US President Donald Trump's hosting of Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May was billed as the "odd-couple" meeting. After their amiable press conference and Trump's remarkably subdued behavior - for him - the British leader is entitled to feel satisfied.

Before arriving in the US for her meeting with Trump, his first official engagement with any foreign leader, May was reportedly under pressure at home. This was made all the more acute when Trump fired up a storm with Mexico and Arab countries by imposing controversial immigration restrictions and made comments favoring outlawed torture methods. She was accused of "groveling."

It seemed like prudish May, the daughter of an English vicar who has been likened to a staid headmistress, was careening for a public relations disaster with the brash billionaire reality TV star turned president.

On her way to Washington DC, she even hinted at bracing for an odd-couple challenge, by telling reporters, "sometimes opposites attract."

Curiously, when the two leaders gave a press conference in the East Wing of the White House, it seemed that the "headmistress" had indeed put the unruly Trump on his best behavior. American media remarked with astonishment how "subdued" the president was. He was personable, polite, kept to the script, and managed to not insult anyone. Trump, the tetchy big-mouth, had been tamed, it seemed.

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Many in the mainstream media are reacting with righteous indignation over comments from a senior Trump adviser suggesting the administration views the traditional media as an opponent. But if we're to take these apostles of press freedom seriously, they should first explain why the Trump Administration is worse than the Obama Administration.

After all, the Obama Administration literally tried imprisoning an uncooperative journalist, monitored journalists' every digital move, and "hammered" at least one challenging reporter with IRS audits.

Let's rewind the tape.

The Obama Administration began with lofty promises of being "the most transparent administration in history." Instead it ended up setting a record, by the Associated Press's count, for denying the most Freedom of Information Act requests.

US President Donald Trump criticized two leading US newspapers on Saturday of wrongful and biased coverage of his political activity, accusing them of fabrications.

"The failing @nytimes has been wrong about me from the very beginning. Said I would lose the primaries, then the general election. FAKE NEWS! ..." Trump said in a series of messages via Twitter.



President Donald Trump said in an interview scheduled to air on the Christian Broadcast Network (CBN) on Sunday that he thinks of the US mainstream corporate media as being the opposition party because of its deliberately biased reporting.

Trump has consistently called the press dishonest and promoting fake news since he started his presidential campaign and after winning the November 8 presidential election.

Stephen Bannon Is 100% Correct—The Media Is Now The Political Opposition

Bannon is correct that the US media—indeed, the entire Western print and TV media—is nothing but a propaganda machine for the ruling elite. The presstitutes are devoid of integrity, moral conscience, and respect for truth.

Who else but the despicable Western media justified the enormous war crimes committed against millions of peoples by the Clinton, Bush, and Obama regimes in nine countries—Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Yemen, Syria, Somalia, Palestine, and the Russian areas of Ukraine?

Who else but the despicable Western media justified the domestic police states that have been erected in the Western world in the name of the "war on terror"?

Along with the war criminals that comprised the Clinton, Bush, and Obama regimes, the Western media should be tried for their complicity in the massive crimes against humanity.

According to our friends at the Daily Beast and Business Insider, "Russia is collaborating with the Taliban, woe is us". Not quite. Just when you thought the media couldn't get any more cancerous, they hit you with this:
Please. Just stop.

You are not hallucinating: This is an actual news article, claiming that Russia is in bed with the Taliban, which is super, super bad because — wait for it — the Taliban are basically now al Qaeda. We thought al Qaeda affiliates such as al Nusra were "moderate"?

Introduction:

During his inaugural speech, President Trump clearly and forcefully outlined the strategic political-economic policies he will pursue over the next four years. Anti-Trump journalist, editorialists, academics and experts, who appear in the Financial Times, New York Times, Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal have repeatedly distorted and lied about the President's program as well as his critique of existing and past policies.

We will begin by seriously discussing President Trump's critique of the contemporary political economy and proceed to elaborate on his alternatives and its weaknesses.

President Trump's Critique of the Ruling Class

The centerpiece of Trump's critique of the current ruling elite is the negative impact of its form of globalization on US production, trade and fiscal imbalances and on the labor market. Trump cites the fact that US industrial capitalism has drastically shifted the locus of its investments, innovations and profits overseas as an example of globalization's negative effects. For two decades many politicians and pundits have bemoaned the loss of well-paid jobs and stable local industries as part of their campaign rhetoric or in public meetings, but none have taken any effective action against these most harmful aspects of globalization. Trump denounced them as "all talk and no action" while promising to end the empty speeches and implement major changes.

President Trump targeted importers who bring in cheap products from overseas manufacturers for the American market undermining US producers and workers. His economic strategy of prioritizing US industries is an implicit critique of the shift from productive capital to financial and speculative capital under the previous four administrations. His inaugural address attacking the elites who abandon the 'rust belt' for Wall Street is matched by his promise to the working class: "Hear these words! You will never be ignored again." Trump's own words portray the ruling class 'as pigs at the trough' (Financial Times, 1/23/2017, p. 11)

With the new global rules of 2017, while the world is turning right at the biggest moment in world history, what role should Thailand play?

HIGHLIGHT:

• From the Brexit phenomenon to the electoral victory of President Donald Trump and the rise of right political parties of all over Europe affecting 'right populism' around the world.
• In 2017, there will be general elections in France and Germany. If the right parties win the elections, this will be the biggest moment of turning right in the world. Even in the World War II, it was not all Europe that turned right, nor the United States.
• The trend of turning to right populism in powerful countries affects the global rules of the liberalism which we have gotten used to. It affects the world in terms of security, international commerce, and the international agreements between countries on all sides.
• The coming trend of right populism shows that the global rules of liberalism have some errors and cannot answer some questions such as unemployment and the ever-widening gap between the poor and the rich.
• The right political parties in Europe and Latin America are those whose policies answer the problems of the lower class of society that make up their electorate. Meanwhile, the right political Thai parties depend on the authoritarian regime in order to wield power.

In the city of Bakhchisaray in Crimea, Russian FSB officers liquidated a cell of the terrorist organization Hizb ut-Tahrir during a special operation on January 26th. The day before, on January 25th, the FSB, together with the law enforcement authorities of Tatarstan, arrested a group of Islamists from Hizb ut-Tahrir who were preparing a terrorist attack on the aircraft factory of Kazan. Last year, the terrorists' funding channels in the republic were uncovered and 13 criminal cases were opened against 30 members of Hizb ut-Tahrir, 26 of whom are being prosecuted as participants in terrorist activities in Syria.

The terrorist grouping known as the Islamic State is trying to unleash a civil war in our country by using the potential of ideologically close religious and extremist organizations, including Hizb ut-Tahrir.

In December 2016, during large-scale raids in Moscow and its suburbs by the FSB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and Russia's National Guard, more than ten extremists were neutralized.

In November in Saint Petersburg, several members of the city cell of the same terrorist organization were neutralized after planning to repeat the 2015 Paris terror attacks (with explosions and automatic gunfire) in Russia's northern capital.

In September, FSB officers arrested 135 foreigners in Moscow and the Moscow region who were preparing terrorist attacks in Ufa. In August in the Tyumen, Chelyabinsk, and Sverdlovsk regions, as a result of a large-scale operation at 16 addresses at once, more than 96 recruiters and propagandists of ISIS - natives of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan but all Russian citizens - were arrested.

In July in Tver, ISIS recruiters from Central Asia were arrested. The visitors were looking for "specialists" to be sent to the war in Syria and collected information on Russian airports.

In May, the FSB thwarted a terrorist attack on the Immortal Regiment march in Moscow. 12 natives of the Central Asian republics were arrested who had received instructions from Turkey and Syria.

The invisible war continues.

Moscow is seriously concerned with the arrest of RT America's Alexander Rubinstein at an anti-Trump protest, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Friday, adding that the journalist was simply doing his duty as a reporter.

"As for the situation with the Russia Today correspondent, it causes serious concern. I'm referring to RT America's correspondent Alexander Rubinstein. He was detained by Washington police on Friday, 20 January, when covering a protest against US President Donald Trump on the day of his inauguration," Zakharova said in a briefing.

"The correspondent was performing his professional duty, he had a press card with him, and nonetheless, Alexander Rubinstein was in police custody for almost 24 hours," Zakharova said, adding that the preliminary hearing in his case is scheduled for February 16.

After Rubinstein was arrested together with other journalists and protesters, he was charged with inciting a riot. Along with other reporters he was released the following day. However, the charges against Rubinstein and several other reporters remain in force, which means they could face up to 10 years in jail or a $25,000 fine if found guilty.

The Russian Foreign Minister says Washington's longstanding practice of "ideologically motivated operations to topple undesirable regimes" has failed in Syria.

As a seasoned diplomat, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov knows when to keep his mouth shut. This is perhaps the greatest difference between Washington and Moscow: The Russians know that actions speak louder than words.

When the Kremlin does make extremely pointed remarks, you can bet they are backed by sober analysis, the "facts on the ground."

So it's with great pleasure that we report Lavrov's most recent and incredibly blunt remarks about Washington's failed attempt to turn Syria into the next Libya:

According to Lavrov, the supporters of "messianically imposing their own ultra-liberal values, changing sovereign countries' political systems, among them through ideologically motivated operations to topple undesirable regimes," gained the upper hand in the West some time ago. "The failure of such attempts is obvious, but they will be dealing with the aftermath for a very long time," he emphasized.

The aftermath Lavrov is referring to has several layers to it. The most obvious consequence of Washington's actions in Syria is a massive humanitarian crisis that will take decades to fully rectify. Hundreds of thousands dead. Millions of refugees. A huge swath of the country's critical infrastructure destroyed completely. As Lavrov puts it:

Outside interference turned the region into a space of chaos and anarchy, with numerous radicals immediately taking advantage of this," the minister explained. "Hence, the weakening or collapse of statehood in a number of countries, an unprecedented surge in international terrorism and extremism, and the large-scale migrant crisis that has engulfed Europe.