Puppet MastersS


Brick Wall

Six other times the US has banned immigrants


aljazeera
Wed, 01 Feb 2017 03:02 UTC
Donald Trump's 'Muslim ban' is not the first time specific groups or nationalities have been blocked from the US.
No to Refugees
© File: ReutersOver the past 200 years, US presidents have placed restrictions on the immigration of certain groups
On Friday, Donald Trump barred citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries - Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen - from entering the United States for at least the next 90 days.

He also suspended the US refugee program for 120 days, specifically banning Syrian refugees until further notice, reduced the number of refugees who would be admitted this year to 50,000 and specified that refugees who were from a religious minority and fleeing religious persecution should be prioritised.

A federal judge has blocked part of Trump's executive order , ruling that travelers who have already landed in the US with valid visas should not be sent back to their home countries, and protests in response to passport holders from some Arab countries, including US green card holders, being blocked from passing through customs or prevented from boarding US-bound planes, have taken place at airports across the country.

But this is not the first time that the US has banned immigrants from its shores. Over the past 200 years, successive American presidents have placed restrictions on the immigration of certain groups.

Comment: Trump immigration order is (kinda) similar to Obama's 2011 Iraqi refugee ban but. . .

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Star of David

Britain's Israeli lobby and the "taking down" of government officials

Philip Giraldi
The Unz Review
Tue, 31 Jan 2017 22:31 UTC
Israel flag British Parliament
Israel conspires against the Mother of Parliaments

A quite incredible story out of England has not received much media coverage in the United States. It concerns how the Israeli Embassy in London connived with government officials to "take down" parliamentarians and government ministers who were considered to be critical of the Jewish State. It was also learned that the Israeli Embassy was secretly subsidizing and advising private groups promoting Israeli interests, including associations of Members of Parliament (MPs). The story is interesting on several levels, particularly given the recent furor in the U.S. over allegations that Russia has been interfering in American politics.

By way of comparison, though no evidence has been provided to support the claim, Russia allegedly arranged for a hack into the Democratic National Committee server to obtain factual information potentially embarrassing to the Hillary Clinton campaign. The information was then made public and may have influenced how some Americans voted.

Compare that to what has been going on meanwhile in Britain, where an Israeli Embassy diplomat named Shai Masot, "an officer in the Israel Defense Forces and...serving as a senior political officer at the London Embassy," was meeting with Maria Strizzolo, a senior British civil servant who was formerly chief of staff to Conservative parliamentarian and ardent Zionist Robert Halfon. Masot is certainly an intelligence officer under diplomatic cover. Masot and Strizzolo's candid discussion, which was secretly recorded by al-Jazeera, related specifically to getting rid of Foreign Office Minister Sir Alan Duncan, regarded as a supporter of an independent Palestinian state.
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Brick Wall

In 2006, Democrats were saying 'build that fence!'

Annie Linskey
The Boston Globe
Fri, 27 Jan 2017 00:00 UTC
border patrol agent Mexico-US border
© CHRISTIAN TORRES/ASSOCIATED PRESSAn agent of the border patrol, observed near the Mexico-US border fence, on the Mexican side, separating the towns of Anapra, Mexico and Sunland Park, New Mexico, this week.
As a senator, Barack Obama once offered measured praise for the border control legislation that would become the basis for one of Donald Trump's first acts as president.

"The bill before us will certainly do some good," Obama said on the Senate floor in October 2006. He praised the legislation, saying it would provide "better fences and better security along our borders" and would "help stem some of the tide of illegal immigration in this country."

Obama was talking about the Secure Fence Act of 2006, legislation authorizing a barrier along the southern border passed into law with the support of 26 Democratic senators including party leaders like Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Chuck Schumer.

Now it's become the legal mechanism for Trump to order construction of a wall between the United States and Mexico, attempting tomake good on a key promise from the campaign trail. Trump specifically cited the law in the first sentence of Wednesday's executive order authorizing the wall.
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Newspaper

Intel source: Steve Bannon Is making sure there's no White house paper trail

Kate Brannen
Just Security
Mon, 30 Jan 2017 00:00 UTC
Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus
© Drew Angerer/Getty
If there was any question about who is largely in charge of national security behind the scenes at the White House, the answer is becoming increasingly clear: Steve Bannon, the former head of Breitbart News, a far-right media outlet, and now White House advisor.

Even before he was given a formal seat on the National Security Council's "principals committee" this weekend by President Donald Trump, Bannon was calling the shots and doing so with little to no input from the National Security Council staff, according to an intelligence official who asked not to be named out of fear of retribution.

"He is running a cabal, almost like a shadow NSC," the official said. He described a work environment where there is little appetite for dissenting opinions, shockingly no paper trail of what's being discussed and agreed upon at meetings, and no guidance or encouragement so far from above about how the National Security Council staff should be organized.
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Black Cat 2

Dangerous political operative... or some kind of maverick? Who is Steve Bannon anyway?

Joshua Green
Bloomberg
Thu, 08 Oct 2015 20:34 UTC
steve bannon
Steve Bannon

Comment: This bio was penned long before Trump's election, and long before Steve Bannon joined Trump's election campaign. If the media was weary of him before, they absolutely revile him now. Bloomberg's title for this piece was 'This Man Is the Most Dangerous Political Operative in America'...


It's nearing midnight as Steve Bannon pushes past the bluegrass band in his living room and through a crowd of Republican congressmen, political operatives, and a few stray Duck Dynasty cast members. He's trying to make his way back to the SiriusXM Patriot radio show, broadcasting live from a cramped corner of the 14-room townhouse he occupies a stone's throw from the Supreme Court. It's late February, the annual Conservative Political Action Conference is in full swing, and Bannon, as usual, is the whirlwind at the center of the action.

Bannon is the executive chairman of Breitbart News, the crusading right-wing populist website that's a lineal descendant of the Drudge Report (its late founder, Andrew Breitbart, spent years apprenticing with Matt Drudge) and a haven for people who think Fox News is too polite and restrained. He'd spent the day at CPAC among the conservative faithful, zipping back and forth between his SiriusXM booth and an unlikely pair of guests he was squiring around: Nigel Farage, the leader of Britain's right-wing UKIP party, and Phil Robertson, the bandanna'd, ayatollah-bearded Duck Dynasty patriarch who was accepting a free-speech award. CPAC is a beauty contest for Republican presidential hopefuls. But Robertson, a novelty adornment invited after A&E suspended him for denouncing gays, delivered a wild rant about "beatniks" and sexually transmitted diseases that upstaged them all, to Bannon's evident delight. "If there's an explosion or a fire somewhere," says Matthew Boyle, Breitbart's Washington political editor, "Steve's probably nearby with some matches." Afterward, everyone piled into party buses and headed for the townhouse.

Comment: Breitbart, by the way, was conceived in Israel, a fact its founders are proud of. Furthermore, as one Jewish publication noted:
Breitbart News, which became a mouthpiece for the Trump campaign, was actually started by a Jewish lawyer and businessman, Larry Solov. In addition to reporters in London and the United States, the site has a small Jerusalem bureau, which is helmed by journalist Aaron Klein.
In this pre-election article on the Breitbart-Netanyahu connection, a Haaretz journalist concludes:
Netanyahu put all his eggs in the GOP basket, but a Trump defeat could unravel it altogether. Thus, it's not too far fetched to imagine that at nights Netanyahu might sometimes dreams of an October surprise that will be followed by November sensation, in which Trump is elected with the help of an Islamic-bashing and Netanyahu-adoring wave, guided along by Breitbart's Bannon and the website itself. If such a fantastic scenario materializes, the supposedly routine meeting between Netanyahu and Breitbart in Jerusalem nearly a decade ago will suddenly seem, with the benefit of hindsight, as truly historic.
Little wonder then that Netanyahu told 60 Minutes - just as the US media began screaming 'anti-Semitism!' after Trump's victory - that he wasn't worried about the new administration.

They may have a handle on Bannon then, but the question remains; do they have the same on Trump?

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Snakes in Suits

Ukraine's offensive 'aimed at preventing Russian sanctions being lifted' provokes criticism instead

Alexander Mercouris
The Duran
Wed, 01 Feb 2017 22:21 UTC
Poroshenko and Merkel
Ukrainian offensive in Avdeevka criticized in Western capitals as an attempt to prevent Trump administration lifting sanctions on Russia, with Germany expressing concerns it may backfire.

Just a few days ago on RT's Crosstalk program Peter Lavelle, myself and the two other guests, Dmitry Babich and Ed Lozansky, discussed the Ukrainian regime's likely reaction to the new Trump administration.

We all agreed that the likely response of the Ukrainian regime to the steps the Trump administration is taking to try to patch up US relations with Russia would be to escalate military tensions in the Donbass with a view in part to bolstering its political support in the West as this appeared to slide.

Our discussion took place in the early stages of the latest Ukrainian military offensive near the village of Avdeevka in eastern Ukraine. Since we had our discussion the situation has escalated - exactly as we predicted - with the fighting becoming fiercer and more bitter.
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Георгиевская ленточка

NatWest caves on closing RT's accounts - 'result of meeting between May, Trump'


Sputnik
Wed, 01 Feb 2017 22:20 UTC
RT logo
© RT
Former vice-president of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Willy Wimmer views NatWest's decision not to block the RT broadcaster's accounts as a positive political development.

