Puppet MastersS


Smiley

Clinton Foundation may be dead but case against Killary marches on


Investors Business Daily
Mon, 23 Jan 2017 13:36 UTC
Bill Clinton Clinton Global Initiative
© APFormer U.S. President Bill Clinton walks on stage at the Clinton Global Initiative.
While everyone's been gearing up for President Trump's inauguration, the Clinton Foundation made a major announcement this week that went by with almost no notice: For all intents and purposes, it's closing its doors.

In a tax filing, the Clinton Global Initiative said it's firing 22 staffers and closing its offices, a result of the gusher of foreign money that kept the foundation afloat suddenly drying up after Hillary Clinton failed to win the presidency.

It proves what we've said all along: The Clinton Foundation was little more than an influence-peddling scheme to enrich the Clintons, and had little if anything to do with "charity," either overseas or in the U.S. That sound you heard starting in November was checkbooks being snapped shut in offices around the world by people who had hoped their donations would buy access to the next president of the United States.

Comment: Further reading: It only gets worse: Clinton Foundation investigations by IRS, FBI and Intelligence

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Snakes in Suits

Fear-mongering UK think-tank claims 'Russia could wipe us out in an afternoon'


RT
Mon, 23 Jan 2017 13:35 UTC
UK British soldiers
© Peter Nicholls / ReutersFILE PHOTO British soldiers
UK military capacity has been "hollowed out" to such an an extent, that it could lose its entire fighting force in a single engagement, should a "threat from the East" emerge, claims a new paper from the authoritative Centre for Historical Analysis and Conflict Research (CHACR).

The document was published following a two day gathering of Britain's leading military experts and officials.

Although the paper admits the country "might not be facing an immediate risk of a direct attack by a foreign state," it states there are"plausible scenarios" in which the UK could get dragged into a war - say with Russia - while supporting a NATO ally, for example, as cited by the Sunday Times, which exclusively trailed the document.
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Dollars

The sinister agenda behind the Washington war on cash

F. William Engdahl
New Eastern Outlook
Sat, 21 Jan 2017 14:50 UTC
Indian currency
It's kinda sneaking up on us like an East Texas copperhead pit viper. It began to get some wide attention in 2016, with prominent economists and financial media suddenly talking about the wonderful benefits of a "cashless society."

Then the government of Narenda Modi completely surprised his citizens by suddenly announcing withdrawal of larger denomination currency notes from circulation, forcing Indians to put their cash into banks or lose it. Now, everywhere we turn, it seems, someone is arguing the Nirvana benefits of a cashless, "digital" money world. It reminds me in an eerie way of a statement attributed to then US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger in the 1970's. He reportedly stated, "If you control oil, you control entire nations; if you control food, you control the people; if you control money, you control the entire world." Consider the following in this regard.
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Newspaper

Rex Tillerson seeks regime change in Venezuela, reform in Cuba


teleSUR
Sun, 22 Jan 2017 15:05 UTC
Rex Tillerson
© ReutersRex Tillerson testifies during a confirmation hearing.
The secretary of state nominee attacked both Venezuela and Cuba.

The new U.S. administration of Donald Trump has made it public that it will seek a regime change policy in Venezuela disguised in "transition to democracy" rhetoric, the country's potential new Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in an interview this week.

"If confirmed, I would urge close cooperation with our friends in the hemisphere, particularly Venezuela's neighbors Brazil and Colombia, as well as multilateral bodies such as the OAS, to seek a negotiated transition to democratic rule in Venezuela," the former executive in ExxonMobil told Latin America Goes Global.

He further claimed that the economic crisis in the oil-rich South American country was "largely a product of its incompetent and dysfunctional government, first under Hugo Chavez, and now under his designated successor, Nicolas Maduro."

The government of President Maduro has, however, blamed the recent crisis on an economic war by right-wing politicians as well as corporations who are hoarding products and halting production to put pressure on the socialist administration.

Meanwhile, Tillerson struck a less aggressive tone when pressed about how he would deal with the standoff between the government and the opposition-led national assembly in Venezuela.
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Info

US intervention in Syria? Not under Trump

Gareth Porter
Middle East Eye
Fri, 20 Jan 2017 23:22 UTC
Syrian army tank
© AFP
A new coalition of US-based organizations is pushing for a more aggressive US intervention against the Assad regime. But both the war in Syria and politics in the United States have shifted dramatically against this objective.

When it was formed last July, the coalition hoped that a Hillary Clinton administration would pick up its proposals for a more forward stance in support of the anti-Assad armed groups. But with Donald Trump in office instead, the supporters of a US war in Syria now have little or no chance of selling the idea.

One of the ways the group is adjusting to the new political reality is to package its proposal for deeper US military engagement on behalf of US-supported armed groups as part of a plan to counter al-Qaeda, now calling itself Jabhat Fateh al Sham.

But that rationale depends on a highly distorted presentation of the problematic relations between those supposedly "moderate" groups and al-Qaeda's Syrian offshoot.
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Info

Pope warns against Hitler-like leaders coming to power on wave of populism


RT
Sun, 22 Jan 2017 23:16 UTC
Pope Francis
© Max Rossi / Reuters
Pope Francis warned against populist leaders, saying that Germany came to elect one in 1933, and ended up with Adolf Hitler as its dictator.

"Crises provoke fear, alarm. In my opinion, the most common example of European populism is Germany in 1933... A people that was immersed in a crisis, that looked for its identity until this charismatic leader came and promised to give their identity back, and he gave them a distorted identity, and we all know what happened," he said in an interview with the Spanish newspaper El Pais.

"Hitler did not steal power," the Pope said. "He was elected by his people and then he destroyed his people."

"In times of crisis, we lack judgment, and that is a constant reference for me... That is why I always try to say: talk among yourselves, talk to one another," he added.

Comment: Yes, the elites are also worried: Davos elite seeks fixes to defend the system from populists

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Cow

SOTT Focus: MSM caught faking inauguration crowd size as CNN's president warns Trump his network will deliberately discredit him

Joe Quinn
Sott.net
Sun, 22 Jan 2017 23:52 UTC
Anyone who thought that the Western media would cease in its efforts to trash the image of President Trump after inauguration day was sorely mistaken. Trump had not even been sworn in before NY Times' Washington correspondent Binyamin Appelbaum disingenuously tweeted an image of the number of people at the inauguration, before Trump had even arrived, and negatively compared it to an image of Obama's inauguration in 2009.
Trump Obama inauguration pics
Note that the 2009 image is a Getty photo, whereas the 2017 image is a screenshot from a live video feed, which you can tell by the graphic across the bottom of the screen. When questioned about the relative timing of the two images, Appelbaum claimed that the 2009 image was taken at 11:30am, thus half an hour before the commencement of inauguration proceedings, and the 2017 image taken at 11:15am.
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Info

White House in early stages of moving embassy to Jerusalem


RFE/RL
Sun, 22 Jan 2017 22:07 UTC
Trump and Netanyahu
© Reuters
The United States says it is in the "very beginning" of discussing plans to move its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

The White House statement on January 22 comes amid media reports in Israel that U.S. President Donald Trump is on the verge of announcing the move.

Trump spoke the same day with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying only that the talks were "very nice."

Netanyahu said Trump had invited him to visit Washington next month and he had accepted the invitation. He said the two had a "very warm" phone conversation.

Comment: Some Arab nations are not happy with this possible move:

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Info

Turkey's Erdogan on brink of becoming its executive President

Alexander Mercouris
The Duran
Sun, 22 Jan 2017 21:56 UTC
Erdogan
As Turkey's economic and security situations continue to deteriorate, Turkish President Erdogan continues to concentrate ever more power in his hands.

The Turkish parliament has now passed amendments to amend Turkey's constitution to convert Turkey from a parliamentary to a Presidential republic. These amendments must now be put to a vote in a referendum. Though victory is not assured, most observers agree they are likely to pass.


Comment: Turkish MPs back constitutional reform triggering referendum on sweeping powers for Erdogan


If the amendments do pass they will at one level simply formalize what is already the actual situation. Though President Erdogan is not nominally the head of Turkey's government, he is universally considered both within Turkey and outside to be Turkey's leader. It is President Erdogan, not Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım, whom Russian President Putin chooses to call when he wishes to discuss bilateral relations or the situation in Syria. The truth is that Erdogan dominates Turkey politically to an extent that no Turkish leader has done since the death of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
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Blue Planet

Will Trump presidency mark a decisive turning point in U.S. history?

Robert David Steele
Defence and Intelligence Norway
Wed, 18 Jan 2017 21:42 UTC
trump inauguration
© Andrew Harnik/Associated Press
The election of Donald Trump against all odds (20-1 at best, 200-1 at worst) could go down in history as the turning point in Western civilization. Bracketed on one end by Brexit and on the other by the looming collapse of the European cartel mis-named the European Union, this election has seen three sacred cows gored deeply, perhaps to the death.

The US secret intelligence community bet everything on de-legitimizing Donald Trump by claiming that secret sources and methods demonstrated that the Russians hacked the US election. The evidence has not been forthcoming, and there has been such a powerful collection of voices to the contrary that it is the secret world that has de-legitimized itself, at least in the USA.

The US mainstream and progressive media bet everything on the assumption that Hillary Clinton was the inevitable candidate, and in the process demonstrated such a bias against the winning candidate and such a blindness to the will of the public that the US media is now called "fake news" - the public rejects the assertion that skeptical citizens are purveying "fake news."

The US political duopoly - the Republican and Democratic parties that some say are two wings of the same bird - fought against Donald Trump to the very end. Julian Assange has promised an exciting 2017 - some expect him to do to the Republicans what he did to the Democrats. Political parties are now impotent.

For those in Europe who worry about what an "unshackled" Donald Trump might do to America - and to America's relations with Europe - it may be helpful to reflect on the fact that Trump has spoken clearly about being against war and waste; against trade deals with secret clauses that disadvantage the public; and against political corruption - "play to pay." He is, in short, against conventional wisdom and against the "Establishment" that has spent centuries fencing the commons and marginalizing the individual citizen.

Comment: Should President Trump accomplish even half of the above, the world will be better off.

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