Puppet MastersS


Jet3

Turn of events: Saudi-led coalition reportedly strikes Houthis in support of Yemen's Saleh


Sputnik
Sun, 03 Dec 2017 14:39 UTC
Sanaa, Yemen
© REUTERS/ Mohamed al-Sayaghi
The Saudi-led coalition, which has yet to comment on the report, has apparently found new allies in the years-long conflict in Yemen.

The Saudi-led coalition has allegedly bombed Houthi positions in Sanaa, while the group is fighting the supporters of ex-Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh, the Shiite movement's former ally, local residents and the Saudi-owned al-Arabiya television reported. The information is yet to be commented on by the representatives of the coalition.

According to the broadcaster, the coalition's aircraft struck Houthi outposts in the south of the capital, but hasn't specified the number of casualties. At the same time, residents have reported at least five air strikes.

Comment: Also read: Yemen: Anti-Saudi alliance splitting as ex-President Saleh makes overtures to Riyadh

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Vader

Your government at work: Senator's viral tax bill video exposes how corrupt politicians pass laws

Rachel Blevins
Free Thought Project
Sat, 02 Dec 2017 13:59 UTC
Sen. Jon Tester
Both Democrats and Republicans in the Senate came together to pass a massive tax bill early Saturday morning, and one senator called out the hypocrisy on Twitter, noting that he was handed a nearly 500-page bill just a few hours before he was expected to vote on it-and it included pages of illegible hand-scribbled notes.

"Happy Holidays, everybody! It's the night we're going to be voting on the tax bill. I just got the tax bill 25 minutes ago. This is the tax bill. See how thick it is. This is what it looks like. Oh, no, let's look at the bill-this is what it really looks like," Sen. Jon Tester said, as he held up a page filled with messy, handwritten notes. "I want you to take a look at this, folks. This is your government at work. Here's the bill as it's written. Here's the modifications that are in it. I can read one word."

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Star of David

The curious case of Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and the Israel lobby

Richard Silverstein
Middle East Eye
Sun, 03 Dec 2017 13:30 UTC
Jared Kushner Donald Trump


Kushner crossed the line from using his First Amendment right to speak freely about government policy into subverting official US foreign policy in favour of Israel

Even before he assumed office, Donald Trump had appointed Jared Kushner to be his point-person on US relations with the Middle East. The latter was specifically charged with forging an Israel-Palestine peace plan, which Trump, in typical flamboyant fashion, called "the ultimate deal".

Leaders throughout the region and analysts who've devoted much of their lives to pursuing this goal were stunned that the US had charged a young man with no previous experience except negotiating commercial real estate deals with resolving one of the world's most intractable problems.

Comment: A member of the US government indicted because of his collusion with Israel? That would be too good to be true! Clearly, there is no 'America First' in US politics when it comes to Israel.

See also:

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Question

DOJ launches 'mystery investigation' as details emerge about 'extramarital affair' involving fired FBI Mueller aide

Joshua Caplan
Gateway Pundit
Sun, 03 Dec 2017 00:01 UTC
Mueller and FBI Agent
In yet another blow to Mueller’s investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, the special counsel was forced to fire a top FBI agent after possible anti-Trump text messages were discovered.
New York Times reports:
The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, removed a top F.B.I. agent from his investigation into Russian election meddling after the Justice Department's inspector general began examining whether the agent had sent text messages that expressed anti-Trump political views, according to three people briefed on the matter. The agent, Peter Strzok, is considered one of the most experienced and trusted F.B.I. counterintelligence investigators. He helped lead the investigation into whether Hillary Clinton mishandled classified information on her private email account, and then played a major role in the investigation into links between President Trump's campaign and Russia. [...] The people briefed on the case said the transfer followed the discovery of text messages in which Mr. Strzok and a colleague reacted to news events, like presidential debates, in ways that could appear critical of Mr. Trump.

Comment: See also:

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Rocket

Soyuz-2.1b rocket successfully launches Russian military satellite into orbit


Sputnik
Sat, 02 Dec 2017 14:50 UTC
Soyuz-2.1b
© Sputnik. Mikhail Voskresenskiy
The launch of the carrier rocket from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome is the fourth made this year.

"The middle-class carrier rocket Soyuz-2.1b successfully put the satellite of the Russian Defense Ministry into orbit at the set time," the Russian Defense Ministry has announced.

The rocket was launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia's northwestern Arkhangelsk region at 10:43 GMT earlier on Saturday.

According to the ministry, the rocket's launch and flight was controlled by a ground-based automatic control system, with the commander of Russia's Aerospace Defense Forces, Lt. Gen. Alexander Golovko, in charge of administrating the launch of the rocket.

Comment: See also: Plesetsk Cosmodrome launches secret Russian satellite

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Megaphone

Lavrov: West's reckless interventions are cause of turmoil in Mediterranean

Denis Bolotsky
Sputnik
Sun, 03 Dec 2017 12:20 UTC
Sergei lavrov
© Sputnik/ Denis Bolotsky
Prosperity, security, migration issues and fighting terrorism are on the agenda at this year's "Mediterranean Dialogues" conference in Rome. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who is in Italy for a series of talks, shared Moscow's views on the situation in the region and its vision of the peace process in Syria at the event.

At the news conference in Rome, Angelino Alfano even calls his Russian counterpart "Dear Sergei." Italy's 37th Foreign Minister says that just like his predecessors, he wants to have good relations with Russia.


Comment: Italy's favourable opinion of Russia comes in stark contrast to that of the US and UK:


According to Alfano, who invited Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to Rome's scenic Villa Madama for negotiations, even during the Cold War era Italy and the USSR cooperated economically - trading in natural resources and machinery, and politically - trying to listen to each other even when they disagreed on certain issues.


Comment: Whereas the American tactic is censor free-speech:

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Bad Guys

The operation of the U.S. Dictatorship

Eric Zuesse
Strategic Culture Foundation
Sun, 03 Dec 2017 13:19 UTC
White House
A recent article in the Washington Post described how the current US tax-'reform' bill is being shaped; and it describes, basically (at least as far as tax-law changes are concerned), the operation of a US dictatorship by the super-rich.

First of all, however: there is no longer any realistic question as regards whether the US in recent decades has been a dictatorship, or instead a democracy. According to the only scientific analysis of the relevant data, that has been done in order to determine whether the US is a dictatorship or a democracy, the US is definitely a dictatorship that's perpetrated by the extremely richest, against the public-at-large; in other words: the US Government functions as an aristocracy, otherwise referred-to as an oligarchy, or a plutocracy, or a kleptocracy; but, in any case, and by whatever name, it's ruled by a tiny number of the extremely wealthiest and their agents, on behalf of those few super-rich, against the concerns and interests and needs of the public (everyone else). So: instead of being rule by the public (the "demos" is the Greek term for it), it's rule on behalf of a tiny dictatorial class, of extreme wealth - by whatever name we might happen to label this ruling class.
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USA

US Military spread through 50 African nations

Les Neuhaus
Observer
Fri, 01 Dec 2017 13:14 UTC
A US soldier (R) stands guard in Ethiopia
© JEAN CURRAN/AFP/Getty ImagesA US soldier (R) stands guard as Ethiopian and Somali refugees disembark from the US Navy ship the USS Pearl Harbor.
The recent attacks by militants who killed four American commandos in Niger and detonated a truck bomb that left more than 350 civilians dead in Somalia - events that happened more than 3,000 miles from each other - remind us that terrorism is a real and constant threat that reaches the farthest corners of our planet.

Because of that, and certainly in the post-9/11 global context, the American military presence has increased exponentially abroad. The Pentagon now has troops in countries many average Americans never would've dreamed of sending our forces to two or three decades ago.
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Snakes in Suits

Tom Cotton as CIA director spells bad news for all

Mehdi Hasan
The Intercept
Thu, 30 Nov 2017 14:43 UTC
Tom Cotton
© Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/APSen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., leaves a briefing on May 18, 2017.
Update: November 30, 2017
This story was updated to include the imminent possibility of Cotton's takeover of the CIA.

A reshuffling of President Trump's foreign policy apparatus, reported by The New York Times on Thursday, would see Secretary of State Rex Tillerson ushered out the door, to be replaced by current director of the CIA, Mike Pompeo.

That opening at the CIA would, in turn, be filled by Tom Cotton, a Republican senator from Arkansas.


Comment: That would be unlikely since the State Department has no plans to remove Tillerson.


Is there a more dangerous member of Congress than Tom Cotton?

The hawkish Republican senator and former U.S. Army captain has never hidden his relentless obsession with confronting Iran. He has led the charge on Capitol Hill to dismantle the nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic while constantly banging the drum for tougher sanctions and even airstrikes against Iranian nuclear facilities. With apologies to Winston Churchill, Cotton wants "war-war" not "jaw-jaw" - and he seems to have won over the know-nothing president of the United States. Last week, President Donald Trump refused to certify to Congress that the Iran nuclear deal is in U.S. national interest and warned that U.S participation in that agreement could "be cancelled by me, as president, at any time."

You might call Cotton, who is now being touted as the next director of the CIA, the "Trump whisperer." In fact, according to the Weekly Standard, in a recent meeting with his top national security and foreign policy advisers, "having failed to receive the decertification option from his own team, Trump called Senator Tom Cotton and put him on speakerphone. The president asked Cotton to make the case for decertifying the Iran deal. Cotton took five minutes and walked Trump and his team through the case, emphasizing one point in particular: re-certifying the deal would be declaring that it was in the national security interests of the United States, something Cotton understood that Trump didn't believe."

Comment: This guy is bad news all around, so it's probably a good thing he's not worming his way into a CIA position...yet. More on Cotton:

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Bad Guys

Russia's UN ambassador Vasily Nebenzya rips attempts by the US to destroy Syria


Russiafeed
Sun, 03 Dec 2017 10:22 UTC
Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya
Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya
Vasily Nebenzya condemned Washington's efforts to partition the country in the wake of the defeat of ISIS

Russia's ambassador to the United Nations has accused the U.S.-led coalition in Syria of trying to partition the country by setting up local governing bodies in areas seized from the Islamic State extremist group, Russian news agencies reported.

Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya at a meeting of the United Nations Security Council on November 29 complained that the coalition of Kurdish and Arab fighters that recently liberated Raqqa from IS was discussing setting up governing bodies and restoring the economy without the involvement of Russia's ally, the Syrian government, Russia's Interfax and RIA news agencies reported.
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