Puppet MastersS

Snakes in Suits

As Trump dossier scandal grows and implicates him, McCain checks into hospital

mccain
As the growing Trump dossier scandal continues to expand, Sen. John McCain has reportedly checked into the hospital for cancer complications.

This is not the fist time McCain has sought medical treatment after his role in recent anti-Trump scandals have heated up.

This story is developing.
mccain

Gear

Fake News CNN's Anderson Cooper denies calling Trump a 'pathetic loser', claims his Twitter account was hacked

Anderson Cooper
© Global Look Press
CNN host Anderson Cooper raised eyebrows when he called President Trump a 'pathetic loser' on Twitter, after GOP candidate Roy Moore lost the Alabama senate race on Tuesday. However, Cooper has denied responsibility for the tweet, saying his account was hacked.

Trump, who had backed both GOP candidates Luther Strange and Roy Moore before Moore took the nomination, said that he had originally endorsed Strange because Moore would lose the election. Roy Moore, a former Alabama Supreme Court judge, has been accused of sexually assaulting four women, when they were teenagers and he was in thirties.

Attention

Minnesota's Lieutenant-governor Tina Smith to fill Senate seat vacated by Al Franken

Tina Smith Minnesota liutenant governor
© Eric Miller / ReutersMinnesota Lieutenant Governor Tina Smith answers a question after Governor Mark Dayton (R) announced she would replace US Senator Al Franken, December 13, 2017
Lieutenant-governor Tina Smith will fill Minnesota's seat in the US Senate vacated by Senator Al Franken over accusations of sexual misconduct. She will face a special election next year.

Smith, 59, will serve until January 2019. She will have to run in a special election next November. If she wins that race, she would have to run again in 2020, when Franken would have faced re-election.

Governor Mark Dayton made the announcement on Wednesday. Smith was widely considered a favorite to win the 2018 gubernatorial election.

Propaganda

Politifact embarrasses itself by claiming "Russian election interference is a made-up story" is lie of the year

Trump Putin
It started with Hillary Clinton concocting an absurd story to explain away her pathetic election defeat, pushing a story that 17 intelligence agencies were confident that Russia meddled in US elections, only to have that list whittle down to 3 intelligence agencies being kind of confident that Russia did something to help Trump beat lazy Hillary.

To this day not one intelligence expert has explained what exactly "meddling" means when referencing Russia and US elections. Did the Kremlin hack voting machines in Wisconsin?

Politifact states that "mountain of evidence points to a single fact: Russia meddled in the U.S. presidential election of 2016โ€ณ, but where is this "mountain of evidence?" A seven page report by US intelligence agencies (i.e. Hillary partisan deep state hacks) who did not even have the balls to sign their names to.

Info

Arab leaders recognize East Jerusalem as capital of Palestine - call for others to do same

palestinian tire
© REUTERS/Mohamad TorokmanRamallah, Dec. 9, 2017
Leaders of Islamic countries have called for East Jerusalem to be recognized as the capital of Palestine, stating that Donald Trump's move last week had voided the status of the US as a mediator in the Palestinian-Israeli peace process.

The Muslim leaders had gathered in Istanbul, Turkey on Wednesday for an emergency summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). They condemned the US decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The controversial move was branded "an attack" on the rights of Palestinian people in the final declaration by the summit.

The declaration states that the US decision on Jerusalem is equivalent to its withdrawal from the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, NTV broadcaster reported. In its final declaration, the OIC formally recognized East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine, according to the broadcaster.

"The US administration should give up its role in the peace process, and if the US does not step back, it will be responsible for all the consequences," the declaration states, as quoted by NTV.

The organization promised to take the discussion on Trump's Jerusalem move to the UN General Assembly if the UN Security Council fails to take any action.

Comment: Arab leaders - including those who have previously signed agreements with Israel - are also planning responses:
In Jordan, the lower house of parliament has decided unanimously to carry out a comprehensive review of the various agreements signed with Israel. Khalil Attiyeh, the deputy speaker of the Jordanian parliament, initiated the bill to review Jordan's agreements with Israel. He told Al-Monitor that the parliament had to act big. "When the issue is as big as Jerusalem, the reaction has to be at the same level."

The Jordanian parliamentary bill introduced by Attiyeh calls on the judiciary committee to review all agreements signed with Israel and "to list all violations to the agreements, providing suggestions about them in light of Israeli violations of international agreements."
...
Leading Arab commentator Oraib al-Rantawi, writing in Jordan's Ad-Dustour paper, said that in light of the popular anger in the entire region, Arab governments have only one choice: "To ride the wave and to be as quiet about actions as possible until the ominous month of December is over."

