Syria’s Ghouta militants hold civilians hostage

The USA always screams for a ceasefire on 'humanitarian' grounds when their military of their proxy, terrorist armies are about to be defeated. Now is the time for the Syrian forces to make a huge push to re-take this area. Within the East Ghouta pocket are hundreds of NATO and Israeli operatives. This is why the Western powers are hyperventilating about the Syrian army liberating this region from terrorists.

Syria’s East Ghouta militants hold civilians hostage, plan ‘chemical’ provocations – Russian MoD
RT : 26 Feb, 2018

Militants in East Ghouta, who continue to hold civilians hostage and to shell Damascus in breach of a humanitarian pause, may stage a provocative chemical attack, the Russian Center for Reconciliation in Syria has warned.

The leaders of militant units controlling the East Ghouta suburb of Damascus might be “preparing a provocation that will involve the use of chemical weapons,” Maj. Gen. Yury Yevtushenko said in a briefing on Sunday, citing intelligence obtained by the Russian Center for Reconciliation in Syria.

Just hours after the warning, reports emerged that several people in East Ghouta suffered symptoms consistent with exposure to chlorine gas, conveniently supported by images from the White Helmets group, known for its unique ability to appear at the right place just in time to film civilian suffering, which is later pinned on the Syrian government forces. For their virtuoso work, the controversial UK-backed NGO, also known as the Syria Civil Defense, were even awarded a Hollywood Oscar, despite being plagued by allegations of having ties with terrorists.

The allegations of Damascus’ involvement in yet another chemical attack on civilians coincide with the adoption of the UN Security Council resolution to impose a 30-day ceasefire in Syria, which does not apply to members of the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), al-Nusra or any other terrorist organization. Following prolonged and heated debates at the UN, in which Russia insisted that the resolution’s text be altered so that Damascus is not painted as the sole party to blame for the violence, the resolution was unanimously adopted on Saturday.

However, the militants in control of East Ghouta have completely disregarded the humanitarian pause, having unified their command to continue harassing the local population and shelling Damascus. “The situation continues to deteriorate in East Ghouta where Jaysh al-Islam, Jabhat al-Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham, Faylaq al-Rahman, and Fajr al-Ummah Brigade set up a united coordination center,” Yevtushenko said.

The Russian Reconciliation Center noted that the militant groups impede provision of humanitarian aid to East Ghouta and block civilians from leaving the suburb, basically keeping hundreds hostage, including women and children.

“Despite the statements made by Jaysh Al-Islam about reconciliation, the mortar shelling of Damascus continues from the territory controlled by the formations of this group,” the Russian military spokesman said, noting that, over the past 24 hours, at least 31 shells were fired from East Ghouta into residential districts of Damascus. On top of the widespread damage caused by the attacks, at least 13 civilians and one Syrian soldier were injured.

The terrorists also tried to stage a car bomb attack near the town of Qaboun, a suburb of Damascus, an attempt foiled by Syrian armed forces. According to the Russian military, the explosives-laden vehicle came from the areas controlled by Failak Ar-Rahman and al-Nusra militants.

For over a week the Syrian government forces have been carrying out operation Damascus Steel, to clear East Ghouta of illegal Islamist units that have been terrorizing the locals for years, and who have rejected any initiatives to lay down their arms and leave the area. As tensions continue to run high in East Ghouta, despite the agreed ceasefire, the Russian Center for Reconciliation in Syria urged the warring parties to “stop any combat actions and armed provocations.”

This is not the first time that reports of a chlorine gas attack have emerged from the enclave on the outskirts of the Syrian capital. Previous incidents allegedly occurred in January, just before various factions of Syrian society gathered for the Syrian National Congress in Sochi, Russia. The US Secretary of State at the time used the reports to blame Russia for all the chemical weaponry-related incidents in Syria, regardless of who actually conducted it. The Russian Foreign Ministry slammed the insinuations as a “massive propaganda attack” aimed at undermining efforts for a peaceful settlement in Syria.

The US has repeatedly warned that it may conduct more direct air strikes against Syrian forces if chemical weapons are used in the country. Last April President Donald Trump ordered Tomahawk missile strikes on Shayrat Airbase, in response to a chemical attack in Idlib, which the US, without a single shred of evidence, immediately pinned on President Bashar Assad. French President Emmanuel Macron also promised to “strike” Syria if any evidence emerges that chemical weapons are being used against civilians.

Russia has repeatedly drawn the international community’s attention to incidents involving the use of chemical weapons in Syria, and has consistently called for independent and impartial investigations into the matter. Last month Moscow again proposed a mechanism to replace the Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), whose mandate expired in November. Previously, JIM handled UN investigations into the use of chemical weapons in Syria but, according to Russian officials, has failed to produce objective reports on chemical attacks, including the April incident in Khan Shaykhun. Instead, Moscow has been proposing to establish an objective investigative mechanism to probe all allegations of chemical attacks in Syria “based on impeccable and irrefutable data,” rather than on cherry-picked facts and accounts by partisan sources.

Selected Comments:

# Militants = US proxy army

# World powers want Syria to be destroyed absolutely so that they can take the land and its resources. Already most of the locals migrated to the rest of the world except few couldn't do so. The destruction and bloodshed have become the show of strength for the world powers in the name of democracy or of any other ideology or belief.

# ISIS is losing in Syria and the west can’t take it!

# USA and many nations don't even now include Chlorine Gas as a chemical weapon as its so ineffective and inconsequential compared to all other lethal chemical weapons. The Green Beret trainers in Jordan training ISIS, al Nusra train them to steal commonly used Chlorine water purification tanks, pack some explosives onto it and blow them up, the tanks are heavy to carry around so they pack those into IED laden car bombs. The Chlorine is quickly dissipated and very localized.

# The western propaganda machine, including antonio guterres has reached epic proportions of deceitfulness with their phony East Ghouta narrative. it is the western created/backed/trained/financed/armed terrorists that are slaughtering the syrian people while everyone is conned into blaming the syrian government.

# US has pent many billions to arm and train ISIS and even has their own operatives in Syria. Assad is still the president and US cannot build pipeline over Syria??? hahahahahahahaha.

# The 'ceasefire' is just a ruse to rearm the vermin because they know they are doomed.

# Vanessa Beeley Exposes Entertainment Industry/NGO Network Pushing White Helmets Propaganda.

# Syria should not give these terrorists a space to breath that includes the white helmets, go after them day and night.

# The militants are backed by the US, Israel & Turkey to overtake the country for it's natural resources & get a new leader as was with Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, etc, and want the area to attack Iran while the Russians sit back & talk about it. Isn't it time for action beyond the words Russia?

# I ask myself WHY does America want to see Bashar Al Assad leave office so bad? WHY is this such a priority for America? Chemical weapons is just a catalyst to shock the World to accept America's presence and mission because America used Agent Orange and Napalm in Vietnam and nobody was turning upside down in the World community.

US Senate Voted To Reauthorize NSA Spying Program

The American People do have enemies: they just all sit in DC. Mitch McConnell: "The men and women we trust to protect this country say this capability is essential to their missions." What men and women in the FBI/CIA/NSA do we trust to use this information to "protect" the country Mitch? And what missions are those? The espionage, conspiracy, and subterfuge missions?

Senate Votes To Reauthorize NSA Spying Program
1/18/2018
Tyler Durden

​While most Congressional observers are focused on the battle to avert a weekend government shutdown (an outcome that's looking increasingly likely), the Senate on Thursday quietly passed an extension of the NSA's spying surveillance program, sending the bill to the president's desk a week after the House voted to authorize the controversial plan.

Even President Trump voiced scepticism about reauthorizing the bill in a tweet earlier this year, where he claimed it had helped the Obama administration spy on the Trump campaign, although he infamously flip-flopped later.

As the Hill  pointed out, the vote comes after an (almost) tension-filled hour on the Senate floor earlier this week where opponents tried, but failed, to mount a filibuster to force additional debate on the legislation, with both sides spotted lobbying key holdouts. Opponents rallied against the bill ahead of Thursday's vote, arguing the legislation is being rushed through.

