Puppet MastersS


Star of David

Israel interferes in US politics all the time, but never a scandal - it's 'how the world works'

Philip Weiss
© www.youtube.comPhilip Weiss
I completely believe that Donald Trump was in bed with the Russians before the election and the campaign may well have intrigued with Vladimir Putin with respect to Wikileaks and that helped defeat Hillary Clinton. I believe that because that's how the world works; because a lot of very smart people in the liberal establishment believe it; and because the New York Times and Washington Post are documenting some of it, with the fervor of Watergate.

Maybe it will bring the liar in chief down some day and end this short national nightmare. I certainly hope so.


Comment: Mr. Weiss has to know this is an untenable and hysteric scenario, unsupported by the truth.


But there are two large exceptions to the Russian conspiracy. The first is that it is good policy for the United States to be talking to Russia. If Clinton were president today, there might be dogfights over Damascus. Her gang was all for regime change in Syria, and for confrontation over the Ukraine. That's bad policy. I'm glad they're not running the show - though they are certainly running this story. Before you get too upset about Russia winking at the sanctions, the scandal that brought down Michael Flynn, please recall that in 2012, President Obama sent secret signals to Iran to ignore congressional sanctions, we'll be talking to you once I'm reelected. Obama got reelected; and his deal with Iran is one of the greatest achievements of a very good presidency. Again, this is how the world works. Which brings up the second exception. Israel tried to interfere in that 2012 election, as Chris Matthews sensibly reminded his audience recently: Benjamin Netanyahu tried to help Mitt Romney beat Obama. Sheldon Adelson held a fundraiser in Jerusalem for Romney.

Comment: Weiss has identified a pattern but has not gone the distance to call it for what it is, nor does he suggest any long-overdo and appropriate remedy. It may not be in his indoctrinated and limited capacity to do so. Until the 'unspeakable' becomes discourse, and discourse becomes rectifiable action, the US will continue to be under the yoke for Israel's safety, wellbeing and psychological sanity at a cost of billions per year from the American constituency and global scorn of all who see the grand ploy. It is not 'how the world works,' it is 'how the world has been played.'


Eye 1

Pathological Narcissism: The New York Times congratulates itself and its media friends for being so awesome

Looking good!
Looking good!
"The news cycle begins at sunrise, as groggy reporters hear the ping of a presidential tweet, and ends sometime in the overnight hours, as newspaper editors tear up planned front pages scrambled by the latest revelation from Washington. In consequence and velocity, the political developments of the past four weeks — has it been only four weeks? — are jogging memories of momentous journalistic times."

This is just one of many thrilling paragraphs from the vainglorious purple prose published by the New York Times yesterday. The article's thesis? Writing about Donald Trump's tweets has "invigorated" journalists, returning them to the romantic days when fedora-wearing, cigar-smoking, whisky-drinking, shoe-leather sleuths banged out the latest muckraking exclusive on their beat-up typewriters.

Are your palms sweaty? Are your nipples slightly hard? That's because the New York Times and its media friends are neck-deep in the most thorough, ground-breaking journalism in decades:
"The breathless pace of events reminds me of O. J. and Monica days," said Jeffrey Toobin, who covered the O. J. Simpson murder trial and the scandal involving Ms. Lewinsky for The New Yorker. "The way both journalists and consumers feel kind of overwhelmed by the pace of developments. This feeling of, 'Well, can't it just stop for a while?'"

Bad Guys

Saudi-backed Hadi forces team up with al-Qaeda in new Yemen offensive

Al-Qaeda terrorist jihadis
Freedom fighters aligned with Saudi-backed forces, who are armed by the US. It's the circle of life!
Predictable news coming out of Yemen: Saudi-backed "Southern Resistance" forces and Hadi loyalists, alongside al-Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), launched a new offensive against the Houthis in western Yemen on Wednesday.

This is not the first time Saudi-backed (and by extension, Washington-backed) forces have teamed up with al-Qaeda in Yemen.

As Al Masdar News reports:
This is not the first time that the Saudi Coalition and Al-Qaeda have worked together in Yemen, as the both forces have at times teamed up against the Houthi forces in order to achieve similar goals.

However, despite their best attempts in the past, both the Saudi Coalition and AQAP have failed to make any headway in provincial capital of Ta'iz.
Yemen is quickly becoming the "spark that lights the powder keg". The conflict has already killed, maimed and displaced countless thousands (thanks to the stellar lack of reporting from trustworthy western news sources, we can only estimate the scale of Saudi/U.S. crimes in Yemen), but now it seems that elements of the Trump administration are keen on escalation, likely in hopes of giving Washington an excuse to carpet bomb Tehran.

Bulb

Putin says Russian and U.S. intelligence agencies should restore ties to better fight terrorism

Putin talking to Bortnikov
© SputnikRussian President Vladimir Putin (right) talks with Federal Security Service Director Aleksandr Bortnikov during a board meeting in Moscow on February 16.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Russia and the United States would benefit from restoring communications between their intelligence agencies to bolster the fight against terrorism.

"It's in everyone's interest to restore dialogue between the intelligence agencies of the United States and other members of NATO," Putin told Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), in televised remarks at a meeting of the service in Moscow on February 16.

"It's absolutely clear that in the area of counterterrorism all relevant governments and international groups should work together," he said.

Relations between the United States and Russia sunk to post-Cold War lows and many ties were broken after Russia's illegal annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and Moscow's ongoing support of separatist fighters in eastern Ukraine.

The Russian leader also said the number of cyberattacks against Russia tripled last year compared to 2015, and urged better protection against such attacks.

Putin also told the FSB, as well as the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) and the Foreign Ministry, to take additional security measures at Russian missions in foreign countries following the assassination of Andrei Karlov, Russia's ambassador to Turkey, at a photo exhibition in Ankara on December 19.

Info

Korybko: Is "New Detente" dead after Flynn resignation? Can Russia still benefit?

Donald Trump Michael Flynn
© REUTERS/ Carlos Barria/File Photo
The global media is awash with analysis and speculation about the resignation of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, with everyone trying to make sense of what happened, why it occurred, and what it means for the future of the Trump Presidency and US-Russian relations more broadly.

Flynn didn't resign because he broke any laws; he left the White House supposedly because of the erosion of trust between him and the President which occurred as a result of this "deep state"-driven fake scandal.

Neoconservative and Obama/Clinton-aligned elements of the US' permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies conspired to get rid of one of Trump's most trusted and promising advisors in order to preemptively undermine his hoped-for New Détente with Russia in the New Cold War.

Flynn was an integral part of this initiative and therefore had to be taken out as soon as possible, since his political assassination could change the momentum of the US' "deep state" civil war and improve the odds that other revolutionary thought leaders such as Stephen Bannon and Stephen Miller - could be the next to go.

Comment: See also: Pepe Escobar: Flynn Resignation - The Swamp Strikes Back


Stock Up

Russia boosts US Treasury bill holding by 15% after Trump's election win

stacks of US dollars
© Gary Cameron / Reuters
The Central Bank of Russia bought significantly more American Treasury securities in the two months after Donald Trump was elected president, according to data from the US Treasury Department published on Thursday.

The data from the Treasury shows that in November and December Russian investment in US government debt soared by 15 percent to $86.1 billion.

Before Trump's election win, Russia had been steadily selling off US T-bills. From January to October last year, Russian holdings slumped from $96.9 billion to $74.6 billion.

The increase in November was the largest monthly purchase since relations between Moscow and Washington deteriorated over the Ukrainian crisis. For comparison, in April 2014, Russia held US Treasury bills worth $116.4 billion.

The last time the Russian Central Bank made such investments in US debt was in August 2011, when it bought $11.8 billion worth of American bonds.

Briefcase

Russophobic lawmakers introduce bill to block Trump from lifting Russia sanctions

U.S. Capitol building in Washington
© Jonathan Ernst / ReutersU.S. Capitol in Washington
Democrats and a handful of Republicans in Congress have submitted a bill that would block President Trump from lifting the anti-Russian sanctions imposed by the Obama administration, despite the White House showing little movement in that direction.

The measure, which was first announced last week, moved forward on Wednesday, when identical bills were submitted to both chambers of Congress that would give lawmakers 120 days to block any move to lift anti-Russian sanctions using a congressional oversight mechanism based on the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.

"Every American, every Republican, every Democrat is concerned about Russia and what they have been doing to violate international law, not to mention the criminal behavior they may be pursuing and are pursuing, we believe, in Syria," Democratic Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer said at a media conference.

