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Gary Edwards

Tax Code Tweak Might Make CNG for Vehicles More Available | RedState - 0 views

www.redstate.com/...ng-for-vehicles-more-available

William-Cassidy Natural-gas CNG Energy

shared by Gary Edwards on 08 May 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 08 May 12
     
    Representative Dr. William Cassidy (R-LA) has put forward a common sense change to the tax code that will jump the economy of the USA forward, making use of plentiful and comparatively inexpensive natural gas. excerpt: The recent natural gas boom in the United States has been so wide-spread and profound that it has dropped natural gas prices to historical lows. These prices are so low that producers have begun to scale back operations as extraction has almost become uneconomical. We should be focused on exploring new commercial markets for natural gas to take advantage of such a low-cost energy source. Because technology and supply is currently available to sell the natural gas equivalent for about $1.50 a gallon compared with the current price of gasoline, it would seem natural for consumers to begin making the switch to compressed natural gas CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) vehicles. So if the technology is already available and we have at least a 100-year supply of natural gas right here in America, why aren't we all driving CNG cars? Unfortunately, the main obstacle is a lack of natural gas fuel infrastructure in our country. Currently in the United States, there are only 449 CNG fueling stations accessible to the public, which is dwarfed by the more than 157,000 gasoline stations. There are a number of proposals to spur natural gas infrastructure development in Washington. Not surprisingly, when it comes to Congress, the most talked about option involves subsidies for both natural gas vehicles and for the actual CNG fuel itself. While we should be using all of our available natural resources to aid in lowering the costs of transportation, the reality is that our country has neither the money to subsidize development nor the expertise to pick winners and losers in the energy and transportation sectors. As opposed to subsidies, I believe that a simple change to our tax code would help those companies that develop natural gas look at domestic retail infrastruc
Gary Edwards

Obama Gives Another Sweetheart Deal To His Friends At GE - 1 views

feedproxy.google.com/...al-to-his-friends-at-ge-2012-2

Banksters Corporatists Crony-Corporatism Obammunism Jeff-Immelt

shared by Gary Edwards on 24 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 24 Feb 12
     
    Over at ClusterStock, Bruce Kasting is seething mad. He's tracked down another example of outrageous Obama sweet sweet deal corruption once again involving his circle of crony corporatists and billions of taxpayer money. This mornings cup of fascism involves Obama crony, pal, long time trough feeder, and big time bundler, the sickening sycophant Jeff Immelt, CEO of GE. Cost to taxpayers? $54.6 Million. "I'm so sick of seeing this day after day. Washington is shelling out taxpayer money to support this successful company so they can buy locomotives from GE. GE pays next to no taxes in the US, they haven't for years. But when it comes to government money, they are on the top of the list for handouts. There is only one reason that GE keeps sucking on the country's teat, the CEO is best buds with Obama. Not only are they pals, but GE's top honcho, Jeff Immelt, is advising the President on what to do. There are many segment of our economy and society that need a helping hand from the government. I would put the interests of GE (and KSU) at the very bottom of the list. They are doing fine, they don't need these handouts. This is not an industrial policy. It's crony capitalism of the very worst kind." Note to Bruce: This isn't capitalism. These are not capitalist. These are corrupt crony corporatists, having seized the instruments of power, trample the Constitution, and loot the public treasury. Which makes Obammunism one of the more twisted forms of fascism to grace the pages of mankind's sordid history.
Gary Edwards

U.S. Treasury Says Financial Crisis Is Over But The Next One May Be Right In Front Of Us - 0 views

problembanklist.com/y-be-right-in-front-of-us-0494

Banksters Federal-Reserve-Bankster-Cartel Obammunism USA-bankruptcy

shared by Gary Edwards on 02 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 02 Mar 12
     
    More great charts, this time courtesy of the US Treasury Department. The charts use select areas of measurement to show a slowly improving economy, with the private sector leading the way. What the charts don't show or discuss is that the Obama economy has been assisted by $3 Trillion in Federal Reserve Bankster Cartel "quantitative easing", and the $5 Trillion in debt that Obama spending has racked up. Throw in the secret $16.1 Trillion the Federal Reserve pumped into the international bankster system, and the question becomes, "Where is all this money going? And why isn't the economy jumping?" The numbers are staggering. One chart provided by Treasury shows a successful TARP program where the Banksters have paid back in full the massive bailout funds. One has to wonder though, are they paying back the taxpayer bailout with newly generated profits? Or are they simply using freshly printed Federal Reserve dollars ($19.1 Trillion by the Federal Reserve's count), passed to them at zero interest? The shell game Obama, the ruling establishment, and the Federal Reserve Bankster Cartel have been playing may be running out of steam. We're now in the money laundering stage where Banksters and trading partners like China are dumping their digital-ions of dollars for real property, corporate assets and hard currencies. The St Louis branch of the Federal Reserve Cartel says as much in their most recent economic study. From the article: ....... The nation's debt load has grown to the point where the U.S. is now threatened with bankruptcy but the economy is not likely to grow fast enough to reduce the need for additional government borrowing. Empirical studies have shown a strong correlation between high levels of debt and reduced economic growth which results in decreased government revenue as explained below.......... An essay published by the St. Louis Federal Reserve on the Federal debt poised the question, "Too Little Revenue or Too Much Spe
Gary Edwards

"War is a Racket" by General Smedly Butler - 1 views

www.lexrex.com/...warisaracket.htm

Smedly-Butler

shared by Gary Edwards on 16 Sep 13 - Cached
  • by MAJOR GENERAL SMEDLEY D. BUTLER, USMC - Retired TWO-TIME Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient FULL TEXT ON LINE FREE
  • GET THE NEW PAPERBACK EDITION including two bonus titles.
  • Paul Merrell on 16 Sep 13
     
