Video: Russia Deploys SU-25 Attack Aircraft to Contain Idlib Al Qaeda Militants

Government forces and the Russian Military Police have kicked off a joint security operation in the Eastern Ghouta region near Damascus. In particular, the operation targeted Jisreen, Mohammedia, al-Aftaris, al-Nashabiyah and Marj al-Sultan where a notable number of weapons and

The post Video: Russia Deploys SU-25 Attack Aircraft to Contain Idlib Al Qaeda Militants appeared first on Global Research.

Pollak: ‘Legitimate Criticism’ of Israel is Democrats’ Phony Excuse for Ilhan Omar’s Antisemitism

Ilhan Omar (Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty)

Source: Joel Pollack

House Democrats failed Wednesday to introduce a resolution condemning antisemitism, which had been promised in response to the latest antisemitic remarks by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN).

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) tried to contain the political damage, claiming that repeat-offender Omar was not “intentionally antisemitic.”

Other Democrats found another excuse: they claimed criticizing Omar would stifle “legitimate criticism” of Israel

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) claimed Democrats who criticized Omar were arguing it was “unacceptable to even *question* US foreign policy.” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), running for president as a Democrat, said, “What I fear is going on in the House now is an effort to target Congresswoman Omar as a way of stifling that debate. That’s wrong.” Rivals Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) made similar comments.

Rep. André Carson (D-IN), likewise, said that while Americans should “always strive to be inclusive and tolerant,” nevertheless “we cannot shut down legitimate policy debate.” And Omar, he said, “has raised valid points about Palestine and Israel that should be debated.”

Notably, Carson did not cite any examples of “valid points” that Omar had made. That is because she never did. Omar’s target was not Israel, but the American Jewish community.

Omar kicked off the controversy by tweeting last month, “It’s all about the Benjamins baby.” She was re-tweeting a comment by journalist Glenn Greenwald — a vehement critic of Israel — who lamented the fact that Congress is so supportive of Israel. Omar’s clear meaning — made even clearer in subsequent tweets — was that pro-Israel members of Congress had been paid to support Israel. Her remarks had antisemitic implications; she later apologized.

But Omar could not help herself, and claimed last week in front of a friendly audience at a Washington, DC, bookstore that pro-Israel Americans had “allegiance to a foreign country.” Her remark evoked themes of “dual loyalty” that have been used as a pretext to persecute Jews since the days of the Bible. Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee — on which Omar site — called her words a “vile anti-Semitic slur.”

That was the context of Omar’s remarks. She was complaining about Americans who support Israel, not criticizing any Israeli policy.

The only tangential link to any actual policy issue, perhaps, was Omar’s support for the “boycott, divestment, sanctions” (BDS) movement against Israel, which is the target of Republican criticism. Notably, Pelosi put Omar on the foreign affairs committee despite Omar’s support for BDS. She wasn’t silenced; she was promoted.

Omar’s remarks have embarrassed Democrats. They have also weakened the party’s attack on President Donald Trump, whom they have falsely portrayed as a bigot. Still, Democrats lack the political will to condemn antisemitism outright. They added a condemnation of anti-Muslim bigotry to their resolution, but even that could not convince the party’s “progressives” to support it. The result: a “full-scale brawl” over antisemitism in the party.

In an attempt to contain the damage, Democrats are claiming they are protecting “legitimate criticism” of Israel. But rather than saying, “We can criticize Israel, where appropriate, without resorting to vile anti-Semitic rhetoric,” they are effectively saying, “We cannot criticize vile anti-Semitic rhetoric if it might be construed as legitimate criticism of Israel.”

The party is giving a free pass to antisemitic bigotry — and criticism of Israel has nothing to do with it.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

Hungary’s Orban says his party could quit EU’s conservative bloc

March 8, 2019

By Gergely Szakacs and Alan Charlish

BUDAPEST/WARSAW (Reuters) – Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Friday his nationalist Fidesz party may leave Europe’s main conservative group due to a row about anti-EU election campaigning.

