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https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/pompeo-iranian-threat-emergency-arms-sales-saudi

Citing Iranian ‘Threat,’ Trump Admin Skips Congressional Review On Saudi Arms Sales

The Trump administration announced Friday that the “fundamental threat” posed by Iranian “malign activity” was justification enough to move forward with billions in emergency arms sales to Saudi Arabia and other countries without Congressional review.

Arms sales “totaling $8.1 billion” will move forward without congressional review to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a press release, citing section 36 of the Arms Export Control Act.

In a separate memo to Congress obtained by Al-Monitor, Reuters and others, Pompeo asserted “Iranian malign activity poses a fundamental threat to the stability of the Middle East and to American security at home and abroad.”

The equipment, Pompeo said, would “deter Iranian aggression and build partner self-defense capacity.”

“These sales will support our allies, enhance Middle East stability, and help these nations to deter and defend themselves from the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he added.

In a rare move earlier this year, both chambers of Congress voted to cut off U.S. military support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen. President Trump vetoed the effort.

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement following Pompeo’s announcement that “I am disappointed, but not surprised, that the Trump Administration has failed once again to prioritize our long term national security interests or stand up for human rights, and instead is granting favors to authoritarian countries like Saudi Arabia.”

Warning ahead of time of the Trump administration’s plans, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) tweeted Wednesday: “To state the obvious, there is no new emergency reason to sell bombs to Saudi Arabia to drop in Yemen. The Saudis been dropping the bombs on civilians, so if there is an emergency, it’s a humanitarian emergency caused by the bombs we sell the Saudis.”
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https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/giuliani-dirt-meeting-ukrainian-political-consultant

Giuliani Acknowledges Meeting With Ukrainian Hawking Unproven Dem Dirt


Rudy Giuliani on Friday acknowledged meeting recently with a former Ukrainian diplomat who’s made allegations that could be used as political fodder by Giuliani’s client, Donald Trump, the Washington Post reported.

“We spoke on U.S.-Ukraine relations and politics in D.C. and Ukraine,” the former diplomat and current political consultant, Andrii Telizhenko, told the Post.

Giuliani confirmed the meeting — “He was in Washington and he came up to New York, and we spent most of the afternoon together” — but did not detail the content of his and Telizhenko’s discussions.

“I can’t tell you a thing about the meeting,” he told the Post. “When I have something to say, I’ll say it.”

Telizhenko at one time worked in the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office, as well as in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, D.C., the Post reported.

The DNC and Ukrainian Embassy staffers, the Post reported, have “strongly denied” a number of claims made by Telizhenko that mesh with Donald Trump’s own biases, like one assertion that a DNC contractor worked with the Ukrainian embassy to find dirt on Trump and Paul Manafort during the 2016 campaign.

Earlier this month, Giuliani cancelled a planned trip to Ukraine — one apparentlyintended to look into potential political dirt on Joe Biden, and to clear Manafort’s name — after the New York Times reported on it.

“We’re not meddling in an election, we’re meddling in an investigation, which we have a right to do,” Giuliani told the Times, hinting at “information” that he said “will be very, very helpful to my client, and may turn out to be helpful to my government.”

The Biden campaign called the effort a “blatantly political smear.”

The current Ukrainian prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko, appeared unwilling to get involved publicly.

“I do not want Ukraine to again be the subject of U.S. presidential elections,” he told Bloomberg.
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DOS_patos said:
I'm american and greenfeld shook me hearing the screams.

Is that area being gentrified ?

Notting hill is basically gone.
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Notting hill is one of the wealthiest areas in London. The residents of Grenfell was a victim of this.

The films Notting hill and kidulthood are filmed in the same area walking distance apart. So alarming

Grenfell was Theresa's may hurricane Katrina the way she dealt with it was disgusting
 
Blue_London said:
Notting hill is one of the wealthiest areas in London. The residents of Grenfell was a victim of this.

The films Notting hill and kidulthood are filmed in the same area walking distance apart. So alarming

Grenfell was Theresa's may hurricane Katrina the way she dealt with it was disgusting
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I didn't know it was those buildings we walked by during carnival....the locsls was saying it was allowed to happen and will stand to be a reminder before it's changed to expensive apartments.

Also I thought Notting hill was all black once...that why carnival is there.
 
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/pence-west-point-virtual-certainty-combat

Pence To West Point Grads: ‘Virtual Certainty That You Will Fight On A Battlefield’

Vice President Mike Pence told West Point graduates Saturday that it was a “virtual certainty” that they would see combat at some point.


“It is a virtual certainty that you will fight on a battlefield for America at some point in your life,” he said in a graduation speech. “You will lead soldiers in combat. It will happen.”

Pence continued, “Some of you will join the fight against radical Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq. Some of you will join the fight on the Korean Peninsula and in the Indo-Pacific, where North Korea continues to threaten the peace, and an increasingly militarized China challenges our presence in the region. Some of you will join the fight in Europe, where an aggressive Russia seeks to redraw international boundaries by force. And some of you may even be called upon to serve in this hemisphere.”

Pence’s words took on additional significance in light of the administration’s increasingly aggressive posture toward Iran, a country of which he made no mention in his speech.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Friday that the executive branch was citing a loophole in federal law to sell billions of dollars in arms to Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates without congressional review. Iran’s “malign activity,” he wrote in a memo to the legislature, presents a “fundamental threat.”

In addition, Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan announced Friday that the United States would send another 900 troops to the Middle East — and extend the service of 600 — as part of a deployment that includes jets, drones and a missile battalion.

The Pentagon has accused Iran of being behind a number of recent incidents, including attacks on several oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman.
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The warmongering continues by these cowards...
 


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https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-sides-kim-jong-un-joe-biden-john-bolton

Claiming He Doesn’t ‘Take Sides,’ Trump Again Sides With Kim Jong Un Over Biden


While claiming that he doesn’t “take sides,” President Donald Trump on Monday essentially did take the side of North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un on several issues.

“I don’t take sides as to who I’m in favor of and who I’m not, but I can tell you that Joe Biden was a disaster, his administration with President Obama, they were a basically disaster,” Trump said in a press conference alongside Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe.

That came in response to a question about “criticism that you’re supporting a dictator instead of an American vice president.” The President this week responded favorably to the North Korean state news agency’s assertion that Biden is a “fool of low I.Q.,” an insult that itself followed Biden’s line at a rallythat Trump “embraces dictators and tyrants like Putin and Kim Jong Un.”



In the press conference Monday, Trump repeated the sentiment. “Well, Kim Jong Un made a statement that Joe Biden is a low-IQ individual. He probably is, based on his record,” he said. “I think I agree with him on that.”

In the same response, Trump broke with his National Security Adviser John Bolton, who’d condemned recent North Korean short-range missile tests.

“My people think it could have been a violation, as you know. I view it differently,” Trump said, saying the tests were indicative of “a man who perhaps wants to get attention. And perhaps not. Who knows? It doesn’t matter.”

The President distinguished the short-range tests from nuclear testing and long-range ballistic missile testing.

“And I think that someday we will have a deal. I’m not in a rush,” he said.
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https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/duncan-hunter-eddie-gallagher-picture-body-war-crime

Rep. Hunter Rallies Behind Accused War Criminal: I Took ‘A Picture Of The Body,’ Too

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) said Saturday that he had something in common with an accused war criminal for whom President Donald Trump has impliedhe is considering a pardon.

“Eddie [Gallagher] did one bad thing that I’m guilty of too — taking a picture of the body and saying something stupid,” Hunter said at an event Saturday, as quoted by the Times of San Diego and flagged by Rolling Stone. The congressman served as a Marine in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Gallagher, a Navy SEAL chief, stands accused of murdering a teenage Islamic State prisoner, as well as shooting innocent civilians and other crimes. He is also accused of attempting to intimidate witnesses, namely fellow SEALs.

He is said to have posed with the body of the prisoner he allegedly murdered — “cradling a dead ISIS fighter’s head in one hand while holding a knife,” Task and Purpose reported in November, describing military prosecutors’ words.

According to a charge sheet obtained by the publication, Gallagher allegedly “wrongfully pose[d] for an unofficial picture with a human casualty,” and “wrongfully complete[d] his reenlistment ceremony next to a human casualty.”

Gallagher allegedly texted someone, referring to the incident: “Good story behind this, got him with my hunting knife.”

Per the Times of San Diego’s report, Hunter didn’t address those details Saturday. But the congressman, who’s facing his own fraud and campaign-finance related charges, said he had taken photos “just like that when I was overseas.”

Hunter said he didn’t post the photos on social media or share them in texts, the Times reported, “But a lot of my peers … have done the exact same thing.”

Hunter and other prominent Republicans and Trump allies, like Fox News host and veteran Pete Hegseth, have rallied behind Gallagher. Hunter said Saturday that while he would “absolutely” support Trump pardoning Gallagher, he wanted Gallagher’s case to move forward so that the public can “see how disgusting the military justice system is when it’s run by lawyers and bureaucrats [who] go after the war-fighter.”

Notably, the congressman earlier this month invited fellow members to view footage of the alleged incident, which he claims clears Gallagher’s name. “There is no case,” Hunter said of the video, which hasn’t been released publicly. “This is the smoking gun and there is no gun whatsoever.”
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