Critics of the controversial Section 702 of the FISA Act - the measure that was reauthorized by the Senate today and is expected to be signed into law despite Trump's reservations - said it allows the FBI to spy on Americans without first obtaining a warrant. Though some surveillance experts have disputed this.

As the Wall Street Journal  explained, Section 702 underpins a wide range of electronic collection against foreign targets overseas and has been referred to by officials as critical to national security. The law was set to expire Friday unless Congress voted to reauthorize it.

Opponents of the bill say the secrecy surrounding intelligence agency operations has made it prone to abuse. One of the most prominent critics of re-authorization is Thomas Drake, an NSA whistleblower who raised concerns about the domestic spying initiatives that were revealed by Edward Snowden - except he raised his concerns through official channels.

The vote passed in a 65 to 34 vote with bipartisan support, meaning quite a few members of the Democrats "resistance" ended up aligning with the hated Donald Trump.

Supporters only needed 51 votes on Thursday, giving them more breathing room, compared with the 60 votes needed on Tuesday's procedural hurdle.

Per the Wall Street Journal, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell exhorted his colleagues to back extending the program ahead of Thursday's vote, calling it "one of the most important tools" for national security officials. By passing the bill, Congress rejected efforts by a coalition of conservative Republicans, civil libertarians and liberal Democrats to enact new privacy protections for Americans who are inadvertently caught up in surveillance by American intelligence agencies.

Selected Comments:

# What about penalties for bogus use of evidence / misuse of said program?

# Are they fearing an organized revolt or something?
      # So long as you're not interfering with their smuggling rackets, drug running, human trafficking, or a personal enemy, or related to a personal enemy, or involved in the liberty movement, or a truther, or related to anyone in those groups, or post libertarian ideology on social media, or read the wrong websites, or smoke marijuana, or collect firearms, or go to protests.....or talk shit on ZH.....you have nothing to worry about.

# It's how they silence dissent.

# I'm shocked that there were actually 34 votes against it! We must act immediately to remove these Russian sympathizers from office!!

# Bipartisan just means getting fucked twice.

# I expressly DISTRUST any of those fuckers to protect the country or be faithful to their oath of office.  The constitution is clear, this is a violation, and everyone of those pieces of shit that voted for this abomination should be swinging from lamp posts.

# Notice they approved it before the 3 major congressional investigation committees began taking the FBI apart for abusing this access. Look for all hell to break loose on the crooked FBI front in the next week.

# All the surveillance power in the world and still can't prevent one mass shooting on US soil.
   # Why would you prevent something you planned?
   # And therein lies the rub...

# Won't vote ever again for the scum that authorized this unconstitutional bill.
   # That made them chuckle
   # Many of us will not vote again for elected representatives who represent the interests of citizens of other countries, rather than American citizens, to the extreme of doubling the child-tax-credit welfare of even the welfare-supported illegal immigrants, vaulting it over $6,444, and helping them to undercut millions of underemployed Americans in the job-seeker pool. Congress hates-on the many underemployed American citizens, the citizens struggling to cover rent that takes more than half of their earned-only income. I guess they may as well make it symmetrical, taking away what little many Americans have,  even fundamental constitutional liberties. They are just doing it to accommodate the globalism that lines the pockets of a few elites. We would not need so much surveillance to prevent terrorism, were it not for their unfettered mass-immigration policies, and the surveillance is not preventing it, anyway.

# Your comment has been duly recorded in the NSA data center in Utah.
I, however, love the NSA and would never question their authority or motives.  The NSA is keeping us all safe and prosperous.  The NSA is as GrrrEAT as Kellog's Frosted Flakes.  The NSA should have a much bigger budget.  The NSA should have wider powers.  The NSA should not have to answer to anyone.  Long Live the NSA!

# I, however, hate the NSA and question the motives of every cocksucker that works for them.  Actually, I don't question them.  I know that the most benign of them care about nothing so much as their easy workday and generous pensions.  The rest care only about exercising power they couldn't exercise in person. They don't care about keeping us safe as they have obviously failed to prevent any of the FBI false flags. They don't care about keeping us prosperous as they have stood by while our wealthy is blown up in shit holes around the world. They should have not budget and no powers. They will have to answer someday - to all of us. Let them desicate in public as the buzzards pluck their eyeballs, strip their carcasses and shit them out to perform the single beneficial act of their liv es - fertilizing the surrounding area.  Fuck the NSA.  Fuck the CIA.  Fuck the FBI. Fuck the War Pigs in the Pentagon and State department.

# Ever notice that whennver there is bipartisan support for something in DC...the DEN OF CORRUPTION...its ALWAYS bad for the American People and the Constitution...but good for the deep state/NWO.
   # Always pay close attention to what get's 'bi-partisan' support. Because it's always something that's NEVER in the real interest of anyone outside of the government and it's ALWAYS something that gives them more power.

# The Democratic & Republican parties are nothing but Kabuki Theater. Neocons control both parties and the "deep-state" owns the neocons. Our votes are meaningless as elected officials pursue the goals of the deep state and NOT the will of the American people!!!

# The Criminal, illegal domestic surveillance of US citizens without a warrant or probable cause is only one symptom of many of how corrupt our government is at all levels.  Voters don't matter.  The deep state is not elected.  Money talks in Washington and the revolving door spins like a top.  Criminality & Corruption is so rampant, it is neither illegal or “hidden in plain sight” anymore.

Criminal Congressmen can profit on insider information (no thanks to the Stock Act and Harry Reid who put a stop to it).  Special interests not only put their puppets in power and select their candidates before the election but write their own laws verbatim and hand them over to their puppets WHO DON'T EVEN READ THE TEXT THEY ARE PASSING!

This is not conspiracy folks.  This is the country you live in.  The only reason Trump is pissed about it is because it AFFECTED HIM!  If you think he cares about you, then you haven't been paying attention.

Everyone except those who are supportive of a police state, and neo-feudalism are in for a rough time.  That is, of course, if this once great nation doesn't get turned into a pile of ash for starting WWIII - likely in 2018.

Realize this didn't happen overnight and it didn't happen without the people's consent.  Folks didn't have a problem with special interests taking over our government despite repeat warnings from Eisenhower, Kennedy, Reagan and others.  Folks believed what the MSM spoon fed them.   People didn't bother to question or hold their leaders accountable.  They allowed their rights to be systematically stripped away with new legislation that made the constitution effectively obsolete.   This goes back to at least Wilson, the formation of the FED, the Counsel On Foreign Relations, Rockefeller, the Rothchild's, JP Morgan, .etc.  What wwe are experiencing now is the maturity of a Criminal corrupt government who no longer exists for the people it claims to represent and instead sees them as an obstacle (as Rex Tillerson so eloquently put it).

All evil needs is for good people to remain silent.  The American people have remained collectively silent (divided, and distracted) for generations.  I do not see them uniting any time soon.

Insane times indeed...

# If history serves the NSA was already doing these things BEFORE they were given permission.  Why would this bill passing/failing change anything?

http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com/archives/senate-votes-to-reauthorize-nsa-spying-program

Israel blames F-16 downing in Syria operation on ‘pilot error’ :-)

LOL what a spin, yeah I'm sure the pilot didn't mean to fly into a missile and get shot down. Israel doesn't want to admit the their planes can get shot down. It stamps a big lie to their alleged invincibility, of course when you use aircraft against the Palestinians who can only throw rocks you will seem invincible too.

Israel blames F-16 downing in Syria operation on ‘pilot error’
RT : 26 Feb, 2018

An Israeli F-16 fighter jet, shot down by Syrian air defenses during Israeli raids on Iranian targets earlier this month, apparently crashed only because its pilot made a mistake, an Israeli Air Force investigation has claimed.

On February 10, the Israeli Air Force lost one of its supersonic fighters while striking Iranian targets on Syrian territory. Tel Aviv had launched the biggest air raid operation in over three decades after intercepting an Iranian drone in Israeli airspace. Swiftly reacting to the ongoing “retaliatory attack,” the Syrian government activated its air defenses in order to try and intercept incoming missiles – and eventually hit one of the Israeli F-16 fighter jets which had breached Syrian airspace.

