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© Yuri Gripes/ReutersTreasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin
Incidentally, that's just one of the less severe complications that could emerge over the next 6 months as the full extent of the new Iran sanctions is rolled out. As we reported earlier, Trump said the U.S. would levy the "highest level" of sanctions against Iran - including the punishment of Western companies and banks if they continue to do business with the country - as Washington pulled out of the Iranian nuclear accord.
And while new contracts are banned, companies and banks will have 90 days or 180 days to wind down their ties before risking penalties.
"Any nation that helps Iran in its quest for nuclear weapons could also be strongly sanctioned by the United States," Trump said, envisioning a complete paralysis of the Iranian economy. As the WSJ summarizes, financial or business activities outlawed by Aug. 6, Treasury said, include exports of airplanes and parts, dollar transactions, trade in gold and other metals, sovereign debt and auto-industry deals. By Nov. 4, sanctions ban oil purchases, dealings with Iran's ports and shipping industry, any ties to its insurance sector and dealings with the central bank.
But is the president really willing to alienate any of the countless European and global states that will continue trading with Iran, especially since the latest sanctions cover every major aspect of Iran's economy, most importantly banning oil exports from the country, but also hitting the financial sector and the automotive and aviation industries?
That's the big question.
Comment: If this is Trump's plan, Iran would actually benefit by giving Trump his PR win - as Kim has done in North Korea. A new deal would have the effect of simply confirming what everyone with a brain already knows: Iran has no nuclear weapons program and no plans to develop one. If anything, that would put a major roadblock in the way of Israeli propaganda, and that's always a good thing. But this depends on Iran, and they're perfectly justified in telling Trump to take a hike.
© Vanity FairPaul Manafort • Robert Mueller
The cooperation is the latest indication that the federal probe into President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman is intensifying. It also could potentially provide Mueller with additional leverage to get Manafort to cooperate in the larger investigation into Trump's campaign, as Trump does not have pardon power over state crimes.
The two teams have shared evidence and talked frequently in recent weeks about a potential case, these people said. One of the people familiar with progress on the case said both Mueller's and Schneiderman's teams have collected evidence on financial crimes, including potential money laundering.
No decision has been made on where or whether to file charges. "Nothing is imminent," said one of the people familiar with the case.
Manafort has not been accused of any wrongdoing and has previously denied it. A spokesman for Manafort didn't return phone calls seeking comment.
Comment: Look what just happened to Schneiderman: Him too? NYC attorney general Schneiderman who sued Harvey Weinstein resigns after abuse allegations. As for Manafort, Mueller ended up pressing charges, but it might not go the way he wants. The judge questioned why the case was brought in the first place - it has nothing to do with Russians:
- Judge administers smackdown on Mueller team for 'attempt to tighten the screws' on Manafort
- Judge mulls dismissal of Manafort charges as he slams Mueller for overreach
NBC News reported:
Stormy Daniels' attorney claimed Tuesday that President Donald Trump's personal lawyer Michael Cohen received $500,000 from a company controlled by a Russian oligarch, deposited into an account for a company also used to pay off the adult film actress.Avenatti offered no proof for his allegations.
Daniels' attorney, Michael Avenatti, also detailed other transactions he said were suspicious, including deposits from drug giant Novartis, the state-run Korea Aerospace Industries, and AT&T - which confirmed it paid Cohen's company for "insights" into the Trump administration.
If true, Avenatti's claims, made in a dossier posted to Twitter, could add a new dimension to the federal investigation into Cohen.
It is also not clear how the porn star's attorney would discover the private information.
Comment: Typical opportunistic mud-slinging. There isn't a politician in the U.S. that isn't connected to some shady Russian oligarch. But notice how just the mention of a "Russian connection" is enough to get headlines. This is standard operating procedure, people - get over it. Now how about devoting just 1/5th of the energy wasted on Russian connections to finding Israeli connections. Israel is the foreign nation with a stranglehold on American policy making, not Russia.
As for the actual claims in this case:
An attorney for the Renova affiliate, Columbus Nova, said it hired Cohen as a business consultant and that Vekselberg had no involvement in the payments. Cohen, his attorney, and the Republican National Committee - for which Cohen is a deputy finance chairman - did not respond to requests for comment.
Avenatti's document said the money was paid to Essential Consultants, the same company Cohen used to pay a $130,000 settlement to buy Clifford's silence in October 2016. The document said Essential also received funds from other major companies, some of which had business before the federal government.
...
Vekselberg has reportedly been interviewed by investigators working for Robert Mueller, the special counsel looking into alleged collusion between Russia and Trump's team during the 2016 election campaign. Vekselberg has not been accused of any wrongdoing. CNN subsequently reported on Tuesday that he was specifically asked by Mueller's investigators about the alleged payments to Cohen.
The 61-year-old Vekselberg amassed a fortune through his Renova conglomerate, which spans energy, heavy industry and finance, probably making him Russia's ninth-richest person. He has remained in the Kremlin's favour and was last year given a state honour by Putin.
...
An attorney for Columbus Nova, Richard Owens, said in an email that the company was owned by Americans and that Vekselberg had no involvement in the payments to Cohen.
"After the inauguration, the firm hired Michael Cohen as a business consultant regarding potential sources of capital and potential investments in real estate and other ventures," said Owens.
