Obama Offers Peace or War Ultimatum, To Putin

Buddhist Monk saw Buddha in HELL, now he believes in Jesus!!!

UN WARNS OF THE COMING MASSIVE ARMY OF AI TERRORBOTS

Thunderstorms bring golf-ball sized hail and 56mph winds in Las Vegas

Las Vegas was hit by flooding as heavy thunderstorms packing golf ball-sized hail, gusty winds and destructive lightning swept through the area, leaving at least one person hospitalized after she was plucked from a flooded wash, authorities said.

The woman was believed to have suffered a heart attack while she and two other people were rescued Thursday from rushing water near the Hard Rock Casino Hotel east of the Las Vegas Strip, Deputy Clark County Fire Chief Jeff Buchanan said.

Firefighters reached two other people and their dogs in another wash near Boulder Highway, about 5 miles east of the Strip, and rescued another two people at another site shortly after 6pm, Buchanan said.

At least 21 airline flights were diverted from busy McCarran International Airport, where the National Weather Service said wind gusts were clocked at 56mph during the height of the storm.



Several vehicles stalled with water up to their headlights in one flooded intersection in nearby Henderson.

'People don't realize just a few inches of rain can really cause some damage,' said Kim Becker, a Henderson city spokeswoman.

Monsoon-style summer storms aren't unusual in the desert around Las Vegas, where one or two storms can go a long way toward filling rain gauges that average only 4.19 inches of rainfall a year.

But heavy rain can turn to torrents sluicing off sun-baked desert or pavement into miles of flood channels constructed to protect homes and businesses.

Weather service meteorologist John Adair said Henderson received up to 1½ inch of rain between 2pm and 3pm.


Red Rock Canyon, about 25 miles west of the Strip, received more than 1¼ inches, and Adair said flooding closed the scenic 13-mile loop road through the preserve.

Adair called the 2-inch hail that fell in southwestern neighborhoods near the 215 Beltway the most unusual element of the storm. Hail the size of 25-cent pieces pelted Henderson.

Winds felled at least one tree, and Buchanan said lightning sparked a house fire that displaced two adults and their pet dogs.

NV Energy reported almost 4,700 customers without electricity shortly after the rain stopped.

Traffic officials reported more than one lane of the U.S. 95 freeway closed for a time due to flooding not far from the Galleria at Sunset mall in Henderson.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3669597/Storm-sweeps-Vegas-swamping-roads-stranding-people.html#ixzz4DE0kM0Ot


Credit to dailymail.co.uk

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3669597/Storm-sweeps-Vegas-swamping-roads-stranding-people.html

Powerful Interest Groups Have Triumphed Over The Rule Of Law

Powerful Interest Groups Have Triumphed Over The Rule Of Law

This from a reader:

“It was reported this morning that recently the jet that Attorney General Loretta Lynch was on just happened to be on the same ramp as the one carrying  Bill Clinton.

“And somehow each party apparently knew of the presence of the other.

“And they were in close enough proximity that Bill and Loretta met privately in one of the jets.

“The FBI (a department under the AG) is investigating Hillary’s emails as  a criminal violation of the espionage act and the funding of the Clinton Foundation by foreign interests.

“Seems to me that this is more than coincidental and is highly irregular for a prosecuting official to meet privately with a potential defendant—or husband of a potential defendant.

“Wonder who’s jet they met on?   Did the AG go to Bill’s jet?  Wouldn’t that be particularly unusual? Did Bill go over to the AG’s jet, and if so why would the AG allow it and precipitate such a conflict of interests?”

Here is confirmation that this meeting did occur: 

There was a half hour meeting on the AG’s plane. Watch the news video from ABC 15:

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/06/ag-loretta-lynch-half-hour-meeting-bill-clinton-airplane-says-talked-grandchildren-video/ 

http://www.abc15.com/news/region-phoenix-metro/central-phoenix/loretta-lynch-bill-clinton-meet-privately-in-phoenix

Credit to paulcraigroberts.org

http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/06/29/powerful-interest-groups-have-triumphed-over-the-rule-of-law/

Hacked Emails Confirm NATO Push To Provoke, Escalate Conflict With Russia

Just two weeks ago, a huge scandal erupted within another 'union' as Germany slammed NATO for "warmongering" destroying the fictional narrative that 'innocent' NATO was merely reacting to evil Russian provocations. Furthermore, as NATO accelerated its encirclement of Russia, with British soldiers deployed in Estonia, US soldiers operating in Latvia and Canadians in Poland, while combat units are being increased in the Mediterranean... 

NATO found another excuse for war, assessing that it may now have grounds to attack Russia when it announced that if a NATO member country becomes the victim of a cyber attack by persons in a non-NATO country such as Russia or China, then NATO’s Article V “collective defense” provision requires each NATO member country to join that NATO member country if it decides to strike back against the attacking country.

Specifically, NATO is alleging that because Russian hackers had copied the emails on Hillary Clinton’s home computer, this action of someone in Russia taking advantage of her having privatized her U.S. State Department communications to her unsecured home computer and of such a Russian’s then snooping into the U.S. State Department business that was stored on it, might constitute a Russian attack against the United States of America, and would, if the U.S. President declares it to be a Russian invasion of the U.S., trigger NATO’s mutual-defense clause and so require all NATO nations to join with the U.S. government in going to war against Russia, if the U.S. government so decides.

Now, as The Intercept's Zaid Jilani and Lee Fang expose, retired U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove (yes an ironic name for a warmonger), until recently the supreme commander of NATO forces in Europe, plotted in private to overcome President Barack Obama’s reluctance to escalate military tensions with Russia over the war in Ukraine in 2014, according to apparently hacked emails from Breedlove’s Gmail account that were posted on a new website called DC Leaks.

Obama defied political pressure from hawks in Congress and the military to provide lethal assistance to the Ukrainian government, fearing that doing so would increase the bloodshed and provide Russian President Vladimir Putin with the justification for deeper incursions into the country.

Breedlove, during briefings to Congress, notably contradicted the Obama administration regarding the situation in Ukraine, leading to news stories about conflict between the general and Obama.

But the leaked emails provide an even more dramatic picture of the intense back-channel lobbying for the Obama administration to begin a proxy war with Russia in Ukraine.

In a series of messages in 2014, Breedlove sought meetings with former Secretary of State Colin Powell, asking for advice on how to pressure the Obama administration to take a more aggressive posture toward Russia.

“I may be wrong, … but I do not see this WH really ‘engaged’ by working with Europe/NATO. Frankly I think we are a ‘worry,’ … ie a threat to get the nation drug into a conflict,” Breedlove wrote in an email to Powell, who responded by accepting an invitation to meet and discuss the dilemma. “I seek your counsel on two fronts,” Breedlove continued, “how to frame this opportunity in a time where all eyes are on ISIL all the time, … and two, … how to work this personally with the POTUS.”

Breedlove attempted to influence the administration through several channels, emailing academics and retired military officials, including former NATO supreme commander Wesley Clark, for assistance in building his case for supplying military assistance to Ukrainian forces battling Russian-backed separatists.

“I think POTUS sees us as a threat that must be minimized, … ie do not get me into a war????” Breedlove wrote in an email to Harlan Ullman, senior adviser to the Atlantic Council, describing his ongoing attempt to get Powell to help him influence Obama.

“Given Obama’s instruction to you not to start a war, this may be a tough sell,” Ullman replied a few months later, in another string of emails about Breedlove’s effort to “leverage, cajole, convince or coerce the U.S. to react” to Russia.

Breedlove did not respond to a request for comment. He stepped down from his NATO leadership position in May and retired from service on Friday, July 1. Breedlove was a four-star Air Force general and served as the 17th Supreme Allied Commander of NATO forces in Europe starting on May 10, 2013.

Phillip Karber, an academic who corresponded regularly with Breedlove — providing him with advice and intelligence on the Ukrainian crisis —  verified the authenticity of several of the emails in the leaked cache. He also told The Intercept that Breedlove confirmed to him that the general’s Gmail account was hacked and that the incident had been reported to the government.

“The last conversation I had about it with General Breedlove, he said, ‘Yeah, I’ve been hacked several times,’” said Karber. He added that he noticed at least one of his personal emails appearing online from the leak before we had contacted him. “I turned this over to the U.S. government and asked them to investigate. No one has given me any answer.”

“I have no idea whose account was leaked or hacked,” said Powell, when reached for comment about the emails. Powell said he had no comment about the discussions regarding Obama’s response to the conflict in Ukraine.

In the European press, Breedlove has been portrayed as a hawkish figure known for leaning on allied nations to ditch diplomacy and to adopt a more confrontational role again Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine. Breedlove, testifying before Congress earlier in February of this year, called Russia “a long-term existential threat to the United States and to our European allies.”

Der Spiegel reported that Breedlove “stunned” German leaders with a surprise announcement in 2015 claiming that pro-Russian separatists had “upped the ante” in eastern Ukraine with “well over a thousand combat vehicles, Russian combat forces, some of the most sophisticated air defense, battalions of artillery” sent to Donbass, a center of the conflict.

Breedlove’s numbers were “significantly higher” than the figures known to NATO intelligence agencies and seemed exaggerated to German officials. The announcement appeared to be a provocation designed to disrupt mediation effortsled by Chancellor Angela Merkel.

In previous instances, German officials believed Breedlove overestimated Russian forces along the border with Ukraine by as many as 20,000 troops and found that the general had falsely claimed that several Russian military assets near the Ukrainian border were part of a special build-up in preparation for a large-scale invasion of the country. In fact, much of the Russian military equipment identified by Breedlove, the Germans said, had been stored there well before the revolution in Ukraine.

The emails, however, depict a desperate search by Breedlove to build his case for escalating the conflict, contacting colleagues and friends for intelligence to illustrate the Russian threat. Karber, who visited Ukrainian politicians and officials in Kiev on several occasions, sent frequent messages to Breedlove — “per your request,” he noted — regarding information he had received about separatist military forces and Russian troop movements. In several updates, Breedlove received military data sourced from Twitter and social media.

Karber, the president of the Potomac Foundation, became the center of a related scandal last year when it was discovered that he had facilitated a meeting during which images of purported Russian forces in Ukraine were distributed to the office of Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., and were published by a neoconservative blog. The pictures turned out to be a deception; one supposed picture of Russian tanks in Ukraine was, in fact, an old photograph of Russian tanks in Ossetia during the war with Georgia.

Breedlove stayed in close contact with Karber and other officials who shared his views on the Ukrainian conflict.

“Phil, can’t we get a statement to counteract the Russians on use of force? what can I do to help? If the Ukrainians lose control of the narrative, the Russians will see it as an open door,” wrote retired Gen. Wesley Clark, who forwarded on his messages with Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. He also passed along concerns from the Bulgarian president that Bulgaria might be Russia’s next target.

In other messages, Clark relayed specific requests for the types of military aid desired by Ukrainian officials. In addition to radar systems and other forms of military equipment, Clark recommended that Breedlove “encourage Ukraine to hire some first rate pr firms and crisis communications firms in U.S. and Europe.” He added, “They need the right tools to engage in information warfare.”

Ukraine did hire several D.C. lobbying and communication firms to influence policymakers. In June 2015, the government signed a deal with APCO Worldwide, an influential firm with ties to senior Democratic and Republican officials.

In an email in February 2015, Karber told Breedlove that “Pakistan has, under the table, offered Ukraine 500 TOW-II launchers (man-portable version) and 8,000 TOW-II missiles,” adding that deliveries of the anti-tank weapons could begin by the end of the month. “However,” Karber wrote, “Pakistan will not make these deliveries without U.S. approval; moreover they will not even request that approval unless they have informal assurance that it would be approved.”

Karber told The Intercept that the Pakistani arms deal never materialized.

Breedlove was most recently in the news explaining that he now thinks we need to talk to the Russian government to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. “I think we need to begin to have meaningful dialogue,” he said last week, while reiterating his views on the need for a strong NATO to militarily match Russia. “Russia does understand power, and strength, and unity,” he said.

With all that in mind, we return to German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier's recent exclamation that "anyone who thinks you can increase security in the alliance with symbolic parades of tanks near the eastern borders, is mistaken," and given the 'proof' above that it is indeed NATO that is provoking and warmongering, the unprecedented reality in which NATO's biggest and most important European member is suddenly and quite vocally against NATO and as a result may be pivoting toward Russian, we for one can't wait to see just how this shocking geopolitical debacle for western neocons and war hawks concludes.

The emails were released by D.C. Leaks, a database run by self-described “hacktivists” who are collecting the communications of elite stakeholders such as political parties, major politicians, political campaigns, and the military. The website currently has documents revealing some internal communications of the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign and George Soros’s Open Society Foundation, among others.

Credit to Zero Hedge