Earlier, it was reported that Britain's National Westminster Bank, also known as NatWest, will not close the accounts of Russia's RT broadcaster in the United Kingdom, thus abandoning its previous decision.

"That is great, also in terms of the media situation in Europe, when British financial institutions give up their chain measures against RT. It was just a British attempt to get rid of an undesirable and very efficient Russian information channel," Wimmer told Sputnik Germany.

According to the expert, the decision could have been made after the recent meeting between British Prime Minister Theresa May and US president Donald Trump last Friday.

"The measures taken against RT should be considered in the overall political context of the conflict [...] with the Russian Federation. However, if the United Kingdom, the most faithful of the United States' poodles now submits such signals with respect to RT, it is, in my view, an event of great political importance," Wimmer stated.

Comment:

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Vader

Trump's National Security Adviser Flynn threatens war with Iran after adversary's successful ballistic missile test


RT
Wed, 01 Feb 2017 21:53 UTC
General Michael Flynn
© Carlos Barria / Reuters"I came, I saw, Iran." National security adviser General Michael Flynn should take a chill pill.
Washington has put Tehran on 'official notice' over its recent ballistic missile test, with White House National Security Advisor, Mike Flynn describing it as provocative and destabilizing the situation across the Middle East.

The Trump administration "condemns such actions by Iran that undermine security, prosperity and stability throughout and beyond the Middle East that puts American lives at risk," Flynn told reporters Wednesday.

Reuters reported that an anonymous White House official said the missile test was carried out on Sunday from a site near Semnan, east of Tehran.

Comment: What's really going on here is that the Empire is stunned that the Yemeni Houthis are putting up such impressive resistance against the Saudis. The 'Saudis', of course, aren't really the Saudis; they're a Western-Gulf Monarchy Alliance against the poorest country in the Middle East, using mainly US military tech and intel. That's why the US took it so personally when the Houthis hit a 'Saudi' warship, and that's why they've sent in Special Forces (assassins) to 'take out al-Qaeda' (actually, the Yemeni resistance).

For all the bluster about people like Flynn being 'isolationist' and 'pro-Russia', they're starting to look like the same old Western imperialists.

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Footprints

Russia: Biggest arctic military expansion since USSR

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Mon, 30 Jan 2017 10:56 UTC
Russian troops reindeer
© Lev Fedoseyev/Ministry of Defence of the Russian FederationRussian servicemen from the Northern Fleet's Arctic mechanized infantry brigade ride a reindeer sled while participating in a military drill near Murmansk, Russia.
In what will likely be interpreted as the latest "test" by the Kremlin to gauge western military preparedness, Reuters reports that Russia has quietly unleashed the biggest military build up targeting the Arctic since the fall of the Soviet Union. "It is part of a push to firm Moscow's hand in the High North as it vies for dominance with traditional rivals Canada, the United States, and Norway as well as newcomer China." It is also part of the ongoing scramble for resources above the commodity rich arctic circle.

As Reuters notes, under Putin, Moscow is scrambling to re-open abandoned Soviet military, air and radar bases on remote Arctic islands and to build new ones, as it pushes ahead with a claim to almost half a million square miles of the Arctic. It regularly releases pictures of its troops training in white fatigues, wielding assault rifles as they zip along on sleighs pulled by reindeer.
Russia arctic expansion
© Reuters

Comment: "These Arctic bases are on our territory. Unlike some other countries we are not building them overseas." Russia has a right to develop self-interests on their own land. A clear channel in the Arctic would be a boon to trade, especially if there is an ice age around the corner. Should NATO increase its paranoia and Trump lose his edge, a fight over territory will be a sad and different matter.

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Gold Seal

Where were the liberal tears during Obama's wars?

Mike Whitney
Counterpunch
Thu, 26 Jan 2017 21:07 UTC
Obama flag
© Marc Nozel
The election of Donald Trump has sent millions of people pouring out onto the streets to protest a man they think is a racist, misogynist, xenophobic bully who will destroy US democracy in his quest to establish himself as supreme fascist ruler of the country.

Maybe they're right. Maybe Trump is a fascist who will destroy America. But where were these people when Obama was bombing wedding parties in Kandahar, or training jihadist militants to fight in Syria, or abetting NATO's destructive onslaught on Libya, or plunging Ukraine into fratricidal warfare, or collecting the phone records of innocent Americans, or deporting hundreds of thousands of undocumented workers, or force-feeding prisoners at Gitmo, or providing bombs and aircraft to the Saudis to continue their genocidal war against Yemen?

Where were they?

They were asleep, weren't they? Because liberals always sleep when their man is in office, particularly if their man is a smooth-talking cosmopolitan snake-charmer like Obama who croons about personal freedom and democracy while unleashing the most unspeakable violence on civilians across the Middle East and Central Asia.
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