On Tuesday, the head of the group, the European People’s Party (EPP), German politician Manfred Weber, demanded Fidesz take down billboards attacking European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, part of its campaigning for European Parliament elections in May in which populist and eurosceptic parties are well positioned to make gains.

Orban’s chief of staff, Gergely Gulyas, later said Fidesz wanted to stay in the EPP, the most powerful conservative group in the European Parliament, and the posters would be replaced by others touting Orban’s plans to increase Hungary’s birth rate.

Orban told public radio on Friday he wanted to move the EPP toward a more anti-immigration platform, and raised the prospect of Fidesz quitting the group, which will meet on March 20 to discuss the matter.

“The debate may end up with (Fidesz) finding its place not within but outside the People’s Party,” Orban said.

Weber, a member of the CSU, the Bavarian sister party of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats, told Bild newspaper he expected Fidesz to apologize to EPP members and called for Orban to end his anti-EU campaigns.

Orban did not apologize. He said he had talked with both Juncker and Weber on Thursday and on Sunday he planned to visit Poland, a regional ally governed by the Law and Justice (PiS) party, which is not in the EPP.

“If we need to start something new … then obviously the first place to hold talks will be in Poland,” Orban said.

Asked about his remarks, Weber said it was up to Orban to decide which political family he wants to be in.

“Viktor Orban in the last years and months and days always was clearly committed that he wants to stay inside the European People’s Party,” Weber said.

“We are a political family of values, we are a political family that has common ideas, and everybody who is based on these common ideas can stay … others can leave or must be kicked out if this is not accepted anymore.”

(Reporting by Gergely Szakacs and Sandor Peto; Additional reporting by Alan Charlish in Warsaw; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

The U.S.-Venezuela Aid Convoy Story Is Clearly Bogus, but No One Wants to Say It

No one actually thinks the same Donald Trump who kicked off his run for the White House by calling Mexicans rapists, and subsequently, as president, left Puerto Rico for dead after Hurricane Maria, cares at all about the Venezuelan poor.

The post The U.S.-Venezuela Aid Convoy Story Is Clearly Bogus, but No One Wants to Say It appeared first on Global Research.

Report: Chicago Police Officers Upset at “Coddling” of Jessie Smollett

Rank and file irate that actor is being treated with kid gloves

Report: Chicago Police Officers Upset at "Coddling" of Jessie Smollett

Source: | Infowars.com

Rank and file Chicago police officers are reportedly irate at the fact that actor Jussie Smollett is being treated with kid gloves by higher-ups.

According to Quillette journalist Andy Ngo, “the rank and file officers at CPD are angry at how their PR is coddling Smollett with comments like this.”

The comment in question came from Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi, who said last night that he understood the situation may be “difficult emotionally” for Smollett and that authorities wanted to “make this as diplomatic as possible”.

According to Ngo’s police sources, such kind treatment wouldn’t normally be reserved for someone who before his arrest this morning was wanted for a felony offense.

Others suggest that Smollett will only receive a “slap on the wrist” after he was charged with disorderly conduct for filing a false police report.

Anger is building at Smollett potentially avoiding jail time for the crime given that his alleged actions could have kicked off racial violence across America. A slap on the wrist would also embolden other leftists to risk staging their own hate crimes, knowing that the punishment if caught would be minimal.

As we reported earlier, CNN is still running defense for the Empire actor with host Don Lemon asserting that the entire debacle was not Smollett’s “fault”.

Report: Chicago Police Officers Upset at “Coddling” of Jessie Smollett

Rank and file irate that actor is being treated with kid gloves

Report: Chicago Police Officers Upset at "Coddling" of Jessie Smollett

Source: | Infowars.com

Rank and file Chicago police officers are reportedly irate at the fact that actor Jussie Smollett is being treated with kid gloves by higher-ups.

According to Quillette journalist Andy Ngo, “the rank and file officers at CPD are angry at how their PR is coddling Smollett with comments like this.”

The comment in question came from Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi, who said last night that he understood the situation may be “difficult emotionally” for Smollett and that authorities wanted to “make this as diplomatic as possible”.

