Puppet MastersS


Post-It Note

Russia's London embassy is trolling May over 'beware Putin' remarks

T.May
© Mark Makela/ReutersBritain Prime Minister Theresa May
Russia's embassy in the UK has ridiculed Prime Minister Theresa May for her warning to US Republican lawmakers that the West should "engage with, but beware" of President Vladimir Putin.

May invoked the spirit of the Cold War on Thursday, when she warned of a possible "eclipse of the West" if they failed to engage with Moscow "from a position of strength."

Her caution to US politicians came ahead of a planned phone call between Putin and US President Donald Trump on Saturday, when the two leaders will speak directly for the first time.

In response, a mocking poem poking fun at the PM's 'Cold War' mindset was posted on the official Twitter account of the Russian Embassy in London on Friday.


Addressing a Republican 'retreat' in Philadelphia, May said: "When it comes to Russia, as so often, it is wise to turn to the example of President Reagan who, during negotiations with his opposite number Mikhail Gorbachev, used to abide by the adage 'trust but verify.' "With President Putin, my advice is to 'engage but beware.' There is nothing inevitable about conflict between Russia and the West. And nothing unavoidable about retreating to the days of the Cold War. But we should engage with Russia from a position of strength."

In an interview with Fox News on Friday, Trump said it would be to the advantage of both Russia and the US to mend ties and pool their efforts in the fight against terrorism, adding that he was looking forward to speaking with his Russian counterpart.

Comment: "But we should engage with Russia from a position of strength." If May thought they had it she wouldn't be saying it. They just would.


Megaphone

Mainstream media goes bonkers in onslaught of fake news following Trump presidency

Post truth
A term invented by the establishment, which describes their own attitude perfectly
U.S. and other media continue their strong move towards baseless, aka fake, news. We recently caught the New York Times claiming that Russia started the war in Georgia, something the NYT had earlier debunked itself. The Washington Post claimed that Russian hackers were sneaking into the U.S. electricity grid. The story fell apart within a few hours. Nothing in it was true. Hundreds of pieces were written about "peaceful demonstrator" rebels in Syria, about 250,000 civilians besieged in Aleppo or Syrian government bombings of hospitals that lacked any base in reality.

That onslaught of fake news by repudiated media continues unabated in print, web and TV.

Yesterday a sensational piece in the Washington Post claimed that The State Department's entire senior administrative team just resigned:
The entire senior level of management officials resigned Wednesday, part of an ongoing mass exodus of senior Foreign Service officers who don't want to stick around for the Trump era.

Chess

You're fired! State Department top ranks didn't resign in protest, they were given the boot

US State Department sign
© Jim Young / Reuters
As it becomes increasingly likely that Rex Tillerson - Donald Trump's nominee for Secretary of State - will gain confirmation from the Senate, the State Department which Tillerson looks set to take over is witnessing a purge of its higher ranks.

During a visit by Tillerson to the State Department building in Foggy Botton the four most senior members of its management team all announced their resignations after being asked to quit (earlier claims that they resigned of their own accord are apparently untrue).

The four senior officials who have gone are Patrick Kennedy, Under Secretary of State for Management, Assistant Secretary of State for Administration Joyce Anne Barr, Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Michele Bond and Ambassador Gentry Smith, director of the Office of Foreign Missions.

Another senior State Department official who is going is Victoria Nuland, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs.

Nuland is a rigid neocon, notorious for her role in the Maidan coup, during which she posed handing out cookies to anti-government protesters in Kiev's Maidan Square, and who - to the US government's intense embarrassment - was caught (probably by Russian intelligence) speaking on the telephone with US ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt picking Arseniy Yatsenyuk for the post of Ukraine's Prime Minister. The wife of the arch-neocon intellectual Robert Kagan - who supported Hillary Clinton in the US election - and a former protege of George W. Bush's Vice-President Dick Cheney, Nuland's departure will be welcomed not just in Moscow but in other European capitals where she has become notorious for her abrasiveness.

Question

Media Matters wants to build a database of journalists allowed to ask questions at the White House

sean spicer
© REUTERS/Kevin LamarqueWhite House spokesman Sean Spicer holds a press briefing at the White House in Washington January 23, 2017.
Media Matters asked for help building a "comprehensive" database of reporters who "get to ask" questions at the White House Wednesday, sending a series of bizarre tweets in which the heads of various journalists are circled in red ink.

