Puppet MastersS


Jet1

Russian long-range bombers target ISIS positions in Deir ez-Zor, Syria


RT
Sat, 21 Jan 2017 16:06 UTC
Russian Tu-22M long-range strategic and maritime strike bomber
© Evgeny Biyatov / Sputnik
Russia deployed six long-range supersonic Tupolev Tu-22M3 bombers from Russian territory to strike Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) targets in the Syrian governorate of Deir ez-Zor, the Russian Defense Ministry reported on Saturday.

The bombers hit militant base camps, weapon stockpiles, and armored vehicles, the report said.

Russian fighter jets scrambled from the Khmeimim Air Base in Syria, providing air cover for the bombing sortie, it added.

The report comes amid intensive fighting in Deir ez-Zor between government forces and IS, which apparently seeks to capture the provincial capital.
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Chart Pie

Mark Zuckerberg is suing native Hawaiians for his 'piece of paradise'

Nathan Wellman
usuncut.com
Thu, 19 Jan 2017 14:36 UTC
facebook
Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg ended 2016 by suing hundreds of people native to Hawaii, apparently so that he can have 700 acres of land all to himself.

The billionaire's lawsuit, filed on December 30th, was the culmination of a three year effort by Zuckerberg to acquire a list of names of the people who also have rights to pieces of a 700 acre tract of land on the island of Kauai - for which Zuckerberg spent $100 million back in 2014.

Hawaiian property laws are tricky, largely the result of inheritance policies put in place back when it was still a kingdom in the 1800's. Put simply, hundreds of Hawaiians often own a part of the same land.

Comment: Read more about billionaire tech entrepreneurs buying their piece of paradise: A billionaire's Hawaii could displace longtime Lanai residents
This is Larry Ellison's Lanai: 140 square miles of personal paradise, save for 3,000 deep-rooted residents. Ellison, a tech entrepreneur and the fifth richest person in the world, owns 97 percent of the island, the sixth-largest Hawaiian island, including a third of the housing, the water utility and a pair of resorts that are Lanai's economic engine. He bought the land and properties in a single real estate deal in 2012.


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Hourglass

Eight of the most unhinged inaugural media meltdowns

Jim Stinson
PoliZette
Fri, 20 Jan 2017 01:19 UTC
Trump walks
© ABC News
Press used historic moment to wish ill on Trump's supporters, whine about Hillary and more...

Donald Trump is now the 45th president of the United States, having been sworn in by John Roberts, chief justice of the United States. At least the hysterical denial and anger from his detractors and the media is over. Maybe.

But as the moment approached, many in the mainstream media could not help themselves and disgraced journalism and themselves with over-the-top pronouncements of alarm and bitterness. They fretted. They sweated. They worried. And, of course, they made outrageous comments about Trump as the sand in the hourglass ran out.

'I Wish You Pain, Trumpers'

Chauncey DeVega of Salon wrote of Trump supporters, "They made a decision that loyalty to whiteness took precedence to a shared sense of humanity and the Common Good." Therefore, they almost deserve to suffer, he wrote.

"The butcher's bill has come due: President Donald Trump is about to victimize his own voters," Salon titled his essay.

"Our new president's supporters are likely to suffer from his regressive policies. My compassion is limited," DeVega wrote. "This is my version of liberal Schadenfreude — with slightly more hostile intent."

Comment: Pathetic. It was these sorts of media outlets that primed the pump and supported the climate of corruption and disintegration seen in the last couple of decades in American politics, policy and actions. They helped sow what they refuse to see.

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Calendar

Putin ready to meet Trump, preparations may take months

Katya Golubkova
Reuters
Sat, 21 Jan 2017 07:26 UTC
Trumputin
© Aleksey Nikolskyi/Getty Images/Jim Watson/Getty Images
Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to meet U.S. President Donald Trump but preparations for the possible meeting may take months, not weeks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying by TASS news agency.

Donald Trump took power as the 45th president of the United States on Friday after winning the presidential contest against Hillary Clinton. Russia-U.S. relations were at their lowest since the Cold War under Barack Obama administration, with tensions around conflict in Ukraine and Syria crisis. "This will not be in coming weeks, let's hope for the best - that the meeting will happen in the coming months," Peskov told BBC, according to TASS.

Some of Trump's opponents believe the Kremlin helped him win the White House by staging a hacking campaign to hoover up embarrassing information about Clinton, his rival. The Kremlin denies that, saying that U.S. Democratic party used hacking allegations as an excuse for losing to Trump.

Putin and other high-ranked Russian officials have publicly praised Trump, expecting him to lift U.S. sanctions on Moscow, first put in place in 2014 after Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine.

Peskov said that it would be "a big mistake" to think that Russia-U.S. relations will be "free of contradictions and disputes," during a Trump presidency. "We indeed are the two biggest countries in the world. And we can't live without frictions, conflict of interests," Peskov was quoted by Interfax was saying on Saturday.
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Attention

India deploying hundreds of main battle tanks along border with Pakistan


RT
Sat, 21 Jan 2017 14:16 UTC
Indian Army T-90 battle tank
© Sam Panthaky / AFP
India is preparing to deploy more than 460 main battle tanks (MBTs) along its border with Pakistan, substantially increasing its already sizable tank force there.