According to Ngo’s police sources, such kind treatment wouldn’t normally be reserved for someone who before his arrest this morning was wanted for a felony offense.

Others suggest that Smollett will only receive a “slap on the wrist” after he was charged with disorderly conduct for filing a false police report.

Anger is building at Smollett potentially avoiding jail time for the crime given that his alleged actions could have kicked off racial violence across America. A slap on the wrist would also embolden other leftists to risk staging their own hate crimes, knowing that the punishment if caught would be minimal.

As we reported earlier, CNN is still running defense for the Empire actor with host Don Lemon asserting that the entire debacle was not Smollett’s “fault”.

Citi Ready To Replace “Tens Of Thousands” Of Call-Center Workers With Robots

Citigroup is apparently preparing to follow through on its promise it shed as many as 20,000 operations and technology positions, according to an interview with CEO Mike Corbat that was published Tuesday in the Financial Times.

Corbat

Mike Corbat

CEO Mike Corbat has suggested that “tens of thousands” of people working in Citi’s call centers will likely be replaced by machines in the near future – machines that can “radically change or improve” customers’ experience while cutting costs. Corbat also ruled out a merger like the $66 billion SunTrust-BB&T tie-up that is expected to usher in a new wave of bank consolidation.

Corbat’s comments, according to the FT, were the “most explicit” the company has ever been about how its spends the $8 billion it has allotted every year for technology.

Citigroup chief executive Mike Corbat has suggested that “tens of thousands” of people working in the US bank’s call centres are likely to be replaced by machines that can “radically change or improve” customers’ experience while cutting costs. Mr Corbat, who runs America’s fourth-largest bank by assets, made the comments in an interview with the Financial Times in which he also ruled out Citi’s involvement in any wave of US banking consolidation triggered by the $66bn SunTrust-BB&T merger and justified its continued presence in China. Under pressure to bring its cost base in line with peers, Citi executives have been upfront about the impact of technology on their 209,000-strong global workforce, including last summer’s warning that as many as half of the 20,000 operations staff in its investment bank could be supplanted by machines.

Though, fortunately for the few people who will still have job’s in Citi’s call centers once the bloodletting is over, Corbat said the bank doesn’t intend to get rid of all of its human employees. Just most of them.

Citi has no plans to get rid of humans in its call centres altogether though. “There’ll always be the kind of thing where you’ve actually got to have someone to help solve,” said Mr Corbat. “We don’t want people frustrated in that.” Mr Corbat cited the potential of Citi’s technology as one of the reasons that his bank would not take part in the wave of US retail banking mergers that some analysts expect to be kicked off after BB&T and SunTrust unveiled the sector’s biggest post-crisis merger a fortnight ago.

Corbat also tried to spin concerns about Citi’s sprawling global presence (something investors have typically interpreted as one of its biggest liabilities, particularly in the wake of the Citibanamex scandal, which led to a damaging revision of the bank’s quarterly earnings back in 2014) into an advantage.

In the era of Trumpian trade wars, critics have questioned Citi’s geographic spread and its exposure to Mexico, where it owns the country’s second-largest bank. Citi is also the most prominent of the US banks in China. “China needs soy, China needs beef, China needs pork, China needs import of raw materials into their supply chain,” said Mr Corbat.

“Those routes may change. So as we [in the US] get tariffs and embargoes and things, those soy routes may move from the US to Brazil and Argentina – two places where we operate. We’ve seen a redrawing of these trade routes, but the demand hasn’t gone away.” He added that Citi remained the best owner for Citibanamex in Mexico because if you look at the pace of digital adoption and the expectation of consumer clients, the technology we’re already using in Asia and the US is totally portable to Mexico today.”

While it’s probably tempting for Citi’s bankers to brush this off as something that doesn’t concern them, as State Street just showed, they likely won’t be impervious to the bank’s technology spend forever.

Hope Is A Dangerous Thing For This Market To Have

Authored by Bloomberg’s Justina Lee

What explains the resilience of Europe’s equity recovery this year despite worsening economic data and political wobbles?