© Pool / Reuters
"This was a stupid and insensitive decision," a senior Israeli diplomat who had previously served in Japan told newspaper Yediot Aharonot. "It is equivalent to serving a Jewish guest chocolates in a dish shaped like a pig," he said, adding "there is nothing more despised in Japanese culture than shoes."
"No culture puts shoes on the table," a Japanese diplomat told the Hebrew newspaper. "If this is meant to be humor, we do not find it funny. I can tell you that we are offended for our prime minister," the diplomat said.
Abe and his wife dined with Benjamin and Sara Netanyahu on May 2, during Abe's second official visit to Israel. The meal was prepared by Israeli celebrity chef Segev Moshe.
Comment: Even if it wasn't a cultural faux pas, it's a rather unappealing way to serve dessert - or anything.
© Heinz-Peter Bader / ReutersAustria's Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (L) and Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache in Seggau, Austria, on January 5, 2018.
During the debate between the leader of the FPÖ and Christian Kern, who is leader of the SPÖ, Soros was an emotionally charged subject, Austria's Der Standard reports.
While talking about Soros, Strache said that "the involvement of Soros in supporting the movement of refugees to Europe is not a rumour, but a fact".
Kern replied: "What Strache does turns my stomach. Soros's image of an enemy is made by neo-Nazis and you use that on him. They transcend the boundaries of decency and morality." The SPÖ leader accused the FPO leader of anti-Semitism in connection with Soros.
The vice chancellor called the allegations "absurd" and "low-class" and spoke of "bad allegations". Strache said Kern tries to "poison the well". Criticism of Soros is legitimate and justified, like the criticism that came from the Israeli prime minister.
Comment: Christian Kern must be an idiot, or a conniving manipulator. That "neo-Nazis" see Soros as an enemy does not make everyone who sees him as an enemy a neo-Nazi, nor does it imply that he is NOT an enemy. It's a low-class trick that only an intellectually stunted propagandist would make. In fact, if we're going to make Nazi comparisons, it's right out of the Goebbels handbook.
© Grigoriy Sisoev / Sputnik
The parade marking the 73rd anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in WWII (known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War) was divided into three parts. For the first one, each part of the Russian military service, as well as fellow civilian paramilitary units, provided troops to show off their synch-marching skills.
Comment: Watch the full video of the parade:
© Yuri Gripas/ReutersPresident Trunp and First Lady Melania Trump walk from the Oval Office at the White House, Februrary 5, 2018.
After the 2016 election, the so-called deep state was confident that it had the power easily to either stop, remove, or delegitimize the outlier Donald Trump and his presidency.
Give it credit, the Washington apparat quite imaginatively pulled out all the stops: implanting Obama holdover appointees all over the Trump executive branch; filing lawsuits and judge shopping; organizing the Resistance; pursuing impeachment writs; warping the FISA courts; weaponizing the DOJ and FBI; attempting to disrupt the Electoral College; angling for enactment of the 25th Amendment or the emoluments clause; and unleashing Hollywood celebrities, Silicon Valley, and many in Wall Street to suffocate the Trump presidency in its infancy.
But now the administrative state's multifaceted efforts are starting to unwind, and perhaps even boomerang, on the perpetrators. If a federal judge should end up throwing out most of the indictments of Paul Manafort on the rationale that they have nothing much to do with the original mandate of the special counsel's office, or if Michael Flynn's confession to giving false statements is withdrawn successfully because the FBI politicized its investigation and FISA courts were misled in approving the surveillance of Flynn, then the Mueller investigation will implode.
1. Although the Iraqi nuclear "threat" was discredited as an utter fraud years ago, the idea that across the border Iran has sought, at least in the past, to build a nuclear weapon has long been widely accepted in political and media circles. Are you saying that the claim of secret work on nuclear weapons is equally fraudulent, and that the Iranians have never had a nuclear-weapons program?
Yes. In Manufactured Crisis, I show that the claim of an Iranian nuclear-weapons program has been based on false history and falsified records. The description of the Iranian nuclear program presented in official documents, in commentaries by think-tank "experts," and in the media bears no resemblance to the essential historical facts. One would never know from the narrative available to the public over the years that Iran had been prepared in the early 1980s to rely entirely on a French-based company for enriched uranium fuel for its Bushehr reactor, rather than on enriching uranium itself. Nor would one learn that the Reagan Administration sought to strangle Iran's nuclear program, which was admitted to have presented no proliferation threat, in its cradle by pressuring Germany and France to refuse to cooperate in any way. The significance of that missing piece of history is that Iran was confronted with a choice of submitting to the U.S. effort to deprive Iran of its right to a peaceful nuclear program under the Non-Proliferation Treaty or else acquiring its own enrichment capability.
© AFP 2018 / ATTA KENARE
The oil price has skyrocketed to its highest in more than three years, just 12 hours after President Donald Trump said that that the US is abandoning the "horrible and one-sided" Iran nuclear deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, according to the Financial Times.
During early trading in London on Wednesday, Brent Crude, which serves as a major benchmark price for purchases of oil worldwide, increased by 3.1 percent to 77.20 dollars per barrel, while the US benchmark, WTI, rose by a similar amount, to 70.93. dollars per barrel.
Comment: See also: