Puppet MastersS


Star of David

Democrats are now officially split on Israel thanks to the bravery of Ilhan Omar and BDS

Philip Weiss
Mondoweiss
Fri, 08 Mar 2019 00:00 UTC
Ilhan Omar
© Kerem Yucel/AFP/Getty ImagesRep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) arrives for her victory party on election night in Minneapolis, Minnesota on November 6, 2018.
In the last election cycle, it was demoralizing to watch Hillary Clinton promise Benjamin Netanyahu she'd take the Israel relationship to the "next level" if she became president and her party platform committee shoot down one resolution after another about Jerusalem and the occupation and settlements, sponsored by Bernie Sanders' forces.

Those days are now over. Thanks in large part to the bravery of Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minneapolis and the organizing of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, progressive Democrats who hate the occupation and even imagine equal rights for Palestinians at last have a place inside the Democratic Party, and the party leadership feels the need to reckon with that force. This week it had to alter a resolution initially aimed at smacking down Omar for her remarks critical of Israel and the lobby so as to broaden its concerns.

Palestine Legal calls it a victory:
Thanks to thousands of activists mobilizing in support of Rep. Ilhan Omar, House Democrats were forced to rewrite a resolution meant to condemn her for statements she made challenging the Israel Lobby, falsely represented as antisemitic.

Comment:

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Arrow Down

Trump does cheap identity politics, brands Dems as 'anti-Israel, 'anti-Jewish'


RT
Fri, 08 Mar 2019 19:20 UTC
trump netanyahu
© AP Photo / Ariel Schalit
President Donald Trump has slammed the Democratic Party's supposed anti-Israel stance amid a row over Rep. Ilhan Omar's alleged anti-Semitic comments and a condemnation bill passed in response.

"The Democrats have become an anti-Israel party, they have become an anti-Jewish party," Trump told reporters as he left the White House for Alabama on Friday.


Comment: Identity politics: it's only bad when someone else is doing it. When it comes to Israel, Trump is as braindead as the Left when it comes to all other identity groups. Omar is right on this one.

See also:

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Dollar

US looking to get more cash from the countries it occupies - like Germany and Japan

Lolita C. Baldor
AP
Fri, 08 Mar 2019 19:12 UTC
trump melania
© AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster
The Trump administration is eyeing a plan to seek more money from allied European and other nations where American troops are based.

Several U.S. officials said Friday that the White House has asked the Defense Department to gather data on the costs of keeping troops in other countries and how much those nations contribute to the expenses. The officials weren't authorized to publicly discuss internal deliberations and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

President Donald Trump has waged a lengthy, public campaign to get NATO allies to meet the goal of spending 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense. And in the last two years, a number of allies have increased their spending.

The officials said this latest effort is along those lines. They said the collection of data could be used in subsequent meetings and discussions to pressure allies to help offset the costs of having U.S. troops within their borders.

The plan was first reported by Bloomberg.

Comment: This is a great idea. It will only make the public of those nations more angry and disillusioned with the American presence in their countries, which will make their leaders even more unpopular than they already are. It's not as if the Americans are there solely at the request of the nations in question - as pointed out in the article, the U.S. considers their presence there to serve American national interests. If they don't want to pay for that privilege, what real incentive to the countries in question have to pay for it? Not much.

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Cut

Political posturing: Presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren threatens to break up tech giant monopolies

Jonathan Shieber
Techcrunch
Fri, 08 Mar 2019 00:00 UTC
elizabeth warren
© Reuters / Yuri GripasElizabeth Warren
The influential Massachusetts senator and presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren has been a longtime critic of the consolidation of economic power by Amazon, Google and Facebook. Now she's making their break-up a key component of her presidential platform.

Warren has just released her plan for breaking up big tech, in what seems like a watershed moment for a Democratic nominee. Since Al Gore famously (infamously?) "invented the internet," Democratic candidates have turned away from serious regulation of technology companies, preferring instead to receive their campaign contributions.

Eric Schmidt and Google donors were hugely important to the Obama campaign, and big tech companies were among his biggest supporters.

Now, Warren has said (on Medium no less) that the massive market power that Google, Facebook and Amazon wield is a threat and will be treated accordingly.