The obvious candidates are the excessive sell-off in late 2018, an ECB that’s likely to stay loose for longer and optimism over U.S.-China trade talks. But when the Stoxx Europe 600 is at the highest since October, just a trade platitude away from its 200- day moving average, you’ve got to wonder how much support you can still count on from those three factors.

Let’s start with trade. Trump received a report on whether imported cars could pose a national security threat on Sunday, once again raising the specter of higher U.S. auto tariffs. That should at least be a drizzle on the parade of positive comments on ongoing U.S.-China trade talks. Markets have been cheering every ostensible sign of a compromise that would at least delay the threatened increase in American levies on Chinese goods. But how much higher can stocks go on this basis, when a grand bargain covering thornier issues such as intellectual property remains unlikely?

“It’s going to be a can that’s going to be kicked further down the line and an avoidance of short-term escalation, which will probably lead to a sigh of relief in the markets, but it won’t go away,” says Dirk Thiels, head of investment management at KBC Asset Management NV in Brussels.

Meanwhile, with the Stoxx 600’s forward price-to- earnings ratio up 13 percent from its trough, the bar should be raised for good news. As results estimates get cut, forward valuations will also end up being dearer than they look now.

In this lens, European cyclicals’ year-to-date rally is a head- scratcher. Economic momentum in the region has deteriorated — just look at bond yields and listen to ECB officials — but here the debate is on China and valuations. The new year has seen a rebound in Chinese risk assets and expectations are for growth to improve after stronger stimulus measures. But more evidence is needed.

Some strategists argue that at least parts of cyclical sectors are so cheap that they’re bargains regardless of how macro data do. Bernstein analysts count industries including autos, mining and construction materials as “cheap cyclicals,” while “expensive cyclicals” are luxury and capital equipment. Morgan Stanley has its “cyclical cyclicals” and “defensive cyclicals.” If you have to be hopeful, be careful.

Euro Stoxx 50 is down -0.5%

US Is Setting Ground for Military Intervention in Venezuela

from Russia Insider: The Venezuelan government seems to be openly preparing to face a US military invasion. On February 10, the country’s military kicked off large-scale military drills, which will run until February 15. According to President Nicolas Maduro, the drills are set to become the biggest ones the country has held in its 200-year […]

The post US Is Setting Ground for Military Intervention in Venezuela appeared first on SGT Report.

Video: US Is Setting Ground for Military Intervention in Venezuela

The Venezuelan government seems to be openly preparing to face a US military invasion.

On February 10, the country’s military kicked off large-scale military drills, which will run until February 15. According to President Nicolas Maduro, the drills are

The post Video: US Is Setting Ground for Military Intervention in Venezuela appeared first on Global Research.

Think Tank Censured by Charity Commission for Hard Brexit Lobbying

Ever since the EU referendum debate kicked off in 2016 after David Cameron’s announcement to hold one, we at TruePublica have had very grave concerns about the undue influence of a prominent and highly influential think tank – the

The post Think Tank Censured by Charity Commission for Hard Brexit Lobbying appeared first on Global Research.

More than 95,000 data breach complaints since EU rules kicked in

January 25, 2019

By Foo Yun Chee

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Europe’s data protection regulators have received more than 95,000 complaints about possible data breaches, eight months after the adoption of a landmark EU privacy law, the European Commission said on Friday.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) gives new powers to privacy enforcers, allowing them to levy fines of up to 4 percent of global revenue or 20 million euros ($23 million), whichever is higher.

Last week, the French data protection watchdog slapped a 50 million euro fine on Alphabet-owned Google for failing to properly obtain users’ consent for personalized ads, the largest sanction under GDPR rules to date.

More penalties could come as Europeans become more aware of their rights, EU digital chief Andrus Ansip, European Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans, EU justice chief Vera Jourova and EU digital economy commissioner Mariya Gabriel said in a joint statement.

“What is at stake is not only the protection of our privacy, but also the protection of our democracies and ensuring the sustainability of our data-driven economies,” they said.

The majority of the complaints focused on telemarketing, promotional emails and video surveillance by closed-circuit televisions. Privacy regulators have opened 225 investigations to date.

($1 = 0.8821 euros)

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Mark Potter)

Viacom will buy Pluto TV streaming service for $340 million

January 22, 2019

(Reuters) – Viacom Inc <VIAB.O> said on Tuesday it will buy Pluto TV, a free video streaming TV service, for $340 million in cash to expand its advanced advertising business.

The owner of MTV Networks and Nickelodeon sees the purchase of the six-year-old company as another way to build a so-called direct-to-consumer business, Viacom said, while avoiding the capital intensive task of competing directly against subscription video services owned or to be built by Netflix Inc<NFLX.O>, Walt Disney Co <DIS.N> and AT&T Inc’s <T.N> WarnerMedia.

Viacom’s moves reflect a rekindled interest in advertising supported digital media kicked off by Roku, a device maker that helped viewers stream online videos on TVs that was spun off from Netflix. Amazon has also launched a free TV service recently.

Pluto TV claims 12 million monthly active users and licenses programming from 130 film and TV partners, including Viacom.

It is available on devices made by Roku Inc<ROKU.O> , Amazon.com Inc<AMZN.O>, Sony Corp<6758.T> and Apple Inc<AAPL.O>. The app is also available on smart televisions from Samsung<005930.KS> and Vizio.

Viacom said it sees Pluto TV as an important outlet for it to sell advanced advertising that has the ability to target viewers based on their habits.

While Viacom has no plans to make current shows on pay TV services available for free on the service, it sees Pluto TV as a way to make money off its archives.

(Reporting by Kenneth Li; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

Russiagate Collusion Theory Collapses

Former mainstream journalist Michael Isikoff of Washington Post, Newsweek, and NBC News fame has clearly begun questioning the infamous Steele Dossier. Has the Russiagate collusion theory finally collapsed? 

By S.T. Patrick

Radio host John Ziegler was not supposed to stymie veteran journalist and author Michael Isikoff. Ziegler was a friendly interviewer for Isikoff, the coauthor of Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump. But Isikoff, one of the earliest Washington, D.C. journalists to go all-in on Russiagate, is now in a precarious situation. Certain that special prosecutor Robert Mueller would find clear evidence that the 2016 Donald Trump campaign had colluded with Russian agents to use hacked DNC emails to influence voters, Isikoff had also eagerly accepted the now-dubious Steele dossier as fact. Two years later, the initial Russiagate thesis is dwindling and its major proponents have been left twisting in the wind.

In the guest introduction, Ziegler calls Isikoff “one of the few journalists he actually respects” and declares himself a “big fan.” Listeners then know that this is going to be a game of slow-pitch softball with Isikoff batting clean-up. So when asked to compare Trump’s situation with that of pre-impeachment Bill Clinton, Isikoff carefully now sidesteps the direct accusations made in his 339-page book.

Think the IRS Never Loses Cases? Think again!

Ten months after its publication, Isikoff now says, “Look, with Donald Trump, I think it’s fair to say we don’t have the full, complete evidence of what prosecutors have accumulated… . We don’t know exactly what [Michael] Cohen’s testimony is about his conversations with then-candidate Trump. . . . We still need to know exactly what the evidence is on this case.”

In comparing Clinton to Trump throughout the interview, Isikoff pointed out that it was the story of sexual compromise in a Russian hotel room that really had kicked off the Russiagate theories. But it is that story, the tale of Trump and Russian hookers, that Isikoff surprisingly and openly calls the “sensational, uncorroborated allegation in the Steele dossier that kicked off the Russia story into outer orbit.”

Isikoff’s mention of the Steele dossier prompted a follow-up from the host, who said, in the question, that the dossier had been “unfairly derided, especially by Trump fans.” Having just set up his guest to hit from the tee, Ziegler asks, “Would you agree that a lot of what is in the Steele dossier has been at least somewhat vindicated?” The use of qualifying terms in the question allowed Isikoff an enormous amount of room to say, “Yes.”

