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Eiffel Tower

Emmanuel Macron faces first revolt as 100 party members resign over 'arrogant, undemocratic' ways

Henry Samuel
The Telegraph
Wed, 15 Nov 2017 10:12 UTC
Dječak Macron potrošio je za tri mjeseca 26.000 eura za šminku
© VADIM GHIRDA/ AP
Emmanuel Macron is facing his first internal revolt since his lightning rise to the French presidency after 100 members of his centrist movement announced they were stepping down due to its "arrogant" and "undemocratic" methods.

Mr Macron, 39, swept to victory in May in part thanks to the help of an army of grassroots supporters, many with no prior political experience and who were promised they would all have a say in the way his newly-created movement would be run.

But sixth months into the presidency, 100 members of his centrist Republic on the Move (LREM) party - from students to elected officials - say they are throwing in the towel, claiming the party as an "affront to the fundamental principles of democracy with an organisational style worthy of the Ancien Régime".

Comment: True, 100 out of a party of 380,000 is nothing - but some of them were elected officials. More significant, perhaps, is the fact that LREM was a ready-made party created for the sole purpose of electing Macron as president, so the loyalty of its members is not related to ideological principles, but to their sympathies to Macron. If he is perceived as "arrogant and undemocratic", he may be losing more party members in the near future.

Further reading on Macron's 'methods':

The world according to Emmanuel Macron: The days of popular sovereignty are over

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Cowboy Hat

Hysterical Nikki Haley calls Venezuela a "violent narco-state" that threatens the globe

Edith M. Lederer
ABC News
Mon, 13 Nov 2017 09:51 UTC
Nikki Haley OAS secertary Luis Almargo
© AP Photo/Bebeto MatthewsUnited Nations U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley, right, listens as Organization of American States Secretary General Luis Almargo speaks during a U.N. meeting on human rights concerns in Venezuela, Monday Nov. 13, 2017 at U.N. headquarters. Look at her worried face - it must be serious!
U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley called Venezuela "an increasingly violent narco-state" that threatens the world, speaking Monday at an informal Security Council meeting on the South American nation that was boycotted by Russia, China, Egypt and Bolivia.

She accused Venezuela of using pressure to keep council members from attending, saying the fact that its government would go so far "is guilt - and that's unfortunate."

Venezuela's U.N. ambassador, Rafael Ramirez, denounced the session, telling reporters: "This is a hostile act from the United States and an interference that violates the sovereignty principles of a country that is a member of the United Nations."

The situation in Venezuela is not on the Security Council's official agenda - a point stressed by Ramirez and Bolivia's U.N. ambassador - but Haley said she will continue "to use the convening power of the United Nations to draw attention to this crisis."
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Moon

Leaked Saudi memorandum reveals plan to give up support for Palestine - in return for war on Iran

b
Moon of Alabama
Tue, 14 Nov 2017 17:42 UTC
Saudi plans
The tyrants of Saudi Arabia developed a plan that sells away Palestine. They see this as necessary to get U.S. support for their fanatic campaign against their perceived enemy Iran.

An internal Saudi memorandum, leaked to the Lebanese paper Al-Akhbar, reveals its major elements. (Note: The genuineness of the memo has not been confirmed. In theory it could be a "plant" by some other party. But Al-Akhbar has so far an excellent record of publishing genuine leaks and I trust its editors' judgement.)

According to the memo the Saudis are ready to give up on the Palestinian right of return. They forfeit Palestinian sovereignty over Jerusalem and no longer insist of the status of a full state for the Palestinians. In return they ask for a U.S.-Saudi-Israeli (military) alliance against their perceived enemy on the eastern side of the Persian Gulf.

Negotiations on the issue were held between the Saudis and the Zionist under the aegis of the United States. Netanyahu and Trump's "shared personal assistant, wunderkind Jared Kushner", is the point men in these negotiations. He made at least three trips to Saudi Arabia this year, the last one very recently.

Comment: The intensifying confluence of Saudi Arabia, Israel and the US's interests in destroying Iran - and trying to work out the way in which to do so - is certainly already one for the history books. Stay tuned as we keep you abreast of the fast-moving developments...

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Arrow Up

Iran abolishes death penalty for minor drug-related crimes

Frud Bezhan
RFE/RL
Tue, 14 Nov 2017 21:11 UTC
man with handcuffs
© Lucy Nicholson / Reuters
Iran has some of the toughest antidrug laws in the world, with authorities handing out the death sentence to offenders trafficking or possessing as little as 30 grams of hard drugs like heroin or cocaine.

So it was a major turnaround when the parliament and the Guardians Council, the powerful clerical body that must approve all proposed legislation, abolished the death penalty for some drug-related crimes.

