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Eye 1

The coup against Trump: His military and Wall Street defense

James Petras
Petra.Lahaine.org
Wed, 28 Dec 2016 17:24 UTC
FBI agents guarding Trump Tower
Introduction: A coup has been underway to prevent President-Elect Donald Trump from taking office and fulfilling his campaign promise to improve US-Russia relations. This 'palace coup' is not a secret conspiracy, but an open, loud attack on the election.

The coup involves important US elites, who openly intervene on many levels from the street to the current President, from sectors of the intelligence community, billionaire financiers out to the more marginal 'leftist' shills of the Democratic Party.

The build-up for the coup is gaining momentum, threatening to eliminate normal constitutional and democratic constraints. This essay describes the brazen, overt coup and the public operatives, mostly members of the outgoing Obama regime.

The second section describes the Trump's cabinet appointments and the political measures that the President-Elect has adopted to counter the coup. We conclude with an evaluation of the potential political consequences of the attempted coup and Trump's moves to defend his electoral victory and legitimacy.
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Jet5

Russia seeks joint use of Tajikistan air base amid growing Islamic militancy


RFE/RL
Wed, 28 Dec 2016 18:04 UTC
Igor Lyakin-Frolov
Russia's ambassador to Tajikistan, Igor Lyakin-Frolov
Russia wants to expand its air force deployment to Tajikistan and is in talks with Dushanbe for joint use of an air base in the former Soviet republic, the Russian ambassador to Dushanbe said on December 27.

Russia already has an infantry base near Dushanbe with up to 7,000 troops stationed there and last year deployed four attack and transport helicopters to nearby Ayni air base.

Ambassador Igor Lyakin-Frolov told reporters in Dushanbe that the Russian and Tajik governments were in talks over an agreement that would allow Russia joint use of the Ayni base and to expand its presence there.

Comment: More on Russia's plans in Tajikistan:

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Info

Russia's Sberbank CEO calls Trump the 'president of change'


Sputnik
Wed, 28 Dec 2016 17:47 UTC
Donald Trump
© REUTERS/ Mark Kauzlarich
US President-Elect Donald Trump is "the president of change," whose business experience should be sufficient enough to make right steps as the US leader, Sberbank CEO Herman Gref said.

"I always welcome changes - today more than ever before the world needs changes. There are a lot of disparities both in national economies, including the United States, and in the world. Trump is the president of change," Gref told the Vedomosti newspaper.

Comment: It will be rough road for Trump:

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Info

Unprecedented security measures planned for Trump's inauguration ceremony


Sputnik
Wed, 28 Dec 2016 17:38 UTC
Trump inaguration construction
© AP Photo/ Pablo Martinez Monsivais
A security planning committee has its hands full preparing for Donald Trump's swearing-in that is expected to be held in Washington amid massive protests, local media reported citing sources.

"What the intelligence community says publicly is what they say privately, and that is more threats from more directions than ever before," Roy Blunt, the chair of the congressional committee, told The New York Times on Tuesday.
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Info

Ex-Argentine leader Cristina Fernandez indicted, tied to nuns and guns scandal

Hugh Bronstein
Reuters
Tue, 27 Dec 2016 17:11 UTC
Fernandez de Kirchner
© REUTERS/Marcos Brindicci
Former Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner waves to supporters as she leaves a Justice building in Buenos Aires, Argentina, April 13, 2016.
Former Argentine President Cristina Fernandez was indicted on Tuesday on charges she ran a corruption scheme with a public works secretary who was arrested in June while trying to stash millions of dollars in a convent.

A federal judge accused them and other officials of the Fernandez administration of crimes "including the deliberate seizure of funds principally meant for public road works."

Corruption charges have long swirled around Fernandez and her husband and predecessor, the late Nestor Kirchner. She denies wrongdoing and accuses Argentina's current leader, Mauricio Macri, of using the courts to persecute her.

Comment: This is nothing compared to what the US has done to Argentina:

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Vader

Middle East expert: Daesh 'could have been wiped out in 2 months if it wasn't serving US interests'


Sputnik
Wed, 28 Dec 2016 16:55 UTC
Iraqi soldiers ISIS flag
© Thomas Coex/Agence France-PresseIraqi army soldiers hold a flag from the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group up-side-down on November 23, 2016, near an Iraqi army base in the outskirts of Mosul
A senior US commander has calculated that it will take at least two years to push Daesh out of Iraq and Syria, and to capture or kill any jihadis attempting to escape. Speaking to Sputnik, geopolitical analyst Navid Nasr suggested that the terrorists could actually be destroyed in a couple months, if they weren't serving US geopolitical interests.

Speaking to a Daily Beast reporter on Sunday, US commander in Iraq Lieut. Gen. Stephen Townsend said that the current Iraqi and US-led coalition offensive against the Daesh (ISIL/ISIS) terrorists is unfolding about as well as can be expected, and will take up to two more years of hard fighting.

Geopolitical analyst and Middle East expert Navid Nasr has a different view. Speaking to Radio Sputnik, the independent expert suggested that Daesh could be erased from the map in a matter of months, not years, if it wasn't serving the geopolitical interests of influential regional and global powers including the US.

Kicking off with a discussion of the terror group's origins and home base of support, Nasr explained that unfortunately, "a lot of people still fail to appreciate the backstory of Daesh, and also what communities they're rooted in - the communities that gave birth to this organization. We're talking about Saddam [Hussein's] base of support in northern and western Iraq - the [so-called] 'Sunni triangle'."