"[Media Matters] is going to try to maintain a comprehensive database of who gets to ask questions at press briefings," senior fellow Matthew Gertz tweeted. "We need your help to ID some!"


Comment: This move is highly questionable considering Media Matter's history:
David Brock's Clinton propaganda machine, Media Matters, trying to stay relevant in a post-Hillary world - by going after 'fake news' online


Cross

Placed on EU blacklist of 'Kremlin-paid propagandists', Danish journalist Iben Thranholm says 'European elites can no longer distinguish truth from lies'

Iben Thranholm
© NewSpeek/Youtube
Recently Marie Krarup, a member of the Danish Parliament for the Danish People's Party - contacted me to say that the EU task force East Stratcom has placed me on a list branding me as a pro-Russian propagandist and is accusing me of spreading Russian disinformation.

This organisation was set up in March 2015 by the European Council to implement an action plan on strategic communication to address what it labels "Russia's on-going disinformation campaigns", allegedly aiming to destabilize European democracy. To this end, East StratCom "publishes two public weekly newsletters to stay up to date with the latest disinformation stores and narratives". Have a look at EastStratcoms website.

This was shocking news to me. Marie Krarup requested a consultation with Danish Minister for Foreign Affairs Anders Samuelsen. She found that the task force accusation violated my constitutional rights under Danish law to exercise freedom of speech, and found this to be stark evidence of the EU usurping undemocratic and totalitarian privilege to list commentators, pundits and journalists that criticize EU policies and EU leaders.

The minister disagreed. He stated that Iben Thranholm deserved her listing as a pro-Russian agent and should remain so listed. He indicated that I was hired by the Kremlin to destabilize Europe. Despite the consultation, this remains his position. No action has been taken to amend the list. No further comment has been offered on the case in the media.

The consequences may be dire. If the conflict with Russia escalates, the state will have the right to imprison me as an enemy of the state. Already now I have been branded a traitor and unpatriotic. Many opinion leaders and colleagues have composed and published an open letter criticizing the ministry. Social media have been brimming with support, but my government remains stubborn in its accusation that I am a Russian agent. This means that I am no longer protected by the state of which I am a national.

Stock Up

UK to abide by EU laws in trade talks between May and Trump

MayTrump
© CNN.com
British Prime Minister Theresa May will stick to the European Union's rules while discussing a new trade deal with Washington, according to Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond.

"Britain remains a fully engaged member of the European Union," Hammond said on Friday before a meeting of EU finance ministers in Brussels. "Of course we want to strengthen our trade ties with the very many trade partners we have around the world, but we're very mindful of our obligations under the treaty," added the British finance minister.

May has arrived in Washington to become the first leader to meet US President Donald Trump in the Oval Office. Besides politics, the two are likely to discuss post-Brexit trade opportunities.

This week, European Commission spokesperson Margaritis Schinas said EU rules don't "prohibit you from discussing trade." Countries can't have official negotiations while the UK is still a member of the single market.

In a BBC interview, Ted Malloch, tipped to become the US ambassador to the EU, said the two countries could clinch a free trade deal in 90 days.

Comment: From pomp and ceremony to sussing out a future deal, at the least it will be an opening discussion. We shall see on what the "forces for peace" come to agreement.


Megaphone

Propagandists' lies about Trump's relationship with Kremin threatens US national security

trump putin
© Slate.com
Nation Contributing Editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Now in their fourth year, previous installments are here.) Cohen worries that unrelenting allegations that President Trump is a willing or unwilling agent of Putin's Kremlin—charges made thus far without any factual evidence—could limit or even cripple his ability to make wise decisions in regard to Russia, even in a dire crisis. In that connection, Cohen continues:

Implying or outright alleging that Trump is a "puppet," "poodle," or "fifth columnist" of the Kremlin is neither episodic nor marginal. Such charges have appeared consistently in mainstream media—including The New York Times, The Washington Post, MSNBC, CNN, and other influential news outlets— since mid-2016, and they have continued since he became president. Considering the grave dangers inherent in the new Cold War, some kind of détente, or more cooperation with Russia, as Trump has promised, is imperative for US and international security. But détente requires reciprocal negotiations—concessions on both sides.