The amendments to the law, which came into effect on November 14, increase the threshold for the use of the death penalty. Capital punishment is reserved for those charged with trafficking 2 kilograms of hard drugs or more than 50 kilograms of cannabis or opium. The death sentence still applies for repeat offenders and lethal drug-related offences.

Comment: Iran's 'hardliner' approach to drugs is in no small part due to US covert drug ops in the region. It's easy to sit from afar and criticize, much like we've seen in the West's position toward The Philippines. Yet, there is an historical precedent for the West's role in all of this that deserves mention.

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Star of David

Israel's vampiric money machine drains U.S. taxpayers

Philip Giraldi
The Unz Review
Tue, 14 Nov 2017 02:24 UTC
Friends of the Israel Defense Forces
© Tiffany Rose/WireImageFriends of the Israel Defense Forces gala, where celebrities raise money to support the illegal occupation of Palestine and the brutalization of its citizens
Jewish oligarchs fund crimes against humanity

The stars came out in Hollywood on November 2nd, or at least some of them did. The gala event celebrated the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and raised funds to support its mission in Israel itself and on the occupied West Bank. The organization being fêted was the (FIDF), which has fourteen regional offices in the United States and operates under the slogan "Their job is to look after Israel. Our job is to look after them." In attendance were Arnold Schwarzenegger and actor Gerald Butler. Entertainment was provided by the singer Seal.

Hollywood Jewish royalty was thick on the ground, the grub was strictly kosher and billionaires competed to see who could give the most to such a worthy cause. The 1,200 attendees at the Beverly Hilton Hotel donated a record $53.8 million, with Oracle founder Larry Ellison leading the pack with a contribution of $16.6 million. Israeli media mogul Haim Saban, Hillary Clinton's most generous supporter, served as host of the event and donated $5 million. Two weeks ago, a similar gathering of 1,200 in New York City dubbed "A Night of Heroes," attended by GOP major donor casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, raised $35 million, $7 million coming from Adelson personally. FIDF reportedly was sitting on $190 million in contributions for the year before the Hollywood and New York events.
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Bullseye

Zakharova: UK Prime Minister's attempts to portray Russia as the main threat to the global community are "irresponsible and groundless"


TASS
Wed, 15 Nov 2017 01:19 UTC
Maria Zakharova
© Valery Sharifulin/TASSThe Russian Foreign Ministry’s official spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova
UK Prime Minister Theresa May's attempts to portray Russia as the main threat to the global community are "irresponsible and groundless," the Russian Foreign Ministry's official spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, said on Tuesday.

"We have taken note of the statement concerning Russia made on 13 November by the British Prime Minister Theresa May at the Lord Mayor's Banquet 2017. This time our country is ranked first among "threats to the international community", not just equal to others as before. Thus, the United Kingdom is making an attempt to claim global leadership in deterrence of Russia, in order to protect the existing world order, as PM Theresa May put it," Zakharova said in a statement published on the Russian Foreign Ministry's official website.
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Megaphone

Fmr diplomat: NATO's new command structure is as dangerous as it is deluded and is incapable of operations against any but the defenseless


Sputnik
Tue, 14 Nov 2017 21:25 UTC
soldier nato flag
© REUTERS/ Ints Kalnins
The new military command structure recently unveiled by NATO will needlessly generate war tensions across Europe, retired Canadian diplomat Patrick Armstrong told Sputnik.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg announced last week that alliance leaders had agreed on a new command structure that would allow them to move military forces around Europe more quickly and easily.

"NATO is dangerous in the way that the stupid and deluded can be," former Canadian diplomat Patrick Armstrong told Sputnik. "NATO is incompetent, incapable of operations against any but the defenseless and slow and ultimately unsuccessful even at that."

The new command structure alarmed Russia and was provoking the very military buildup it was supposed to prevent, reflecting the irrelevance and absurdity of the alliance policy-making, Armstrong said.
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Gold Seal

The foundations of Western liberal democracy cracking with demonization of RT and Sputnik

John Wight
Sputnik
Tue, 14 Nov 2017 21:13 UTC
sputnik offices
© Sputnik/ Igor Russak
"We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not fearful men, not descended from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes which were for the moment unpopular."
The great American broadcast journalist, Edward Murrow, spoke these words in the 1950s, protesting against the witch-hunt of communists, alleged communists, or of anyone thought to evince anything resembling sympathy or support for ideas associated with communism, by Senator Joseph McCarthy and his House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).

McCarthy and his team of witch hunters were able to sow fear, paranoia, and a rigid adherence not to democracy or free speech, but to intolerance of dissent and the questioning of the received truths that sustained America's engagement with the rest of the world.

