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Trump's selection of Peter Navarro to Trade Council shows he will focus on trade wars, not real wars


Sputnik
Thu, 22 Dec 2016 18:20 UTC
shanghai
© Sputnik/ Sergey Pyatakov
Peter Navarro's selection as a head of the newly created White House National Trade Council signals that Donald Trump intends to reshape US-Chinese relations, Tom McGregor, Commentator at China Network Television told Radio Sputnik. "However, it's going to be a focus on trade wars, not real wars," he stressed.

US President-elect Donald Trump's pick for trade advisory role at the newly created White House National Trade Council has prompted a heated debate.

The crux of the matter is that American economist Peter Navarro is known as a vocal critic of China.

"The formation of the National Trade Council further demonstrates the President-elect's determination to make American manufacturing great again and to provide every American the opportunity to work in a decent job at a decent wage," the transition office said in an official press release, as quoted by Politico.com.

Comment: Read also: Trump appoints 'Death by China' author Peter Navarro to head new trade office, hints at trade war with Beijing

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Gear

The CIA's foxes are guarding the Facebook henhouse

F. William Engdahl
New Eastern Outlook
Thu, 22 Dec 2016 00:00 UTC
George Soros
George Soros
The latest mantra of CIA-linked media since the "Pizzagate" leaks of data alleging that Hillary Clinton Campaign Manager John Podesta and other highly influential political persons in Washington were connected to an unusual pizza place near the White House run by a 41-year old James Achilles Alefantis called Comet Ping Pong, is the need to crack down (i.e. censorship) on what is being called "Fake News." The latest step in this internet censorship drive is a decision by the murky social media organization called Facebook to hire special organizations to determine if Facebook messages are pushing Fake News or not. Now it comes out that the "fact check" private organizations used by Facebook are tied to the CIA and CIA-related NGO's including George Soros' Open Society Foundations.

In the last weeks of the US Presidential campaign, Wikileaks released a huge number of emails linked to Clinton Campaign Manager, John Podesta. The contents of thousands of emails revealed detailed exchanges between Podesta and the oddly-influential Comet Ping Pong pizza place owner, Alefantis, as well as the Clinton campaign, which held fundraisers at Comet Ping Pong.

The Pizzagate scandal exploded in the final weeks of the US campaign as teams of private researchers documented and posted Facebook, Instagram and other data suggesting that Alefantis and Comet Ping Pong were at the heart of a pedophilia ring that implicated some of the most prominent politicians in Washington and beyond.

Comment:

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Chess

Trump will run foreign policy based on pro-business, not ideological, considerations


Sputnik
Thu, 22 Dec 2016 18:12 UTC
trump
© AFP 2016/ MOLLY RILEY
Under President Trump US foreign policy will be governed by pro-business, rather than ideological, considerations, Pavel Sharikov, director of the US and Canada Institute's Center for Applied Research, told RIA Novosti.

"This principle of balancing contradictions to one's own benefit is something the United States has honed throughout its entire history. This is also something Trump the businessman is going to use and achieve good results," Sharikov said during Tuesday's roundtable on the situation in the world in the wake of the recent president elections in the US.

"I think [President Trump's] foreign policy will be as much devoid of ideological clichés as possible," Sharikov noted, adding that while refusing to cooperate with the Soviet Union during the Cold War was easy "because they are Communists," these days Donald Trump just doesn't care who to deal with, as long as they are not terrorists.

"Here he will find it easy to bargain and showcase his skills of a political horse trader all at the same time," Sharikov said.
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Bad Guys

How the Pentagon succeeded in getting the White House barred from international Syria negotiations

Bernhard
Moon of Alabama
Wed, 21 Dec 2016 17:57 UTC
harrigian
Lt. Gen. Harrigian.
The NYT laments today that international negotiations about the situation in Syria now continue without any U.S. participation: Russia, Iran and Turkey Meet for Syria Talks, Excluding U.S.
Russia, Iran and Turkey met in Moscow on Tuesday to work toward a political accord to end Syria's nearly six-year war, leaving the United States on the sidelines as the countries sought to drive the conflict in ways that serve their interests.

Secretary of State John Kerry was not invited. Nor was the United Nations consulted.

With pro-government forces having made critical gains on the ground, ...
(Note: The last sentence originally and correctly said "pro-Syrian forces ...", not "pro-government forces ...". It was altered after I noted the "pro-Syrian" change of tone on Twitter.)

Russia kicked the U.S. out of any further talks about Syria after the U.S. blew a deal which, after long delaying negotiations, Kerry had made with the Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov.
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Candy Cane

What you're not being told about the CIA, Russia and WaPo

Carey Wedler
Anti Media
Mon, 19 Dec 2016 17:13 UTC
Washington Post
According to an unsubstantiated article by the Washington Post, anonymous CIA officials have confirmed that the Russian government hacked the United States election to favor Donald Trump. Though it's entirely possible the Russian government attempted to influence the election, the Post has been widely criticized — for the second time in a month — for its failure to follow basic journalistic practices. Nevertheless, the narrative is sticking.


Comment: A narrative without evidence.


But the outlet's behind-the-scenes relationship with the CIA is nothing new. In 2013, a conflict of interest arose shortly after Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, purchased the newspaper. As the Nation reported at the time:
[Jeff Bezos] recently secured a $600 million contract from the CIA. That's at least twice what Bezos paid for the Post this year. Bezos recently disclosed that the company's Web-services business is building a 'private cloud' for the CIA to use for its data needs.
As this occurred, a petition calling on the Washington Post to disclose its new ties to the CIA when reporting on the agency garnered 30,000 signatures. According to the RootsforAction petition:
The Post often does reporting on CIA activities. The coverage should include full disclosure that the owner of the Washington Post is also the main owner of Amazon —and Amazon is now gaining huge profits directly from the CIA.

Comment: See also:

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Yoda

Putin: Russian military stronger than any potential aggressor


Associated Press
Thu, 22 Dec 2016 17:59 UTC
putin
© Alexei Nikolsky, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP
Russia's military today can overpower any potential foe, President Vladimir Putin told an annual end-of-year meeting Thursday with defense chiefs.

"We can say with certainty: We are stronger now than any potential aggressor," he told the meeting. "Anyone!"

His comments come at the end of a year when tensions between Russia and the West have remained on edge over the civil war in Syria.

Tensions between Russia and the West have been souring ever since Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea and surreptitious support of separatists in eastern Ukraine. Relations dipped further after Russia last year launched an air offensive in Syria to support President Bashar Assad.

Both Russia and NATO members have conducted a flurry of military drills near Russia's borders this year. Russia insists it is responding to a growing NATO threat.

Speaking at the defense ministry's headquarters in Moscow, Putin said Russia should be swift in "adjusting plans to neutralize potential threats to our country."
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Eye 1

Philippines watchdog to probe Duterte killing claims after UN calls for further investigation


RT
Thu, 22 Dec 2016 13:07 UTC
Duterte
© Ezra Acayan / ReutersPhilippine President Rodrigo Duterte
The Philippines' independent human rights watchdog says it will investigate President Rodrigo Duterte's admission that he killed three suspected criminals while he was mayor of Davao, after the UN's human rights chief called for a murder probe.

The chief of the Philippines' Commission on Human Rights, Jose Gascon, said he has formed a team of investigators to look into the matter.

"Law enforcement agencies... must investigate as a matter of course any information that suggests that a crime may have been committed with the view to ensuring that perpetrators are ultimately held accountable should the evidence warrant it," Gascon said in a statement released on Thursday, as quoted by AFP.

He went on to state that the commission has "reconstituted a team to further investigate" allegations that, while serving as mayor of Davao, Duterte ran death squads that killed more than 1,000 petty criminals. The commission had previously looked into the matter, but did not file any criminal charges.

Gascon said the new team will "look into any matter that may further shed light on the killings in Davao that was the subject matter of our previous investigation."

Comment:
Duterte's allies in Congress have stressed that impeaching the president is a game that his opponents are unlikely to win. There are fewer than 50 opposition lawmakers in the 293-member lower house of Congress, while a two-thirds vote is needed to impeach a president.


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Info

Defense Minister Shoigu reports Russia managed to test over 160 new weapons in Syrian operation


RT
Thu, 22 Dec 2016 18:45 UTC
An aviation specialists prepares a Russian Sukhoi Su-25 attack jet for tactical flight training
© Vitaliy Ankov / SputnikAn aviation specialists prepares a Russian Sukhoi Su-25 attack jet for tactical flight training
While the primary goal of Russia's military operation in Syria is to prevent the disintegration of the country, it has also provided a chance to field-test 162 advanced Russian weapons, Russia's defense minister reported.

"During the operation in Syria, 162 advanced and upgraded weapons have been tested in combat. They have proven to be highly efficient," Sergey Shoigu told a Thursday meeting of senior Russian officials. The session, chaired by President Vladimir Putin, was focused on the annual report of the minister.

Among the systems tested in Syria were Su-30SM and Su-34 fighter jets, Mi-28N and Ka-52 helicopters, and Kalibr cruise missiles, as well as other arms. According to Shoigu, 10 of the 162 weapons tested revealed flaws that had not been identified on test ranges, prompting the ministry to stop buying them and ask the developers to fix them.

Shoigu said Russia's involvement has "prevented the disintegration of the Syrian state, broken the chain of 'color revolutions' in the Middle East and North Africa, and launched a process for reaching a political settlement and reconciliation between warring parties."

So far, 18,800 sorties and 71,000 airstrikes have been carried out by the Russian Air Force as part of the operation, the minister said. Russian warplanes have hit hundreds of militant training camps, arms workshops, military vehicles, and artillery systems.

NATO watching & preparing
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Snakes in Suits

Intentional? 'Catalog of blunders' reveals how Berlin terrorist was left free to kill

Gordon Rayner, Justin Huggler and James Rothwell
The Telegraph
Wed, 21 Dec 2016 17:26 UTC
Anis Amri
© BKAAnis Amri arrived in Germany last year
The prime suspect for the Berlin massacre was under covert surveillance for months as a possible terrorist threat until police let him slip through their grasp earlier this month.

Anis Amri, 24, a Tunisian asylum seeker who arrived in Germany last year, was investigated for "preparing a serious crime endangering national safety", involving funding the purchase of automatic weapons for use in a terrorist attack.

Amri had been arrested earlier this year and was known to be a supporter of the terrorist group thought to be behind the Sousse terrorist attack in Tunisia, as well as being a suspected disciple of a notorious hate preacher.

He had multiple identity documents with six different aliases under three nationalities, and a criminal record in Italy and Tunisia. He spent four years in an Italian prison before travelling to Germany after an expulsion order expired.

The German authorities, who were on Wednesday facing serious questions about how Amri was still at large, tried to deport him in June, but because he had no valid papers proving his nationality he was allowed to stay.
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Propaganda

NY Daily News: Columnist justifies killing of Russian ambassador, compares Putin to Hitler

Michael Krieger
Liberty Blitzkrieg
Tue, 20 Dec 2016 03:36 UTC
GertzKuntzman
© totalfratmove.comGertz Kuntzman, Journalist
As such, the media still can't let the election go. In its obsession with "fake news" and Russia, the U.S. press is once again betraying the public trust. It is once again demonstrating that the primary purpose of American mass media is a perpetuation of the status quo narrative. The media can't let the election go, because any acknowledgment that Trump's victory was a reflection of public unease indicts the media for failing to validate and report on the extent of this unease and its causes. After all, it's so much easier to just call 63 million Americans racists, misogynists and Putin stooges. Which brings me to the final point.

As is the case with the vast majority of our problems, if we want to zero in on the much bandied about "threats to democracy," we don't need to look abroad. Moscow didn't force the DNC to sabotage Bernie Sanders, and it didn't force Donna Brazile to hand debate questions to the Hillary Clinton campaign either. Putin didn't nominate Hillary Clinton in an election year that was obviously amenable to populist messaging. No, the Democrats did all that, with a huge heaping of assistance from the mainstream media. Which is precisely why neither group can let the election go in order to focus on our very real, and very extensive national problems.

In a more quaint time, I'd express shock at the fact the New York Daily News published an article in which the columnist defends the killing of Russia's ambassador to Turkey because he worked for Putin; who as we all know, is literally Hitler. With so many Hitlers running around at the moment (remember Trump is also Hitler), it's becoming harder and harder to keep track of all the hysterical narratives being pushed around by the billionaire-owned mass media.

Comment: Freedom of speech, MSM, ignorant and bash Russia - this year's journalistic winning combo. Realistically, this guy is late for his psychological assessment.

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