On Sunday, the Israelis confirmed that the F-16 was taken down by the Soviet-built S-200 surface-to-air (SAM) missile system, known to NATO as the SA-5.

Following the incident, in which both pilots of the Israeli aircraft survived, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) launched its own investigation into the causes of the crash. After analyzing the chronological order of events during the Israeli strikes and the Syrian response to it, the internal review of the Israeli experts determined that a pilot mistake was responsible for the F-16 take down.

“On the balance of completing the mission versus defending themselves... the aircrew failed to adequately defend itself. Its actions did not match the needed order of priorities to address the missile threat it faced,” the report said, according to Haaretz. Furthermore, Israeli pilots were well aware that they would be exposed to enemy fire during their mission to destroy the Iranian drone command and control center.

“In the operational theatre, there were a number of planes that did indeed defend themselves against the Syrian launchings while completing their mission. One of the planes that did not defend itself, was hit,” a senior Israel Air Force officer told reporters, commenting on the conclusion of the probe, Reuters reports.

At the same time, the IAF said that the pilots did the right thing by ejecting from the plane, calling it a decision that saved their lives. The conclusion of the probe, made public on Sunday, revealed that the crew possessed the adequate intelligence to complete the mission. It also added that the F-16’s warning systems had behaved properly at the time of the incident.

Israel remains undeterred by the takedown of its F-16, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared following the incident, using the events of February 10 to issue new threats against Iran, whose forces are involved in the Syrian conflict at Damascus' invitation.

Selected Comments:

# They r right. Being aggressor is a mistake.

# The other pilot error, seems to be firing missiles into Syria, from Lebanese airspace !


# So, do make another mistake, result will be same.

# ISIS air force was put on their place that day.. :-)

# Basically, what they are saying, their pilots have never faced someone shooting back at them, always attacking defenceless targets. But this time, they were not defenceless. L.O.L. Proves the Israeli air force is not as great as it thought. Go Syria.

# Hey, I think it was a pilot error - that freaking pilot was in Syria, that was his error.

# The mistake was that he was illegally flying in foreign airspace.

# mistake was he flew into a projectile.

# Typical of Israel keeping its 'immaculate and immortal' propagandistic appearance of being unable to be defeated. In the real world, they are just as weak and as vulnerable as any other nation in war.

# And the hasbara headquarters aka mainstream media does the rest: Part 1 "Israel claimed that it intercepted an Iranian drone in Israeli airspace on Saturday, February 10; Iran denied that it had a drone there. Israel then bombed a Syrian airbase, saying it was the command-and-control center from which Iran had launched the drone. The Syrian government shot down an Israeli jet that had bombed the base, and Israel subsequently launched more airstrikes against Syria.”

# Hahahahaha Israel and America are both run by the same people this is why the news coming out of them are fake and ridiculous LOLOLOL.

# America's true goal in Syria is regime change to install a puppet to approve a gas pipeline into Europe to break the EU's dependence on Russian gas to be able to turn up the sanctions on Russia to turn them back to the Uni Polar NWO agenda. PERIOD!

= = =

Israeli warplanes attacked military targets near Damascus from Lebanese airspace, according to Syrian state media. The Syrian Army claims it destroyed most of the Israeli rockets.

Syria’s official news agency SANA said the military responded to “a new Israeli aggression” near the capital.

“The general command of the armed forces holds Israel fully responsible for the dangerous consequences for its repeated, aggressive and uncalculated adventures,” a Syrian Army statement said, as cited by Reuters. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military about the reported incident.

Syria accused Israel of a similar attack on January 9, in which missiles targeted military outposts in the area of Qutayfeh, in the Damascus countryside.

Selected Comments:

# US plans to start war on Lebanon to weaken Iran. That's why, Israel intentionally uses Lebanon air space to attack Syria.

# The WEST + UN never blame the Juice for their aggression; but should you defend yourself against the juice then the WEST + UN will come down on you with fury .. so that indeed says a lot about the s0-called system ..

# Rothschilds created Z1onist Israel to be a war machine and to bring about the arrival of the Jewish Messiah aka Lucifer. through exactly these types of aggressions.

# see all the lovers of israel say go israel, but when it happens to them they scream terrorism.

# They are foaming at the mouth to see Assad dead, and Syria balcanized.

# Just do the math...here's just a couple..Kushner, Schiff, Schumer, Blumenthal, Sanders, Feinstein, Lieberman,, all Jews.

# Perhaps Lebanon should upgrade their air defense. I think i know some people who are willing and able to help with this.

# Israel is an artificial country created by UK in Palestinian land. Jews snatched Palestinian land and established Israel and claims it's promised land by god.

Questions for Inquisitive Minds...

erDOGan flaunts war propaganda using a child !

Erdogan the Megalomaniac is completely oblivious to the fact that it's a sin against God, (love) to even dress a child in a military uniform, not to mention saying, “If she is martyred [killed], they will lay a flag on her, God willing,” this is the epitome of ignorance and evil.

‘If you are martyred, we’ll honor you!’ Erdogan tells a sobbing girl in army uniform
RT : 26 Feb, 2018

In a bizarre act of propaganda, while urging the nation to be ready for mobilization, the Turkish leader invited a small girl in military uniform onstage and assured the sobbing child she would receive state honors if killed.

The controversial episode happened as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was addressing a provincial congress of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the southern province of Gaziantep on Saturday. The Turkish leader used the occasion to whip up public support for the ongoing military operation targeting Kurdish militias in Syria – and to remind those who have completed their service but still had “active mobilization orders” to be ready to be recruited again if the situation requires.

At one point, a young girl in the hall, who was dressed in military uniform complete with a maroon beret worn by the Turkish Special Operations Forces, caught Erdogan’s attention, according to TV footage of the speech. He invited the child, who looked about four or five years-old, to come to the stage next to him. She did, although the attention apparently made her uncomfortable, judging by her sobbing.

“Look what you see here! Girl, what are you doing here? We have our maroon berets here, but maroon berets never cry,” the Turkish president told the child in an apparent attempt to calm her.

“She has a Turkish flag in her pocket too,” Erdogan then told the audience, embracing the girl.

“If she is martyred [killed], they will lay a flag on her, God willing,” he then added in a bizarre twist: “She is ready for everything, isn’t she?”

The confused girl only answered: “Yes.” Erdogan planted a kiss on the girl’s face and let her go.

The bizarre scene was accompanied by the party members' cheers “Chief! Take us to Afrin!” according to some local media reports. The audience referred to the northern Syrian enclave held by the Kurdish militias, whom the Turkish forces have been targeting in their ‘Olive Branch’ military operation.
The incident has already been criticized by the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) that opposes Ankara’s operation in the Afrin region. “The mindset that abuses children by promising them death will lose. We will win the struggle for the children’s free and happy life!” the party said in a Twitter post.

Erdogan’s apparent PR stunt was also slammed by the HDP member and the former co-chair, Ertugrul Kurkcu, who said that “kids are abused to show that the war is legitimate.”

The Turkish military launched its latest operation against the YPG – a Kurdish-led militia it considers to be a wing of the PKK, an armed movement that Ankara lists as terrorists – last month. The Kurds control several enclaves in northern Syria, including Afrin, which they secured from Islamist militants and terrorists over the course of the Syrian conflict with active US-led coalition’s backing.

A total of 1,780 “terrorists” have been “neutralized” since Ankara began launching air strikes and its troops advanced into the Kurdish-held territories, according to the Turkish General Staff. Ankara insists that the offensive is solely aimed at neutralizing threats to its national security, denying allegations that it has targeted civilians.

Damascus has repeatedly condemned the operation as a violation of the country’s sovereignty and an “aggression” claiming innocent civilian lives, yet so far has hesitated to deploy its regular army in the region. Militias loyal to Damascus, however, arrived in the Afrin area last week to support the US-backed Kurds against Ankara, further complicating the situation in northern Syria.

