Puppet MastersS

Bulb

Discovery of the century: Everyone is smart except Trump

anderson cooper
It really is quite simple. Everyone is smart except Donald J. Trump. That's why they all are billionaires and all got elected President. Only Trump does not know what he is doing. Only Trump does not know how to negotiate with Vladimir Putin. Anderson Cooper knows how to stand up to Putin. The whole crowd at MSNBC does. All the journalists do.

They could not stand up to Matt Lauer at NBC. They could not stand up to Charlie Rose at CBS. They could not stand up to Mark Halperin at NBC. Nor up to Leon Wieseltier at the New Republic, nor Jann Wenner at Rolling Stone, nor Michael Oreskes at NPR, at the New York Times, or at the Associated Press. But - oh, wow! - can they ever stand up to Putin! Only Trump is incapable of negotiating with the Russian tyrant.

Remember the four years when Anderson Cooper was President of the United States? And before that - when the entire Washington Post editorial staff jointly were elected to be President? Remember? Neither do I.

The Seedier Media never have negotiated life and death, not corporate life and death, and not human life and death. They think they know how to negotiate, but they do not know how. They go to a college, are told by peers that they are smart, get some good grades, proceed to a graduate degree in journalism, and get hired as analysts. Now they are experts, ready to take on Putin and the Iranian Ayatollahs at age 30.


Comment: In other words, maybe they should try cleaning their rooms before presuming to know how to fix the world.


Chess

Merkel: Europe can no longer rely on superpower US

eu and us flag
© Tobias Schwarz / Reuters
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has warned that Europe could no longer rely on the "superpower" of the United States, marking the latest verbal spat between transatlantic allies now feuding over everything from defense to trade.

"We can't rely on the superpower of the United States," Merkel told a news conference in Berlin, Reuters reports.

This is all good: Washington's European allies - and Germany in particular - have locked horns with Donald Trump's abrasive approach towards transatlantic defense and trade.

During his European tour, the US president chided NATO states for not spending more on defense, accused Germany being a "captive" of Russia, and stated flatly that he considered the European Union a "foe" for "what they do to us in trade."

No Entry

Iranian chief of staff: Rouhani rejected 8 requests from Trump to meet

rouhani
© Lisi Niesner / Reuters
The Trump administration had requested a meeting with Iran's Hassan Rouhani eight times, but was turned down by the Iranian side, Rouhani's chief-of-staff has said. Experts say a meeting would be a loss of face for the Iranians.

A Trump-Rouhani meeting might have happened on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session in September last year, had the Iranians been willing. The fact that Iran had refused the meeting was long-known, but the number of times US requests were rejected was not - until Mahmoud Vaezi mentioned it after an Iranian cabinet meeting on Wednesday.

"During Rouhani's last visit to New York for the UN General Assembly session, Trump asked the Iranian delegation eight times to have a meeting with the president," he told reporters as cited by Iran's Mehr news agency.

If true, it may indicate the sheer scale of Iran's animosity towards Trump - even before he delivered on the many threats voiced during his election campaign. The US has since withdrawn from a multiparty nuclear deal with Iran against the wishes of other participants and introduced harsh economic sanctions. It's currently lobbying its allies to cut all business ties with Iran, a development which is likely to push Iran into abandoning the 2015 agreement as well.

During his speech before the UN General Assembly, Trump lashed out at Tehran, branding it a "corrupt dictatorship behind the false guise of a democracy" and an "economically depleted rogue state whose chief exports are violence, bloodshed, and chaos." Having a meeting with Trump would have been a major loss of face for Rouhani, while offering no practical gains, Zeinab Ghasemi Tari, assistant professor of American Studies at the University of Tehran, told RT.

Dollar

Trump says he's ready to tax all Chinese imports should need arise

China USA flags child
© Shannon Stapleton / Reuters
Washington may slap import taxes on all $505 billion worth of Chinese goods should it become necessary if the trade conflict with Beijing escalates, US President Donald Trump told CNBC.

So far, the countries have exchanged levies on mutual imports worth of $34 billion. US export duties on Chinese products came into force on July 6 with China retaliating hours later.

"I'm ready to go to 500," Donald Trump said in an interview with CNBC, stressing that he is ready to tax every Chinese product imported to the US if it is necessary.

Mr. Potato

Social media mocks CNN prediction that creepy Joe Biden will lead 'definitive' 2020 presidential list

Joe Biden
© Steve Marcus / ReutersJoe Biden
CNN is getting in early with its predictions for 2020. It placed Bernie Sanders in 5th position and chose establishment candidate Joe Biden as their pick, inviting a barrage of trolling on social media.

CNN has been dubbed the 'Clinton News Network', and so it comes as no surprise that the organization will continue with their 2016 strategy of downplaying Vermont Senator Sanders' chances, despite him being the most popular politician in the US, according to last year's poll.

Comment: Who at CNN thought this was a bright idea? Creepy Uncle Joe is wrong on so many levels it's hard to know where to start.


X

Clarity for Donbass? Putin reportedly proposes new referendum to Trump

Trump i Putin
© Pablo Martinez Monsivais/Associated Press
On July 18th, a number of reports flooded Russian media claiming that one of Putin's proposals to Trump at their July 16th Helsinki meeting was to organize a new, internationally-monitored independence referendum in Donbass.