    An accidental find, the full text online of USMC Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler's 1935 book, War Is a Racket. Butler served in the Marine Corps from 1899 to 1931 and at the time of his retirement was the most-decorated Marine in history, for both valor and accomplishments. Following his retirement, he became a vehement anti-war activist and public speaker.  This book is easily his most-cited and most-quoted published work. You can capture the flavor from an article he published in a magazine that included the following lines: "I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler#Lectures  I look forward to reading this book. The book was reprinted in 2003 and is available from the linked web site, together with two bonus titles. 
  • Gary Edwards on 18 Sep 13
     
    "WAR IS A RACKET" - free online book CHAPTER ONE WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes. In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows. How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle? Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few - the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill. And what is this bill? This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations. For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it. Now that I see the international war clouds g
Paul Merrell

Rebels conduct new chemical weapons attack in Syria near Turkish border - report - RT News - 0 views

rt.com/...els-chemical-weapons-syria-927

war & peace Syria WMD al-Nusra

shared by Paul Merrell on 30 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • The rebels used chemical weapons in north-eastern Syria near the border with Turkey on Tuesday, a Lebanese TV channel Al-Mayadeen reported. The toxic shell exploded near a Kurdish defense forces’ checkpoint close to the border with Turkey in the city of Ras al-Ayn al-Hasakah. The attack was reported by Kurdish defense forces who are conducting military operations against the rebels in the region. They are quoted as saying they saw toxic yellow smoke that followed the shell explosion, while some of them had symptoms of severe chemical intoxication accompanied by nausea. The reported chemical attack comes amid the second day of fierce fighting in the town. The Kurdish forces have successfully repelled several attacks by armed groups of extremists of the Nusra Front ( Jabhat al-Nusra), and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, killing 28 militants.
Gary Edwards

Government Stupidity - Must-read: How the gov't could save $1.6 trillionand solve the "... - 1 views

www.thedailycrux.com/...eml

Dan-Ferris Federal-Reserve-Bank-Cartel Banksters financial-collapse national-debt-Ceiling banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 26 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 26 Jul 11
     
    YES!  This works for me.  The Banksters should not profit from the corruption of our politicians.   Keep in mind that the recent GAO audit of the Federal Reserve - the first audit in a 100 yrs, making it the first audit ever, has disclosed that in 2009 and 2010, the bankster cartel gave over $16 Trill to international and wall street banks - interest free.  Don't you think they could spare us $1.6 Trill of our own money?   Many thanks to Dan Ferris ......  There's another solution to the debt ceiling problem that would instantly eliminate $1.6 trillion in government debt. In other words, it would instantly reduce the national debt to approximately $1.6 trillion below the debt ceiling. That would give the President and Congress at least a year to hash out an agreement on spending cuts and tax increases. The plan is elegantly simple and radical. The largest holder of U.S. Treasury debt is the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States, the central bank of the United States. Texas Congressman Ron Paul has proposed the Federal Reserve simply cancel the $1.6 trillion in Treasury debt it holds. The Federal Reserve owns the bonds, so the Treasury is paying the Fed interest. The Fed in turn refunds the interest back to the Treasury. This is theatre of the absurd. Though the Fed is technically a privately owned bank, it's really the hand maiden of the government. It was created by a government act and is overseen by a government-appointed board of governors. For practical intents and purposes, the government owns the Fed's Treasury debt holdings. In other words, the government is borrowing from itself and manufacturing an enormous liability on which it must make interest payments - to itself! I hope you're starting to get the feeling the government is playing games and inventing a phony crisis. That's much closer to the truth. But the government's shell game of lending to itself could turn genuinely ugly.
Gary Edwards

Jim Kunstler's 2014 Forecast - Burning Down The House | Zero Hedge - 0 views

www.zerohedge.com/...14-forecast-burning-down-house

Banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 08 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 08 Jan 14
     
    Incredible must read analysis. Take away: the world is going to go "medevil". It's the only way out of this mess. Since the zero hedge layout is so bad, i'm going to post as much of the article as Diigo will allow: Jim Kunstler's 2014 Forecast - Burning Down The House Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/06/2014 19:36 -0500 Submitted by James H. Kunstler of Kunstler.com , Many of us in the Long Emergency crowd and like-minded brother-and-sisterhoods remain perplexed by the amazing stasis in our national life, despite the gathering tsunami of forces arrayed to rock our economy, our culture, and our politics. Nothing has yielded to these forces already in motion, so far. Nothing changes, nothing gives, yet. It's like being buried alive in Jell-O. It's embarrassing to appear so out-of-tune with the consensus, but we persevere like good soldiers in a just war. Paper and digital markets levitate, central banks pull out all the stops of their magical reality-tweaking machine to manipulate everything, accounting fraud pervades public and private enterprise, everything is mis-priced, all official statistics are lies of one kind or another, the regulating authorities sit on their hands, lost in raptures of online pornography (or dreams of future employment at Goldman Sachs), the news media sprinkles wishful-thinking propaganda about a mythical "recovery" and the "shale gas miracle" on a credulous public desperate to believe, the routine swindles of medicine get more cruel and blatant each month, a tiny cohort of financial vampire squids suck in all the nominal wealth of society, and everybody else is left whirling down the drain of posterity in a vortex of diminishing returns and scuttled expectations. Life in the USA is like living in a broken-down, cob-jobbed, vermin-infested house that needs to be gutted, disinfected, and rebuilt - with the hope that it might come out of the restoration process retaining the better qualities of our heritage.
Paul Merrell

Washington concealed US troops exposure to chemical weapons in Iraq - intel docs - RT News - 1 views

rt.com/...96152-us-iraq-chemical-weapons

war & peace Iraq U.S.-WMD U.S.-foreign-policy

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • American soldiers discovered more than 4,990 chemical munitions in Iraq, according to Iraqi and US officials and previously classified intelligence documents, which may now be in the hands of Islamic State militants. For much of the duration of the Iraq War, which saw US soldiers open a military invasion against the Ba’athist country in March 2003 amid tremendous international outcry, US forces "repeatedly encountered, and on six occasions were wounded by, chemical weapons” leftover from the Iraq-Iran War, reported the New York Times.
  • The hefty eight-part report, largely based on interviews and highly redacted intelligence documents, said “17 American service members and seven Iraqi police officers…were exposed to nerve or mustard agents” between 2004 and 2011. The article detailed the harrowing chemical encounters of several servicemen, including Sergeant Duling, who in August 2008 unwittingly led his unit into a munitions pit outside Baghdad. “This is mustard agent,” he said, after carrying out an examination of the contents of the rusting artillery. “We’ve all been exposed.” At first blush, it may seem inconceivable that the United States, which had argued for an invasion of Iraq on the grounds that it was harboring weapons of mass destruction (an accusation that the UN weapons inspectors on the ground in Iraq prior to the American invasion/occupation had proven to be incorrect), would want to keep the discovery of WMDs in Iraq under wraps.
  • One reason for the hush-up, the report suggests, is that the United States was largely responsible for Iraq having chemical weapons in the first place. “In five of six incidents in which troops were wounded by chemical agents, the munitions appeared to have been designed in the United States, manufactured in Europe and filled in chemical agent production lines built in Iraq by Western companies,” it said. Many of the casings were M110s, which the United States military had developed decades ago to disperse white phosphorous or mustard gas.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • “The United States also exported the shells and the technology behind them,” the Times reported. “When Iraq went arms shopping in the 1980s, it found manufacturers in Italy and Spain willing to deal their copies. By 1988, these two countries alone had sold Iraq 85,000 empty M110-type shells, according to confidential United Nations documents.” This is where the story begins to get very disturbing. During the Iraq-Iran War (1980-1988), Baghdad actively sought the development of chemical weapons with the help of a number of Western countries, including the United States, West Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and France, according to internal Iraqi documents.
  • It is has already been widely documented that at least 50,000 Iranian civilians and soldiers were killed by Iraqi chemical weapons in the course of the war. As the Times report detailed, many of the chemical weapons incidents were centered around the now largely destroyed Muthanna State Establishment, which was “the center of Iraqi chemical agent production in the 1980s.” This is especially worrying because since June, that sensitive area has been in the possession of the Islamic State,
Paul Merrell

BBC News - Ukraine crisis: Putin hopes for peace deal by Friday - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...world-europe-29042561

war & peace Ukraine Russia negotiations

shared by Paul Merrell on 04 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • Russia's president has said he is hoping for a peace deal between Ukraine and pro-Russian rebels by Friday. Vladimir Putin urged both sides to stop military action in eastern Ukraine, adding that his views and those of his Ukrainian counterpart were very close. Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko said they had agreed a "ceasefire process" but PM Arseny Yatsenyuk said no plan from Mr Putin should be trusted.
  • Insisting that Russia is in no way a negotiating party in the Ukrainian conflict, Vladimir Putin is nevertheless certain that it is Moscow's proposals that are going to advance both sides to peace. Mr Putin's plan is short and leaves a lot of room for interpretation. Take, for example, a point on moving Ukrainian troops away from positions from which towns and cities can be shelled. Taken to an extreme, this could mean rewinding the situation on the ground to a point several weeks ago before Ukrainian advances. Just two weeks ago the discussions centred around when, and not if, the rebels would have to move out of Donetsk and Luhansk. But Moscow's plan will allow them to strengthen their control over the two regional centres and other areas.
  • Mr Putin has often seemed unwilling to negotiate from a position of weakness and the reversals of the past few days illustrate this perfectly. Now it's Petro Poroshenko who has to choose whether to accept something which clearly protects Kiev's enemies in eastern Ukraine.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Speaking to journalists in the Mongolia capital Ulan Bator, Mr Putin said the two sides should reach agreement when they resumed talks in Minsk on Friday. "Our views on the way to resolve the conflict, as it seemed to me, are very close," he said, referring to a phone conversation with Mr Poroshenko.
  • He said he was proposing a seven-point peace plan: The Ukrainian army and eastern rebels should stop "active offensive operations" Ukrainian troops must pull back to a distance where they would be unable to shell population centres International monitoring of the ceasefire No use of military jets against civilians "All-for-all" prisoner exchange without preconditions Humanitarian corridor for refugees and to deliver aid Restoration of destroyed infrastructure. In its statement (in Russian), the Kremlin said a phone conversation had taken place on Wednesday between the two presidents in which their points of view had "coincided significantly" on possible ways to end the crisis.
  • Mr Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, clarified for Russian news agency Ria-Novosti: "Putin and Poroshenko did not agree a ceasefire in Ukraine because Russia is not party to the conflict, they only discussed how to settle the conflict." Mr Poroshenko said he also hoped for a ceasefire. "The people of Ukraine want peace while some politicos want to play a game of war. I will not allow this to happen. We must pull together in fighting for peace," he said. But Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk rejected the proposal. "The real plan of Putin is to destroy Ukraine and to restore the Soviet Union," he said.
  • Pro-Russian rebels said they supported Mr Putin's proposals but that they did not trust Mr Poroshenko to observe a ceasefire. Meanwhile a Ukrainian official in Zaporizhzhya region, west of the combat zone, said the bodies of 87 soldiers and pro-government volunteers killed in a controversial incident near the town of Ilovaysk several days ago had been brought to a local morgue. The Ukrainian military says troops were fired on by rebels on Sunday after they had apparently been given safe passage out of an encirclement during rapid rebel advances. No-one has been able to confirm the circumstances of the killings or the total number of dead. More than 2,600 civilians and combatants have been killed and more than a million people have fled their homes since fighting erupted in eastern Ukraine in April, when pro-Russian separatists there declared independence.
Paul Merrell