Selected Comments:

# One has to be st00pid to fall for "patriotic" B$ pr0pag4nda and get oneself k1lled for some idea of a country that isn't real and never will be. Ask yourself, what does your country do for you and is it really worth your life. Nope. All countries are run by a bunch of c0rrupt high ups that don't give a d4mn about an average citizen. Don't get yourself k1lled for the 1%ers!

# Everyone should be at war against the 1%. Every one. All of the 1% and the NGOs they fund to peddle arms deals and set up wars. The UN, The IMF, the Bilderbergs. They're the destroyers.

# What a depraved and demonic spectacle, from a power crazed insensitive vicious ideological brute.

# This is a pure incitement to kill in the name of religion and God........“If she is martyred [killed], they will lay a flag on her, God willing".

# from this day forward to be known as recep tayyip bananabum.

Obama Quietly Signed Propaganda Act !

This had been in full swing ever since Trump assumed power using bogus Russian interference for which they are still struggling to present any evidence. We also noticed that European countries started to accuse, without any proof, Russia of interfering in their elections including Brexit!

Obama Quietly Signs Propaganda Act to Counter ‘Fake News’ – EU to follow suit

Graham Vanbergen, True Republica, 29th December 2016

Fake news and propaganda driven by government’s and corporations is of course, nothing new. Brexit and the American election have brought the subject into sharp focus more recently as the political class have been unexpectedly losing important desired outcomes. Consequently, as TruePublica reported a week ago, in Britain, controversial laws have been introduced to stem free speech, which, over the passage of time will be used to halt any individual, website or news outlet from reporting against the government narrative with so-called fake news eventually being outlawed.  Think this is conspiratorial theorising? Think again.

Last Friday, President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which authorises $611 billion for military spending in 2017. Leaving aside the year-on-year increase and the huge sum overall, buried deeply inside its hefty documentation the NDAA authorises the “Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act of 2016”.

Senator Rob Portman justified the act with – “there is currently no single U.S. governmental agency or department charged with the national level development, integration and synchronization of whole-of-government strategies to counter foreign propaganda and disinformation.”

After Trump’s election, favoured arch-enemy Russia is in the crosshairs in the international propaganda war whilst the Act effectively brings with it the creation of a post cold-war Ministry of Information (or disinformation depending on your view) to combat it at home.

The U.S. senate has effectively brought into law, described by ZeroHedge as “a bill that further chips away at press liberties in the US, and which sets the stage for future witch hunts and website shutdowns, purely as a result of an accusation that any one media outlet or site is considered as a source of “disinformation and propaganda” and is then shut down by the government.”

Europe is about to follow suit.

EU Parliament President Martin Schulz and Germany’s Justice Minister Heiko Maas both came out against so-called fake news last week. In completely separate press interviews, both politicians discussed plans to create laws banning platforms like Facebook from spreading what they consider to be fabricated stories presented as real news, something both men saw as harmful to democracy.

“We need a systematic legal framework,” Maas told the “Bild am Sonntag” newspaper. His ruling Christian Democrats (CDU) and coalition partners the Social Democrats (SPD) have already announced their intention to craft new legislation to stop the dissemination of fake news in late January 2017.

Schulz offered more concrete plans, saying that to combat the subversion of democracy that occurs when foreign interests create fake viral stories, “not only a national, but a European” solution was necessary.

Thomas Oppermann, who leads the SPD in Germany’s parliament, the Bundestag, decided on even more drastic action to combat fake news. Speaking with “Der Spiegel” magazine, Oppermann said that harsh punitive measures were necessary and suggested 500,000 euro fines be imposed on the portals of misinformation. Whilst clearly referring to Facebook, the EU Commission is looking more widely. Facebook and Google have both stated that ‘fake news’ stories will be taken down by an army of ‘fact-checkers.’  “Our team will continue to closely vet all prospective publishers and monitor existing ones to ensure compliance” said Facebook last week, with Google echoing the same message.

“Berlin has concerns that similar foul play that saw Donald Trump elected could affect the German vote” says one news outlet in Germany. It is obvious that the political class continue to refuse the democratic will of the people and blame the Russian bogeyman and their messengers – not their own mis-handling of the great EU project.

Euronews recently ran a story stating that “experts say the phenomenon (of fake news) is a major problem in Europe, ahead of polls in France and Germany next year that could prove vital for the EU’s future. It comes after Italian fact-checking website Pagella Politica claimed half the stories shared on social media in the run-up to the country’s recent constitutional referendum – the result of which prompted the resignation of prime minister Matteo Renzi – were fake.” Again, the desired outcomes of the political class being out-gunned by common people being left behind by globalisation is not the real reason – fake news is.

The International Business Times went with the story “How US and EU failings allowed Kremlin propaganda and fake news to spread through the West.” IBT went into hysteria mode and hypothesised that Russia was guilty of “engaging in a new type of warfare against the West, using information, cyber attacks, and propaganda to exploit weaknesses in western societies and undermine faith in their leaders and institutions.” All of the links to this story except one were to its own articles. The one exception ended up apologising for its use of information obtained by so-called experts who refused to be named.

The political elite want to crack down on what they view is fake news — which essentially amounts to pretty much anything that they disagree with or what doesn’t fit with their own world view and the outcomes desired. Gatekeepers in the form of fact-checkers will be deciding what’s false and what’s true, with little or no vetting. Long, hard, fought-for civil liberties and rights, along with free expression will be handed to organisations, approved by government who are convinced we shouldn’t have those rights in the first place.

Amazing Insight From Nelson Mandela !

When South Africa got independence from the White Apartheid Rulers in 1990 under the leadership of Nelson Mandela, a large part of his supporters and comrades, mainly from the African Tribes had demanded special privileges and reserved quotas in the education, public and private sectors respectively!

But Nelson Mandela replied that he wouldn't allow any such special privileges or reserved quotas at any cost, because the products of such reservations would destroy the whole nation!!

The famous statement of Nelson Mandela is permanently displayed at the entrance of the University of South Africa.

Selected excerpts from his amazingly insightful statement read as follows:

"Destroying any nation does not require the use of atomic bombs or the use of long range missiles. It only requires lowering the quality of education and allowing cheating in the examinations by the students....." 

"Patients die at the hands of such quack doctors. Buildings collapse at the hands of such dubious engineers. Money is lost in the hands of such bankers, economists and accountants. Humanity dies at the hands of such pseudo-religious scholars. Justice is lost at the hands of such corrupt judges..." 

"The collapse of education is the collapse of a nation..."

Alas! What an amazing relevance !!!

Syria’s East Ghouta battleground distorted by MSM propaganda

When the west was destroying Mosul and Raqqa it was war and dead civilians were just unavoidable casualties...the world said nothing! Not a word! Not even a UN meeting. Now....It’s Assad is bad. Russia is bad. Let’s have a UN meeting to sanction Assad some more. Hypocrite that’s what the west has become...

‘Truth is the 1st casualty of war’: Syria’s East Ghouta battleground distorted by MSM propaganda

RT : 23 Feb, 2018

The information battle on the E. Ghouta front is turning into Aleppo 2.0, with Western media, often relying on dubious sources, describing – in unison – the Syrian regime atrocities while nearly glorifying terrorists’ resistance.

Over the last few days, mainstream media have simultaneously turned their attention to the ongoing anti-terrorist operation in Eastern Ghouta, a militant-controlled suburb of Damascus, which is seeing a new wave of clashes between Syrian government forces and Islamist factions.

While the army aims to clear the area of such terrorist units as Jaysh al-Islam, Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (formerly known as al-Nusra Front), Ahrar al-Sham and Failaq al-Rahman, Western media, often relying on militant-embedded sources, continue to paint an ominous picture, in which the government troops are deliberately slaughtering civilians.

“Right now we see very concerted Western media attempt to paint the Syrian government as the bad guy, the evil, and giving breathing space for the terrorists who are having the last bastion,” Kaveh Afrasiabi, a former adviser to Iran’s nuclear negotiation team, explained to RT. “The Syrian government has the legitimate security concerns because of the daily shelling of its capital city by the rebels.”