Widely advertised as Putin's new plan to "resolve the conflict in East Ukraine", Russian media have unanimously cited a Bloomberg article as the source of this news. The Bloomberg article itself sources are two unnamed attendees of Putin's post-Helsinki meeting with Russian diplomats. One of Bloomberg's alleged sources also claimed that Putin offered Trump "time to think the proposal over", and in turn Trump asked Putin not to publicly air the idea.

Putin's press spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, has refused to comment on this specific point, but has confirmed that the conflict in Ukraine figured on the two presidents' Helsinki agenda.

Wolf

Reps. demand DOJ investigate Rosenstein over threats to congressional staff

Rod Rosenstein clinton foundation investigation
© J. Scott Applewhite / Associated PressRod Rosenstein
Rosenstein allegedly threatened to use his official investigative powers as Deputy Attorney General to investigate House Intel Comm staff...

Two Freedom Caucus Republicans asked the Justice Department's inspector general Monday to investigate allegations that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein threatened to subpoena the email and phone records of House Intelligence Committee staff.

Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows of North Carolina and caucus co-founder Jim Jordan of Ohio made the request in a letter to Inspector General Michael Horowitz, which alleges Rosenstein threatened the subpoenas in a tense January meeting about oversight requests from committee Republicans.

Comment:


TV

Trump's Europe trip smashes presidential conventions - media takes offense

Trump helsinki
© Associated Press/Pablo Martinez MonsivaisIn this July 16, 2018, photo, U.S. President Donald Trump, left, tosses a soccer ball to his wife first lady Melania Trump after Russian President Vladimir Putin presented it to him during a news conference after their meeting at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki, Finland.
Plenty of U.S. presidents have created commotion in their travels abroad, but none as much as President Donald Trump. The president's tumultuous trip across Europe, historians say, smashed the conventions of American leaders on the world stage.

Trump's "America first" approach to foreign policy had him seeming to accept the word of a hostile power over his own intelligence agencies, insulting allies and sowing doubts about his commitment to the NATO alliance.

"We've never had a president go abroad and not only lecture to our NATO allies, but also to embarrass them," said Russia expert William Pomeranz, deputy director of the Kennan Institute at the Wilson Center. "We've never had our president go on a foreign tour and categorize our allies as foes. And we've never had our president hold a joint news conference with a Russian leader where he assigned blame, from his perspective, to both parties, but in fact dedicated most of his time to blaming the U.S. Justice Department and intelligence services."

Comment: The supine lumps who pass for journalists simply don't know how to deal with plain speaking. whether it's Trump's brash statements of fact or Putin's calm, clear logic.


Chess

The Putin-Trump Helsinki summit was neither a breakthrough nor a damp squib, but possibly a start towards detente

Putin Trump Helsinki
The US and Russian Presidents took the first step towards ending the downward spiral in their countries' relations but the obstacles ahead remain formidable.
The US and Russian Presidents took the first step towards ending the downward spiral in their countries' relations but the obstacles ahead remain formidable.

The summit meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin has finally taken place in Helsinki to thunderous condemnation on the part of many in the West.

Some talk luridly of the beginning of the end of the West. Others talk hysterically of treason.

Others see the summit as a damp squib, which will change nothing and which will leave the relationship between the US and Russia and between Russia and the West essentially unchanged, with the current state of hostility continuing indefinitely unabated.

Pirates

The US, Iran and the terror organization MKO

MKO terror organisation
© vkb.isvg.orgMembers of the terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO)
For reasons that defy logic, France will once again host an anti-Iranian terrorist group meeting this weekend. The oddly named People's Mojahedin Organization (most commonly known as the Mujahideen-e Khalq, but also operating under the following names and abbreviations: MEK PMOI, MKO, NCRI, Muslim Iranian Students Society, Organization of the People's Holy Warriors of Iran, the National Liberation Army, Sazeman-e Mujahideen-e Khalq Iran), which supports the violent overthrow of the democratically-elected government of Iran, will meet in Paris. This organization, in addition to having the blessing of the French government, is endorsed by United States Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo.

The MKO was once listed by the U.S. as a terrorist organization, but that designation was removed in 2012. This was a puzzling move when looked at on the surface. According to one report, by early 2016, "...out of the nearly 17,000 Iranians killed in terrorist assaults since the victory of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, about 12,000 had fallen victim to MKO's terrorist attacks." Some estimates put that number, and the number of MKO victims, much higher. Should an organization that has killed this many people in one country through terrorist activities not be designated a terrorist organization?

In May of 2017, the Association for Defending Victims of Terrorism (ADVT), an Iranian anti-terror group, met with the Swiss ambassador to Tehran, who represents U.S. interests there. Said the group: "All the families of the victims of terrorism are shocked by how [US] senators and officials are linked with and support the MKO leaders and consider it as a blatant support for terrorism in the international arena."

Comment: See also:

False-flag? Mossad says it cooperated with MKO terror cult to 'uncover' bomb plot in Paris blamed on Iran