Puppet MastersS


Chess

Poll shows 52% want Merkel off ballot in new election as grand coalition talks start


RT
Sun, 07 Jan 2018 20:37 UTC
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Martin Schulz
© Hannibal Hanschke / ReutersLeader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the acting German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Social Democratic Party (SPD) leader Martin Schulz
As German Chancellor Angela Merkel tries to secure a fourth term at the helm of a new grand coalition, a poll has shown a majority would rather vote again. The results also suggest Merkel should not be on the ballot.

Three months after Germans went to the polls, they are still without a government. Their frustration is apparently growing, with the new study finding that 34 percent of respondents want new elections. The Insa survey, commissioned by Germany's Focus magazine showed that only 30 percent expressed support for a continuation of talks to try and form a grand coalition. A minority government would be viewed favorably by just 15 percent of Germans.

Some 52 percent said Chancellor Merkel should not spearhead her Christian Democratic Party (CDU) in a 'fresh election.'
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Megaphone

Is Trump's nuclear button tweet a sign of insanity or trash talk as negotiating tactic?

Scott Adams
Scott Adams Blog
Wed, 03 Jan 2018 21:50 UTC
North Korea Trump
On CNN yesterday, Jake Tapper described President Trump's recent behavior - including the President's tweet about having a bigger nuclear "button" than North Korea - as abnormal and unstable. In other words, crazy.

Is it?

One folksy definition of "crazy" is that it involves trying over and over again a solution that has never worked while hoping it works next time. President Trump is doing something closer to the opposite of that. He's doing something new, both strategically and verbally. To be fair, new things can be crazy too. But usually only if they don't work. When a new and unexpected thing works out well, we call it genius. And that begs the question: Is President Trump's approach to North Korea working?
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Question

Ex-Iranian president Ahmadinejad allegedly arrested for inciting protests


Sputnik
Sun, 07 Jan 2018 22:15 UTC
Ex-Iranian President Ahmadinejad
© AP Photo/ Bebeto Matthews
Reports are coming out of Tehran that ex-Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been arrested for contributing to widespread unrest in the country that has seen at least 22 killed.

A series of unconfirmed reports allege that the former Iranian president had been detained and placed under house arrest following allegations that he either supported or incited unrest that has rocked the Middle Eastern nation since late December 2017.

Allegations were published Saturday by the London-based media outlet Al-Quds Al-Arabi citing what they termed "reliable sources in Tehran."

Comment: Considering Israel's general disdain for Iran, it seems wise to wait for official confirmation before accepting this story whole-hog. For more information, see: Twitter's #FreeIran and #IranProtests: Hyperbole, Deception and Outright Lies to Further Western 'Regime Change' Narrative

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Bullseye

Iran's real crime in the eyes of the West is that it does not bow to the US Empire

John Wight
Sputnik
Sun, 07 Jan 2018 20:52 UTC
Pro-government demonstrations in Iran
© AFP 2017/ Mohammad ALI MARIZADPro-government demonstrations in Iran
That Iran is not a free country is a self-evident truth. How could it possibly be free when it exists in the crosshairs of US imperialism?

In this respect, Iran shares the same status as Venezuela, Syria, North Korea, Cuba, Russia, and China - in other words it is one of a select group of countries that do not kowtow to the diktat of 'Rome'. For strip away the obfuscation, the dissembling words proffered by the usual parade of well fed and handsomely remunerated Western ideologues, and the only reason, the single reason that Iran is being depicted as a "terrorist state" in which human rights are non-existent, is because under its current government it refuses to bow to Washington or its vassals in western Europe and the region itself.

This is not to suggest that the protests that have broken out across Iran have no basis in legitimate grievances. As British journalist and Middle East correspondent, Patrick Cockburn, points out in a recent article, "grievances [in Iran] are similar to those in other oil states where there is long-suppressed anger against corruption and inequality. Youth unemployment was 28.8 percent last year. The nuclear deal with the US and other major powers in 2015 reduced sanctions, but has not produced the benefits that many expected. A 50 percent increase in the price of fuel was announced in the budget in December. Egg and poultry prices recently rose by 40 percent."
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Play

Gowdy blasts Schiff over Trump-Russia probe statements prejudging Trump's guilt before investigation even began

Chuck Ross
The Daily Caller
Sun, 07 Jan 2018 20:54 UTC
Adam Schiff
Adam Schiff (D-CA)
South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy tore into California Rep. Adam Schiff on Sunday, alleging that the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee is angling for a U.S. Senate seat by making dramatic statements about the Trump-Russia investigation.

