Where is logic? While Kiev is obliged to implement the Minsk deal but has not, French President Hollande wants Russia to do it, seemingly ignoring the fact that Moscow brokered the agreement but is not a part to the conflict.

French President Francois Hollande spoke in favor on Tuesday of extending anti-Russia sanctions until there was progress in situation in Ukraine. "Minsk agreements must be applied in Ukraine ... I support extension of the sanctions until there is progress, as does the chancellor [of Germany Angela Merkel]," Hollande said ahead of his meeting with the German leader.

The national press is renewing its call for even more scrutiny of the incoming Trump administration, and is cheering on reporters who challenge President-elect Trump and his team.

On Monday, New York Times media columnist Jim Rutenberg praised CNN's Jake Tapper for a recent interview in which he pressed Vice President-elect Mike Pence on whether he knew that Gen. Mike Flynn, an adviser to Trump, had sought a security clearance for his adult son. Flynn's son had used social media to spread a false conspiracy theory involving Hillary Clinton.

Tapper had to ask several times before Pence finally allowed that the transition team had filed the "appropriate paperwork" for the security clearance before Trump formally dismissed Flynn's son last week, and Rutenberg said he wants to see more interviews like that.

If only such moments could stop being so special and start being normal," Rutenberg said of Tapper's interview. He added that "it can mean losing bookings and therefore ratings, given that politicians who face real grilling may be inclined to avoid the kitchens that cooked them — a risk worth taking.

The Democratic Party is doing incalculable damage to itself by shapeshifting into the party of baseless conspiracy theories, groundless accusations, and sour grapes. Hillary Clinton was already the most distrusted presidential candidate in party history. Now she's become the de facto flag-bearer for the nutso-clique of aspiring propagandists at the CIA, the New York Times and Bezo's Military Digest. How is that going to improve the party's prospects for the long term?

It won't, because the vast majority of Americans do not want to align themselves with a party of buck-passing juveniles that have no vision for the future but want to devote all their energy to kooky witch-hunts that further prove they are unfit for high office.

The reason Hillary Clinton lost the election is because she is a polarizing, untrustworthy warmonger. Period. Putin had nothing to do with it.

And the same rule applies to the major media that has attached itself leech-like to this pathetic fairytale. Here's a clip from the Times headline story connecting FSB-agent Trump with the evil Kremlin:

American intelligence agencies have told the White House they have "high confidence" that the Russian government was behind the theft of emails and documents from the Democratic National Committee. ...

The attack on the congressional committee's system appears to have come from an entity known as "Fancy Bear," which is connected to the G.R.U., the Russian military intelligence service, according to an official involved in the forensic investigation...

Clinton campaign officials have suggested that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia could be trying to tilt the election to Mr. Trump, who has expressed admiration for the Russian leader. (Computer Systems Used by Clinton Campaign Are Said to Be Hacked, Apparently by Russians, New York Times)

Those who expected the mainstream media to pause and reflect on its own biases following President-Elect Donald Trump's victory are surely disappointed. It has become inescapably clear that rather than attempt to break free from the ideological echo chamber in which they exist, liberal journalists in the mainstream media are only doubling down on progressive propaganda — descending ever further into self-parody.

Enter Exhibit A: an astonishing exchange between CNN's media analyst Brian Stelter and journalists Liz Wahl and Julia Ioffe that occurred on Sunday. In that one conversation, Wahl insisted Trump's win undermined "our democracy," Ioffe expressed bewilderment at the fact that the people no longer take the mainstream media's word as sacrosanct, and Stelter implied that Trump's impending presidency is a national emergency.

"That is the ultimate goal [of Russian 'disinformation'], to undermine democracy, to undermine faith in our institutions, like the media," Wahl told Stelter. "We have a president-elect now who has basically matched some of these key talking points in Russian propaganda to undermine our system."

Of course, the primary cause Americans lost faith in the mainstream media is the outrageous behavior of the mainstream media itself — for example asserting that Donald Trump has "[undermined] our system" by parroting Russian propaganda.

Robert Gates' new book is making the rounds on cable TV news and is getting much attention from the Beltway elites like Bob Woodward. Gates' harshest criticisms were saved for V.P. Joe Biden:

Biden is accused of "poisoning the well" against the military leadership. Thomas Donilon, initially Obama's deputy national security adviser, and then-Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute, the White House coordinator for the wars, are described as regularly engaged in "aggressive, suspicious, and sometimes condescending and insulting questioning of our military leaders."

You know the Beltway will run with this, because they fawn over almost all military-type leaders. I'm not attacking Gates' personal character, but we must always question the military industrial complex because they have a very checkered record. Max Fisher at the Washington Post grades Robert Gates on one of his own past judgments and the results are eye-opening.

I am not appropriately positioned to evaluate Gates's positions on "every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades." But I can tell you how he performed on the single most important one he ever confronted: ending the Cold War. He was, quite simply, dead wrong.
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President Ronald Reagan eventually came around to the idea that, yes, he could and should work with Gorbachev. He was persuaded by, among others, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who famously said that Gorbachev was a man the West could do business with.But Reagan had to overcome the fierce opposition of a top CIA Kremlinologist and eventual CIA director named Robert M. Gates, who maintained for years that Gorbachev was no reformer, that he was not to be trusted and that Reagan would be walking into a Soviet ploy. Quite simply, Gates was wrong, overruled by Reagan, and the world was better off for it.

As Donald Trump's inauguration draws near, Democrats fear they remain woefully unprepared to fight the new president's agenda. The party loses its standard-bearer once President Barack Obama leaves office, and the Democratic National Committee won't get a permanent chairman and staff until March, two months into the presidency. That Democratic power vacuum has raised concerns about the party's ability to provide a united message — or even to stand up a centralized rapid response operation — for the incoming president's first 100 days in office.

Their worst nightmare is that Trump, ever the showman, will define his opening act with little unified resistance.

"It's a very serious concern. I just went on TV twice today on Fox and MSNBC on the Cabinet appointments and I winged it," said Bill Richardson, the former New Mexico governor and 2008 presidential candidate. "You need something right now. Trump every day is doing something outrageous. What do we do? Criticize everything he does? Hold back a bit? I know we need to develop an economic message, but that's long term. We need something now. Most of the Democrats I talk to are down, and they're asking who's in charge."

Xie Xiaoyan, China's special envoy to Syria, recently visited Damascus to hold talks with the Syrian government and representatives of the opposition. During his visit Xie Xiaoyan met with Syrian Deputy Prime Minister Walid al-Muallem and other prominent government officials, as well as representatives of the Syrian opposition, in order to discuss China's involvement in humanitarian operations in Aleppo, as well as other issues related to the ongoing conflict in the war-torn country.

It should be noted that several months before, in August 2016, another high-ranking Chinese official - namely, Rear Admiral Guan Youfei, the man in charge of China's office for international military cooperation - also visited Damascus to meet with Syria's Defense Minister Lt. General Fahd Jassem al-Frejj, effectively negotiating the deployment of Chinese military advisers to the country. Ren Yuanzhe, a professor at China's Diplomatic Academy, told Sputnik China that Xie Xiaoyan's visit represents China's desire to play a more constructive role in resolving the Syrian crisis.

"Firstly, China may help to quickly get all sides to the negotiating table, as China believes that peace talks and political settlement are the only way to resolve the Syrian crisis. Secondly, China may offer its own ways to resolve this problem 'on four tracks': ceasefire, humanitarian aid, counterterrorism and political negotiations. Thirdly, China will continue to support the UN's lead role in resolving the Syrian issue. On December 5 China vetoed a resolution draft submitted by Egypt, New Zealand and Spain because it adopted a unilateral approach to the problem and ignored the interests of all sides involved. China hopes that the UN won't attempt to divert certain countries from resolving this issue. Fourthly, China will continue to play an important role in counterterrorist operations, humanitarian aid delivery and the implementation of UNSC resolutions in Syria," the professor explained.

By claiming that he is too smart for presidential daily briefings during an interview with Fox News Sunday, Donald Trump showed that he intends to violate his oath office. Trump's refusal to protect and defend the United States gave the Electoral College more than enough reason to reject his candidacy.

Alex Jones catches a lot of grief. Some of it he brings on himself by being over the top, but most of the criticism he receives comes from his practice of dragging into the news issues that otherwise would remained cloaked in silence.

Alex is certainly correct to stress that elements in the CIA, or someone claiming to be CIA, are planting stories in the media that Russia hacked Hillary's emails and used the damning information to elect Trump.

The truth of the emails is not what is in question. It is their alleged Russian origin. There is no evidence for this claim. Wikileaks said the emails came to them as a leak from inside, not from an outside hack, and former top NSA official William Binney has said that if Russia was the source the NSA would have conclusive proof.

What is striking about this controversy is that it is the CIA, not Russia, that is interfering in American elections. The CIA is supposed to be concerned with foreign intelligence. It is not supposed to interfere in US affairs. Yet it is the CIA that is using fake news to delegitimize a president-elect. One member of this operation, Bob Baer, has called for a new election on the basis of the claim that Trump was elected by Russian interference.

The FBI does not support the claim of Russian interference.

As Aleppo has been almost entirely liberated from militants by the Syrian Army, the daunting task of rebuilding people's lives lies ahead. RT's Lizzie Phelan met with orphaned children from the city whose harrowing stories epitomize the horrors of war.

Over the past few days, some 100,000 civilians, including 40,000 children, have left eastern Aleppo, according to the Russian Reconciliation Center.

The UN says one in four children have been affected by the Syrian war. In Aleppo, that figure appears a gross understatement, Phelan reports.