None of the Republican representatives sponsoring the legislation, who include Adam Kinzinger, Tom Rooney, and Mike Turner, showed up for the news conference, with their offices citing scheduling conflicts.

In the Senate, the bill is supported by Republicans John McCain and Lindsey Graham, both of whom have been the objects of scalding criticism from Donald Trump for opposing his executive order imposing a travel ban on seven predominantly Muslim countries.

The Russia Sanctions Review Act would need to win a majority in both chambers and be signed into law by Trump to come into force, giving it shaky prospects. Democrats would need overwhelming support from Republicans, who currently hold a majority in both the House and the Senate, to overcome a presidential veto.

Sherlock

Republicans ask DOJ to probe the illegal leaks of classified Flynn info

Michael Flynn
© ReutersWhite House National Security Advisor Michael Flynn
House Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz has requested that the Department of Justice launch a formal investigation into the possible leak of classified information following the resignation of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

In a letter to the DOJ's Inspector General Michael Horowitz on Wednesday, Chaffetz and House Judiciary Committee Chair Bob Goodlatte requested an "immediate investigation" into the "potentially classified national security information" that hit the press before Flynn's resignation.

"We have serious concerns about the potential inadequate protection of classified information here," the Republicans wrote. "In light of this, we request that your office begin an immediate investigation into whether classified information was mishandled here."

US President Donald Trump took to Twitter Wednesday to criticize the reporting of classified information that he claims is being leaked by "un-American" "intelligence" agencies.

Clipboard

Scott Adams on Evaluating Trump: Forget 'incompetence' and 'chaos' - Trump's system-thinking will smooth things out in time

Donald Trump
© REUTERS/ Joshua Roberts
Steve Jobs. Bill Gates. Mark Zuckerberg. Richard Branson. What do they all have in common, aside from wealth?

They all succeeded without the right kind of prior experience. Apparently they knew how to figure out what they needed once they started. I'll bet they are all systems-thinkers, not goal-thinkers.

If you see the world in terms of goals, you might think President Trump has failed at every important goal so far. He didn't get what he wanted on immigration. He hasn't gotten his Supreme Court nomination confirmed. He hasn't replaced Obamacare. He hasn't defeated ISIS. He hasn't done a lot of things he said he would do. He even had to fire General Flynn. President Trump is a big ol' failure when it comes to goals.

Maybe that's because Trump just started on the job. Success generally comes after you start. If you think success comes before you start, the world probably looks confusing to you.

Snakes in Suits

Trump washes hands of Israel-Palestine conflict, making room for others at the negotiating table

Trump Netanyahu
© CNN.com
In spite of his avowed support for Israel, Trump's step away from the Israel-Palestine conflict actually makes a long-term peace possible.

With most people in the US still fixated on Flynngate, Donald Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. If one wanted to exercise one's cynicism, it would be reasonable to speculate that the timing of the Flynn resignation was in fact designed to coincide with taking the Israel-Palestine issue out of the headlines. But that assumes the US mainstream media would report on the issue fairly, which generally they don't even on a slow news day.

On a personal level, the meeting between Trump and Netanyahu was predictably gushing, as the two leaders' past Twitter love fest indicated.

But smiles aside, incorrect rhetoric on Iran aside, dubious claims that both the US and Israel are 'fighting terror' rather than selectively arming terrorists, there was something very important said: the US under Trump will wash its hands of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Trump said that the US would not act as a broker or negotiator in peace talks between the two sides, but that he expects Israeli and Palestinian leadership to reach an accord themselves.

Trump said that, "The United States will encourage a peace and really a great peace deal," but that it would not actively participate in the process.

This is groundbreaking in many ways. Since at least the era of Jimmy Carter, the US has brought it upon herself to be the de-facto peace broker between Israel and Palestine. Each attempt has failed to create anything resembling a lasting peace and nothing reassembling any sense of justice for Palestine.

Now, though, Trump is essentially saying that he wants no part in any negotiations. Given the current political climate, it is unlikely that Israel and Palestine will be able to negotiate among themselves. Instead, Trump's literally laissez-faire stance on the issue opens up the possibility for a genuine third party to negotiate a peace deal.