"You have to remember that many people in Mosul greeted Daesh as liberators - and not just for ideological reasons, but because a lot of the fighters in Daesh are their cousins, their brothers, their fathers," the analyst said. "They're rooted in those communities in Iraq. That's where certainly all their major leaders and commanders, but [also] a lot of their fighters, come from. It wasn't Sauron who whipped them up like orcs - they're rooted someplace, they came from someplace, and a lot of them came from those communities in Iraq."
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Wine

Even if Russia interfered in U.S. election, the U.S. had it coming

Gordon M. Hahn
Russian and Eurasian Politics
Tue, 27 Dec 2016 17:09 UTC
Yeltsin and crowd
© Oleg Lastochkin / SputnikPresident Boris Yeltsin greeting rally participants outside the R.S.F.S.R. Supreme Council.
Two can play at almost any game. Russia is now accused of interfering in the 2016 U.S presidential election campaign by hacking Democratic and republican party committees and Hillary Clinton's illicit e-mail server and sending the uncovered documents to Wikileaks for publication allegedly in order to help Republican Donald Trump defeat Democrat candidate Clinton. But since the collapse of the USSR, the U.S. has used a variety of means to interfere in the domestic politics of the post-Soviet states, including those of Russia. Those who implemented and supported those policies should have foreseen that some day a potentially resurgent Russia would exact revenge for such interference. That revenge came in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Throughout the post-Soviet period the U.S. has used the State Department, USAID, CIA, the military, and NATO to interfere in the domestic politics of post-Soviet states comprising Russia's traditional sphere of influence. Russia's eventually aborted transition to democracy was not viewed in Moscow as the occasion for foregoing that sphere of influence. Rather, Moscow hoped to maintain that sphere of influence and become a guarantor of democratization in Eurasia in partnership with the U.S. until NATO expansion was approved in Washington and Brussels in the mid-1990s. There is no need to demonstrate all the specifics of said interference outside Russia in the post-Soviet space, given the blatant a priori or post facto Western approval of numerous color revolutions in the region from Bishkek to Kiev. Rather, it would be more direct to point out just a few examples of Western interference in Russian domestic politics since the Soviet collapse.
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Bomb

Russian Foreign Ministry says Russian embassy in Syria comes under mortar fire again


Sputnik
Wed, 28 Dec 2016 18:07 UTC
Russian embassy in Syria
© Sputnik/ Michael AlaeddinRussian embassy in Syria
Russia's embassy in Damascus has come under mortar fire again, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement Wednesday.

"On December 28, at 13:00 and 13:19 Moscow Time, the Russian embassy in Syria was shelled by terrorists again. One mine, which luckily did not explode, fell in the courtyard of the compound of the Russian diplomatic mission's administrative buildings. The second [fell] in the immediate vicinity of its territory. Sappers were involved to clear the unexploded ammunition," the statement said.

Comment: Further reading:

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Propaganda

#FakeNews: Politico "confirms" NATO auditor general death by "suicide"


IRIS
Wed, 28 Dec 2016 16:58 UTC
MSM lies, Media failure, fake news
A second mainstream press outlet has decided to weigh in on the mysterious death of NATO Chief Auditor Yves Chandelon - in an attempt to publicly sanitize the case and the people's minds once and for all.

Yesterday, December 27, Politico Europe published the 'conclusive' and the one and only acceptable version of the unfolding of the Chandelon case.
"High-ranking NATO official Yves Chandelon, whose body was found in his car in the Belgian town of Andenne on December 16, killed himself, the chief prosecutor in charge of the case told POLITICO. ... Local media reported that Chandelon's family initially dismissed investigators' view the death was a suicide, believing it was suspicious. The prosecutor's office said some members of the family subsequently changed their minds when investigators found a one-page, handwritten note in the car. ... The prosecutor's office will continue to investigate the death and is still conducting a handwriting comparison, though family members have stated they believe it is Chandelon's handwriting on the note."
The information included in the above excerpt is entirely false and shows all the signs of family members being pressured into silence because the initial reports about the opinions of Chandelon's family concerning his alleged suicide are in complete contradiction with that what Politico Europe is now trying to feed its readers and the rest of the world.

Comment: Previous developments in this story:

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Snakes in Suits

U.S. secret agreement with Palestinians prior to U.N. Security Council vote on Israel's illegal settlements

Stephen Lendman
Global Research
Wed, 28 Dec 2016 17:49 UTC
Child holding Palestine flag
According to a document published by the Arabic Al-Youm Al-Sabaa broadsheet, John Kerry and national security advisor Susan Rice told a Palestinian delegation headed by Saeb Erekat and intelligence chief Majed Faraj in Washington that the Obama administration would abstain on SC Res. 2334 if its wording was balanced - 10 days before last Friday's vote.

The five-page Arabic document discussed the meeting between both sides. If authentic, it indicates US involvement in wanting the resolution adopted - no surprise given its abstention.

It affirmed the illegality of Israeli settlements, what's been known for nearly half a century, no world community action ever taken to halt Israeli lawlessness, on this or any other issue affecting Palestinians and regional peace.

The day before the Security Council vote, the Israeli Hebrew language Walla broadsheet published a similar report. Both sides denied colluding ahead of Res. 2334's adoption - failing to prevent leaks of their meeting.

According to the document Al-Youm Al-Sabaa published, Kerry promised "full (US) cooperation," saying he'd deliver an address explaining Washington's position - provided Palestinians agreed with principles he presented in his 2014 framework proposal.

Comment: See also: A UN Resolution 2334 on Jerusalem: Barack Obama's poisoned Christmas gift to Donald Trump

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