A naive viewer might imagine that Assad was just bombing civilians for the hell of it because the jihadi fighters are totally absent from the picture. And the pictures are literally provided by the jihadists themselves,” Peter Ford, former UK ambassador to Syria and Bahrain, told RT, referring to the controversial White Helmets, who have long been hailed by the mainstream western media as heroes. However, the UK-backed NGO has been plagued by allegations of having close ties with terrorist groups.

Before the Syrian government forces intensified operations against jihadist factions in the area, Russia had been trying to broker a deal with armed groups to stop using civilians as human shields and surrender their weapons. Moscow has also been working relentlessly to allow humanitarian aid in. On Thursday, however, Russia had to reject a Western-backed UN resolution for a 30-day ceasefire in Syria as “utopian,” with Russia’s envoy Vassily Nebenzia pointing out that the “propaganda-driven” approach to the coverage of the conflict was only encouraging militants to continue their armed provocations.

“As the saying goes, truth is the first casualty of war,” Afrasiabi laments. The New York Times on Tuesday, for instance, published a piece based on the information provided by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a one-man Britain-based war-monitoring group. The piece paints the Assad regime as pure evil, whose only intention is to butcher civilians. The British Guardian newspaper, meanwhile, went as far as to compare the civilian suffering in Eastern Ghouta to Bosnia’s Srebrenica.

Russia has also been repeatedly attacked for the failure of its de-escalation zone initiative and its support of Damascus. Together with Iran and Turkey, Russia is tasked with enforcing the ceasefire in Eastern Ghouta, one of the de-escalation zones established as a result of the Astana talks in May 2017. Despite the ongoing armed provocations, the Russian Center for Reconciliation in Syria enabled the militants to leave the area, but the proposal was rejected.

What is also being downplayed is the Syrian and Russian resolve to end the Ghouta crisis, similar to the one during the Battle of Aleppo, where special corridors were organized to evacuate civilians out of the city, before extending the offer to terrorists for a mass exodus. NYT and the Guardian are not the only western media sources to have shown bias in reporting the events in Eastern Ghouta. A number of experts have pointed out that the Western media coverage of the current events follows a pattern developed in covering the operation to liberate Aleppo, which ended in July 2016.

“We have seen this kind of atrocity level pulled over and over again a few months ago, with Aleppo for example,” Jim Jatras, political analyst, and media and government affairs specialist, told RT. “Every time the Al Qaeda linked groups are on the ropes and the Syrian army is on the verge of liberating territory, then we hear all these horror stories, some of which may have a basis in truth, some not, about how civilians are suffering but nothing on who the terrorists are who are controlling these areas and oppressing the people who live there.”

The Aleppo campaign, initially backed by Russian airstrikes, received mostly one-sided, negative coverage in the Western media, with reporters and politicians accusing Moscow of “war crimes” and causing a “humanitarian disaster,” despite the fact that Moscow and Damascus maintained a 'no-fly zone' over the city. The liberation of the city was presented as its “fall” and “destruction,” as media outlets chose footage of shelled-out buildings rather than scenes of Aleppo civilians celebrating in the streets. Eventually, that narrative fell apart as tens of thousands of refugees started returning to the city and rebuilding of ruined areas began.

Now the same tactic is being used by the Western media today.This week, CNN used a 15-year-old, Muhammad Najem, and selfie videos he posted on social media, to base their report on the bloody atrocities allegedly committed by the government forces in Damascus suburbs. “The children of Ghouta die every day by the bombing of the Assad regime and Russia,” Najem says, in a segment featured on CNN.

The Syrian boy with flawless English serves as a stark reminder of a seven-year-old Bana al-Abed, who became the “voice” of many civilians trapped under the government siege in Aleppo. While many had only fondness and concern for the Aleppo girl, to others her accounts raised doubt and were seen as a directed propaganda effort.

“We saw this very much with Aleppo. We saw the same kind of coverage from the Western media. Atrocities were being predicted and reported and it turned out that most of those, if not all of them, were actually false propaganda claims. And we are seeing the repeat of this situation again,” Charles Shoebridge, a security analyst and former UK army officer, pointed out.

In a stark contrast, any concern over civilians’ fate miraculously disappeared from Western media coverage during the US-led coalition’s ‘liberation’ of Raqqa and Mosul.

“There was actually no coverage of the situation of Raqqa and Mosul. There were occasional articles,” Shoebridge told RT. “The reason why these things are not being covered is because it is not conducive to supporting UK and US foreign policy which is, of course, still, even now, to destabilize and undermine the Assad government.”

“The Western media are so closely linked to information or misinformation coming out of their governments that it is really misleading the public in the Western countries,” Jim Jatras added.

Real images of destruction from Raqqa and Mosul were there for British and American media outlets to beat the drums of a humanitarian catastrophe. Yet most outlets stayed silent to the indiscriminate bombing of civilians in Syrian and Iraqi cities by the US-led Inherent Resolve coalition. No objection was voiced to the lack of civilian evacuation or the refusal to negotiate a ceasefire with the hardcore Islamists holding civilians as human shields.

“There were no calls ... for a ceasefire to take place” during the British and the American led bombardment of Mosul and of Raqqa, Shoebridge noted. “The US bombardment and sieges of these areas were causing immense suffering and loss of life among civilian populations.” Yet any remote calls to have a ceasefire so that civilians could leave the besieged cities were met with the response “no, this would help terrorists who are occupying that area,” Shoebridge added.

The same selective anti-Assad coverage is continuing in East Ghouta, where the Western media continues to neglect the atrocities committed by the jihadists in the region.

“What the media failed to point out also is that the Islamic State is one of the groups which hold Yarmuk camp, which is one corner of Ghouta, and then you have an affiliate of Al Qaeda which is holding another corner,” former ambassador Ford points out. “So these are really bad guys. Exactly the guys that were wrinkled out of Mosul and Raqqa, with many civilian casualties in the process.”

CIA Agent assassinated Bob Marley !

What a revelation! This is just tip of iceberg as to murder, mayhem, military coups and other heinous crimes CIA regularly carries out...

CIA Agent Confesses On Deathbed: ‘I Killed Bob Marley’

Baxter Dmitry

A 79-year-old retired officer of the CIA, Bill Oxley, has made a series of stunning confessions since he was admitted to the Mercy Hospital in Maine on Monday and told he has weeks to live. He claims he committed 17 assassinations for the American government between 1974 and 1985, including the music icon Bob Marley.

Mr. Oxley, who worked for the CIA for 29 years as an operative with top-level security clearances, claims he was often used as a hitman by the organization, to assassinate individuals who could represent a threat to the goals of the agency.

Trained as a sniper and marksman, Mr. Oxley also has significant experience with more unconventional methods of inflicting harm upon others, like poisons, explosives, induced heart attacks and cancer.

The 79-year-old operative claims he committed the assassinations between March 1974 and August 1985, at a time when he says the CIA “was a law unto itself.” He says he was part of an operative cell of three members which carried out political assassinations across the country and occasionally in foreign countries.

Most of their victims were political activists, journalists, and union leaders, but he also confesses to assassinating a few scientists, medical researchers, artists and musicians whose ideas and influence “represented a threat to the interests of the United States.”

He claims he had no problem with going through with the assassination of Bob Marley, because “I was a patriot, I believed in the CIA, and I didn’t question the motivation of the agency. I’ve always understood that sometimes sacrifices have to be made for the greater good.”

But Mr. Oxley confesses that Bob Marley remains unique among his victims, as he was the only victim he “felt anything for.”

“The others were assholes. Bob Marley was Bob Marley. I was no closer to being a long-haired hippy back then than I am now, but I must admit Bob’s music did move me. It held some power over me.”

He claims to have “mixed feelings” about Bob Marley’s death. On the one hand, Marley was “a good man, a beautiful soul” with “profound artistic gifts” who did not deserve to have his life cut short. But according to Mr. Oxley, Bob Marley was also placing the goals of the CIA in jeopardy and threatening the existence of the United States:

“He was succeeding in creating a revolution that used music as a more powerful tool than bullets and bombs. Bob Marley in 1976 was a very serious threat to the global status quo and to the hidden power brokers implementing their plan for a new world order. As far as the agency was concerned, Bob Marley was too successful, too famous, too influential… A Jamaican Rastaman who started using his funds and fame to support causes around the world that were in direct conflict with the CIA… To be honest, he signed his own death warrant.”