"Some of my Democratic colleagues, namely Adam Schiff, said he had evidence, more than circumstantial evidence of collusion, before the investigation even began," Gowdy said in an interview with Fox News' Maria Bartiromo.

Gowdy accused Democrats of prejudging the investigations into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Kremlin, noting that nearly 60 party members have already called for Trump's impeachment.

"Almost 60 Democrats voted to move forward with impeachment. Already. Before Bob Mueller's released a single finding. Before the House Intelligence or Senate Intelligence Committees have released a single, solitary finding, almost 60 House Democrats think the president ought to be removed from office," said Gowdy, a member of the House Intelligence Committee.

"That is infuriating," Bartiromo chimed in.

"Well, it's only infuriating if you have high expectations," Gowdy replied.

Comment: If things keep going the way they're going, Schiff and his colleagues are going to have a whole lot of egg on their faces. It's WMDs all over again. Still looking! Adam Schiff's stupidity is stuff of legend. See also:

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Chess

Furious Trump aide slams Wolff's book on CNN, calls president a 'genius'

Sarah N. Lynch, Amanda Becker
Reuters
Sun, 07 Jan 2018 12:11 UTC
donald trump tweet white house background
A senior aide to U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday assailed a new book rattling the White House, called his boss a genius and launched an attack on news coverage before a TV anchor urged him to calm down and cut off their interview.

Senior policy adviser Stephen Miller told Jake Tapper on CNN'S "State of the Union" that the book "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House" by journalist Michael Wolff was a "grotesque work of fiction."

Miller accused CNN of "anti-Trump hysterical coverage" following the Friday release of the book, which portrays Trump, a former reality TV start who took office nearly a year ago, as mentally unstable and unfit for the demands of his job.


Comment: Fake News Network CNN has certainly been parroting hysterical anti-Trump nonsense for the last year.

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Star of David

What Wolff's "Fire and Fury" reveals about Trump administration's collusion with Israel

Ali Abunimah
Electronic Intifada
Fri, 05 Jan 2018 20:40 UTC
Trump Netanyahu
© The Prime Minister of Israel/FacebookRussia-obsessed US politicians and pundits remain curiously incurious about evidence of Trump's collusion with Israel.
Since Donald Trump excommunicated Steve Bannon over comments he made in Michael Wolff's new book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, American media have spoken of little else.

The president declared that his former strategist and the boss of far-right Breitbart News had "lost his mind" for saying that a meeting Donald Trump Jr. and presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner held with a Russian lawyer during the 2016 election campaign was "treasonous."

The row has given new life to the dubious, unproven and often spectacularly false media-driven claims of "hacking" and "collusion" between Russia and Trump to steal the election from Hillary Clinton.

Yet hollow as it has turned out to be, "Russiagate" remains the central narrative of the self-styled Democratic and liberal "resistance."
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Info

What's behind Grassley and Graham's letter recommending criminal investigation of Chris "Dirty Dossier" Steele?

Byron York
Washington Examiner
Sat, 06 Jan 2018 20:39 UTC
grassley
© AP Photo/Cliff OwenSenate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa (pictured right), and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., wrote a Thursday letter to the Justice Department about Christopher Steele, the author of the Trump dossier. Here's what seems to be going on.
There's been a lot of confusion about the decision by Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley and crime subcommittee chairman Lindsey Graham to refer Christopher Steele, author of the Trump dossier, to the Justice Department for a possible criminal investigation.

The two senators sent a brief letter Thursday to deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein and FBI director Christopher Wray. The letter, which was unclassified and released to the public Friday, was a cover letter for what Grassley and Graham called a "classified memorandum related to certain communications between Christopher Steele and multiple U.S. news outlets regarding the so-called 'Trump dossier' that Mr. Steele compiled on behalf of Fusion GPS for the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee and also provided to the FBI."

Grassley and Graham said that, on the basis of the classified information laid out in the memo, "we are respectfully referring Mr. Steele to you for investigation of 18 U.S.C. 1001, for statements the committee has reason to believe Mr. Steele made regarding his distribution of information contained in the dossier." (18 U.S.C. 1001 is the same federal false statements law that special counsel Robert Mueller has used to charge Michael Flynn and George Papadopoulos in the Trump-Russia investigation.)

That's all Grassley and Graham said, or at least all they said that was released to the public. The classified memo, of course, was not released at all.

Comment: See also:

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Hardhat

Kushner Companies being investigated by SEC for shady use of visa program for foreign investors

Joshua Eaton
ThinkProgress
Sun, 07 Jan 2018 20:13 UTC
nicole kushner
© ALBEE ZHANG/AFP/GETTY IMAGESNicole Kushner Meyer, third from left, at a May 7, 2017, event where she urged wealthy Chinese invest and get a visa in return
The Securities and Exchange Commission has opened an investigation into the Kushner Companies' use of an obscure and controversial visa program that lets foreign investors effectively buy an immigration visa to the U.S., The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.

The company, which is owned by the family of senior White House advisor and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, received a subpoena last May for information related to its use of the EB-5 visa program, according to the report, which is based on anonymous sources "familiar with the matter." The news follows on a report in The Wall Street Journal last August that The Kushner Companies received a similar subpoena from the U.S. Attorney's Office in New York.

"Kushner Cos. utilized the program, fully complied with its rules and regulations, and did nothing improper," general counsel Emily Wolf said in a statement to The Wall Street Journal at the time. "We are cooperating with legal requests for information."

The SEC investigation is being run out of the commission's Texas office, in cooperation with the U.S. Attorney's Office in Brooklyn, The Journal reports.

Comment: The Kushners have a storied history of corruption, crime and shady deals of all sorts: Jared Kushner: Friend or foe? Son of a gangster, son-in-law of President Trump

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Dollars

Drudge outs Bannon and Breitbart's new benefactor

Larry O'Conner
Washington Examiner
Thu, 04 Jan 2018 19:48 UTC
steve bannon
© Jonathan Ernst / Reuters
Bannon loses financial backing from Rebekah Mercer

New media pioneer Matt Drudge has used his influential Twitter feed to report that Steve Bannon has aquired a new benefactor for his political and media ambitions.
Steve Bannon finding opportunity and happiness in the arms of a new billionaire benefactor, Miles Kwok, aka Guo Wen Gui. Mercer is yesterday's mashed potatoes... pic.twitter.com/m88VI09Leg

- MATT DRUDGE (@DRUDGE) January 4, 2018
[Ed note: The tweet has been deleted]

The tweet shows a picture of Bannon smiling with a gentleman Drudge identifies as "Miles Kwok aka Guo Wengui." The tweet is classic Drudge with his trademark wit: "Steve Bannon finding opportunity and happiness in the arms of a new billionaire benefactor, Miles Kwok, aka Guo Wen Gui. Mercer is yesterday's mashed potatoes..."

Comment: More from the New York Times:
[...]
The Mercers were blunt on Thursday in cutting the cord, reiterating support for Mr. Trump while disavowing Mr. Bannon's remarks and disowning his political endeavors. "My family and I have not communicated with Steve Bannon in many months and have provided no financial support to his political agenda, nor do we support his recent actions and statements," Rebekah Mercer, Mr. Mercer's daughter, said in a statement. "I have a minority interest in Breitbart News and I remain committed in my support for them."

The reference to Breitbart seemed an implicit threat. Mr. Bannon is chairman of Breitbart, and many staff members there believe there is a strong chance he might lose the job, though he was dismissive of that possibility on the site's daily editorial conference call on Thursday night, according to one person with knowledge of the call.

Mr. Bannon's predicament highlights a stark reality in American politics, unchanged even after Mr. Trump's convention-defying victory: The influence of even the most influential political strategists is inextricably linked to the donors behind them and the politicians in front of them.

"If Trump is openly breaking with him, that dramatically lowers his capital," said Dan K. Eberhart, an Arizona oil investor and Republican donor who has spoken to Mr. Bannon about his plans to build an antiestablishment political operation. "He is a strategic thinker, and a lot of the things he said make sense, but this stuff from the book - I'm not going to defend that."

[...]

The loss of the Mercer family's support will be particularly hard for Mr. Bannon to overcome. The Mercers began drifting from Mr. Bannon months ago amid concerns about how the controversy he was generating was affecting the family, according to family associates. The Mercers were upset further when they learned that Mr. Bannon had privately boasted that they would back him if he ran for president, according to one family associate.

The family has pumped tens of millions of dollars into businesses and groups that formed the platform from which Mr. Bannon has waged his populist antiestablishment crusade. Besides their share of Breitbart, they are invested in the political data firm Cambridge Analytica, where Mr. Bannon sat on the board, and the investigative nonprofit group Government Accountability Institute, which Mr. Bannon co-founded.


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