Politics

In Venezuela's latest crackdown on all opposition voices, on Saturday the country's newly convened pro-government constituent assembly removed dissident state prosecutor Luisa Ortega Diaz - the highest-ranking member of President Nicolas Maduro’s administration to break ranks with the dictator - from her job in what critics said was a blatant example of Maduro's new dictatorship flexing its muscles. The assembly voted on Saturday to permanently remove Diaz, 59, from her post after the Supreme Court ruled on Friday evening to suspend her and send her to trial.

The United States is preparing for all options to counter the growing threat from North Korea, including launching a “preventive war,” national security adviser H.R. McMaster said in an interview that aired Saturday on MSNBC. The comments come after North Korea carried out two tests of intercontinental ballistic missiles in the past month and after the president said he has been clear he will not tolerate North Korea's threats to attack the U.S. with nuclear weapons.

The key excerpts (full transcript):

In the first known case of special counsel Robert Mueller’s team asking the White House to hand over records, investigators working for Mueller - who is investigating whether President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign colluded with Russia and who last week reportedly empanelled a grand jury -  have asked the White House for documents related to former national security adviser Michael Flynn, the New York Times reported late on Friday.

Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

President Trump has been defeated by the military/security complex and forced into continuing the orchestrated and dangerous tensions with Russia. Trump’s defeat has taught the Russians the lesson I have been trying to teach them for years, and that is that Russia is much more valuable to Washington as an enemy than as a friend.

Do we now conclude with Russia’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev that Trump is washed up and “utterly powerless?”

I think not.

Authored by Jeremiah Johnson (nom de plume of a retired Green Beret of the United States Army Special Forces) via SHTFplan.com,