Wikimedia v. NSA: Another Court Blinds Itself to Mass NSA Surveillance | Electronic Fro... - 0 views

www.eff.org/...s-itself-mass-nsa-surveillance

surveillance state NSA Wikimedia litigation tyranny freedom

shared by Paul Merrell on 07 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • We all know justice is blind. But that is supposed to mean that everyone before it is treated equally, not that the justice system must close its eyes and refuse to look at important legal issues facing Americans.  Yet the government continues to convince courts that they cannot consider the constitutionality of its behavior in national security cases and, last week, in an important case for anyone who has ever used Wikipedia, another judge agreed with that position.  A federal district judge in Maryland dismissed Wikimedia v. NSA, a case challenging the legality of the NSA’s “upstream” surveillance—mass surveillance of Internet communications as they flow through the Internet backbone. The case was brought by our friends at the ACLU on behalf of nine plaintiffs, including human rights organizations, members of the media, and the Wikimedia Foundation.1 We filed a brief in the case, too, in support of Wikimedia and the other plaintiffs. The judge dismissed the case based on a legal principle called standing. Standing is supposed to ensure, among other things, that the party bringing the lawsuit has suffered a concrete harm, caused by the party being sued, and that the court can resolve the harm with a favorable ruling.
  • But the U.S. government has taken this doctrine, which was intended to limit the cases federal courts hear to actual live controversies, and turned it into a perverse shell game in surveillance cases—essentially arguing that because aspects of the surveillance program are secret, plaintiffs cannot prove that their communications were actually, in fact, intercepted and surveilled. And without that proof, the government argues, there’s no standing, because plaintiffs can’t show that they’ve suffered harm. Sadly, like several other courts before it, the judge agreed to this shell game and decided that it couldn’t decide whether the constitutional rights of Wikimedia and the other plaintiffs were violated.  This game is mighty familiar to us at EFF, but that doesn’t make it any less troubling. In our system, the courts have a fundamental obligation to conclusively determine the legality of government action that affects individuals’ constitutional rights. For years now, plaintiffs have tried to get the courts to simply issue a ruling on the merits of NSA surveillance programs. And for years, the government has successfully persuaded the courts to rely on standing and related doctrines to avoid doing so. That is essentially what happened here. The court labeled as “speculative” Wikimedia’s claim that, at a minimum, even one of its approximately one trillion Internet communications had been swept up in the NSA’s upstream surveillance program. Remember, this is a program that, by the government’s own admission, involves the searching and scanning of vast amounts of Internet traffic at key Internet junctures on the Internet’s backbone. Yet in court’s view, Wikimedia’s allegations describing upstream—based on concrete facts, taken from government documents— coupled with a plaintiff that engages in a large volume of internet communications were not enough to state a “plausible” claim that Wikimedia had been surveilled.
  • On the way to reaching that conclusion, and putting on its blindfold, the court made a number of mistakes. The Government’s Automated Eyes Are Still Government Eyes First, it appears the court fundamentally misunderstood Wikimedia’s claim about upstream surveillance and, in particular, “about surveillance.” As Wikimedia alleged, “about surveillance” (a specific aspect of upstream surveillance that searches the content of communications for references to particular email addresses or other identifiers) amounts to “the digital analogue of having a government agent open every piece of mail that comes through the post to determine whether it mentions a particular word or phrase.” The court held, however, that this type of “about” surveillance was “targeted insofar as it makes use of only those communications that contain information matching the tasked selectors,” like email addresses. But what the government "makes use of" is entirely beside the point—it is the scanning of the communications for the tasked selectors in the first place that is the problem.  To put it into a different context, the government conducts a search when it enters into your house and starts rifling through your files—not just when it finds something it wants to keep. The government's ultimate decision to “make use of” the communications it finds interesting is irrelevant. It is the search of the communications that matters.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Back of the Envelope Gymnastics Another troubling aspect of the court’s decision was its attack on the probabilities Wikimedia assigned to the likelihood of its communications being intercepted. Given that Wikimedia engages in a large volume of Internet communications, Wikimedia alleged that—even assuming a .00000001% chance that any one particular communication is intercepted—it would still have a 99.9999999999% of having one of its communications intercepted. The statistic was used to illustrate that, even assuming very low probabilities for interception, there was still a near-certainty that Wikipedia’s traffic was collected. But the court attacked Wikimedia’s simple statistical analysis (and the attack tracked, to a great degree, arguments made in the government’s declarations that the court purportedly did not consider). The court seemed to believe it had seized upon a great flaw in Wikimedia’s case by observing that, if the probability of any given communication being intercepted were decreased 100% or 1000%, the probability of one of Wikimedia’s communications being intercepted would similarly drop. The “mathematical gymnastics” the court believed it had unearthed were nothing more than Wikimedia using an intentionally small (and admittedly arbitrary) probability to illustrate the high likelihood that its communications had been swept up. But even if the court disagreed with the probabilities Wikimedia relied on, it’s not at all clear why that would justify dismissing the case at the outset. If it turned out, after development of the record, that the probabilities were off, then dismissal might be appropriate. But the court cut the case off before Wikimedia had the opportunity to introduce evidence or other facts that might support the probability they assigned.
  • Someone Else Probably Has Standing, Right? Perhaps most troubling was the court’s mistaken belief that the legality of upstream surveillance could be challenged in other ways, beyond civil cases like Wikimedia or our ongoing case, Jewel v. NSA. The court asserted its decision would not insulate upstream from judicial review, which—according to the court—could still receive judicial scrutiny through (1) review from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), (2) a challenge by a criminal defendant, or (3) a challenge from an electronic service provider. None of these options is truly a viable alternative, however. First, the FISC (until very recently) did not have adversarial proceedings—it only heard from the government, and its proceedings remain both far more limited and more secretive than a regular court’s. Second, a challenge from a criminal defendant won’t work either, because, to date, the government has explicitly refused to disclose—even where defendants are notified of the use of FISA surveillance—whether their communications were obtained using upstream surveillance. And, finally, in the nearly 15 years (or more) the government has conducted upstream surveillance, we’re not aware of any service provider that has challenged the legality of the practice. Indeed, given that upstream is done with the cooperation of telecoms like AT&T and Verizon—the same telcos that did not challenge the NSA’s bulk collection of Americans’ call records for over a decade—we're not holding our breath for a challenge anytime soon. Instead, we need the courts to tackle these cases. Upstream surveillance presents unique constitutional issues that no federal court has seriously addressed. It's time the federal courts stepped up to the challenge.
  • Paul Merrell on 07 Nov 15
     
    The notion that the government can intentionally violate the privacy rights of its citizens yet a court find that those citizens have no right to seek redress announces a view that privacy rights are hollow --- that those wronged by government malfeasance have no remedy in the courts of our nation. That is a view that must be thrown in the dustbins of history if freedom is to be preserved. 
Paul Merrell

Russia pushes U.N. Security Council on Syria sovereignty | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...-russia-syria-un-idUSKCN0VS1Z0

war & peace Syria Turkey Saudis U.N. Security-Council

shared by Paul Merrell on 20 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • Russia asked the United Nations Security Council on Friday to call for Syria's sovereignty to be respected, for cross-border shelling and incursions to be halted and for "attempts or plans for foreign ground intervention" to be abandoned.Russia circulated a short draft resolution to the 15-member council over concerns about an escalation in hostilities after Turkey this week said it and other countries could commit ground troops to Syria. The Security Council met on Friday afternoon to discuss the draft, but veto-powers the United States, France and Britain all said it had no future. "Rather than trying to distract the world with the resolution they just laid down, it would be really great if Russia implemented the resolution that's already agreed to," U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, told reporters after the meeting. She was referring to a resolution unanimously agreed by the Security Council in December that endorsed an international road map for a Syria peace process. The Russian draft, seen by Reuters, would have the council express "its grave alarm at the reports of military buildup and preparatory activities aimed at launching foreign ground intervention into the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic."
  • It also demands that states "refrain from provocative rhetoric and inflammatory statements inciting further violence and interference into internal affairs of the Syrian Arab Republic."Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told Reuters this week that his country, Saudi Arabia and some European powers wanted ground troops in Syria, though no serious plan had been debated. Russian air strikes have helped to bring the Syrian army to within 25 km (15 miles) of Turkey's borders, while Kurdish militia fighters, regarded by Ankara as hostile insurgents, have also gained ground, heightening the sense of urgency.Turkey has been shelling positions of the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia in response to what it says is hostile fire coming across the border into Turkey.Russia's relations with Turkey hit a low in November when Turkish warplanes downed a Russian bomber near the Syrian-Turkish border, a move described by Russian President Vladimir Putin as a "dastardly stab in the back."
Paul Merrell

Syrian Ceasefire: Israel's Collusion with the "Moderate Terrorists" Exposed… ... - 0 views

www.globalresearch.ca/...5514087

war & peace Syria Israel Al-Nusrah weapons

shared by Paul Merrell on 14 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • On Wednesday, militias allied with the Syrian Army ambushed a convoy of terrorists in the Sweida province, confiscating the weapons they were attempting to transfer to terrorists in the Eastern al-Badiya desert. Among the weapons left behind after the battle were mortar shells, land mines, RPG shells, ammunition of machineguns and Israeli-made LAU missiles.
  • How do the terrorists in Syria get those Israeli-made weapons? FARS News Agency, via the Times of Israel, has the answer: In a video uploaded to YouTube by the Executive Sharia Council in the Eastern Daraa region, a court established by al-Nusra in Southern Syria, Sharif As-Safouri, the commander of the FSA’s al-Haramein Battalion, admitted to having entered Israel five times to meet with Israeli officers who later provided him with Soviet anti-tank weapons and light arms, Times of Israel reported. Safouri was abducted by the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front in the Quneitra area, near the Israeli border, on July 22. “The [opposition] factions would receive support and send the injured in [to Israel] on condition that the Israeli fence area is secured. No person was allowed to come near the fence without prior coordination with Israel authorities,” Safouri said in the video. While al-Nusra and the FSA have collaborated in the battlefield against Syria, friction has intensified as they began to implement their stringent version of Islam in the area, establishing local Sharia courts. In the edited confession video, in which Safouri seems physically unharmed, he says that at first he met with an Israeli officer named Ashraf at the border and was given an Israeli cellular phone. He later met with another officer named Younis and with the two men’s commander, Abu Daoud. In total, Safouri said he entered Israel five times for meetings that took place in Tiberias. Following the meetings, Israel began providing Safouri and his men with “basic medical support and clothes” as well as weapons, which included 30 Russian [rifles], 10 RPG launchers with 47 rockets, and 48,000 5.56 millimeter bullets.
Paul Merrell

Israeli Comptroller Report Reveals 2014 Gaza Massacre Was A War Of Choice - 0 views

www.mintpressnews.com/...225549

shared by Paul Merrell on 06 Mar 17 - No Cached
  • Palestinians from the Gaza Strip have criticized an Israeli report on the country’s 2014 military operation against the besieged coastal enclave. The report was released by Israeli state comptroller Yosef Shapira on Tuesday. “I understand from the report that Gaza was merely the setting for an Israeli war game, with no objective but to destroy and murder indiscriminately,” said Basman Alashi, executive director of the El-Wafa Medical Rehabilitation and Specialized Surgery Hospital. The hospital, formerly located in the Shujaya neighborhood by the separation barrier with Israel east of Gaza City, was repeatedly shelled by Israeli forces during the 51-day offensive before it was evacuated under fire on July 17, 2014.
  • “The overall impression it leaves is this: ‘Netanyahu, You didn’t do a good job of destroying Gaza, do it better next time,’” Alashi said of the report. Others said the document contained useful information about Israel’s behavior during the offensive, even if its conclusions remained incomplete. “The report shows that Israel follows a systematic policy of humiliating Palestinians, especially through careless targeting of civilians,” said Ramy Abdu, founder and chairman of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor. Abdu’s Geneva-based agency has conducted investigations of Israel’s military conduct, including an Oct. 30, 2014 report stating that its forces had “deliberately targeted locations with concentrations of civilians” during operations earlier that year. “What the report has failed to cover is to cite careless targeting of civilians as a consistent failure of the Israeli forces, with almost no serious actions to do something about it,” Abdu said in regard to the Israeli comptroller’s findings.
  • It also claimed the cabinet had not only failed to consider diplomatic alternatives to military action, but also to set any clear strategy concerning Gaza. Once the operation began, it said, Israeli forces largely failed to meet their objective of thwarting tunnels dug by Palestinian resistance groups, destroying only half of them over weeks of a bloody ground invasion that produced many casualties. The comptroller did not appear to consider the goals of an earlier military operation, launched by Israel in the West Bank on June 13, 2014. These goals were to weaken Hamas, obstruct an agreement by Hamas and Fatah to form a unity government across the West Bank and Gaza Strip and recover three young settlers captured by Palestinians.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • The resulting deaths, along with the demands of an impoverished population and weeks of Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip, ultimately spurred Palestinian resistance groups into action and forced their armed wings to respond. By the time its guns fell silent on Aug. 26, Israel had achieved the first two of its three goals for its West Bank operation. The third had always been questionable, as Netanyahu knew from the outset that the three settlers were likely dead. Along with the weakness of Israel’s strategy in the Gaza Strip, where its forces quickly found themselves unprepared to face the threat of resistance tunnels, the mixed results raise questions about which objectives were the real ones. Military operations in Gaza and the West Bank made 2014 the most lethal year for Palestinians under occupation since 1967, when Israeli forces seized Palestinian enclaves over six days of war with neighboring Arab states. As the report shows, even senior figures in Israel’s security establishment now acknowledge their government’s responsibility for the loss of life. After its release, Isaac Herzog, chairman of the Israeli Labor Party head of the opposition Zionist Union, called for Netanyahu to resign over its charges, saying “Netanyahu must draw his conclusions and hand in the keys.”
  • But Netanyahu’s re-election, along with the seating of an even more right-wing governing coalition only seven months after the Gaza offensive, shows that Palestinian bloodshed is not a liability in Israeli politics, even at the cost of Israeli lives. Israel’s continued tightening of its Gaza closure, even as the country’s comptroller finds it to have been a key cause of the 2014 carnage, demonstrates that while its government may not seek immediate conflict with the Strip, it does not prioritize its avoidance.
  • Paul Merrell on 06 Mar 17
     
    This report is causing a political firestorm in Israel. This article does an excellent job of tying all the major Israeli press reports together. The report will obviously be handed off quickly to the International Criminal Court by Palestinians because it clearly establishes intent to commit war crimes.
Henry Jaxx

Learn It From The Expert - 1 views

started by Henry Jaxx on 21 Nov 12 no follow-up yet
Paul Merrell

Syrian Army Moves to Rebel-Held Qusayr - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...oves-to-rebel-held-qusayr.html

war & peace Syria Lebanon Iran

shared by Paul Merrell on 25 May 13 - No Cached
  • Syrian government forces backed by Lebanese fighters from the militant group Hezbollah pushed Sunday into parts of Qusayr, a strategic city long held by rebels, according to an antigovernment activist and pro-government news channels. If the advance holds, it would be a serious setback for opponents of President Bashar al-Assad.
  • Both sides called it one of the war’s most intense ground battles. The fight seemed likely to inflame regional tensions as Hezbollah plunges more deeply into the conflict in Syria, increasing fears of a regional conflagration. The Syrian military hammered Qusayr, on the Lebanon border, with airstrikes and artillery, killing at least 52 people and wounding hundreds as civilians cowered, unable to flee the city, activists said. By day’s end about 60 percent of the city, including the municipal office building, was under the army’s control for the first time in months, one activist said. Residents said rebels kept fighting into the night in Qusayr, killing a number of Hezbollah and government fighters.
  • The battle for the city, in heavily contested Homs Province, is viewed by both loyalists and government opponents as a turning point that could, in the words of one activist in Qusayr, “decide the fate of the regime and the revolution.”
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Mr. Assad, according to people who have spoken with him, believes that reasserting his hold in Homs Province is crucial to maintaining control of a string of population centers in western Syria, and eventually to military campaigns to retake rebel-held territory in the north and east. Many analysts say it is unlikely that the government will be able to regain control of those areas, but that it could consolidate its grip on the west, leading to a de facto division of the country. The battle has brought Hezbollah’s role in Syria to the forefront as the war becomes a regional conflict, pitting Shiite-led Iran, the main backer of Mr. Assad and Hezbollah, against the Sunni Muslim states and their Western allies that support the uprising.
  • Tensions have risen in Lebanon as Syrian rebels have shelled Hezbollah-controlled areas. On Sunday, they hit the Lebanese town of Hermel with Grad rockets, activists said.
Paul Merrell

US plan to arm Syrian rebels receives cool reactions | The Times of Israel - 0 views

www.timesofisrael.com/rebels-receives-cool-reactions

war & peace syria WMD

shared by Paul Merrell on 15 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • Syrian rebels firing locally made shells made from gas cylinders against the Syrian forces, in Idlib province, northern Syria, Tuesday, May 21, 2013 (photo credit: (AP Photo/Edlib News Network ENN, File)
  • Paul Merrell on 15 Jun 13
     
    Don't miss this Associated Press photo ofr Syrian "rebels" firing an artillery piece with a large gas container protruding from the barrel. Then contrast that with White House claims that they have no reason to suspect that rebels are using chemical weapons. 
Gary Edwards

Major Banksters, Governmental Officials and Their Comrade Capitalists Targets of Spire ... - 0 views

www.marketwatch.com/...ted-states-treasury-2012-10-25

Banksters Federal-Reserve-Bankster-Cartel

shared by Gary Edwards on 02 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 02 Nov 12
     
    "NEW YORK, Oct. 25, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Spire Law Group, LLP's national home owners' lawsuit, pending in the venue where the "Banksters" control their $43 trillion racketeering scheme (New York) - known as the largest money laundering and racketeering lawsuit in United States History and identifying $43 trillion ($43,000,000,000,000.00) of laundered money by the "Banksters" and their U.S. racketeering partners and joint venturers - now pinpoints the identities of the key racketeering partners of the "Banksters" located in the highest offices of government and acting for their own self-interests. In connection with the federal lawsuit now impending in the United States District Court in Brooklyn, New York (Case No. 12-cv-04269-JBW-RML) - involving, among other things, a request that the District Court enjoin all mortgage foreclosures by the Banksters nationwide, unless and until the entire $43 trillion is repaid to a court-appointed receiver - Plaintiffs now establish the location of the $43 trillion ($43,000,000,000,000.00) of laundered money in a racketeering enterprise participated in by the following individuals (without limitation): Attorney General Holder acting in his individual capacity, Assistant Attorney General Tony West, the brother in law of Defendant California Attorney General Kamala Harris (both acting in their individual capacities), Jon Corzine (former New Jersey Governor), Robert Rubin (former Treasury Secretary and Bankster), Timothy Geitner, Treasury Secretary (acting in his individual capacity), Vikram Pandit (recently resigned and disgraced Chairman of the Board of Citigroup), Valerie Jarrett (a Senior White House Advisor), Anita Dunn (a former "communications director" for the Obama Administration), Robert Bauer (husband of Anita Dunn and Chief Legal Counsel for the Obama Re-election Campaign), as well as the "Banksters" themselves, and their affiliates and conduits. The lawsuit alleges serial violations of the United States Patri
  • Gary Edwards on 02 Nov 12
     
    This is the first time anyone has tried to go after the Bankster class of midievil (mediæval) elites to recover theft of funds. Charges include racketeering, fraud and international money laundering. The mass tort action is now in the Brooklyn Federal Courts. Dead bodies are starting to show up as the Banksters move to shut down press coverage. Amazing stuff.
Paul Merrell

A Choice For Corporate America: Are You With America Or The Cayman Islands - 0 views

www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33901.htm

banksters globalists tax havens offshoring

shared by Paul Merrell on 10 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • When the greed, recklessness, and illegal behavior on Wall Street drove this country into the deepest recession since the 1930s, the largest financial institutions in the United States took every advantage of being American. They just loved their country - and the willingness of the American people to provide them with the largest bailout in world history. In 2008, Congress approved a $700 billion gift to Wall Street. Another $16 trillion in virtually zero interest loans and other financial assistance came from the Federal Reserve. America. What a great country. But just two years later, as soon as these giant financial institutions started making record-breaking profits again, they suddenly lost their love for their native country. At a time when the nation was suffering from a huge deficit, largely created by the recession that Wall Street caused, the major financial institutions did everything they could to avoid paying American taxes by establishing shell corporations in the Cayman Islands and other tax havens.
  • In 2010, Bank of America set up more than 200 subsidiaries in the Cayman Islands (which has a corporate tax rate of 0.0 percent) to avoid paying U.S. taxes. It worked. Not only did Bank of America pay nothing in federal income taxes, but it received a rebate from the IRS worth $1.9 billion that year. They are not alone. In 2010, JP Morgan Chase operated 83 subsidiaries incorporated in offshore tax havens to avoid paying some $4.9 billion in U.S. taxes. That same year Goldman Sachs operated 39 subsidiaries in offshore tax havens to avoid an estimated $3.3 billion in U.S. taxes. Citigroup has paid no federal income taxes for the last four years after receiving a total of $2.5 trillion in financial assistance from the Federal Reserve during the financial crisis. On and on it goes. Wall Street banks and large companies love America when they need corporate welfare. But when it comes to paying American taxes or American wages, they want nothing to do with this country. That has got to change.
  • Offshore tax abuse is not just limited to Wall Street. Each and every year corporations and the wealthy are avoiding more than $100 billion in U.S. taxes by sheltering their income offshore. Pharmaceutical companies like Eli Lilly and Pfizer have fought to make it illegal for the American people to buy cheaper prescription drugs from Canada and Europe. But, during tax season, Eli Lilly and Pfizer shift drug patents and profits to the Netherlands and other offshore tax havens to avoid paying U.S. taxes.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Apple wants all of the advantages of being an American company, but it doesn't want to pay American taxes or American wages. It creates the iPad, the iPhone, the iPod, and iTunes in the United States, but manufactures most of its products in China so it doesn't have to pay American wages. Then it shifts most of its profits to Ireland, Luxembourg, the British Virgin Islands and other tax havens to avoid paying U.S. taxes. Without such maneuvers, Apple's federal tax bill in the United States would have been $2.4 billion higher in 2011.
  • This tax avoidance does not just reduce the revenue that we need to pay for education, healthcare, roads, and environmental protection, it is also costing us millions of American jobs. Today, companies are using these same tax schemes to lower their tax bills by shipping American jobs and factories abroad. These tax breaks have contributed to the loss of more than 5 million U.S. manufacturing jobs and the closure of more than 56,000 factories since 2000. That also has got to change. At a time when we have a $16.5 trillion national debt; at a time when roughly one-quarter of the largest corporations in America are paying no federal income taxes; and at a time when corporate profits are at an all-time high; it is past time for Wall Street and corporate America to pay their fair share. That's what the Corporate Tax Dodging Prevention Act (S.250) that I have introduced with Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) is all about.
  • We have a much better idea. Wall Street and the largest corporations in the country must begin to pay their fair share of taxes. They must not be able to continue hiding their profits offshore and shipping American jobs overseas to avoid taxes. Here's the simple truth. You can't be an American company only when you want a massive bailout from the American people. You have also got to be an American company, and pay your fair share of taxes, as we struggle with the deficit and adequate funding for the needs of the American people. If Wall Street and corporate America don't agree, the next time they need a bailout let them go to the Cayman Islands, let them go to Bermuda, let them go to the Bahamas and let them ask those countries for corporate welfare.
  • Paul Merrell on 10 Feb 13
     
    Gotta love Bernie Sanders.
Paul Merrell

US tank enters ruined Afghan hospital putting 'war crime' evidence at risk | World news... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...l-putting-war-evidence-at-risk

war & peace Kunduz Doctors-Without-Borders hospitals war crimes investigation

shared by Paul Merrell on 17 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • A US tank has forced its way into the shell of the Afghanistan hospital destroyed in an airstrike 11 days ago, prompting warnings that the US military may have destroyed evidence in a potential war crimes investigation.
  • The 3 October attack on the Médécins sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Kunduz killed 10 patients and 12 staff members of the group. In a statement on Thursday, the medical charity, also known as Doctors Without Borders, said they were informed after Thursday’s “intrusion” that the tank was carrying investigators from a US-Nato-Afghan team which is investigating the attack. “Their unannounced and forced entry damaged property, destroyed potential evidence and caused stress and fear,” MSF said. The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the reported intrusion, which came as new evidence emerged that US forces operating in the area at the time of the attack knew that the facility was a hospital. US special operations analysts were gathering intelligence on the hospital days before the attack, because they believed a Pakistani operative was using it as his base, according to areport by the Associated Press citing an unnamed former intelligence official. The analysts had mapped the area and drawn a circle around the hospital, the official was quoted as saying. The Pakistani man, described both as a Taliban suspect and as a worker for the Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence directorate, was killed in the attack, the official told the AP.
  • Of the nearly 200 patients and staff inside the hospital at the time of the attack, more than three dozen were wounded, said MSF, which has called the attack a violation of the Geneva Conventions and a war crime. The group has said some patients burned to death in their beds.
Paul Merrell

Qods Force commander Qassem Soleimani rallies Iranian officers, Hezbollah in Syria | Th... - 0 views

www.longwarjournal.org/...fficers-hezbollah-in-syria.php

war & peace Syria boots-on-the-ground Iran Hezbollah militias Russia

shared by Paul Merrell on 15 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • Major General Qassem Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps – Qods Force, has been seen addressing Iranian military officers and members of Lebanese Hezbollah in western Syria. In the past, the leader of Iran’s expeditionary special operations forces has been spotted on key battlefields in Iraq and Syria prior to the launch of major operations against jihadist groups such as the Islamic State. Recent images of Soleimani (above) appeared on social media sites such as Twitter. His presence in the western province of Latakia in Syria was confirmed by Reuters. According to the news service, Soleimani was “addressing Iranian officers and Hezbollah fighters with a microphone, wearing dark clothes as he spoke to the men in camouflage.” In the photographs, Soleimani is flanked by by a handful of men wearing military fatigues. The faces of the individuals standing next to him are digitally altered to prevent their identity from being disclosed. A crowd of armed fighters who appear to be wearing US Marine Corps desert camouflage uniforms listens to his speech.
  • Latakia is a western coastal province that has long been a stronghold for the Assad family. Jihadists from the Jaysh al Fateh alliance, which is led by Al Nusrah Front, al Qaeda’s official branch in Syria, and its close ally, Ahrar al Sham, have launched attacks in the province in an effort to break Assad’s power base. Just two days ago, Abu Muhammad al Julani, Al Nusrah’s emir, threatened to indiscriminately shell villages in the province to avenge regime attacks, including airstrikes and barrel bombs dropped from helicopters, on Sunni villages, towns, and cities controlled by jihadist groups and allied rebel forces. Iran is reported to have deployed significant forces, estimated at thousands of troops, to support the Assad regime’s offensive to retake areas controlled by Jaysh al Fateh in Hama and Aleppo. But Omran al Zoubi, Syria’s Information Minister, has denied a large Iranian presence in Syria. “Only some Iranian military advisers, whose mission is to provide consultations and nothing more, are present in Syria,” Zoubi said, according to Iran’s Tasnim News Agency. Soleimani is instrumental in organizing Syrian and Iraqi militias, as well as Hezbollah, to battle Sunni jihadists and allied rebels in Syria. He has played a similar role in Iraq, where he has organized, trained, and equipped Shiite militias along the lines of Lebanese Hezbollah to fight the Islamic State. The leaders of some of these militias are listed by the US as Specially Designated Global Terrorists, and remain hostile to the US. Soleimani is occasionally photographed with these militia leaders.
  • Hezbollah has also committed a large force to back the government’s offensive in Hama and Idlib in western Syria. Thousands of the group’s fighters are said to be involved in the operation. In the past week, a senior Hezbollah leader known as Hassan al Haj was killed during the offensive. A senior Lebanese government official told Reuters that Haj was “the most important [Hezbollah] figure killed in battles in Syria since the start of the war.” Russia has also committed an expeditionary military force to back the Assad regime’s offensive. After building up its forces in Syria, the Russian military launched airstrikes on Sept. 30 and have primarily targeted Jaysh al Fateh and allied rebel groups in the northwest. Russia entered the fight under the guise of attacking the Islamic State, but few of its airstrikes have hit the jihadist group. In addition to warplanes and attack helicopters, the Russian military has deployed “marines, paratroopers, and special forces” to Syria, and even executed a sea-launched cruise missile strike from the Caspian Sea. Russia very likely coordinated its entry into the Syrian civil war with Iran and Soleimani. In July, Soleimani is reported to have visited Russia and met with met President Vladimir Putin and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, despite a United Nations travel ban.
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