"Twenty-five years ago, Facebook, Google, and Amazon didn't exist," writes Warren. "Now they are among the most valuable and well-known companies in the world. It's a great story - but also one that highlights why the government must break up monopolies and promote competitive markets."

Comment: Warren's call for regulation of tech giants is designed to garner support for her presidential campaign - in reality the cozy relationship between the industry and the US government along with their alliance with the Democratic party will go a long way toward shielding them from any assaults on their 'imperium'.

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Nuke

Flashback Would Trump roll back US nuclear strategy to the 1950s?

Geoff Wilson and Will Saetren
War is Boring
Sat, 18 Feb 2017 18:10 UTC
atomic test cannon tyndal air force
First ground footage of destruction at Tyndall Air Force Base
Everyone loses when nuclear weapons - of any kind - get involved

As Donald Trump's first three weeks in office come to a close, critics are pointing out that his iconic slogan, "Make America Great Again" is starting to look more and more like an attempt to bring American society back to the 1950s. What most people haven't realized yet is that his vision of turning back the clock also applies to America's nuclear arsenal.

Just this past week, CQ Roll Call reported that a blue-ribbon Pentagon panel urged the Trump administration to make the U.S. arsenal more capable of fighting a "'limited' atomic war."

According to the report, "The Defense Science Board ... urges the president to consider altering existing and planned U.S. armaments to achieve a greater number of lower-yield weapons that could provide a 'tailored nuclear option for limited use.'"

Comment:

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Heart - Black

Chelsea Manning off to jail: Mainstream media would care if this was Russia


RT
Sat, 09 Mar 2019 16:51 UTC
Chelsea Manning
© Reuters / Ford FischerChelsea Manning speaks to reporters outside a federal court in Virginia.
Does the American media care that a whistleblower was hauled off to jail for refusing to testify to a secret grand jury? Not really. After all, there's 'Russian collusion' to chase.

Manning was placed in custody on Friday for contempt of court after refusing to testify in front a grand jury in a closed hearing regarding her disclosure of US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"I will not participate in a secret process that I morally object to, particularly one that has historically been used to entrap and persecute activists for political speech," Manning said in a statement.

Her silence saw her thrown back in jail, where she will remain until she either changes her mind and testifies, or until "the end of the life of the grand jury," Judge Claude M. Hilton ruled.

Comment: See also: Chelsea Manning sent back to jail for refusing to testify in secret proceedings against Wikileaks

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Light Saber

Those thirsty for 'anti-semitic' Omar's blood disappointed as Dems pass watered-down anti-hate bill


RT
Fri, 08 Mar 2019 17:35 UTC
Ilhan Omar
© Agence France-Presse / Mandell NganRep. Ilhan Omar - (D-MN)
The House of Representatives adopted a resolution condemning all forms of bigotry (including anti-Semitism) after a long day of linguistic gymnastics that saw it morph from censuring Rep. Ilhan Omar to frowning on... intolerance.

The thrice-rewritten bill was barely recognizable as a rebuke of the alleged anti-Semitism of the Minnesota Democrat, instead bristling with denunciation of bigotry against every imaginable minority group in the US - a process that began when Omar's supporters requested the language be modified to include Muslims.

The final resolution veered close to self-parody after Democrats insisted Latinos, Asians, Pacific-Islanders, and LGBTQ people be added to the "traditionally persecuted peoples" list, pushing the vote back an hour on Thursday afternoon. Internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, and even the Dreyfus affair - which took place in 1800s France! - were name-dropped in the final version of the bill.

The final vote was 407 in favor, with 23 Republicans opposed.

Comment: Omar's principled stand against AIPAC and the demand for US loyalty apartheid Israel is creating divisions in the Democratic party
Ilhan Omar's remarks on the Israeli lobby's grip on American politics have seen her fellow Democrats blast her for anti-Semitism, and in one extreme case, for daring to question the US-Israel alliance at all.

Omar (D-Minnesota) has been a longtime opponent of the Israeli government, accusing it of "evil doings" in a 2012 tweet, then suggested recently that there is "political influence in this country that says it is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country," a reference to the powerful Israel lobby.