"It takes two to tango," as President Reagan remarked during his détente with Soviet leader Gorbachev. How will Trump gain the needed political support at home for any reciprocity with Russian President Putin while being suspected of, or charged with, betraying American interests? Or in a more dire crisis like the nuclear confrontation over Cuba in 1962, how would he manage President Kennedy's wise negotiations with Soviet leader Khrushchev, which required face-saving concessions on both sides? To prove his loyalty to America, would Trump have to go closer to the brink of, or wage, nuclear war?


Attention

Syrian Perspective: Gabbard delivered messages from Trump to Assad - Syria has nothing to fear from U.S.

gabbard
© Nicholas Kamm
When Tulsi Gabbard finally admitted that she met Dr. Bashar Al-Assad in Damascus, we were free to discuss what we knew about her trip. At first, we respected her deliberate efforts to obscure the fact that she met with the Prez. But, she also met with President-elect Trump who told her that he wanted her to deliver a message. The first message was that Dr. Assad had nothing to fear from the United States. The U.S. will not truck with any party out to change governments. This is why Boris Johnson, the U.K.'s foreign minister, has just declared that the U.K. had no objections to Dr. Assad running again for the office of the president. Leave aside the fact that we don't care about the opinions of some limey aristocrat or elitist, we do care about the U.K.'s constant violations of international law by its facilitating terrorism. In any case, Donald Trump has delivered his message successfully to Dr. Assad.

The second message has to do with Trump's willingness to help the Syrian government to control the out-flux of refugees by establishing a "safe zone" for Syrians in areas controlled by either the Syrian Army or the Russian Air Force. I have been informed that Dr. Assad has accepted this kind of benign interference as long as it was coordinated with the Syrian government.

The third message she carried to Dr. Assad was that the U.S. is intent upon wiping out every vestige of ISIS and Alqaeda, and, that it would do so in coordination with Russia and the Syrian government.

Attention

The Institutes of Technology Exposed: Academia's surprising role in war, science and the system

Massachusetts Institute of technology
© MIT
With a new face on the American empire, people are looking to vent their frustration on this icon: but who is truly responsible for creating tyranny and suffering in this world? What government, corporate, and institutional entities are truly responsible for shaping life to be hell on Earth for our "bottom" class of people, and how do they do it?

Answering this question, "who is morally culpable for degrading our world," is critical for any person's understanding of where we are at as a species.

This article will focus on a rarely touched aspect of the power structure: the institutes of technology, the entities of mad science, and these academic institutions that support the military industrial complex.

These schools pioneer science to the benefit of governments, corporations, and the class of people treating us like cattle. They march society on a path that does not benefit our people.

While they have created a wide range of things, from very helpful to incomprehensibly destructive, they fundamentally side with the people who are perhaps most morally culpable for war and human suffering: the state, and "defense" contractors who ally with the state, just to name a few.

According to Wikipedia, an institute of technology is "a type of university which specializes in engineering, technology, Applied Science, and possibly natural sciences."

This is an introduction to 10 academic institutions who are marching us on a trajectory toward mad science, warfare, human suffering, and profit at the expense of our bottom class of people. Some are not specifically institutes of technology, but are integral parts of the system.

This should serve as a starting point to your own research: with a little digging, one can uncover much more about these foundational structures of what we call "the system."

Star of David

Israel's shadowy role in Guatemala's dirty war

Israel’s well-documented role in Guatemala’s Dirty War that left more than 200,000 dead
© William Gularte / Reuters
Last year was a busy one for Guatemala's criminal justice system.

January 2016 saw the arrests of 18 former military officers for their alleged part in the country's dirty war of the 1980s. In February last year, two ex-soldiers were convicted in an unprecedented wartime sexual slavery case from the same era.

Such legal proceedings represent further openings in the judicial system following the 2013 trial and conviction of former head of state General Efraín Ríos Montt for genocide and crimes against humanity. Although the Guatemalan Constitutional Court very quickly annulled the trial (finally restarted in March after fitful stops and starts, but currently stalled again), a global precedent has been set for holding national leaders accountable in the country where their crimes took place.

And in November, a Guatemalan judge allowed a separate case against Ríos Montt to proceed. The case relates to the 1982 massacre in the village of Dos Erres.

Comment: Also see: