Puppet MastersS


Eye 2

Ever the opportunist, war criminal Kissinger is cozying up to Trump

Nahal Toosi and Isaac Arnsdorf
Politico
Sat, 24 Dec 2016 15:51 UTC
kissinger
© associatd PressWar criminal Henry Kissinger has been promoting himself as a potential intermediary between a Trump White House and Russia.
America's pre-eminent ex-diplomat gets back in the mix. Could he help broker a deal with Russia?

Back in the 1990s, Henry Kissinger, the legendary former U.S. secretary of state-turned-global consultant, encountered an intriguing young Russian and proceeded to ask him a litany of questions about his background.

"I worked in intelligence," Vladimir Putin finally told him, according to First Person, a 2000 autobiography cobbled together from hours of interviews with the then-unfamiliar Russian leader. To which Kissinger replied: "All decent people got their start in intelligence. I did, too."

As Putin climbed the ranks in the Kremlin, eventually becoming the autocratic president he is today, he and Kissinger kept up a warm rapport even as the United States and Russia grew further apart. Kissinger is one of the few Americans to meet frequently with Putin, one former U.S. ambassador recently recalled -- along with movie star Steven Seagal and ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, the likely next secretary of state.

Now, as Donald Trump signals that he wants a more cooperative relationship with Moscow, the 93-year-old Kissinger is positioning himself as a potential intermediary — meeting with the president-elect in private and flattering him in public. Like Trump, Kissinger has also cast doubt on intelligence agencies' conclusion that Russia sought to sway the election in Trump's favor, telling a recent interviewer: "They were hacking, but the use they allegedly made of this hacking eludes me."

Comment: Kissinger has indeed been putting on the charm offensive with Trump, whose thinking has parallels with his own: Putin has a fairly close relationship with Kissinger, but it it likely cautious and ever-mindful of this war criminal's pernicious activities. Hopefully Trump will not be dazzled by the Kissinger persona, and delve into the real history of his would-be advisor.

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Dollars

Goldman-Sachs caught manipulating US dollar: No one arrested, slap on wrist instead

Jack Burns
The Free Thought Project
Sat, 24 Dec 2016 15:53 UTC
Fresh minted US $100 dollar bills
The same company that paid Hillary Clinton nearly $700,000, for three one-hour speeches, has now been ordered to pay a nine-figure sum for currency market manipulation.

Goldman-Sachs was ordered to pay 120 million, "to settle charges that it often tried to manipulate a global dollar benchmark for interest rate products over a five-year period," according to Reuters.

The investment corporation was levied the "civil penalty to settle charges that it often tried to manipulate a global dollar benchmark for interest rate products over a five-year period," the report states.

Citing the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's report, Reuters stated Goldman-Sachs engaged in its illegal activity in an attempt to "manipulate the U.S. Dollar International Swaps and Derivatives Association Fix benchmark," and was ordered to cease from doing so in the future by taking measures to prevent a recurrence.
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Arrow Down

Jason Miller turns down Trump White House job

Alex Isenstadt
Politico
Sun, 25 Dec 2016 15:58 UTC
Jason Miller
© GettyJason Miller, 41, informed top Trump officials of his decision on Friday night.
Jason Miller, who was tapped only two days ago to be White House communications director, announced Saturday that he will not join Donald Trump's administration.

In a statement to POLITICO, Miller said the decision to back out of the job stemmed from a need to spend more time with his family. He noted that he and his wife are expecting their second child next month.
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Newspaper

'Fake news' sparks nuclear threat between Pakistan and Israel


RT
Sun, 25 Dec 2016 15:42 UTC
Pakistan Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif
© Farooq Naeem / AFPPakistan Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif
The Pakistani defense minister threatened Israel with nuclear war on Twitter, apparently responding to information from a site known for peddling out-of-this-world conspiracy theories.

Pakistani Minister of Defense Khawaja Muhammad Asif tweeted a thinly-veiled threat towards Israel on Friday, "reminding" it that Pakistan is a nuclear power that will strike back if attacked.

Asif appeared to be reacting to an article from the website AWD, which claimed that Moshe Ya'alon, the Israeli defense minister, threatened to use nuclear weapons on Pakistan if the country sent troops into Syria.
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Георгиевская ленточка

Vladimir Putin's withering scorn for Barack Obama laid bare in year-end press conference

Alexander Mercouris
The Duran
Sat, 24 Dec 2016 15:28 UTC
putin obama
Vladimir Putin uses end of year press conference to disclose his personal feelings about US President Obama and the current US administration.

Vladimir Putin's massive end-of-year press conference saw the Russian President in a relaxed and confident mood.

This is not surprising. For Vladimir Putin and for Russia, 2016 has been, if not quite an anno mirabilis, nonetheless a good year.

As Putin pointed out at the start of his press conference, the economy is now clearly recovering, with all the productive sectors of the economy now showing growth, with inflation now expected to end the year at 5.5% - lower than expectations - and with the budget deficit also likely to be lower than expected.

In foreign policy, relations with China - the anchor upon which Russia's international position rests - not only remain strong, but are growing stronger, enabling Russia to leverage its de facto alliance with China to achieve a breakthrough in its relations with the two big Far Eastern powers - South Korea and Japan.

Meanwhile Russia has maintained its traditionally strong relations with the other big Asian powers: India and Vietnam.

In the Middle East there has been a spectacular breakthrough, with Russia's military intervention in Syria resulting in a conclusive victory in Aleppo, with Russia forging ever closer ties to Iran, and with a major turnaround in relations with Turkey - which at the start of the year had been terrible - and with Russia managing to maintain good relations with countries as diverse as Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
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Bullseye

The U.N. Resolution on Israeli squatting didn't go far enough

Juan Cole
truthdig
Sat, 24 Dec 2016 23:22 UTC
Israeli settler
© Ariel Schalit / AP An Israeli settler sits on tires to be used as barricades to block the entrance to Amona, an unauthorized Israeli outpost in the West Bank.
The United Nations Security Council on Friday passed a resolution with 14 member states in favor and 1 abstaining (the US), condemning Israeli government support for Israeli squatters who steal Palestinian land and squat on it in the Palestinian West Bank.

Since Israel is in severe violation of a large number of treaties and instruments of international law on the treatment of persons in occupied territories by the Occupier, it could have had sanctions imposed on it for this shameful behavior.

Note that Netanyahu ran on a platform of no Palestinian state. And the Israeli government has announced thousands of new settlement apartments on Palestinian land just in the past few years. Tel Aviv is clearly intent on annexing all of Palestinian territory in the West Bank and pushing the Palestinians out. The UNSC wants to preserve the possibility of a two-state solution, but that path has already been forestalled by Israeli land theft on a cosmic scale.

But the resolution, while it condemned Israeli annexation of Palestinian land and Israeli squatting on it, did not specify any particular punishment for Israel, which is the government being condemned.
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Smiley

Trump's tweets praising Putin send 'precious snowflakes' into complete frenzy

Alex Christoforou
The Duran
Sun, 25 Dec 2016 14:08 UTC
putin e trump
It's amazing to see how the Hillary Clinton, liberal left media and celebrity elite, still have not figured out that Donald Trump is playing around with their ridiculous cold war hysteria each time he mentions Russia and Vladimir Putin.

With each positive statement or tweet about Putin, the Hillary fanbase gets triggered into an absolute frenzy.

The irony is that, what the Hillary press and hollywood SJWs accuse Putin and Russia of doing (without any evidence) is exactly what Hillary Clinton has been caught doing with irrefutable evidence...primary election rigging, destroying Libya, funding ISIS terrorists, taking bribes from Saudi dictators, and the list goes on.

On Friday Russian President Vladimir Putin skillfully defused the accusations of Russian interference in the U.S. election during his end of the year Q&A saying...
"Democrats are losing on every front and looking for people to blame everywhere. They need to learn to lose with dignity."

Comment: The list of stupid tweets goes on and on for days. The bottom line is that Clinton fanatics and precious snowflakes, like any other sort of authoritarian follower, show no ability to think critically or question their views. Instead they go on the 'attack,' sounding like pathetic nutjobs and making Trump look better and better with every word that comes out of their mouths.

Also see:

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Nuke

President Trump inherited nuclear arms race from Obama, but ready to negotiate with Putin


Sputnik
Sun, 25 Dec 2016 10:22 UTC
Nuclear explosion
© Wikipedia/Nuclear explosion
Trump's statement to outspend Russia and other competitors in a nuclear arms race to maintain US strategic superiority may just be the opening ploy in what he recognizes will be an extended and serious negotiation with Moscow, but such rhetoric is not unusual and it can and should lead to negotiations and a more reasonable outcome, analysts told Sputnik.

"It's definitely not wonderful. But it's early days. Trump has a track record of starting out with an extreme rhetorical position and then negotiating to something reasonable," Robert Naiman, policy director at Just Foreign Policy, said on Friday.

MSNBC reported on Friday that Trump said: "Let it be an arms race, because we will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all." The network's "Morning Joe" host Mika Brzezinski said Trump made the statement in a phone call with her.

Naiman explained that Russia and other countries had previous experience with new US leaders who took office expressing maximalist demands, but who then proved willing to compromise and cooperate.

"Of course, it's not only Trump who does this, it's not an unprecedented approach to negotiation. Reagan came in with wild rhetoric, but eventually negotiated deals with Gorbachev. So this is not the end of the story by any means," he said.

Comment: See also: Kremlin spokesman Peskov: 'Russia will never initiate an arms race'

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Pistol

Turkish Interior Minister: Assassination of Russian ambassador was not killer's 'own initiative'


RT
Sun, 25 Dec 2016 08:28 UTC
Andrei Karlov, the Russian ambassador to Ankara, lying on the floor after being shot by Mevlut Mert Altintas (R) during an attack during a public event in Ankara
© Yavuz Alatan / AFPAndrei Karlov, the Russian ambassador to Ankara, lying on the floor after being shot by Mevlut Mert Altintas (R) during an attack during a public event in Ankara
The assassination of the Russian Ambassador to Ankara, Andrey Karlov, was a well-planned and premeditated murder, Turkey's interior minister told journalists. He said it did not happen at the initiative of the killer or out of personal vengeance.

Karlov was shot dead as he was delivering a speech at the opening of an exhibition called 'Russia in the Eyes of Turks' at an art gallery in Ankara on Monday. The gunman, who was killed at the scene, was identified as 22-year-old Mevlut Altintas, a member of Ankara's riot police force.

Russian and Turkish teams are now working in Ankara in attempts to figure out the details of Karlov's assassination.

Earlier, the top levels of the Turkish leadership rushed to accuse the Fethullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) of being behind Karlov's assassination in an apparent bid to sever Russia-Turkey ties. However, it is too early to jump to any conclusions yet, as Russia's goal is to "find the truth, not use the incident for some political gain," the head of Russia's Upper House International Relations Committee, Konstantin Kosachev, told RT earlier.

American based cleric Fethullah Gulen and his FETO group stand accused by Ankara of staging the failed July 15 coup. The Turkish government claims it continues to infiltrate Turkish institutions, namely the military, police and judiciary, to form what Ankara calls a "parallel state."

On Saturday, Suleyman Soylu, Turkey's interior minister, once again reiterated a hypothesis that Altintas was linked to FETO.

"At this stage, we have clearly defined a relationship with the terrorist Fethullah Gulen movement. The assassination was not the result of individual initiative. The terrorist attack was planned," Soylu said, Anadolu reported.
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Star of David

Another nail in the UN coffin? Netanyahu halts Israeli funding in revenge for 'crazy' resolution


RT
Sat, 24 Dec 2016 23:18 UTC
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) told President Obama (C) that Israel was not considering a full-scale invasion, as Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas
© Tim Sloan / AFPIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) told President Obama (C) that Israel was not considering a full-scale invasion, as Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas remains wary.
Israel has suspended its multimillion dollar contribution to a number of United Nations bodies and is reevaluating its relationship with the organization, after the UN Security Council passed a resolution on Israeli settlement construction.

"I instructed the Foreign Ministry to complete within a month a re-evaluation of all our contacts with the United Nations, including the Israeli funding of UN institutions and the presence of UN representatives in Israel," Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said on Saturday while addressing the nation.

"I have already instructed to stop about 30 million shekels ($7.8 million) in funding to five UN institutions, five bodies, that are especially hostile to Israel ... and there is more to come," he added without offering any further details.
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