Senior defense officials confirmed to IHS Jane 360, the Indian army's plans to deploy the newly ordered T-90MS MBTs along India's western and northern borders with Pakistan.

The move comes months after Pakistan threatened India with a nuclear attack prompting speculation that the move is part of India's unofficial 'Cold Start' strategy.
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USA

Rasmussen daily Presidential Tracking Poll


Rasmussen Reports
Fri, 20 Jan 2017 13:41 UTC
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows that 56% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President-elect Trump's job performance. Forty-four percent (44%) disapprove.

Eighty-five percent (85%) of Republicans and 55% of unaffiliated voters approve of the job Trump is doing. Seventy percent (70%) of Democrats disapprove.

The latest figures include 38% of all likely voters who Strongly Approve of the way Trump is performing and 36% who Strongly Disapprove. This gives him a Presidential Approval Index rating of +2 (see trends).

Regular updates are posted Monday through Friday at 9:30 a.m. Eastern (sign up for free daily e-mail update).

When Barack Obama was sworn in as president on January 20, 2009, 67% of likely voters approved of his job performance; 31% disapproved.

While most pollsters miscalled the presidential election, Rasmussen Reports called it right.

Voter attitudes about Trump have changed little since Thanksgiving, with just over half of voters continuing to give him favorable marks.

Welcome to Trump's America.
Trump approval rating
© Rasmussen Reports
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Quenelle

The 'Trump Team' begins arriving at the White House

Sarah Wheaton
Politico
Sat, 21 Jan 2017 13:44 UTC
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump (L) and Vice President-elect Mike Pence (R) greet retired Marine General James Mattis
© Mike Segar / Reuters
President Donald Trump's staff started arriving at the White House less than two hours after their boss took the oath of office.

Raj Shah, a new deputy communications director, showed reporters his teal-blue badge (in contrast to the Obama administration's royal blue hard passes) and said he was on hand "literally to hit 'send' on things." Indeed, the prepared text of Trump's inaugural speech and the first White House pool report landed in inboxes from a White House press address labeled "OCIO."

It's unclear how many others will make it onto the White House campus on Friday, Shah said. Vans have been carrying staffers over from the transition offices, "a bunch of NSC staff, primarily," he said, referring to the National Security Council.

Comment: For more on Trump's transition check out:

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Blackbox

Ukrainian MP Savchenko calls for Ukraine to 'recover Donbass by renouncing Crimea'

Tom Winter (translator)
Sputnik France / Fort Russ
Sat, 21 Jan 2017 12:59 UTC
savchenko
© RadioSvoboda/RFE/RL
Ukrainian MP Nadezhda Savchenko, known for her involvement in the murder of Russian journalists, has proposed a settlement plan for the Ukrainian conflict: recognition of the Crimea by Kiev in exchange for a Donbass with which Moscow has nothing to do ...

Kiev could recover the Donbass by renouncing the Crimea, said the deputy of the Rada (Ukrainian parliament) Nadezhda Savtchenko in an interview with Ukraine channel 112.

According to the parliamentarian -- who was previously condemned in Russia in a murder case involving two Russian journalists and pardoned by a decree of the Russian president -- "no matter how long the deputies shout and tear their shirts," it will be necessary to renounce the Crimea "for a while."
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Gold Seal

Donald Trump's Inauguration Day speech was all about problem solving

Adam Garrie
The Duran
Sat, 21 Jan 2017 12:59 UTC
Donald Trump
© Lucy Nicholson / Reuters
Donald Trump's speech was that of a pragmatic problem solver, not one of a man who thinks America is as perfect as North Korean leaders see their state.

Inauguration speeches are supposed to be about how perfect America is.

Inauguration speeches are also supposed to be about how American can be even more perfect under the leadership of the new President.

Inauguration speeches are supposed to be pompous, vague and full of platitudes.

Donald Trump shattered each of these expatiations in a speech that appealed to reality rather than some cartoon image of an America where Superman is in charge, the rivers flow with coca-cola and happy endings are there at the start.

Comment: Further reading: Trump's Declaration of War
President Trump's brief inaugural speech was a declaration of war against the entirety of the American Ruling Establishment. All of it.

Trump made it abundantly clear that Americans' enemies are right here at home: globalists, neoliberal economists, neoconservatives and other unilateralists accustomed to imposing the US on the world and involving us in endless and expensive wars, politicians who serve the Ruling Establishment rather than the American people, indeed, the entire canopy of private interests that have run America into the ground while getting rich in the process.


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Info

Kremlin spokesman Peskov: 'Months, not weeks' before a Trump-Putin meeting can be organized


RT
Sat, 21 Jan 2017 10:41 UTC
Russian President Vladimir Putin
© Sergei Ilnitsky / ReutersRussian President Vladimir Putin
It would take months rather than weeks to organize a meeting between US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

"It won't happens in a matter of weeks," Peskov said of a possible meeting between the two leaders, in an interview with the BBC. "Let's hope that it can happen in months to come."

Peskov added that no negotiations between Moscow and Washington on the matter were underway, but this may change once Trump and Putin have a phone conversation in the near future.

"President Putin will call President Trump after the inauguration to congratulate him. It's a protocol thing that has to be done," he said. "We expect that they may discuss their positions on a possible meeting."

Comment: See also: Is the Trump-Putin anti-ISIS coalition on the way?

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