“No,” Isikoff answered.

“You would not?” Ziegler asks, sounding completely stunned.

“No,” Isikoff repeats.

When Ziegler asked why Isikoff now questions the document upon which much of his book’s thesis was based, Isikoff attempted to dance around the outer edges of the issue without flatly denying the dossier, and thus his own work.

“I think, in broad strokes, Christopher Steele was clearly on to something, that there was a major Kremlin effort to interfere in our elections,” Isikoff said cautiously with a wide array of careful pauses, “that they were trying to help Trump’s campaign, and that there were multiple contacts between various Russian figures close to the government and various figures in Trump’s campaign. That much has been established by the public record.”

Then came the surprise clarification that Trump supporters never saw coming from the veteran of The Washington Post, Newsweek, and NBC News.

“When you actually get into the details of the Steele dossier, the specific allegations, we have not seen the evidence to support them,” Isikoff said. “In fact, there is good grounds to think that some of the more sensational allegations will never be proven and are likely false. So I think it’s a mixed record at this point. . . . Based on the public record at this point, I have to say that most of the specific allegations have not been borne out.”

Near the end of the interview, Ziegler finally asked Isikoff the biggest question at hand: Is the case for Russian collusion imploding? Isikoff stumbled over some words and answered in an attempt to save his own credibility.

“I think the case we made in Russian Roulette, that the Russian government launched an unprecedented effort to interfere in our democratic process, is rock solid,” Isikoff said. “I think that case has been more than supported by Robert Mueller’s investigation. . . . That’s real. . . . Whether that translates into the magic word ‘collusion’ or ‘criminal charges to others in the Trump campaign’ . . . we are not there, and I think the evidence is growing that we are likely not going to be there. All the signs to me are that Mueller is reaching his end game and that we may see less than what many people want him to find.”

Isikoff is surprisingly honest in the interview. He is one of the many journalists who are now having to recognize the harsh reality of their withering political dreams if they want to continue with this story. Mueller, himself, who was recently granted another six months to make his case, has had to widen the scope of the investigation because the original Russiagate collusion story is faulty—or nonexistent. While there have been unethical misdoings by some officials that have surrounded Trump, the Russiagate story is, from all appearances, a stockpile of “fake news.”

S.T. Patrick holds degrees in both journalism and social studies education. He spent 10 years as an educator and now hosts the “Midnight Writer News Show.” His email is [email protected]

WATCH: Volunteers Kicked Out of Nat’l Park for Cleaning It During Shutdown—Without a Permit

by Matt Agorist, The Free Thought Project: Volunteers were kicked off a national park this week because they were picking up trash and didn’t fill out the proper paper work to do so. As the government shutdown enters week five, debris, trash, and snow are piling up at national parks across the country as the […]

The post WATCH: Volunteers Kicked Out of Nat’l Park for Cleaning It During Shutdown—Without a Permit appeared first on SGT Report.

They eat their own: LGBT activists now at WAR with feminist movement over definition of “woman”

(Natural News) Fiveclouds Tap & Bottle, a bar and brewery in Macclesfield, United Kingdom, recently kicked out a feminist mother who’s been a regular customer there for more than three years after a homosexual patron complained about her t-shirt, which had printed on the front of it the dictionary definition of a “woman.” In yet…

Cops: Officers Shot, Killed Suspect in Point Lookout

Nassau County police officers shot and killed a knife-wielding 22-year-old man suspected of committing a burglary near his Point Lookout home on Monday night, authorities said.

Officers were investigating a break-in on Lynbrook Avenue shortly before midnight Tuesday where a woman reported that a man armed with a tool or knife broke into her home, police said. The burglar fled after the woman, who was with her young child, screamed.

Police suspected the burglar was the same man who had been repeatedly kicked out of the nearby Buoy Bar several hours earlier, investigators said. Officers had responded to a disturbance at the bar but the man police said was responsible had left prior to police arrival.

Full Article on Long Island Press

We Are Change TV.US