further evidence that the probe was so serious that Trump‘s days as president could be numbered.
In 2018, Mueller‘s office took direct aim at Moscow. Thirteen Russians were charged as part of an online “troll farm” accused of sowing political division and distrust among Americans via social media. Five months later, Mueller‘s office indicted a dozen Russian military intelligence officials, saying they conspired to hack into Democrats‘ computer accounts and publicize the stolen files.
Last year saw much of Mueller‘s time and energy focused on the question of obstruction. Whether Trump or his senior advisers had sought to stop or cripple the Russia inquiry was a key reason that Mueller‘s job as special counsel existed in the first place.
Proving a suspect‘s intent is an important element of any obstruction case, and there was one witness Mueller was never able to get in a room: Trump. After negotiating for months, the president‘s lawyers agreed to submit written answers to questions from the special counsel. Ultimately, Mueller and the Justice Department did not serve the president with a subpoena, which could have led to a fight at the Supreme Court.
Barr‘s letter to Congress revealed Mueller‘s superiors never rejected an investigative step he wanted to take – meaning Mueller never formally sought permission to subpoena the president.
Behind the scenes, however, Mueller and his team continued to hold over Trump‘s lawyers the vague threat of a subpoena up until December, insisting they had to interview Trump to complete their work. Up until January, Mueller‘s team had sought to have Trump answer additional questions.
The Washington Post’s Rosalind S. Helderman, Ellen Nakashima, Carol D. Leonnig, Karoun Demirjian, Rachael Bade, Seung Min Kim and Colby Itkowitz contributed to this report.
Read the whole story

· · · · · · · ·

What Mueller’s investigation has already revealed

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WASHINGTON – He pulled back the curtain on a sophisticated Kremlin hacking operation – identifying by name the 12 Russian military officers who he said sought to sway a U.S. election.
He exposed a Russian online influence campaign – bringing criminal charges against the 13 members of a Russian troll farm now accused of trying to manipulate U.S. voters and sow division through fake social media personae.
And he revealed how those closest to President Donald Trump defrauded banks, cheated on their taxes and, time and time again, lied to deflect inquiries into their ties with Russia.
After 22 months of meticulous investigation, charges against 34 people – including six former Trump aides or confidants – and countless hours of all-consuming news coverage, special counsel Robert Mueller today submitted the long-anticipated report on his findings to Attorney General William Barr.
Barr said in a letter to lawmakers that he may be able to inform Congress of Mueller‘s “principal conclusions” as early as this weekend.
It‘s not clear whether or when Mueller‘s full report will become public – or how his conclusions might impact Trump‘s presidency.
Barr said he plans to consult with Mueller and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to determine “what other information from the report” could be made public.
But through legal documents and court hearings, Mueller has already revealed rich details about the Russian attack on the U.S. democracy in 2016 – and his investigation has triggered unpredictable ripple effects.
The special counsel indirectly helped expose hush money that Trump‘s lawyer paid an adult-film actress, shed new light on secret foreign-backed lobbying efforts and helped force a reckoning at major technology companies over how social media can be used to divide and inflame.
Mueller‘s investigation also severed the bonds between Trump and some of his most loyal confidants, brought down a national security adviser and spawned spinoff criminal probes that appear likely to live on even after the special counsel‘s office disbands.
“He‘s almost like a venture capital incubator who has spun out multiple lines of business,” said David Kris, a former Justice Department national security division chief and founder of the consulting firm Culper Partners. “He‘s shown us an awful lot, and yet I think there‘s an awful lot more to come.”
The special counsel team worked amid an unrelenting onslaught of insults and attacks from the president and his party – ensuring that its findings will probably be viewed through the lens of tribal partisan politics.
While polling has found that more Americans are likely to trust Mueller than Trump, those views break down sharply on partisan lines.
“I think the question of whether you assess it as a success or a failure,” Kris said, “is probably really just holding up a mirror to your own expectations, hopes and dreams.”
From the start of his investigation, Mueller and his team followed a consistent pattern. They would toil in silence for months, saying nothing about what leads they were exploring. Then – often on a Friday – they would reveal indictments packed with more detail than needed to substantiate the charges, though perhaps less than an insatiable public might have preferred.
Mueller struck first at the heart of Trump‘s campaign – charging its former chairman, Paul Manafort, and deputy campaign chairman, Rick Gates, with crimes related to their work for a pro-Russian candidate in Ukraine.
The infractions Mueller alleged were not related to possible coordination with Russia, a fact Trump and his allies were quick to seize on. But the October 2017 indictment sent a message: Mueller was alleging that the president‘s campaign had been led by people who had engaged in serious criminal wrongdoing.
Mueller also revealed that another campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos, had secretly pleaded guilty earlier that month to lying to the FBI about his s with foreigners claiming to have high-level Russian connections.
He was one of at least 14 Trump associates who had with Russian nationals during the campaign and transition.
Papadopoulos‘s plea agreement described his extensive efforts to try to arrange a meeting between Russians and the Trump campaign. And he said that in April 2016, a London-based professor claiming to have Russian connections confided that he had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton, including “thousands of emails.”
That same month, Mueller would later allege, Russian hackers had accessed the networks of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic National Committee.
The plea deal previewed what Mueller would show over and over: Those surrounding the president sought to hide or downplay their dealings with Russia.
One of the persistent mysteries has been why.
In December 2017, former national security adviser Michael Flynn admitted that he lied to the FBI about his conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Flynn had claimed the two did not discuss Obama-era sanctions directed at the Kremlin, when in fact they had.
Nearly a year later, Trump‘s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen similarly pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about his efforts to pursue a possible Trump Tower project in Moscow. Cohen had told lawmakers that discussions about the project ended in January 2016, when in fact – contrary to what Trump had said publicly – they continued into the summer of that year, in the heart of Trump‘s presidential campaign.
When longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone was indicted in January, accused of making false statements and obstruction, he became the sixth Trump aide ensnared by Mueller‘s investigation, a group that included some of the president‘s closest confidants.
Earlier this month, Manafort was sentenced to a total of 7 1/2 years in prison for conspiracy and fraud. Cohen is set to start serving a three-year prison sentence in May.
“When your campaign manager goes to jail, that makes presidential history,” said Douglas Brinkley, a history professor at Rice University. “And then to have your personal lawyer go to prison also. These aren‘t bit players – these are people who were part of the heart and soul of the Trump operation.”
Attorney General William Barr leaves his home in McLean, Va., on Friday, March 22, 2019. Special Counsel Robert Mueller is expected to present a report to the Justice Department any day now outlining the findings of his nearly two-year investigation into Russian election meddling, possible collusion with Trump campaign officials and possible obstruction of justice by Trump . (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
One of Mueller‘s core assignments from the start was to dissect exactly how Russia sought to influence the 2016 presidential campaign.
Four months before Mueller was appointed, the U.S. intelligence community laid out in a terse 14-page report how it said Russia – on the order of President Vladimir Putin – had waged an online campaign to help Trump win the election.
The special counsel added to that 66 richly detailed pages of his own, outlining in two indictments the granular specifics of the cyberoperations.
In the first, which accused 13 Russians of waging a social media influence effort that ran afoul of U.S. law, Mueller revealed he had access to the group‘s internal communications, including an email from September 2017 in which one of those charged wrote to a family member: “The FBI busted our work (not a joke).”
Mueller also described how the group worked offline, visiting states to gather intelligence on U.S. politics and enlisting unwitting Americans to hold rallies in support of Trump – providing the clearest window yet into Russia‘s covert efforts.
In the second, which charged a group of Russian military officers with hacking Democrats‘ emails and laundering them through fake online personae so they could be posted online, Mueller identified by name those he asserted were responsible for the attack. The indictment expanded considerably on the intelligence community‘s assessment.
Former independent counsel Robert Ray, now in private practice at Thompson & Knight, said it was particularly remarkable how quickly Mueller was able to work, bringing his complicated investigation to a close inside of two years.
“That‘s a big accomplishment, and that‘s also recognition of where investigations steered off course in the past,” Ray said.
Notably, the indictments did not accuse any Americans of conspiring with Russia – one of the main questions the special counsel was asked to examine.
The most Mueller‘s team has said publicly on that topic was in court papers related to Stone, which alleged that the longtime Trump adviser made efforts to get information about the release of the hacked emails in consultation with the campaign – then lied to Congress about it.
Court filings also revealed that Manafort, as Trump‘s campaign chairman, provided 2016 polling data to a Russian associate who the FBI has assessed had ties to Russian intelligence – although Manafort was not charged with conspiring with Russia.
Still, the revelations throughout the course of the investigation about the extent of Russia‘s attempts to influence the 2016 campaign, Trump‘s interest in building a tower in Moscow, and repeated Russian outreach to Trump aides formed a compelling narrative, some analysts said – one muted only by how it dribbed out over time.
“It‘s so much, it‘s so gradual, it‘s so complicated, people don‘t have a chance to sort of pause, catch their breath and really sort of survey the whole story that [Mueller has] found,” Kris said. “I think if you took it all in in one day, it would kill you. It‘s simply too much.”
Ray said Mueller‘s careful handling of the investigation is likely to set a precedent for future special counsels.
“The whole purpose of appointing a special counsel is either to find and prosecute what you were appointed to do, or to fully investigate something and render a judgment that it wasn‘t appropriate to bring charges within the core of that mandate,” Ray said. “My view is, either way, that‘s a success.”
President Donald Trump talks with reporters before boarding Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House, Friday, March 22, 2019, in Washington. Special counsel Robert Mueller on Friday turned over his long-awaited final report on the contentious Russia investigation, ending a probe that has cast a dark shadow over Donald Trump‘s presidency with no new charges but launching a fresh wave of political battles over the still-confidential findings. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Mueller’s impact has gone far beyond the work of his own prosecutors.
His revelations have fueled calls for greater government oversight of Silicon Valley, following years in which the tech industry grew into one of the nation‘s wealthiest and most important economic sectors while facing little regulatory scrutiny.
Facebook, Twitter and Google were forced to contend with nationally televised questioning on Capitol Hill and internal upheaval in the wake of news that Russia used social media to promote Trump.
Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, who at first downplayed the extent of the Russian influence operation on his platform, has since apologized in the face of mounting evidence and is leading a major overhaul of the company to address public demands for greater accountability and privacy.
Mueller has also referred additional investigations to at least three U.S. attorney‘s offices.
One of those cases, a handoff to prosecutors in Manhattan, led to a guilty plea from Cohen, Trump‘s longtime personal attorney, for tax evasion, bank fraud and campaign finance violations that he told a judge were directed by Trump.
That case ruptured a key personal relationship for the president, spilling into public view embarrassing details about Trump‘s efforts to pay off the adult-film actress known as Stormy Daniels and allowing prosecutors to pry into Trump‘s personal business.
The Cohen case appears to have been the spark for yet another investigation – this one related to Trump‘s inaugural festivities. Prosecutors in Manhattan issued a wide-ranging subpoena in February to Trump‘s presidential inaugural committee seeking records related to its fundraising and spending.
Meanwhile, this summer in Virginia, prosecutors will try a former business partner of Flynn, the former national security adviser, on charges that he acted as an illegal agent of Turkey.
The case underscores how the Mueller probe shined new light on a lucrative and largely unseen American lobbying industry financed by foreign interests.
Flynn will probably be the star witness. As part of a plea deal with Mueller agreeing that he had lied about his s with a Russian ambassador, Flynn admitted that he, too, worked as an unregistered agent of Turkey – even while advising Trump‘s campaign.
That revelation drew a sharp rebuke from the federal judge in Washington overseeing Flynn‘s case: “Arguably,” U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan told Flynn in December, “you sold your country out.”
Similarly, Manafort and Gates have admitted that they did not register for work they did for a Ukrainian political party. So has W. Samuel Patten, another political consultant, whose case in Washington began with another Mueller referral.
At Manafort‘s tax and bank fraud trial in Virginia in August, operatives from both parties took the stand to describe how American political consultants flock to foreign capitals to earn side money in years when there are not U.S. elections, a legal but previously less-well-understood practice.
In the wake of Mueller‘s appointment, the attention on foreign influence led to a dramatic rise in the number of lobbyists who have filed under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, a law from before World War II intended to bring transparency to the work for foreign entities that until recently had been only loosely enforced.
This month, the Justice Department revealed it is creating a new unit of prosecutors to more aggressively enforce the law. It will be led by Brandon Van Grack, a Justice Department prosecutor and veteran of Mueller‘s team.
The Washington Post’s Craig Timberg contributed to this report.
Read the whole story

· · · · · · · · · ·

In search of statesmen | Opinion

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As Rep. Adam Schiff passes the baton and the impeachment inquiry to the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, the Republicans continue to approach the process with crossed arms. First, they complained that the depositions were held in private. That argument was phony from the beginning. The executive sessions included 47 members of the Republican caucus who questioned witnesses and participated fully in the deliberations.
When the public hearings began, the Republicans complained that they featured second and third hand accounts. Never mind that the administration stonewalled any and all participation from those who could provide first-hand accounts.
Next, the president and some Republicans engaged in a shameful display of witness badgering; calling into question the impeccable credentials of officials who had spent their entire lifetimes as distinguished public servants. In one jaw-dropping tweet, the president attempted to tamper with Ambassador Yovanovitch in real time, while 16 million people watched on television.
Finally, after a parade of witnesses corroborated the story that the president and his cabal pressured the Ukrainians for dirt on one of his 2020 opponents by using military assistance as the bait, the Republicans clung to the narrative that the Democrats had not proven their case.
When Ambassador Sondland made it clear that the president and the entire leadership were “in the loop” on the quid pro quo scheme, the Republicans seemed to demand nothing less than a presidential writ or a voice recording saying “go bribe the Ukrainians.” Anything less, they said, should let him off the hook.
This defies logic. Every single witness encountered Rudy Giuliani on his Ukraine adventures. They knew exactly what he was trying to accomplish. They also understood that Giuliani was acting with direct orders from the president. Recently, President Trump claimed that he never directed Rudy Giuliani to do anything. The statement is insulting to Americans who are asked to suspend belief in what they have seen and heard with their own eyes and ears.
One person who knows that obstruction of justice occurred is former White House Counsel Dan McGahn. He asserted that very thing in the Mueller investigation. A federal judge has just ordered that McGahn must appear before Congress. In that opinion, Judge Jackson wrote: “Stated simply, the primary takeaway from the past 250 years of recorded American history is that presidents are not kings.”
Other witnesses like Giuliani, Secretary of State Pompeo, National Security Advisor John Bolton and Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney could tell us definitively about the president’s role in the Ukrainian shake-down. They have been muzzled.
There is one former senator who has stepped forward.
Slade Gorton, (R-Washington) had this to say to his former colleagues: “My judgment so far as an objective observer is that there are multiple actions on this president’s part that warrant a vote of impeachment in the House, based on corroborated testimony that Mr. Trump and his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, pressured leaders of Ukraine to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his family. . .
“This is precisely the kind of crisis Alexander Hamilton feared,” he said. "In Federalist No. 75, he warned that a president might be tempted to betray the interests of the country for his own benefit.”
Sadly, Gorton’s is a lonely voice. Current Republican leaders are nowhere to be seen or heard. Some in fact, suggest support for impeachment is waning among the electorate. Far from it, 51 percent of the American public believe that the president should be impeached and removed from office.
Let that sink in: more than half of the citizens believe that this president has betrayed his oath and should be fired.
Compare that with the peak “impeach and remove” numbers that President Bill Clinton faced. At the height of his Senate trial only 29 percent of the public thought he should go.
Despite these numbers and despite the corrosive effect that an unbridled chief executive could have on our Republic now and in the future, representatives and senators seem content to fall in line.
It is not likely that any Republicans will support articles of impeachment. It is not likely that any Republicans in the Senate will vote to convict the president.
In 1868, Edmund Ross from Kansas defied his party and provided the one vote that saved Andrew Johnson from conviction. His courage may have prevented a second Civil War.
Daniel Webster from Massachusetts argued for the Compromise of 1850, against the overwhelming opposition of his constituents and newspaper editors. Historians argue to this day about the correctness of their positions. One thing is certain, however, they both put their country ahead of partisan concerns.
Let us watch to see if there are any profiles in courage that emerge from this impeachment process.
Mark S. Singel is a former Democratic Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania. He and Republican Charlie Gerow can be seen at 8:30 a.m. each Sunday on CBS21’s “Face the State.”
Read the whole story