Rantawi hinted in the same article that after the wave passes, Arab leaders will return to the need for "realism" and will come back to the US mediator. Being "quiet" means that no major decisions should be made.

Meanwhile, in Egypt, widespread protests have made it impossible for Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's administration not to take a strong stand. On Dec. 9, Cairo hosted an emergency meeting of the Arab League, which all foreign ministers of Arab countries, including the feuding Gulf countries, attended.

The Arab League adopted a 16-point resolution rejecting the US decision and calling on all countries to recognize Palestine based on the June 4, 1967, borders. Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari argued that the decision didn't go far enough, and called for even tougher diplomatic measures to be taken, a possible hint to the countries who have peace agreements with Israel.
The OIC's full statement can be read here. Erdogan is this years chairman for the OIC. During his speech, he went on the offensive, showing maps of regions illegally occupied by Israel, calling Israel a child-murderer and terrorist state, criticizing Israel's rogue nuclear weapons program... Iran's President Rouhani even extended an olive branch of sorts to Saudi Arabia, saying Iran "is willing to cooperate with ALL MUSLIM COUNTRIES over defending Al-Quds without any precondition." Now it just remains to be seen how united the OIC nations can remain.

As Andrew Korybko points out, this is the perfect move for Russia to step in as a facilitator:
By doing what he did, Trump compelled the OIC to respond by reaffirming many of its members' existing positions in recognizing East Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Palestine, which implies the existence of a West Jerusalem that could potentially be the capital of Israel following its formal recognition by the Ummah after a peace settlement is eventually reached. This holds remarkable implications because it creates the conditions for moving the peace process forward, as all of the OIC's member states just agreed to acknowledge the pre-1967 division of Jerusalem prior to Israel's full and illegal occupation of its entirety.

...Even in the unlikely possibility that this was part of a "master plan" by the US to restart the peace process, which it doesn't seem to have genuinely been in any case, it's certainly not unfolding as Washington may have wanted.

The OIC also declared in its joint statement that the US is no longer welcome to participate in negotiations over the two-state solution unless Trump reverses his decision, which isn't likely given his personal predisposition and disinclination to publicly appear as though he's backing down over anything, let alone a demand issued by a group of Muslim countries. That, however, opens up an historic window of opportunity for Russia to step in and take the role in leading this process instead, seeing as how it enjoys excellent relations with both Israel and the Ummah.

It also shouldn't be forgotten that the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared in April of this year that it will recognize West Jerusalem as Israel's capital so long as East Jerusalem is made the capital of a future Palestinian state. Seeing as how the OIC implicitly agreed to this through its joint statement without directly saying as much, the door is now open for Russia to replace the lost American role in leading the two-state solution by "balancing" between both competing parties and helping to breathe new life into this stalled process.
Trump injecting a little bit of that "Art of the Deal" chaos seems to have opened up a bunch of possibilities:


Attention

Russia's Sanaa withdrawal is sharp rebuke to the Houthis

Houthis
© al Arabiya
Negating The Narrative

Right off the bat, any reader who frequents the Alt-Media Community needs to leave aside what they think they know about Russia's policy towards Yemen before continuing with this article. There have been several misleading but "politically correct" narratives spreading through this information space since the beginning of the 2014 War on Yemen, one of which is the very nature of this conflict itself. The prevailing notion is that it's an international war, which is true in some regards, but overlooks the civil war dynamics that drove it in the first place. More specifically, this is the regional conflict between the Houthis and President Hadi in what was previously known as North Yemen, and then the overspill of this conflict into the former territory of South Yemen after the Houthis captured Aden. It was only then, when the rest of the country was on the verge of coming under the Houthis' control, that the Saudi-led coalition intervened and began its merciless bombing campaign and naval blockade of Yemen.

The War on Yemen is thus a multidimensional conflict with both domestic and international components, and this should have been clear to all objective observers from the outset. Nevertheless, there is a strong disposition in the Alt-Media Community to take narrative cues - both stated and implied - from Iran when formulating analytical angles in addressing events such as this one, and it's for that reason why the myth has pervaded that the Houthis are a National Liberation Movement for all of Yemen.

Comment: Russian clear thinking, diplomacy and discretion has been its strong suits where others have catered to political interests and self-serving causes. The world is viewed through many lenses, some more accurate than others. Some not accurate at all.


Star of David

Netanyahu: Israel will not be lectured to by the likes of Erdogan

NetaErdo
© Diken
"I am not used to receiving lectures about morality from the leader who bombs Kurdish villagers in his native Turkey, who jails journalists, who helps Iran go around international sanctions..."

Israel will not be lectured to by a leader who bombs his own people, jails journalists and helps Iran and Hamas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a sharp rebuttal to the most recent anti-Israel tirade by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Erdogan - who is emerging as one of the main voices in the Islamic world trying to stir passions over US President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital - on Sunday called Israel a "terrorist state."

According to the Hurriyet Daily News website, Erdogan, speaking at a meeting of his AKP Party in the central Anatolian province of Sivas, charged Israel with using "disproportionate" force against Palestinians protesting Trump's declaration and declared Israel an "oppressive, occupation state."

Health

Libyan forces suffering casualties, fighting continues in Benghazi

Libyan forces
© Al Arabiya
Libyan forces fighting in Benghazi have lost four men and seen 10 wounded so far in December, five months after declaring victory in a campaign to control the eastern city, a medical source said on Monday. Three of the dead from the Libyan National Army (LNA) were killed by snipers and one by a land mine as it faces resistance from a group of fighters in the Benghazi district of Khreibish. There have been daily clashes in the area and occasional air strikes.

LNA commander Khalifa Haftar declared victory in a three-year military campaign against an array of extremists and other fighters in Benghazi in early July. The fighting is part of a broader conflict that developed following the 2011 fall of strongman Muammar Qaddafi. Haftar has opposed a UN-backed government based in the capital, Tripoli, as he has gradually strengthened his position on the ground.

Also on Monday, the UN urgently appealed for countries to take in 1,300 "extremely vulnerable" refugees stranded in Libya, following revelations of horrific abuse of migrants in the country.

Comment: For the facts on LNA Commander Haftar and the 'Libyan slave trade', see:


Snakes in Suits

US State Dept.'s Nauert dodges questions on stripping of RT credentials

Nauert
© Washington ExaminerState Department spokesperson Heather Nauert
State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert has brushed off a question from RT about the withdrawal of its Congress credentials, and whether this contradicts her past vow that registration as a foreign agent would not impede the broadcaster's ability to report.

Nauert fell short of providing a clear answer to RT's Sameera Khan on whether the State Department still stands by its word that forcing RT America to comply with the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) was a formality that would not create hurdles for RT's work in the US.

"I think that press credentials might have been revoked by Congress, and not necessarily the members of Congress but rather the Association of Reporters that handles who gets to come and cover Congress," Nauert said, deflecting the question.

Instead, she played the 'Russia card', dubbing the RT correspondent a "representative of the Russian government" whose mere presence at the briefing should serve as sufficient proof of Washington's utmost respect for the freedom of press. "They can get Russian 'news,' if you will," she generously conceded - complete with air quotes.

Comment: See also:
RT America stripped of Congress credentials, State Department says FARA won't change its status


Megaphone

Reality to Nikki Haley: Guess what, you already chose a side

Nikki Haley
US Ambassador Nikki Haley at AIPAC, March 27, 2017
Following President Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital last week, the American UN Ambassador Nikki Haley was interviewed by Wolf Blitzer on CNN. Blitzer tried to get a clear statement from Haley concerning the territorial implications of the recent recognition: "Specifically, does the Trump administration now consider the old city of Jerusalem now part of Israel?"

Haley avoided the question by saying, "We don't want to pick a side on this", citing the need for the "two sides to come together" for the sake of "Israeli children and Palestinian children."

Thus, the "new sheriff in town", as Haley has called herself, is playing agnostic, objective and even-handed - "we don't want to pick a side". Just imagine, if the even-handed sheriff would be so objective that she would also recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine - you know, just to be fair.

But the US does not even recognize Palestine (unlike over 70% of the UN nations), precisely because such a move would preempt negotiations...

The UN Security Council has "censured in the strongest terms" Israel's unilateral annexation of East Jerusalem (Resolution 476, 1980) and deemed it "a violation of international law", calling upon "those States that have established diplomatic missions at Jerusalem to withdraw such missions from the Holy City".

Comment: Remember former psycho Samantha Powers? She was all kinds of crazy but Haley takes it to another level with her idiocy. And that's putting it mildy. For more dumb things nutzoid Nikki says: