Puppet MastersS


Snakes in Suits

Trump adviser Scaramucci: Anti-Russian sanctions unsuccessful, united Russians around President Putin


RT
Tue, 17 Jan 2017 10:11 UTC
Anthony Scaramucci
© Rick Wilking / ReutersAnthony Scaramucci
Trump adviser Anthony Scaramucci says US sanctions against Russia have, in fact, united the nation around President Putin and his government, having the opposite effect to that desired by Washington, largely due to the toughness of "Russian culture."

"I think the sanctions had, in some ways, an opposite effect because of Russian culture," Anthony Scaramucci, the extravagant Wall Street hedge fund showman, told TASS news agency on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

"I think the Russians would eat snow if they had to survive. And so, for me, the sanctions probably galvanized the nation with the nation's president," explained Scaramucci, who was a fundraiser in Donald Trump's election campaign and has just joined the president-elect's White House staff as senior advisor for communications with business, while also noting that he does not see sanctions as a generally effective measure under the current circumstances.

"Long-term sanctions could be painful had they been effective in other areas... They wouldn't be using them if they weren't effective, but what I think we have to do now is think outside the box. We have to make the world safer, we have to eliminate from the world the radical Islamic terrorism, and we have to figure out the ways to grow the wages for working-class families," Scaramucci said, adding that Russia and the United States share a lot of common objectives.

According to the advisor, despite the fact that some actions taken by the Russian government have been "met with some level of disapproval by the global community," and the US in particular, he hopes "there will be an opportunity to sit down again" and negotiate to solve the existing disagreements, given President-elect Donald Trump's declared respect for Russia.

Comment: See also:

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USA

Pentagon report: F-35 'unfit for combat' with 276 deficiencies requiring $1 billion to fix


RT
Tue, 17 Jan 2017 13:58 UTC
fourth U.S. Air Force F-35A Lightning II
© Daniel Hughes / U.S. Air Force / Handout via Reuter
The F-35 stealth fighter jet suffers from hundreds of problems and won't be fully combat-capable before 2020, says a scathing report from the Pentagon's top evaluator. New issues keep cropping up, and fixing them all may cost over $1 billion.

Dr. Michael Gilmore's damning assessment is part of the massive annual report for fiscal year 2016, and his 62-page dossier devoted to the F-35 paints a grim picture of America's much touted,futuristic Joint Strike Fighter. The program, which began in 2001, was supposed to deliver a fifth-generation jet serving the needs of the Air Force, the Navy and the Marine Corps, achieving savings through a modular design. Instead, it is 70 percent over initial cost estimates and years behind schedule.

Comment: The US Government has already spent $1.5 trillion in the taxpayer's money on this bucket of bolts. Check out:

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Bell

Best of the Web: Putin: 'Maidan' maybe coming to DC this week - Fake news makers 'worse than prostitutes'


RT
Tue, 17 Jan 2017 13:55 UTC
putin
© ReutersRussian President Vladimir Putin
Russian President Vladimir Putin said he has no grounds to attack or protect US President-elect Donald Trump, since he does not know him personally. He added though that those behind the recent allegations on Trump have "no moral scruples."

"I don't know Mr. Trump personally, I have never met him and don't know what he will do on the international arena. So I have no grounds to attack him or criticize him for anything, or protect him or whatever," Putin said.

Despite the fact that elections in the US are over and ended with a "solid win" for the Republican candidate, an intense political struggle continues in the US, the Russian president observed, adding that there are certain forces that aim "to undermine the legitimacy of the president-elect."

"I have an impression they practiced in Kiev and are ready to organize a Maidan in Washington, just to not let Trump take office," Putin said, apparently referring to anti-government protests in the Ukrainian capital in 2014, which resulted in the leadership being ousted.

Those anti-Trump forces in the US also want to "bind hand and foot" of the newly elected leader, Putin added, saying that this way they want to interfere with Trump's both domestic and international policies outlined in his presidential campaign.

By doing so, these forces "severely harm US' interests," Putin said.


Comment: Here's the full quote from TASS:
"What we see is the continuing sharp domestic political struggle although the presidential elections are over and they ended with a convincing victory of Mr. Trump," Putin told reporters after talks with Moldovan President Igor Dodon.

This struggle has several goals, Putin said, adding that the first of them is to "undermine legitimacy of the US president-elect."

"Whether the people who have been doing that really wish it or not, they do cause harm to the interests of the United States and that harm is enormous," Putin said. "One has the impression that upon gaining the required experience in Kiev they may go as far as staging Maidan type of protests in Washington in a bid to prevent Trump from taking office."

"Another aim they pursue is to bind the president-elect by hand and foot to not let him act on home and foreign policy election pledges," Putin said.

Comment: It's gonna be an interesting week!

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MIB

Project Veritas investigation claims far-left groups plotting shut-down of Trump inauguration ball. But counter-sting videos turn tables on O'Keefe


RT
Tue, 17 Jan 2017 12:34 UTC
veritas sting op
© The Undercurrent / Reuters
A broad coalition of far-left groups is planning to disrupt President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration, after the right-leaning Project Veritas admitted it had infiltrated their meetings to record their plans. Now, it's a case of right/said, left/said.

On Monday, Project Veritas published its "hidden camera investigation" that "exposes groups plotting violence at Trump inauguration."In the video, DisruptJ20 members plan to "ruin" the DeploraBall, a pre-inauguration black-tie event at the National Press Club, with stink bombs made from butyric acid.


Comment: It smells like COINTELPRO alright (namely, aligning oneself very closely with the operatives and methods of a group, but only to later discredit it), but it's not exactly clear who's on first.

O'Keefe does apparently use dirty tricks - which he probably learned from Republican mentors like Karl Rove, Andrew Breitbart and other experienced operatives - but that doesn't mean that all his findings are rendered false. That Democrat-connected people organized the instigation of violence at Trump rallies, for example, is almost certainly legit.

At what point does O'Keefe's (and others') tactics stray into 'creating the reality they want to see'?

Project Veritas doesn't really need to catch people plotting disruption on tape: a lot of people have already publicly announced their intention to do so. They are not necessarily connected via groups and networks. Rather, they're basically liberal snowflakes connected by ideology and psychological make-up.

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Bad Guys

Hysterical reaction over tree-cutting around historic Munich building


The New Observer
Thu, 12 Jan 2017 23:26 UTC
house of art Munich remodeled atist render
The Haus der Kunst as envisioned by the “remodelling.”
The German Council of German Jews has decried plans to cut down the trees in front of the Hitler-era Haus der Deutschen Kunst ("House of German Art") in Munich, claiming that an unobstructed view of the famous building is "reconstructing Nazi architecture."

British architect David Chipperfield—who won acclaim for his remodeling of the equally famous Neues Museum in Berlin—has proposed a €78 million ($83.7 million) renovation plan to revert the now renamed Haus der Kunst to its original exterior by removing the deliberately planted trees obscuring the city-facing side of the building.
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Caesar

The Idiots: Western journalists misuse Dostoyevsky for new explanations of Putin

Danielle Ryan
RT
Sun, 15 Jan 2017 15:58 UTC
Putin's soul
© Mikhail Klimentyev / ReutersRussia's President Vladimir Putin
To understand Vladimir Putin, turn to the writings of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. That's the latest way to prove you're in the know about the Russian leader and his deep, dark soul.

An article by Alejandro Jimenez in the Harvard Political Review this week attempted to foster understanding of Putin and his motivations through quotes from Dostoyevsky. To save you the trouble of reading it, here's the basic concept: Putin has expressed a fondness for Dostoyevsky. Dostoyevsky had a lot of ideas about the Russian soul and Russian destiny. Let's pick all the bits that sound the worst and use them to prove Putin is an empire-builder on a mission to destroy the West. The end.

By the time I sat down to write this, my attention had been drawn to a second article on the same theme, thanks to a post on historian Paul Robinson's blog. Only, this second piece, written by Peter Savodnik and published by Vanity Fair, was even more outlandish than the first. This one went so far as to credit Dostoyevsky as the "secret source of Putin's evil."
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Document

Secret IMF documents on Greece with comment by Eric Toussaint

Eric Toussaint
CADTM
Mon, 16 Jan 2017 22:55 UTC
IMF documents dating from March and May 2010
The CADTM draws attention to two IMF documents dating from March and May 2010 that were kept secret. These authentic documents were placed at the disposal of the Truth Committee on Greek Public Debt by Zoe Konstantopoulou, the President of the Hellenic Parliament in office from 6 February to 3 October 2015.

Their contents are damning. They clearly show that a large number of IMF Executive Board members expressed severe criticism of the program the Institution was preparing to implement. Some of them denounced the fact that the program was aimed at rescuing the private European banks - mainly certain major French and German banks— who were creditors of Greek debt, both public and private. Several of them denounced the selfsame policies that had led to the Asian crisis of 1996-1997 and the Argentine crisis in 2001.

Several executives denounced the fact that the principal executive officers (mainly the Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn and the Deputy Director John Lipsky) had, unbeknownst to the other members of the Board, modified one of the fundamental rules that condition credits allocated by the IMF to its members. Indeed, for a loan to be granted by the IMF, it must be shown that this loan and the accompanying program will render debt repayment sustainable.

This condition could not be satisfied in the case of Greece, since the IMF directorate and the European authorities refused to reduce the Greek debt or to make private banks contribute.
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Attention

The Titanic sails at dawn: Warning signs point to danger ahead in 2017

John W Whitehead
Newsbud
Fri, 13 Jan 2017 22:35 UTC
Graphic of police state violence
A Future Riddled with Hidden and Not-So-Hidden Dangers
"When did the future switch from being a promise to being a threat?" ― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters
Despite our best efforts, we in the American police state seem to be stuck on repeat, reliving the same set of circumstances over and over and over again: egregious surveillance, strip searches, police shootings of unarmed citizens, government spying, censorship, retaliatory arrests, the criminalization of lawful activities, warmongering, indefinite detentions, SWAT team raids, asset forfeiture, etc.

Unfortunately, as a nation we've become so desensitized to the government's acts of violence, so accustomed to reports of government corruption, and so anesthetized to the sights and sounds of Corporate America marching in lockstep with the police state that few seem to pay heed to the warning signs blaring out the message: Danger Ahead.
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Bad Guys

Daesh militants surround Deir ez-Zor airbase in Syria


Sputnik
Mon, 16 Jan 2017 21:46 UTC
Deir ez-Zor
© Flickr/ Jose Javier Martin Espartosa
Daesh terrorists have surrounded the Deir ez-Zor military airfield in Syria northeast, al-Mayadeen TV channel reported.

According to the TV channel, terrorists have managed to approach the airbase, gaining control over the territory which had been earlier occupied by a Syrian army military unit.

Deir ez-Zor airbase remains the last line of defense of the Syrian army on the way to the city. Despite numerous terrorist attacks involving suicide bombers and military equipment, the Syrian Air Force managed not only to successfully defend the airfield, but also counterattacked terrorists fighting in nearby territories.

Comment: A video on the latest battle situations in Syria:



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Info

Iraqi military releases footage of foreign Daesh militants' passports found in Mosul


Sputnik
Mon, 16 Jan 2017 21:39 UTC
Iraqi soldiers holding Daesh flag
© AFP 2016/ THOMAS COEX
Iraqi servicemen on Monday released a video demonstrating the documents of foreign militants of Daesh terrorist group which had been found in the city of Mosul.

Passports of Azerbaijani and Russian nationals were captured on the video published by the Iraqi military on Twitter. Neither the authenticity of the documents nor their belonging to particular people have been verified to date.

The operation to liberate Mosul from Daesh terrorists began on October 17, 2016. Iraqi troops have managed to advance in the eastern part of the city, but the western part — on the right bank of the Tigris River — remains under control of the militants.

Comment: More proof the militants have nothing to do with a revolution but are merely hired guns spreading chaos.

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