WIth Omar facing accusations of anti-Semitism, the House of Representatives passed a watered-down resolution denouncing not just anti-Jewish racism, but racism and discrimination of all kinds, on Thursday. The resolution passed with 407 votes, with 23 Republicans opposed.

Criticism didn't just come from the GOP, but from some of Omar's fellow Democrats. Rep. Juan Vargas (D-California) spelled things out clearest, stating that "questioning support for the US-Israel relationship is unacceptable."


"The change that is happening in the Democratic party is something that started with the recent elections that brought Ilhan Omar and others - young, progressive, and pushing for new ideas," US-Palestinian journalist Ramzy Baroud told RT. "I think this is a sign of hope that more popular involvement in the party could...challenge the traditional elites of the party."

RT's Caleb Maupin took a closer look at the saga, and what it means for the Democratic party at large.




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Stop

May warns Brexit 'may never happen at all' if MP's reject her deal for a second time

Thomas Colson and Adam Payne
Business Insider
Sat, 09 Mar 2019 00:00 UTC
theresa may
© Getty imagesTheresa May
Theresa May has said that Brexit "may never happen at all" if members of Parliament vote to reject her deal for a second time.

The UK prime minister, who plans to put the Withdrawal Agreement to another House of Commons vote on Tuesday, said Parliament could vote for a delayed exit from the European Union if her deal with the EU is rejected, an outcome that could ultimately lead to the UK remaining in the EU.

"Next week MPs in Westminster face a crucial choice: whether to back the Brexit deal or to reject it," May said Friday afternoon in Grimsby, the coastal English city in an area that largely favored Brexit in the 2016 referendum.

"Back it and the UK will leave the European Union. Reject it and no one knows what will happen."

She added: "We may not leave the EU for many months, we may leave without the protections that the deal provides. We may never leave at all."

Comment: As SOTT has previously noted, the likelihood of mutually agreed upon terms for Brexit is remote as the British establishment does not want to leave the EU and is determined to make sure it never happens:

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Eye 2

Leaked documents show US government secretly tracks journalists and activists tied to migrant caravan

Tom Jones, Mari Payton and Bill Feather
NBC 7
Sat, 09 Mar 2019 02:26 UTC
The documents detail an intelligence-gathering effort by the United States and Mexican authorities, targeting more than 50 people including journalists, an attorney, and immigration advocates
Border Patrol agents
© File Photo: John Moore/Getty Images
Documents obtained by NBC 7 Investigates show the U.S. government created a secret database of activists, journalists, and social media influencers tied to the migrant caravan and in some cases, placed alerts on their passports.

At the end of 2018, roughly 5,000 immigrants from Central America made their way north through Mexico to the United States southern border. The story made international headlines.

As the migrant caravan reached the San Ysidro Port of Entry in south San Diego County, so did journalists, attorneys, and advocates who were there to work and witness the events unfolding.

But in the months that followed, journalists who covered the caravan, as well as those who offered assistance to caravan members, said they felt they had become targets of intense inspections and scrutiny by border officials.
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Cow

Cattle ranchers are trying to get the word 'Meat' taken off the labels of meat substitutes

Tom McKay
Gizmodo
Sun, 10 Feb 2019 13:09 UTC
burger
The rise of Impossible Foods and its signature Impossible Burger, the plant-based burger brand that is all the rage lately, and their faux-meat ilk has apparently rattled some in the cattle business. The New York Times reported this weekend on a spate of state laws aiming to outlaw the use of the word "meat" on labels to describe products made from meat alternatives, some of which were bogged down by opposition and one of which passed.

According to the Times report, some ranchers and farmers (as well as lobbyists paid by their industry) are worried that plant-based meat substitutes-an industry that is growing by double digits each year and is rapidly getting better at producing tastier products-will threaten their bottom line. They seem particularly worried about losing control of labeling, like the dairy industry failed to anticipate the rise of almond and soy milk, as well as the potential impact of hypothetical future cheap, lab-grown meat on their businesses. That's despite lab-grown meat still not being out on the general market, and almost certainly remaining quite expensive for the foreseeable future.
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