· · ·

Встреча Зеленского и Путина - в Кремле рассказали о подготовке к переговорам

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цей матеріал доступний українською
Песков отметил, что встреча может поспособствовать нахождению "развязок" в ключевых проблемных вопросах.
Владимир Путин / REUTERS
Владимир Путин / REUTERS
Формат встречи президента РФ Владимира Путина и президента Украины Владимира Зеленского станет известен ближе к дате саммита «нормандской четверки» (Украина, Россия, Германия, Франция).
Читайте такжеЗеркаль: Зеленский хочет мира с РФ и будет демонстрировать это на "нормандской" встречеОб этом заявил в воскресенье пресс-секретарь президента РФ Дмитрий Песков в программе «Москва. Кремль. Путин» на телеканале «Россия-1», сообщает «ТАСС».
«Так или иначе Путин и Зеленский пообщаются. В случае Путина и Зеленского это гораздо важнее, чем антураж встречи. Какой будет антураж, какой будет формат, наверняка, об этом будет достигнута договоренность уже ближе к самой встрече», - сказал он.
Песков также отметил, что встреча может поспособствовать нахождению «развязок» в ключевых проблемных вопросах. «Можно предположить, что это будет встреча не ради того, чтобы все завести в тупик, а чтобы действительно попробовать найти какие-то развязки», - добавил он.
Как сообщал УНИАН, встреча лидеров Украины, Германии, Франции и РФ запланирована на 9 декабря в Париже.
Ранее Песков заявил, что Зеленский и Путин во время встречи могут обсудить проблемные аспекты газовых переговоров двух стран.
Если вы заметили ошибку, выделите ее мышкой и нажмите Ctrl+Enter
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In search of statesmen | Opinion

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As Rep. Adam Schiff passes the baton and the impeachment inquiry to the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, the Republicans continue to approach the process with crossed arms. First, they complained that the depositions were held in private. That argument was phony from the beginning. The executive sessions included 47 members of the Republican caucus who questioned witnesses and participated fully in the deliberations.
When the public hearings began, the Republicans complained that they featured second and third hand accounts. Never mind that the administration stonewalled any and all participation from those who could provide first-hand accounts.
Next, the president and some Republicans engaged in a shameful display of witness badgering; calling into question the impeccable credentials of officials who had spent their entire lifetimes as distinguished public servants. In one jaw-dropping tweet, the president attempted to tamper with Ambassador Yovanovitch in real time, while 16 million people watched on television.
Finally, after a parade of witnesses corroborated the story that the president and his cabal pressured the Ukrainians for dirt on one of his 2020 opponents by using military assistance as the bait, the Republicans clung to the narrative that the Democrats had not proven their case.
When Ambassador Sondland made it clear that the president and the entire leadership were “in the loop” on the quid pro quo scheme, the Republicans seemed to demand nothing less than a presidential writ or a voice recording saying “go bribe the Ukrainians.” Anything less, they said, should let him off the hook.
This defies logic. Every single witness encountered Rudy Giuliani on his Ukraine adventures. They knew exactly what he was trying to accomplish. They also understood that Giuliani was acting with direct orders from the president. Recently, President Trump claimed that he never directed Rudy Giuliani to do anything. The statement is insulting to Americans who are asked to suspend belief in what they have seen and heard with their own eyes and ears.
One person who knows that obstruction of justice occurred is former White House Counsel Dan McGahn. He asserted that very thing in the Mueller investigation. A federal judge has just ordered that McGahn must appear before Congress. In that opinion, Judge Jackson wrote: “Stated simply, the primary takeaway from the past 250 years of recorded American history is that presidents are not kings.”
Other witnesses like Giuliani, Secretary of State Pompeo, National Security Advisor John Bolton and Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney could tell us definitively about the president’s role in the Ukrainian shake-down. They have been muzzled.
There is one former senator who has stepped forward.
Slade Gorton, (R-Washington) had this to say to his former colleagues: “My judgment so far as an objective observer is that there are multiple actions on this president’s part that warrant a vote of impeachment in the House, based on corroborated testimony that Mr. Trump and his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, pressured leaders of Ukraine to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his family. . .
“This is precisely the kind of crisis Alexander Hamilton feared,” he said. "In Federalist No. 75, he warned that a president might be tempted to betray the interests of the country for his own benefit.”
Sadly, Gorton’s is a lonely voice. Current Republican leaders are nowhere to be seen or heard. Some in fact, suggest support for impeachment is waning among the electorate. Far from it, 51 percent of the American public believe that the president should be impeached and removed from office.
Let that sink in: more than half of the citizens believe that this president has betrayed his oath and should be fired.
Compare that with the peak “impeach and remove” numbers that President Bill Clinton faced. At the height of his Senate trial only 29 percent of the public thought he should go.
Despite these numbers and despite the corrosive effect that an unbridled chief executive could have on our Republic now and in the future, representatives and senators seem content to fall in line.
It is not likely that any Republicans will support articles of impeachment. It is not likely that any Republicans in the Senate will vote to convict the president.
In 1868, Edmund Ross from Kansas defied his party and provided the one vote that saved Andrew Johnson from conviction. His courage may have prevented a second Civil War.
Daniel Webster from Massachusetts argued for the Compromise of 1850, against the overwhelming opposition of his constituents and newspaper editors. Historians argue to this day about the correctness of their positions. One thing is certain, however, they both put their country ahead of partisan concerns.
Let us watch to see if there are any profiles in courage that emerge from this impeachment process.
Mark S. Singel is a former Democratic Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania. He and Republican Charlie Gerow can be seen at 8:30 a.m. each Sunday on CBS21’s “Face the State.”

Встреча Зеленского и Путина - в Кремле рассказали о подготовке к переговорам

1 Share
цей матеріал доступний українською
Песков отметил, что встреча может поспособствовать нахождению "развязок" в ключевых проблемных вопросах.
Владимир Путин / REUTERS
Владимир Путин / REUTERS
Формат встречи президента РФ Владимира Путина и президента Украины Владимира Зеленского станет известен ближе к дате саммита «нормандской четверки» (Украина, Россия, Германия, Франция).
Читайте такжеЗеркаль: Зеленский хочет мира с РФ и будет демонстрировать это на "нормандской" встречеОб этом заявил в воскресенье пресс-секретарь президента РФ Дмитрий Песков в программе «Москва. Кремль. Путин» на телеканале «Россия-1», сообщает «ТАСС».
«Так или иначе Путин и Зеленский пообщаются. В случае Путина и Зеленского это гораздо важнее, чем антураж встречи. Какой будет антураж, какой будет формат, наверняка, об этом будет достигнута договоренность уже ближе к самой встрече», - сказал он.
Песков также отметил, что встреча может поспособствовать нахождению «развязок» в ключевых проблемных вопросах. «Можно предположить, что это будет встреча не ради того, чтобы все завести в тупик, а чтобы действительно попробовать найти какие-то развязки», - добавил он.
Как сообщал УНИАН, встреча лидеров Украины, Германии, Франции и РФ запланирована на 9 декабря в Париже.
Ранее Песков заявил, что Зеленский и Путин во время встречи могут обсудить проблемные аспекты газовых переговоров двух стран.
Если вы заметили ошибку, выделите ее мышкой и нажмите Ctrl+Enter

Flight from Tel Aviv causes London panic as scrambled jets set off sonic boom

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A Boeing 767 plane flying from Israel to the United States went unresponsive over the United Kingdom early Sunday, causing Royal Air Force jets to be scrambled towards it and setting off a sonic boom that sounded throughout London.
The retired El Al plane, which according to the Ynet news site had been sold to a German company, took off from Ben Gurion Airport on its way to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in the US. On the way, around 4 a.m. (UK time), it did not respond to British authorities’ attempt to contact it due to a communications malfunction.
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Two Typhoon fighter jets were scrambled from an Royal Air Force base in Coningsby and intercepted the plane, UK media reported. After communications with the aircraft were restored, the flight continued as planned toward the US and the fighter jets returned to their base.
But while the incident ended safely, it definitely didn’t end quietly. The air force planes had been cleared to go faster than the speed of sound on their way to intercept the unresponsive aircraft, setting off a loud bang that woke up many residents of Britain’s capital.
Many subsequently shared their experience on social media and with UK media, along with videos of the incident in which the sonic boom can be heard.
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Spanish Security Firm Spied on Julian Assange at Ecuadorian Embassy for CIA – Report

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The WikiLeaks co-founder has repeatedly insisted that his private life and conversations in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London were invaded. His suspicions have now been backed up by Spanish prosecutors. As reports by German and US outlets suggest, Assange’s celebrity supporters and journalists were also affected.
A Spanish public prosecutor and Julian Assange’s lawyers have presented evidence that the publisher, hunted by the US government, was spied on during his stay at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. The firm in question is UC Global S. L., which was in charge of security for the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where Assange lived from 2012 until 2019.
According to the materials presented in Spain’s National Court amid a case against the Spanish security firm and seen by The New York Times and the Spanish newspaper El País, the firm intercepted conversations of the WikiLeaks co-founder, his celebrity visitors, lawyers, and doctors.
The plaintiffs are insisting that the firm eavesdropped on Assange for the CIA. However, the agency’s spokesperson has declined to comment on these allegations. While the publisher, who is currently in a London prison, is set to testify remotely in the case on 20 December, his legal team is also planning to use this evidence in an extradition case by the British government and block his deportation to the US. According to them, the newly-revealed allegations prove that he would not receive a fair trial in the US, where faces a hefty prison sentence over leaking classified documents on the American military.

Security With Benefits?

The suspicions arose after images from the embassy had been put up for sale in Spain this spring. It is alleged that the Spanish firm passed on audio and video recordings of Assange’s meetings until 2018.
The CIA reportedly paid special attention to visitors from Russia and the US. According to El País, there are recordings featuring actress Pamela Anderson, Pulitzer Prize winner Lowell Bergman as well as German hacker Andy Müller-Maguhn and two German broadcasters NDR and WDR. NRD filed criminal charges, assuming their staffers’ privacy rights and editorial secrets were violated.
According to them, hidden microphones were installed and electronic devices were disassembled. Besides this, recording equipment was reportedly placed in the restrooms where Assange sometimes talked to his guests to guard his privacy.
The security firm refutes the allegations, stressing that it acted only on behalf of the Ecuadorian government. Its founder David Morales, indicted in October, denies any wrongdoing as well. Nevertheless, he has been charged with privacy violation, bribery, and money laundering and arrested. Following house searches in Spain, the authorities also confiscated disks, weapons, and cash.

Assange in British Prison

Julian Assange is currently serving a jail term in the UK for skipping bail in 2012, when he fled to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London fearing extradition to Sweden and then to the United States.
On 25 November, over 60 doctors from Europe, the United States, Australia, and Sri Lanka wrote a letter to UK Home Secretary Priti Patel saying that Assange’s health was deteriorating rapidly and he “could die in prison”.
They insisted his condition required independent assessment after his seven year ordeal at the embassy and half a year behind bars.
In prison, he is awaiting an extradition hearing, which is set for February next year. In October, a UK judge rejected Assange’s pleas to delay it for three months to allow more time to investigate his case.
Assange was arrested by British police at the request of US authorities after Ecuador’s new president, Lenin Moreno, in a bid to forge closer relations with the US and UK, revoked his asylum status, granted in 2012.
While Swedish prosecutors who wanted Assange on rape allegations subsequently dropped their case last week, he is sought on multiple counts of espionage carrying a total of 175 years in prison in the US. The hunt for him has gone on since his WikiLeaks project disclosed classified documents relating to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that shed light on how the US military covered up the killing of civilians.
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London Bridge attack: Second victim was former Cambridge University student - Google Search

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34 mins ago - THE woman killed in the London Bridge terror attack on Friday was a former Cambridge University student, it has been revealed. Convicted ...
13 mins ago - The second victim of the London Bridge attack was a former student at Cambridge University, it has been confirmed.

Цензура: Экс-сотрудник Би-би-си обвинил компанию в сокрытии связей британских политиков с Россией

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Бывший сотрудник Би-би-си Джон Свини заявил, что руководство теле-радио компании отказалось ставить в эфир несколько сюжетов, над которыми работал он сам и его коллеги.
В частности, это расследования, касавшиеся связей бывшего министра культуры Британии с украинским миллиардером Дмитрием Фирташом (тесно связан с бандой Путина – КЦ), деловых интересов в России у члена палаты лордов Питера Мандельсона, а также деятельности главного спонсора агиткампании в поддержку Brexit Аррона Бэнкса, обвинявшегося в получении денег от Кремля.
Свини обвинил руководство в том, что оно отказывается публиковать материалы журналистских расследований, посвященных связям британских политиков с Россией. Как сообщает The Times, британский медиарегулятор Ofcom получил от него соответствующую жалобу.
Кроме того, Би-би-си в свое время анонсировала, но так и не показала выпуск специализирующейся на журналистских расследованиях программы «Панорама», посвященный путинскому кошельку Роману Абрамовичу.
«Из-за угроз со стороны крайне правых, российского государства и их марионеток руководство Би-би-си во главе с генеральным директором корпорации Тони Холлом теперь так боится любых рисков, что журналистские расследования оказываются под угрозой, а должный уровень беспристрастности не поддерживается», - указывается в жалобе Суини.
Представили корпорации Би-би-си в ответ заявили, что не согласны с этими обвинениями, объявив, что работа над некоторыми из упомянутых сюжетов якобы «по-прежнему ведется». Джон Свини, проработавший на Би-би-си 17 лет, ушел из корпорации в октябре.
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When the prison is a crime: Jeffrey Epstein and the Metropolitan Correctional Center