In 2017 we are witnessing the rebirth of McCarthyism across the West in response to Russia's recovery from the demise of the Soviet Union and the attempt to turn the country into a wholly owned subsidiary of Washington via the imposition of free market economic shock treatment thereafter. In the process critical thinking and reason has been sacrificed on the altar of Pavlovian conditioning and unreason, resulting in the embrace of hysterical Russophobic nostrums by a liberal political and media class for whom Russia can only ever exist as a vanquished foe or one that needs to be vanquished.
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Megaphone

Suppressing RT a "slap in the face of the First Amendment" - NSA whistleblower William Binney


RT
Tue, 14 Nov 2017 20:49 UTC
RT logo
© Sputnik/ Evgeny Biyatov
Suppressing RT and comments the US government doesn't like is a direct violation of the First Amendment and freedom of speech, says NSA whistleblower William Binney. Other RT commentators say what they think of the US government move.

RT America has been forced to register as a 'foreign agent' in the US. The pressure from Washington began after US intelligence claimed the channel was an instrument for meddling and manipulation in America.

In September, the Justice Department demanded RT register as a foreign agent. Social media companies then began blocking its adverts on such networks as Google, YouTube, and Twitter. They did that ahead of testimony in Congress, despite having no problem with RT before that.

But why is RT facing such unprecedented pressure from the US government and what are the possible consequences of this latest move?
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Laptop

Twitter colludes with Dems, leaks Trump Jr./Wikileaks DMs - Trump Jr. responds by releasing the whole exchange, proving there's nothing to it

Alex Christoforou
The Duran
Tue, 14 Nov 2017 20:15 UTC
Donald Trump Jr.
Twitter continues to show its liberal left teeth, undermining its own terms and privacy in an effort to derail Trump's presidency.

The Atlantic published private messages between Wikileaks and Trump Jr. under the headline and excerpt...
"The Secret Correspondence Between Donald Trump Jr. and WikiLeaks"

The transparency organization asked the president's son for his cooperation - in sharing its work, in contesting the results of the election, and in arranging for Julian Assange to be Australia's ambassador to the United States.
The Atlantic notes that, "The messages, obtained by The Atlantic, were also turned over by Trump Jr.'s lawyers to congressional investigators."

Comment: Trump Jr.'s response:




This is really getting boring: WaPo calls Drudge "Russian operative", downplays the fact that he delivers 37% of their own referral traffic. The Duran's Alexander Mercouris shares our sentiment:
With tedious regularity over the course of the Russiagate scandal a new 'revelation' appears which on close examination turns out to be no sort of revelation at all.

The purpose behind its appearance is not to report 'news', since the 'revelation' more often than not is not truly 'news' . Rather the purpose is to keep the Russiagate story alive by any means possible, thereby creating the appearance that the Russiagate story has evidence behind it when in reality it has none.

The latest publication of emails that passed between Wikileaks and Donald Trump Junior is a case in point.

I am not going to waste time analysing this foolishness, but I will say the following:

(1) none of the emails touch on the Russiagate collusion allegations in the slightest way or give the slightest grounds for believing them to be true or suggest any degree of collusion between the Trump campaign and Wikileaks let alone between the Trump campaign and the Russians;

(2) the vast majority of the emails were from Wikileaks to Donald Trump Junior. He appears to have replied on just three occasions, doing so moreover rather briefly;

(3) Wikileaks' purpose - understandable enough in a news/campaigning organisation - appears to have been to ensure that its publication of the DNC and Podesta emails got maximum publicity, whilst also keeping the story going by getting Trump to release his tax returns and to contest the election result when (as everyone expected) Hillary Clinton won;

(4) Wikileaks failed on all counts, with Donald Trump Junior and his father - who may or may not have known about the emails - refusing or failing to take the bait on any one of them; and

(5) none of the activity set out in the emails is of a remotely criminal nature and all the emails had already been previously disclosed by Donald Trump Junior to Congressional investigators and presumably to Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

One further point I will make about this singularly silly episode.

This is that at least in the previous instances of 'no-news' we have had throughout Russiagate - eg. Michael Flynn's conversation with Russian ambassador Kislyak, Jeff Sessions's meeting with Russian ambassador Kislyak, Jared Kushner's meeting with Russian ambassador Kislyak, Donald Trump Junior's meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, and the indictments against Paul Manafort, Rick Gates and George Papadopoulos - it has been necessary to spend time and energy explaining why they are in fact 'no-news'.

The Wikileaks/Donald Trump Junior email correspondence is different. This time the 'no-news' event is so thin that it is actually non-existent. There is therefore no need to waste time on it.


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