“It’s not like we didn’t warn him. We sent a few guys to shoot up his house in Kingston,” Mr Oxley says, referring to a shooting in the Marley residence that left the singer with an injured arm and chest.  “We had a message for him. We impressed upon him the gravity of the situation he found himself in. He didn’t listen.”

“Two days later, in the mountains, I stuck him with the pin.“

How Bob Marley was murdered by the CIA

Two days after Bob Marley was shot in the left arm by one of three gunmen who ambushed the singer and some of his crew in his house in Kingston, and after a brief stint in hospital, Bob Marley travelled to the protective hills of the Blue Mountains and spent time at the highest point in Jamaica, rehearsing for an upcoming concert.

According to Mr. Oxley, he used press credentials to gain access to Bob Marley during his Blue Mountains retreat. He introduced himself as a famous photographer working for the New York Times, and gave Bob Marley a gift.

“I gave him a pair of Converse All Stars. Size 10. When he tried on the right shoe, he screamed out ‘OUUUCH.‘

“That was it. His life was over right there and then. The nail in the shoe was tainted with cancer viruses and bacteria. If it pierced his skin, which it did, it was goodnight nurse.”

“There had been a series of high-profile assassinations of counter-culture figures in the United States in the late sixties, early seventies. By the time Bob Marley’s time came around, we thought subtlety was the order of the day. No more bullets and splattered brains.”

Mr. Oxley says he kept close contact with Marley during the final years of his life, ensuring the medical advice he received in Paris, London and the United States “would hasten his demise rather than cure him.” He died from cancer in May 1981. He was just 36 years old.

“The last time I saw Bob before he died he had removed the dreadlocks, and his weight was dropping like a stone,” he says.

“He was very withdrawn, unbelievably small. He was shrinking in front of us. The cancer had done it’s job.”

“The day he died in Miami was definitely one of the most difficult moments in my career. I felt real bad. For a long time I wasn’t comfortable with my part in his death. But eventually I came to realize it had to be done, for America.”

Baxter Dmitry

Baxter Dmitry is a writer at Your News Wire. He covers politics, business and entertainment. Speaking truth to power since he learned to talk, Baxter has travelled in over 80 countries and won arguments in every single one. Live without fear.
Email: baxter@yournewswire.com
Follow: @baxter_dmitry

Ex-CIA operative says US has long meddled in elections

This is only the tip of iceberg!

Ex-CIA operative says US has long meddled in elections, but it’s OK since they are ‘good cops’
RT : 18 Feb, 2018

As Democrats indict Russians over "election meddling," former CIA officers say the US has been interfering in foreign elections for decades and “hopefully” will keep doing so because it has the moral high ground.

In an article published in the New York Times on Saturday, former CIA officers and several researchers, who have been studying covert US intelligence operations for years, say that the while methods allegedly used by Russians to meddle into the US elections might slightly differ from the old school CIA operations overseas, there is nothing in the allegations against Russians that Americans haven't done themselves.

If you ask an intelligence officer, did the Russians break the rules or do something bizarre, the answer is no, not at all,” retired CIA veteran Steven Hall told NYT’s Scott Shane.

Hall, who left his job as CIA Chief of Russian Operations in 2015 after 30 years of service, noted that the US has never shunned attempting to meddle in other countries’ elections.

Saying that the CIA had “absolutely” engaged in such operations in the past, Hall added that he hopes “we keep doing it.”

Thirteen Russian nationals and three entities were indicted on Friday as part of the special FBI counsel Robert Mueller's lingering probe into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential elections, and collusion between Moscow and US President Donald Trump's campaign. As proof to support either of the two allegations is still scant, the Russians listed in the indictment were accused of waging “information warfare against the United States of America,” including by sowing discord on social media with “divisive” posts on Facebook and Twitter.

While the social media boom is a recent phenomenon, the US intelligence has a long record of weaponizing information, albeit in a more conventional form, Loch Johnson, a scholar at the University of Georgia, who has been investigating the CIA since the 1970s, told the Times.

“We’ve used posters, pamphlets, mailers, banners — you name it. We’ve planted false information in foreign newspapers. We’ve used what the British call ‘King George’s cavalry’: suitcases of cash,” Johnson said, recounting that in the late 1980s he was told by CIA operatives that they used to plant

reports that fit the US agenda or bluntly fake news in foreign newspapers by the dozen. The number of such daily “insertions” ran in as many as 70 to 80 publications, he recounted.

But when the US does it, it's for the greater good, the scholar and the CIA officers claim.

Likening the American operations to what Russia is accused of, “is like saying cops and bad guys are the same because they both have guns — the motivation matters,” Hall said. Because, just like the bloody wars the US is waging around the world, it is being done for the sake of democracy.

Contrary to the supposed Russian onslaught on the American democracy, which, according to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, did not affect the outcome of the presidential elections, some US meddling did lead to actual changes of power across Latin America, Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

According to a survey by Researcher Dov Levin of Carnegie Mellon University’s Institute for Politics and Strategy, the US meddled in elections at least 81 times from 1946 to 2000, including in Yugoslavia in the 2000 against Slobodan Milosevic.

The number, however, does not include the military coups orchestrated by the US, or regime changes as a result of the US interventions, some of which had precious little to do with democracy, such as the rise of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet after the violent overthrow of President Salvador
Allende in 1973. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the US did not give up on its interventionist policy. The most recent examples include the US-led NATO intervention in Libya that brought down strongman Muammar Gaddafi, but failed to deliver a semblance of democracy. The war-ravaged country is being torn between three different power centers seven years after the military incursion.

The US role in the coup in Ukraine, which paved way for bloodshed in the country’s east, has been widely reported. Last year, former US Vice President Joe Biden admitted in his memoir that he demanded former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich resign in 2014, telling him that his “time was over.”

Biden also boasted that he played a part in the firing of a Ukrainian prosecutor during a meeting with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and former Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk in March 2016.

Selected Comments:

# Former USA Congressman Ron Paul exposed last year that the USA Government has interfered with Hundreds of Foreign Nations elections. What kind of bat chit crazy mindset is operating inside the USA Government that thinks by doing that, it wouldn't happen to America in return?

An Evaluation of Trump & US presidents...

Talk is cheap!

During an appearance on Oprah Winfrey show some 25 years ago, Trump was ambivalent as to whether to run for presidency throughout his conversation.

Trump spoke just like any average American normally speaks - unable to fathom the intricacies of "give & take" [i.e. compromises] in the arena of international politics. They say anything to gain quick name & fame.

Trump (or any other American for that matter), when put into power, does what other past presidents have consistently & repeatedly done; they are unable to execute their thoughts / plans in real life scenario. Because, once put into power, they realise that their hands are tied in the back; the real power holders actually run the whole show from behind according to their preset plans; otherwise they will make the lives of presidents miserable - JFK'd, in extreme case. This scenario is not very different in other countries either!!

We find hardly any difference in his foreign policy compared to his predecessors - no matter what he said during election campaign. He actually broke almost all promises with respect to foreign policies - extended American & NATO's militaristic adventures, re-deploying troops to Iraq & Afghanistan, became more anti-Russian & anti-Chinese as an excuse to increase defence budget (gave 70 million more than asked for!), new nuclear arms development, found new bogeymen (Iran & North Korea) to create heightened tensions to hike arms sales to middle-eastern & far-eastern countries. Portraying Russia as aggressor, he made all EU members to increase their defence spending by 1-2% of their respective GDPs -- whose primarily source of arms procurement is USA. Hostile media is not reporting that America's current economy is at its best compared to last 17 years performance!

Trump is critical of huge American spending for various UN departments or projects but does not cut several billion dollars worth of annual aid (from taxpayers' money) given to Israel! Talk about hypocrisy... but then all US presidents were the same in this regard!

He is just being a good businessman although a bit eccentric in his manners. He is being groomed now, and have started to behave (maturing) as expected - tweets are not coming out as frequently as they used to be. He is too vocal & outspoken (on many sensitive issues eg race, religion, muslims, immigrants, looking down upon non-Americans, etc) compared to his predecessors - none were much good either!

Until and unless America is unshackled from the clutches of five hydra-headed mythological monsters (i.e. the real movers & shakers - that the power that be), namely the Jewish Rothschild family controlled Wall Street banking cartel, the tax-evading multi-national industrial corporations, the intelligence agencies (CIA, NSA, NRO, etc.), the military (war industry), and the Jew-controlled MSM (i.e. mainstream media -- large publishing groups and television stations), there is no great America in the making or coming unfortunately... restored to the state/status of America that its great founding fathers envisioned and enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and its Constitution. This country needs to come out of two-party dictatorship for a real change to take place! And that heavy responsibility falls on the shoulders of its people who vote them to power...

Joke: Tit for Tat...

A guy asked a girl in a library, “Do you mind if I sit beside you?”

The girl answered with a  loud voice, "I DO NOT WANT TO SPEND THE NIGHT WITH YOUUU!!!!!”

All of the students in library started staring at the guy. He was very embarrassed.......

After a couple of minutes, the girl walked quietly to the guy’s table and told him, “I study psychology and I know what a man is thinking.

Let me guess, you were embarrassed, huh?”

The guy responded with a loud voice, “200 DOLLARS FOR ONE NIGHT?!?!?! THAT’S TOO MUCH!!!”

…and all the people in the library looked at the girl in shock......

The guy leaned over and whispered, "I study Management, and I know how to screw people.........."

SpaceX Falcon rocket creates history!

When Falcon Heavy lifted off, it set the record for the most powerful operational rocket in the world by a factor of two. The most powerful rocket in history was NASA's Saturn V rocket, which was used for the Apollo moon landings and was retired in the 1970s.

The more thrust a rocket has, the farther it can travel and the bigger the satellite, spacecraft or other payload it can send into orbit. That opens up a whole range of business opportunities for SpaceX, which has been leading a new era of spaceflight in which companies -- not just governments -- drive the industry forward.

 

With the ability to lift into orbit nearly 64 metric tons (141,000 lb)--- a mass greater than a 737 jetliner loaded with passengers, crew, luggage and fuel-- Falcon Heavy can lift more than twice the payload of the next closest operational vehicle, the Delta IV Heavy, at one-third the cost.

But the Falcon Heavy is essentially three Falcon 9s strapped together, and it'll boast about three times the thrust of the Falcon 9. And, compared to rockets that better rival the Falcon Heavy's power, it's a bargain.

The Delta IV Heavy, which is built by legacy aerospace firm United Launch Alliance and is currently the world's most powerful rocket, can reportedly cost as much as $400 million per launch.

It should also be noted that the Falcon Heavy will out-power the Delta IV Heavy by a factor of two.

Why is it so cheap?

SpaceX says it's been able to undercut the competition on price because of its reusable rocket parts.

The company is the only rocket builder in the world that safely returns first-stage rocket boosters back to Earth.

The first Falcon Heavy flight will even use two refurbished boosters from previous Falcon 9 missions.

Falcon Heavy's first stage is composed of three Falcon 9 nine-engine cores whose 27 Merlin engines together generate more than 5 million pounds of thrust at lift-off, equal to approximately eighteen 747 aircraft. Following lift-off, the two side boosters separated from the center core and returned to landing sites for future re-use. The center core, traveling further and faster than the side boosters, also returned for re-use, but unfortunately crash-landed on a drone ship located in the Atlantic Ocean. At max velocity, the Roadster, Elon Musk's Tesla electric car used a dummy payload, travelled at 11 km/s (7mi/s) and travel 400 million km (250 million mi) from Earth.

Even standing on the launch pad, the Falcon Heavy was impressive. It clocked in at 229.6 feet tall and 39.9 feet wide. When the engines ignited they carried 3,125,735 pounds of rocket alone, in addition to the mass of of the cargo. For this first run, it carried Musk’s Tesla Roadster with a pressure suit called 'Starman' sitting in the car.  There's no scientific reason to send the car to space. But it does serve as self-promotion for Musk, who is also the CEO of Tesla. When asked on Twitter why he wanted to throw away a $100,000 car, he replied, "I love the thought of a car drifting apparently endlessly through space and perhaps being discovered by an alien race millions of years in the future."

Car and spaceman in hanger

On future missions the rocket could carry 140,660 pounds of payload to low-earth orbit, 37,040 to Mars, and 7,720 lbs to Pluto (the longer the journey, the more fuel you need—and fuel takes up weight of its own).

Want to launch something on the Falcon Heavy? There are definitely less expensive ways to get rid of your car. A cargo launch to geostationary orbit will cost you $90 million. The price tag might seem high—but as Reuters reports, it's a fourth the cost of its closest competitor, and can carry payloads twice as massive.

Musk and SpaceX has already begun to turn their attention to their next venture, the BFR. SpaceX has said the rocket will be capable of sending humans to Mars, even though SpaceX is planning to build an entirely different system for Mars travel, called the BFR.

But while we wait for that next leap in technology, the Falcon Heavy will keep launching. It has already won a contract for a Saudi Arabian communications satellite, and is contracted to launch scientific and military satellites (dubbed STP-2 that includes some weather forecasting satellites.) for the Air Force later this year.

SpaceX also said in early 2017 that two space tourists put down a deposit to ride on a Falcon Heavy for a trip around the moon. At the time, SpaceX said that trip could occur in 2018, though the company hasn't offered any updates.

How much does it cost?

The Falcon Heavy has a $90 million sticker price. That's 45% more expensive than the Falcon 9 rocket SpaceX has used for every mission going back to 2012.

Falcon 9 Heavy isn't, however, bigger or more powerful than the mighty Saturn V that was used to launch the Apollo astronauts to the moon in the '60s

and '70s and then to launch the Skylab space station in 1973.

Status: First test flight took place February 6
Height: 229.6 feet (70 meters)
Liftoff thrust: 5 million pounds
Capability: 140,660 pounds (63,800 kilograms) to LEO
(Note: Capability refers to the maximum payload weight the rocket can deliver to Low-Earth Orbit.)
Planned payloads: One Tesla (dummy payload), satellites, cargo, astronauts, tourists

Even after the Falcon Heavy launches, the Saturn V will remain the tallest and most powerful rocket ever, and the only one to help carry humans beyond Earth's orbit. NASA used the Saturn V to send astronauts to the moon in the Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17 spacecraft.

A Saturn V also launched Apollo 13, but the spacecraft (not the rocket) had a problem and the astronauts didn't land. The last Saturn V was used to launch Skylab, America's first space station, on May 14, 1973.

Status: Retired in 1973
Height: 363 feet (111 meters)
Liftoff thrust: 7.6 million pounds (3.4 million kilograms)
Capability: 260,000 pounds (118,000 kilograms) to LEO
Payloads: Apollo spacecraft and astronauts, Skylab

Blue Origin -- the space startup created by Amazon's Jeff Bezos -- has a small, reusable rocket to send paying tourists on trips to sub-orbital space. But, the company also has plans for a monstrous new machine that can send people and payloads to Earth's orbit. It'll come in two configurations: one
with two stages and another with an added third stage for extra boost.

Status: First test flight no earlier than 2020
Height: 326 feet (99.4 meters)
Liftoff thrust: 3.9 million pounds (1.8 million kilograms)
Capability: 10,000 pounds (4,500 kilograms) to LEO
Planned payloads: Satellites, humans

United Launch Alliance, has the Delta IV Heavy. This rocket was first tested in 2004 and it's taller than the Falcon Heavy, but SpaceX is promising to take up heavier payloads. The Delta IV Heavy doesn't fly often, but it's been the U.S. military's go-to rocket for sending large national security
satellites into orbit.

Status: Currently operational
Height: 235 feet (71.6 meters)
Liftoff thrust: 2.1 million pounds (1 million kilograms)
Capability: 62,500 pounds (28,000 kilograms) to LEO
Payloads: Satellites

United Launch Alliance is developing a new generation of rockets, dubbed Vulcan after the Roman god of fire. The concept was first announced in 2015, and CEO Tory Bruno has said the most powerful version of the Vulcan could rival the Falcon Heavy's power. The Vulcan can add thrust by strapping extra rocket boosters to the sides of its main column.

Status: First test flight no earlier than 2020
Height: 228 ft (69.5 meters)
Liftoff thrust: 3.8 million pounds (1.7 million kg)
Capability: 80,000 pounds (36,000 kg)

Space Shuttle refers to the reusable spacecraft system that NASA developed to send people and payloads into orbit between 1981 and 2011. The systems consisted of a white winged "Orbiter" with powerful engines that attached to a massive external fuel tank and two rocket boosters on the launch pad. There were five "Orbiters" capable of spaceflight -- Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Endeavour and Atlantis.

Status: Retired in 2011
Height: 184 feet (56.1 meters) including external tank
Capability: 65,000 pounds (2,900 kilograms) to LEO
Liftoff thrust: 7.8 million pounds (3.5 million kg)
Payload: Astronauts, experiments, supplies, other cargo, satellites

What constitutes ‘foreign interference’ in democracy?

US billionaire Soros donated £400k to an anti-Brexit group. The US has always wanted Britain to stay in the EU. Obama warned...

Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan donated £500,000 each to the ‘Britain Stronger in Europe’ group, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley – £250,000 each. If this is not foreign interference… then what is it?

Soros & the £400k Question: What constitutes ‘foreign interference’ in democracy? 

Neil Clark, RT : 9 Feb, 2018

You’d have to have a real sense of humor failure not to laugh. The news that US billionaire Soros donated £400k to an anti-Brexit group came on the day that YouTube said they found no evidence of Russian interference in Brexit.

Repeat After Me (with robotic arm movements): “Unproven Russian involvement in Brexit – terrible! Impose more sanctions on Moscow! A £400k check from an American billionaire for an anti-Brexit campaigning group – that’s no problem; it’s helping our democracy!”

You don’t have to own a brand new £999 state-of-the art Hypocrisy Detector from Harrods, to pick up on the double standards. Just having a few functioning brain cells and thinking for yourself will do. For months in the UK we’ve been bombarded with Establishment-approved conspiracy theories – peddled in all the ’best’ newspapers – that Russia somehow ‘fixed’ Brexit. Getting Britain to leave the EU was all part of a cunning plot by Vladimir Putin, aka Dr. Evil, to weaken Europe and the ‘free world.’

Even West End musical composer Andrew Lloyd-Webber, who knows quite a bit about phantoms, seemed taken in by it. “By quitting Europe, I fear that we are hastening Putin’s dream of the break-up of the EU – and with it, potentially, western civilisation,” the noble Lord declared in July.

Never mind that we don’t have a single statement from Putin or other senior Kremlin figures saying that they actually supported Brexit. These Establishment Russia-bashers know exactly what The Vlad is thinking.

And never mind that RT and Sputnik, which we are repeatedly told are “propaganda arms of the Russian government,” ran articles by pro- and anti-Brexit writers. The same people who told us Iraq had WMDs in 2003 were absolutely sure it was those dastardly Russkies who had got Britain to vote ‘leave.’ The irony is of course that there was significant foreign interference in Brexit. But it didn’t come from Moscow.

The US has always wanted Britain to stay in the EU. In April 2016, two months before the Referendum, President Obama made it clear what he wanted when he visited the UK. He warned that if Britain exited the EU it would be “at the back of the queue” for trade deals with the US.

Just imagine if Putin had said that. The Russophobes would have spontaneously combusted.

Then of course there was the backing the Remain camp had from the giants of US capital. Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan donated £500,000 each to the ‘Britain Stronger in Europe’ group, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley – £250,000 each.

Again, repeat after me (with robotic arm movements): “This is not foreign interference… This is not foreign interference!”

The point is not whether we are for or against Brexit. Or whether we think George Soros is a malign influence who only acts out of self-interest or an old sweetie-pie with the good of humanity at heart. The point is the double standards that are causing our Hypocrisy Detectors to explode.

Let’s think back to December 2016. Then, the pro-war and fiercely anti-Russian Labour MP Ben Bradshaw told Parliament that it was “highly probable” that Russia had interfered with Brexit.

Fourteen months on, what have we got? On Thursday, the global head of You Tube’s public policy, Juniper Downs, said her company “had conducted a thorough investigation around the Brexit referendum and found no evidence of Russian interference.”

Twitter meanwhile says it detected 49 (yes, 49) accounts from what it claimed to be a “Russian troll factory,” which sent all of 942 messages about Brexit – amounting to less than 0.005% of all the tweets about the Referendum. Twitter said the accounts received “very low levels of engagement” from users. If the Kremlin had planned to use tweets to persuade us to vote ‘leave,’ they didn’t really put much effort into it, did they?

Finally, Facebook said that only three “Kremlin-linked” accounts were found which spent the grand sum of 72p (yes, 72p) on ads during the Referendum campaign. Which amounts to the greater “interference”? 72p or £400K? Erm… tough call, isn’t it?

You might have thought, given his concern with ‘foreign interference’ in British politics, that Ben Bradshaw would have been urging ‘Best for Britain’ to return George Soros’ donation. Au contraire! His only tweets about it were retweets of two critical comments about the Daily Telegraph, and the BBC’s coverage of the story. Conclusion: Those who rail about ‘Russia meddling in Brexit’ but not Soros’ intervention aren’t concerned about ‘foreign interference’ in UK politics, only ‘foreign interference’ from countries they don’t approve of.

Those who are quite happy peddling ludicrous conspiracy theories about Russians shout “conspiracy theorist” (or worse) at those who report factually on proven meddling from others. The Daily Express hit the nail on the head in their Friday editorial which said: “Just what does George Soros think he is doing pouring £400,000 into a campaign to stop Brexit. For a start he is not actually a resident of this country so it has nothing to do with him.”

That really is the rub of the matter. And Bradshaw and co. have no adequate response except to shoot the messenger.

If we look at the affair with an even wider lens, the hypocrisy is even greater. The US has been gripped by an anti-Russian frenzy not seen since the days of Senator Joe McCarthy. The unsubstantiated claim that Russia fixed the election for Donald Trump is repeated by ‘liberals’ and many neocons too, as a statement of fact. “I don’t know that the public understands the gravity of what the Russians were able to do and continue to do here in the United States. They’ve attacked us. They’re trying to undermine our democracy,” film director Rob Reiner said. 

But the number one country round the world for undermining democracy and interfering in the affairs of other sovereign states is the US itself.

While Establishment journos and pundits have been foaming at the mouth over ‘Russiagate’ and getting terribly excited over ‘smoking guns’ which turn out – surprise, surprise – to be damp squibs, there’s been less attention paid to the boasts of former Vice President Joe Biden on how he got the allegedly ‘independent’ Ukrainian government to sack its prosecutor general in a few hours. “I looked at them and said: ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money…"

“I said, ‘I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars,” Biden said during a meeting of the US’ Council on Foreign Relations. “Well, son of a b***h. He got fired.”

Again, just imagine the furore if a leading Russian government figure boasted about how he used financial inducements to get another country’s Prosecutor General to be sacked. Or if a tape was leaked in which the Russian Ambassador and a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson could be heard discussing who should or shouldn’t be in the new ‘democratic’ government of another sovereign state. But we had the US Ambassador to Ukraine and the US Assistant Secretary of State doing exactly that in 2014 – and the ‘Russia is interfering in the Free World!’ brigade were as silent as a group of Trappist monks.

It’s fair to say that Orwell would have a field day with the doublespeak that’s currently on show. The cognitive dissonance is there for all to see. Repeat After Me: Unproven Russian interference – Bad. Proven interference from other external sources – Good. What’s your problem?