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Le Monde заявила о победе России над алкоголизмом

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The new ‘three amigos’ riding into Trump impeachment inquiry

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The “three amigos” used to stand for one thing in Washington — the pack of globe-trotting senators led by John McCain who brought American idealism to the world’s trouble spots.
Now it refers to another trio, the Trump envoys who pushed Ukraine to pursue investigations of Democrats and former Vice President Joe Biden.
The shift represents more than the appropriation of a name. It also marks a departure from efforts by the late Arizona senator to build bipartisan alliances and further broad foreign policy ideals pursued by Republican presidents from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush. That approach is unrecognizable today as the GOP has become the party of Donald Trump and his “America First” approach.
“I knew the ‘three amigos’ and believe me, these are not three amigos like we were,” said Joe Lieberman, the former Democratic, then independent senator from Connecticut who was part of the original group with Republicans McCain and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
Lieberman said he believes McCain, his longtime friend, would be “really upset about what’s happening in Ukraine now.”
The House impeachment inquiry has detailed how the self-described “three amigos” — European Union Ambassador Gordon Sondland, outgoing Energy Secretary Rick Perry and former U.S. special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker — operated an “irregular” foreign policy channel that was pushing Ukraine to announce the investigations Trump wanted. In return, the White House would release $400 million in military aid the Eastern European ally needed to counter Russian aggression and would arrange a coveted Oval Office visit with Ukraine’s newly elected president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Led by Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, the trio assembled as a loose contingent of envoys whose activities were initially unseen by others in the administration specializing in Ukraine issues. But as their actions became known, the ``amigos’’ set off alarms among diplomats and officials who described them as pursuing the president’s political agenda over U.S. national security interests.
Fiona Hill, a former Russia adviser to the White House, testified before the impeachment inquiry that at one point she confronted Sondland to ask on whose authority he was operating in Ukraine.
The president, Sondland responded, according to Hill.
State Department official David Holmes testified that Sondland, Perry and Volker “styled themselves as the three amigos and made clear they would take the lead on coordinating our policy and engagement with for the Zelenskiy administration.”
Holmes said that ``over the following months, it became apparent that Mr. Giuliani was having a direct influence on the foreign policy agenda that the three amigos were executing on the ground in Ukraine.”
Presidents have often used back channels to facilitate foreign policy and leverage U.S. resources to achieve their policy goals, experts say. The difference is that Trump’s approach, as outlined in the impeachment inquiry, appears to be mobilizing U.S. policy and resource for personal political gain.
The Ukrainian matter is but one way the foreign policy landscape has shifted dramatically in the Trump era. As the White House pursues an “America First” agenda, the U.S. is seen as retreating from its traditional role of international engagement and democracy building and Trump is aligning himself with some of the world’s more autocratic leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Richard Fontaine, a former McCain national security aide who is now chief executive officer at the Center for New American Security, said the broader, bipartisan agreement on the U.S. role in the world has now become a “debate over fundamentals.”
Fontaine said McCain’s ``amigos’’ believed that “when the U.S. could act for the betterment of people, it should act ... rather than trying to keep our nose out of things.”
It was former Army Gen. David Petraeus who called McCain’s group the “three amigos” as the senators made frequent visits to Afghanistan and Iraq. They became the chief proponents of the troop increase that Bush proposed in 2006 and that Democrats and some Republicans derided as prolonging the unpopular war in Iraq.
But the trio also traveled broadly, including in Ukraine, where McCain repeatedly addressed democracy activists as the former Soviet state reached to the West.
Volker, who recently stepped down from his position at the McCain Institute at Arizona State University, distanced himself from his new title as one of Trump’s amigos.
“Much has been made of the term ‘three amigos’ in reference to Secretary Perry, Ambassador Sondland and myself,” Volker said in opening remarks before the impeachment inquiry.
“I never used that term — and frankly cringe when I hear it because for me, the ‘three amigos’ will always refer to Sen. John McCain, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, in reference to their work to support the surge in Iraq.”
Brian Katulis, a national security expert at the Center for American Progress, said McCain’s “amigos” are all but gone in the Trump era.
“They stood for a certain vision of America’s role in the world — one that was more predictable and reliable — and one we don’t have today,” he said.
“That was certainly McCain’s legacy,” he said. “Like a lot of things in the GOP, it’s so far gone because Trump has obliterated a lot of the ideals.”
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Suspected Internet Cable Spy Ship Operating In Americas For Over A Month

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Russia's controversial intelligence ship Yantar has been operating in the Caribbean, or mid-Atlantic, since October. She is suspected by Western navies of being involved in operations on undersea communications cables. Significantly, she appears to be avoiding broadcasting her position via AIS (Automated Identification System).
I suspect that going dark on AIS is a deliberate measure to frustrate efforts to analyse her mission. She has briefly used AIS while making port calls, where it would be expected by local authorities, for example while calling at Trinidad on November 8 and again on November 28. However in both cases she disappeared from AIS tracking sites almost as soon as she left port. Based on the exact locations where she disappeared, she likely turned it off. We can see this because other ships, which were much further away, were being picked up by the same AIS station. Another possibility is that her AIS transponder is operating with an unusually low power output. It amounts to the same thing. She also has a satellite AIS system, which we can be sure has been switched off.
Yantar has visited the region before. On a previous voyage in 2015 it was reported that she might be operating near internet cables near to the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay. This turned out to be incorrect as detailed AIS timelines show exactly where she went on that voyage. Steffan Watkins, an open source intelligence analyst, pieced together her exact route and it did not go close to Guantanamo Bay. The current voyage is the first one where we do not have a detailed AIS log.
Yantar has been observed conducting search patterns in the vicinity of internet cables, and there is circumstantial evidence that she has been responsible for internet outages, for example off the Syrian coast in 2016.
The Caribbean has a large number of undersea internet cables including many which lead to and from the United States. A study by British think tank Policy Exchange described undersea internet cables as “Indispensable but insecure.” It noted that they are “jugulars of the world economy which are a singularly attractive target for our enemies.” The report mentions Yantar, saying that she carries two submersibles capable of "cutting cables or tapping them for information."
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A well as civilian Internet, cables of interest to the Russians could involve military communications. Historically the Caribbean was home to several U.S. Navy SOSUS (Sound Surveillance System) arrays. These monitored Soviet warship and submarine movements using hydrophones placed at an optimum depth to listen to naval operations from extremely long ranges. As a result, Russian submarines became quieter to reduce their susceptibility to this. SOSUS itself has been replaced by more advanced systems, the location of which is conjecture.
Whether Yantar’s presence involves undersea cables, or some other target of interest to the Russians, it will be of particular interest to U.S. forces.
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London Bridge attack: Poland honors narwal tusk-wielding hero | News | DW

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Poland says it will award its highest medal for sacrifice and courage to a Polish national who played a key role in preventing the London Bridge attack from escalating.
A spokesman for the country's justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro said on Twitter he would request the bravery honor from the country's president. He added that the man — known only as Lukasz— "risked his own life" and "helped to overpower the terrorist."
British media reported that Lukasz, who works as a chef, snatched a 1.5 meter (5 foot) narwhal (whale) tusk from the wall of the UK capital's Fishmongers' Hall as Friday's stabbing attack unfolded.
A colleague told The Times: "Lukasz grabbed a nearby pole and ran at him, getting stabbed in the hand in the process but continued to pin him down."
'Hero Lukasz'
"Being stabbed didn't stop him giving him a beating. Lukasz is a hero!"
Video footage shows a man waving the huge tusk, while another man sprayed a fire extinguisher in the face of the knifeman Usman Khan.
Lukasz' bravery was also the subject of several social media comments:
The chef remains in a London hospital being treated for stab wounds following the attack which left two people dead. Khan, who wore a fake suicide vest, was shot dead by police.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Facebook that Warsaw was proud of Lukasz, and that "every weapon is permitted against terrorists."

One of the men who stopped the London Bridge terrorist is a convicted murderer - Europe

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One of the men who stopped the London Bridge terrorist is a convicted murderer

LONDON — The quick-thinking bystanders who ran toward danger to help others during a terrorist attack on London Bridge on Friday swiftly earned the title of “heroes.” But for the family of Amanda Champion, who was murdered in 2003, one of the men who intervened as the fatal knifing unfolded is anything but heroic.
Convicted murderer James Ford, 42, was on day release from prison Friday when he saw the attack unfolding and rushed to help during the chaos. According to British media reports, Ford had attended the same prisoner rehabilitation event as attacker Usman Khan, 28, a convicted Islamist terrorist, who killed two people before being shot dead by police.
“He is not a hero. He is a murderer out on day release, which us as a family didn’t know anything about. He murdered a disabled girl. He is not a hero, absolutely not,” Champion’s aunt, Angela Cox, told the Daily Mail on Friday. “I don’t care what he’s done today, he’s a murderer,” she said.
“Yes, he did something nice, but that doesn’t make up for what he has done. He’s not a hero, and he never will be,” Cox told BBC News on Saturday.
Ford in 2004 was jailed for life in the 2003 slaying of Champion, who, though 21, had the mental age of a 15-year-old. A judge recommended that he serve a minimum sentence of 15 years behind bars.
According to the BBC, Champion was strangled by Ford before he slit her throat. Her badly decomposed body was found close to her home in Kent, England, three weeks after her disappearance. At the news of her death, her family said, “We’re not the family we were; we never will be any more.”
At the time, Kent police said Ford’s actions were a “motiveless crime and a senseless crime” and described him as a “very dangerous man.”
Ford is believed to have contacted the British charity the Samaritans minutes after killing Champion to confess to the crime before disconnecting the call. He went on to contact the charity 45 times, telling staff he felt suicidal. Ford’s flurry of calls eventually spurred a call handler to report his confession to the authorities. Volunteers at the charity take a vow of anonymity, and in reporting Ford’s call, the volunteer was forced out of his job, the Daily Mail reported.
Champion’s family told the Daily Mail that they had been contacted by Kent police on Friday and told that Ford had been granted temporary release. “Any member of my family could have been in that area at the time,” Cox said.
On Saturday, Queen Elizabeth II hailed the bravery of those who helped in the aftermath of Friday’s deadly attack, saying, “I express my enduring thanks to the police and emergency services, as well as the brave individuals who put their own lives at risk to selflessly help and protect others.”
London Mayor Sadiq Khan said he was in “awe of the people who ran toward danger to keep us all safe.”
Following the attack, more details emerged about the actions of those who went out of their way to prevent further tragedy. One man jabbed the assailant — who was armed with two knives and wore what turned out to be a fake bomb vest — with a decorative narwhal tusk he had pulled from the wall of the Fishmongers’ Hall next to the bridge. Another let loose a spray from a fire extinguisher, while another disarmed the attacker and ran with the knife down the bridge.
One of Friday’s victims was today identified as Jack Merritt, 25. The second victim is believed to be female, but the identity has not yet been released.
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Merkel gov’t continues UN assault against Israel, snubbing German Jews - Israel News

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Germany’s UN ambassador has voted again for an anti-Israel resolution, ignoring pleas from the nearly 100,000-member Central Council of Jews in Germany and the Jewish state to change its voting pattern.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean for the human rights organization Simon Wiesenthal Center, told The Jerusalem Post: “Having Germany again vote for a UN Resolution labeling the Jewish people’s holiest site – the Western Wall in Jerusalem along with Solomon’s Temple Mount and the historic Jewish Quarter of the Old City as ‘occupied Palestinian territory’ – is an outrage and intolerable.”
He continued, “It begs the question: Are these anti-Israel UN votes at the behest of the German Foreign Ministry? Does this vote reflect the views of Chancellor Merkel? If the answer is no, the German ambassador should be removed. If the answer is yes, we urge the chancellor to immediately order a review of its Middle East policy. No German government should ever be involved in delegitimizing Jewish history and presence in Jerusalem.”
Germany’s government has engaged in an orgy of diplomatic attacks on the Jewish state over the last two years, including voting against Israel a total of eight times in November. Germany voted 16 times at the UN in 2018 to condemn Israel.
The November 19 resolution that Germany voted for, titled “The right of the Palestinian people to self-determination,” was sponsored by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Egypt, Nicaragua, Zimbabwe and State of Palestine. Egypt helped draft the resolution on “behalf of the State Members of the United Nations that are members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation,” according to the resolution.
UN expert Hillel Neuer, the executive director of UN Watch, wrote on Twitter in October that “Germany introduced 0 condemnations of China, Cuba, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Venezuela, etc.” He asked German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas why he is singling out Israel and ignoring repressive, closed nations for diplomatic rebukes.
After over 130 Hamas rockets were fired on Israel in March, Germany’s UN ambassador Christoph Heusgen equated Israel’s counter-terrorism strategy with the US- and EU-designated terrorist entity Hamas: “Civilians must live without fear of Palestinian rockets or Israeli bulldozers,” said Heusgen.
Israel’s government says it only bulldozes the homes of Palestinian terrorists.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center announced last month that it is considering including the anti-Israel comments made by Heusgen in its top 10 list of the worst outbreaks of antisemitic and anti-Israel activities in 2019. Heusgen has frequently used his bully pulpit at the UN to join the ongoing orgy of diplomatic targeting of the Jewish state for opprobrium.
The German Foreign Ministry told the 
Post 
that Heusgen is not antisemitic.

25yo man who worked on same criminal rehab workshop attacker had attended — RT UK News

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A 25-year-old man stabbed to death by terrorist Usman Khan has been named as Cambridge graduate Jack Merritt, who worked to rehabilitate criminals like his killer.
On the day of his death, Merritt was coordinating a ‘Learning Together’ conference organized by Cambridge University academics. The conference aimed to bring together convicts and criminology students, to learn more about “stigma, marginalisation and the role of intergroup contact in reducing prejudice.”
Also on rt.com Beyond rehabilitation: Terrorists get a second chance, while their victims get none
Khan was also reportedly attending the conference, which was held at Fishmongers’ Hall, next to London Bridge. It is unclear whether he had been invited to speak – as some news reports suggested – or had turned up of his own accord.
Sometime during the scheduled storytelling and creative writing workshops, Khan’s rampage began. Merritt and another woman were stabbed to death, three others were injured, and Khan was subdued by members of the public on London Bridge - which reportedly included some of the convicts attending the workshop - before police officers shot him dead at point blank range. He wore a fake suicide vest under his jacket, and had reportedly threatened to “blow up” the conference building.
Merritt’s father described him in a tweet as a “beautiful spirit” and “champion for underdogs everywhere,” while colleagues paid tribute to his work with offenders.
Jack “was the sweetest, most caring and selfless individual I’ve ever met,” criminology lecturer Serena Wright said. Suffolk Law Centre Director Audrey Ludwig praised his “deep commitment to prisoner education and rehabilitation.”
Khan himself has been on the wrong side of the law for over a decade. When his house was raided by counter-terrorism police in 2008, he took to the BBC to protest his innocence, declaring “I ain’t no terrorist.”
However, he was arrested two years later for plotting to blow up the London Stock Exchange, kill then-Mayor Boris Johnson, bomb a series of London pubs, and establish a terror training camp on family land in Kashmir. Described by a judge as a “serious jihadi,” he was sentenced in 2012 to an indeterminate stretch in prison, before his sentence was fixed at 16 years in 2013. Khan was automatically released on parole last December, against the advice of the original sentencing judge.
With Prime Minister Boris Johnson promising longer sentences for criminals, Merritt’s father has asked that his son’s death not be used to toughen up the UK’s justice system.
“My son, Jack, who was killed in this attack, would not wish his death to be used as the pretext for more draconian sentences or for detaining people unnecessarily,” he wrote on Saturday, in a since-deleted tweet.
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In a bitter British election, influence of wealthy US donors causes a stir - Europe

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Britain's Dec. 12 election is a bitter fight to shape the country's future, with voters not only hoping to chart the next steps of Brexit, but also picking between startlingly different visions of the country from right-wing Prime Minister Boris Johnson and left-wing Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.
However, it isn't just British voters who are influencing Britain's future. A number of wealthy American individuals and organizations appear also to be having a big influence on this fraught British election.
The prominent left-leaning newspaper the Guardian reported Friday that 11 wealthy American donors have given a total of more than $3.7 million to influential right-wing British groups over the past five years.
One conservative American billionaire who was having an outsize influence on right-wing groups across the pond is no longer alive. John Templeton, who died in 2008, was behind a set of foundations that gave $3.3 million to British groups, the newspaper reported.
The news comes as Washington focuses on allegations of foreign influence on U.S. elections and is a reminder that outside the United States, the problem is often seen through the opposite lens: wealthy Americans seeking to influence foreign elections.
The U.S. donations in Britain do not appear to be illegal, and some of the think tanks involved have pushed back against the Guardian's framing. One recipient of Templeton-linked money, the Legatum Institute, told the paper that it had "a strong policy of maintaining intellectual independence" despite foreign financial backing.
In a statement in response to the article, the John Templeton Foundation, one of the organizations linked to the late investor, said that it was "proud to support academic research and civil dialogue in the natural sciences, human sciences, philosophy, classical liberalism, and theology at leading universities and institutions around the world."
The report about the donations from wealthy Americans comes amid concern about the transparency of Britain's political system ahead of the election next month.
Johnson's governing Conservative Party, supported by many right-wing think tanks, has been accused of suppressing a government report on Russian influence in the British political system that may highlight donations by Kremlin-linked business executives to the party, the Times of London reported in early November.
U.S. influence is a particular area of concern. Corbyn, who pledges to take the country in a dramatically more-left-wing direction if he can form a government after the election, gave a news conference Wednesday where he unveiled previously secret British notes on negotiations for a post-Brexit bilateral trade deal with the United States.
"We are talking here about secret talks for a deal with Donald Trump after Brexit. A deal that will shape our country's future," he said, alleging that Britain's beloved but forever-troubled National Health Service would be prey in Johnson's U.S.-U.K. trade deal.
President Donald Trump has made little secret of his desire for such a trade deal or his preferred political candidates. "He would be so bad. He would take you in such a bad way. He would take you into such bad places," he said of Corbyn during a Nov. 1 interview with Nigel Farage, leader of the Brexit Party.
The American president's personal unpopularity in Britain could mean his public interventions could backfire. But the influence of donations from rich Americans like those covered by the Guardian is harder to gauge.
Phil Bryant, the Republican governor of Mississippi and a Trump ally, has made Brexit a matter of his personal interest, forming a nonprofit organization with Farage called World4Brexit that aims to raise money to support Britain's exit from the European Union.
Supporters of World4Brexit describe it as a counterbalance to the investments of George Soros, the billionaire investor who supports many liberal causes.
Through his Open Society Foundation, Soros - another U.S. citizen - is reported to have donated about $800,000 to anti-Brexit groups, though some Conservatives in Britain have alleged the real figure is considerably higher.
Donors to a U.S.-based 501(c)(4) organization like World4Brexit can legally remain anonymous. The organizations can be harder for British authorities to scrutinize.
The political structure regarding donors and charities is different in Britain. The Legatum Institute, for example, was ordered by Britain's Charity Commission to remove a report advocating a hard Brexit from its website because it was judged to be too politically partisan for a legally registered charity.
For some of the U.S. groups sending money to Britain, the involvement may come from their donors' personal interests. Templeton, the late investor who made his fortune through the pioneering use of mutual funds, was born in the United States but had strong ties to Britain.
The billionaire renounced his American citizenship later in his life and became a British citizen, though he resided in the Bahamas, a Commonwealth nation and well-known tax haven.
With other donors, interest in Britain is more indeterminate. A foundation designed to spread the views of John Stossel, a libertarian television pundit and former Fox Business host, had given $15,000 to two British think tanks. Representatives of that foundation, the Center for Independent Thought, did not respond when asked for comment Friday.
The interest may be due to shared politics rather than personal links. In an account of his decision to become a pro-Brexit campaigner that he gave in January 2017, Bryant, the Mississippi governor, said that watching the fallout from Britain's vote to leave the EU on television the prior year had inspired him about his own country's upcoming election.
"This is Trump's first victory," Bryant recounted telling his wife in June 2016.
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This circumstance lends further support to the hypothesis of the possible planned attack on Usman in order to present him as the culprit. These "handlers" should be properly investigated. The question might be posed, who really shot Usman: police or one of the "handlers"? - M.N. | 5:38 PM 11/30/2019

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This circumstance lends further support to the hypothesis of the possible planned attack on Usman in order to present him as the culprit. These "handlers" should be properly investigated. The question might be posed, who really shot Usman: police or one of the "handlers"? - M.N. | 5:38 PM 11/30/2019
The convicted terrorist who killed two people in a knife rampage at London Bridge was tackled by ex-offenders, including a murderer, who had been invited to a conference on rehabilitation. 
Usman Khan, 28, had previously participated in Cambridge University's Learning Together prisoner rehabilitation programme but, according to a source with knowledge of the programme, showed "no cause for concern". 
A number of former participants, including Khan, had been invited to Fishmongers Hall on Friday to take part in a conference for the programme's fifth anniversary. 

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Image result for narwhal


Diagram showing a narwhal and scuba diver from the side: The body of the whale is about three times longer than a human.

The narwhal (Monodon monoceros), or narwhale, is a medium-sized toothed whale that possesses a large "tusk" from a protruding canine tooth. It lives year-round in the Arctic waters around Greenland, Canada, and Russia. It is one of two living species of whale in the family Monodontidae, along with the beluga whale. The narwhal males are distinguished by a long, straight, helical tusk, which is an elongated upper left canine. The narwhal was one of many species described by Carl Linnaeus in his publication Systema Naturae in 1758. 

Image result for narwhal




» narwhal tusk - Google Search
30/11/19 18:00 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
Michael_Novakhov shared this story . Web results The narwhal tusk has a wondrous and mystical history. A new ... <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com" rel="nofollow">https://www.washingtonpost.com</a> › world › 2019/11/30 › narwhal-tusk-has-... 43 mins ago - For centuries Europeans sought out ...
» narwhal - Google Search
30/11/19 17:58 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
Michael_Novakhov shared this story . 1000 × 600 Collections Get help Send feedback World Wildlife Fund [PDF] Unicorn of the Sea: Narwhal Facts | Stories | WWF Images may be subject to copyright.   Learn More Image credits Related images
» narwhal - Google Search
30/11/19 17:54 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
Michael_Novakhov shared this story . 1057 × 1400 Collections Get help Send feedback <a href="http://Amazon.com" rel="nofollow">Amazon.com</a> [PDF] Narwhal: Revealing an Arctic Legend: William Fitzhugh ... Images may be subject to copyright.   Learn More Image credits Related images
» London Bridge attacker Usman Khan pinned down by ex-offenders including murderer on day release
30/11/19 17:27 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
Michael_Novakhov shared this story . The convicted terrorist who killed two people in a knife rampage at London Bridge was tackled by ex-offenders, including a murderer, who had been invited to a conference on rehabilitation.  Usman Khan...
» Europe: One of the men who stopped the London Bridge terrorist is a convicted murderer - Google Search
30/11/19 17:13 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
Michael_Novakhov shared this story . One of the men who stopped the London Bridge terrorist is a ... <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com" rel="nofollow">https://www.washingtonpost.com</a> › world › 2019/11/30 › one-men-who-stop... 2 hours ago - One of the men who stopped the London Bridge ter...
» Contrary to Fiona Hill’s testimony, Ukraine did meddle in U.S. elections | Opinion
30/11/19 17:11 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
Michael_Novakhov shared this story . U.S. House Intelligence Committee Chairman, Adam Schiff, has finally gaveled to a close his presidential impeachment hearings. But they didn’t go out without a bang. Fiona Hill, a former U.S. National...
» It’s ‘hard to watch’ – Raw Story
30/11/19 17:02 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
Michael_Novakhov shared this story from Raw Story. #session_pageviews_1 #capture_slider_active #capture_lightbox_active close dialog Signed in as Michael_Novakhov Share this story on NewsBlur Shared stories are on their way...
» Opinion | The Case for Bernie
30/11/19 16:55 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
Michael_Novakhov shared this story . Now, I have stacked the argument slightly, and left out a crucial axis of division where Sanders does worse than you expect: He struggles badly with his fellow Social Security recipients, the over-65....
» bloomberg polls - Google Search
30/11/19 16:41 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
Michael_Novakhov shared this story . Mike Bloomberg 2020 | Fighting for our future‎ Ad <a href="http://www.mikebloomberg.com/" rel="nofollow">www.mikebloomberg.com/</a> ‎ You demand change, Mike will fight. Gun safety, education, healthcare, the environment. See how Mike’s been successful at fig...
» biden polls - Google Search
30/11/19 16:37 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
Michael_Novakhov shared this story . Web results CNN 2020 election poll: Biden leads nationally as Buttigieg ... <a href="https://www.cnn.com" rel="nofollow">https://www.cnn.com</a> › 2019/11/27 › politics › cnn-poll-joe-biden-pete-butti... 3 days ago - South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete ...
» Biden launches eight-day Iowa 'barnstorm' amid flagging poll numbers | US news
30/11/19 16:35 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
Michael_Novakhov shared this story from The Guardian. Joe Biden has embarked upon an eight-day tour across Iowa as the former US vice-president attempts to arrest his flagging poll numbers in the key state, which is the first to vote in ...
» In dangerous defense of Trump, the religious right has begun fighting a holy war / LGBTQ Nation
30/11/19 16:25 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
Michael_Novakhov shared this story from LGBTQ Nation. The war in heaven between angels and demons Photo: Pieter Bruegel the Elder Religious right leaders, struggling to maintain power and influence – even in the chaotic White House – hav...
» Daphne Caruana Galizia: Malta businessman charged with complicity in murder
30/11/19 16:08 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
Michael_Novakhov shared this story from BBC News - Home. Maltese businessman Yorgen Fenech has been charged with complicity in the murder of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in 2017. He pleaded not guilty to that charge an...
» Dutch police arrest Hague knife assault suspect
30/11/19 16:05 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
Michael_Novakhov shared this story from The Times of Israel. AFP — Dutch police arrested a homeless man on Saturday over a knife assault in a busy shopping street in The Hague in which three teenagers were wounded. The 35-year-old suspec...
» 2 Killed In London and at Least 3 Injured in The Hague in Separate Stabbing Incidents | Time
30/11/19 15:11 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
Michael_Novakhov shared this story . 2 Killed in London and at Least 3 Injured in The Hague in Separate Stabbing Incidents. Here's What We Know So Far 2 Killed In London and at Least 3 Injured in The Hague in Separate Stabbing Incidents ...
» To tell you the truth, my dear friends, I am not convinced that Usman Khan is the real culprit.
30/11/19 15:01 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
Michael_Novakhov shared this story from The FBI News Review - <a href="http://fbinewsreview.blogspot.com" rel="nofollow">fbinewsreview.blogspot.com</a> - Blog by Michael Novakhov. By Michael Novakhov (Mike Nova) To tell you the truth, my dear friends, I am not convinced that Usman Khan is the real c...
» Islamic State claims responsibility in London Bridge attack
30/11/19 14:27 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
Michael_Novakhov shared this story . The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the deadly attack near London Bridge on Friday, saying via its Amaq news agency that the attacker was one of its fighters. The suspect in the attack ha...
» Jeffrey Epstein, Blackmail and a Lucrative ‘Hot List’
30/11/19 12:39 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
Michael_Novakhov shared this story . What was the purpose of Kessler’s phone call? Why did he tell Mr. Dershowitz that he wasn’t on the supposed surveillance tapes, contradicting what he had said and showed to Mr. Boies, Mr. Pottinger an...
» Trump is in legal trouble even without impeachment
30/11/19 12:29 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
Michael_Novakhov shared this story . Playing on Current Time 0:00 / Duration Time 6:15 Loaded : 0% 0:00 Progress : 0% 0:00 Progress : 0% Remaining Time -6:15   descriptions off , selected Descriptions Captions Off On Off On Language Sett...
» America's troubled alliance with Ukraine
30/11/19 12:28 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
Michael_Novakhov shared this story from The Week. Sign Up for Our free email newsletters How did the U.S. become so involved with this former Soviet republic? Here's everything you need to know: How did modern Ukraine emerge? Ukraine's h...
» Giuliani's web tangles three Trump controversies
30/11/19 12:06 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
Michael_Novakhov shared this story . All roads lead to Rudy. Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor who is now President Donald Trump's personal lawyer, is in the news constantly for his role in the impeachment inquiry. But while ...
» Trump moves to escalate investigation of intel agencies
30/11/19 12:00 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
Michael_Novakhov shared this story from Hoback Herald. WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump directed the U.S. intelligence community on Thursday to “quickly and fully cooperate” with Attorney General William Barr’s investigation of t...
» Thinking Security: Black PSYOPs, Laundering Misinformation, Disinformation, & Agitprop - by Adam Silverman
30/11/19 11:59 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
Michael_Novakhov shared this story from Ark Valley Voice. Psychological Operations, popularly known as PSYOP, are the weaponization of information for effect. The effect being to influence the targeted population, whether a group, an org...
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