Puppet MastersS


Snakes in Suits

GOP-led Senate passing bills and working less at rate not seen in decades

Stephen Dinan
The Washington Times
Mon, 11 Jul 2016 13:07 UTC
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
© Associated Press/File
The Senate is off to its best year since 1990 by at least one measure, with more than 30 of its bills having been signed into law by President Obama.

Eighteen months into Republican control of the Senate, the upper chamber has settled into a new normal. The partisan fights remain, and senators aren't spending much time on the floor debating bills — but they are passing them, and at a surprising clip.

All told, including the 31 Senate bills and 42 House-written bills, Congress approved 73 measures that Mr. Obama signed into law from January through the end of June. That's nearly three times the number of bills approved in the first six months of 2015 and 20 more than in 2014, which was the last year Democrats had control of the Senate.

"The new Republican Congress, under the leadership of Sen. McConnell, operates under a dramatically different approach than the Democrats in the previous Congress," Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, said in a statement. "Sen. McConnell opened the Senate, and despite efforts by the Democrat leadership to block bipartisan legislation, we have returned to a more functioning Senate, and allowed senators to participate in the legislative process. While this isn't the easy way, it allowed members to have more than dysfunction to show for their time in the Senate."
Read More...
Bad Guys

Russia warns Europe they will not just stand by as Kiev resumes war in Donbass

Alexander Mercouris
The Duran
Tue, 12 Jul 2016 12:23 UTC
Putin Hollande Merkel
Renewed fighting points to increasingly tense situation on the contact line

The last few weeks have witnessed a sharp rise in fighting in eastern Ukraine. Armed clashes have become common as the Ukrainian army has attempted - so far without much success - to probe the militia's defences. Artillery duels have become increasingly common. There have been casualties on both sides with the militia claiming that the Ukrainian army lost 80 men in a single week.

The Russians have become increasingly concerned about this spike in activity. Over the last week they twice warned the Europeans - to be precise the Germans and the French - to get their Ukrainian ally into line. Underlining the seriousness with which the Russians are treating the situation, their second warning was given by none other than Putin himself who on 8th July 2016 telephoned Merkel and Hollande to convey it. The wording of the Kremlin's summary of the conversation is couched in the usual polite language but the meaning is clear enough:
"Vladimir Putin directed his colleagues' attention to the provocative nature of the Ukrainian armed forces' activities in the southeast of the country. He urged them to more actively influence their Ukrainian partners to promote strict compliance with the Minsk Agreements, including at the upcoming talks with Petro Poroshenko in Warsaw."
Behind these Russian warnings were the warnings Putin gave to the Western powers at the G20 summit in 2014 in Brisbane and which he subsequently made public in a television interview with a German journalist: Russia will not stand by and allow Ukraine to reoccupy the territories of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics by force.

Comment: Further reading: Putin calls Obama & cancels regional visits amidst signs of full-fledged war in Donbass

Read More...
Quenelle - Golden

European leadership calls for end to NATO expansion, resumed dialogue with Russia

Alexander Mercouris
The Duran
Tue, 12 Jul 2016 12:41 UTC
NATO Warsaw Summit Ukraine neo Nazi fascist
NATO's July Summit in Warsaw
Aggressive rhetoric at Warsaw Summit cannot conceal growing doubts about the whole direction of NATO strategy.

As NATO cranks up the rhetoric against Russia and deploys troops on Russia's border, ever more insistent calls for dialogue get made.

The French, Italian, Bulgarian and Greek leaderships have all distanced themselves from the rhetoric coming out of the NATO summit in Warsaw, with all of them saying that they consider Russia a partner rather than an enemy. Germany appears split with Merkel predictably taking a hardline but her SPD and CSU coalition partners making it quite clear they disagree with her.

The clearest view of SPD thinking is set out in a lengthy article that recently appeared in Der Spiegel. As has to be the case in Europe today the author of the article, Wolfgang Ischinger, has felt obliged to fill the article with lengthy denunciations of Russian policy and absurdly exaggerated claims of Russian weakness. Whilst these ritual comments doubtless cause great offense in Russia, they should be seen for what they are: an affirmation of loyalty by the writer to the Western Alliance without which he would have no hope of being heard. Russian writers who lived through the Soviet period will be familiar with this device.

Comment: Further reading: The Warsaw Summit: NATO reaffirms its blueprint for global aggression

Read More...
Pirates

ISIS loses 25% of captured territory in 18 months - research firm predicts increased attacks on civilians


RT
Tue, 12 Jul 2016 12:43 UTC
ISIS Asia pivot
© Stringer / Reuters
Numerous defeats on the battlefield mean Islamic State has lost a quarter of its territory in Iraq and Syria over the last 18 months. However, a leading research firm believes this could be bad news as the terror group may step up attacks on civilian targets. In January 2015, Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) controlled an area totaling 90,800 sq km, which is slightly smaller than Portugal. However,18 months later, it has now shrunk by some 22,000 sq km, according to research firm IHS.

Despite the success of the Russian, Kurdish and US-led coalition forces in stopping the terrorist organization from seizing any new territory, Columb Strack, a senior analyst at IHS and lead analyst for the IHS Conflict Monitor, says as "its governance project is failing," it is likely that the group is "re-prioritizing insurgency," which is bad news for civilian populations.

"As a result, we unfortunately expect an increase in mass casualty attacks and sabotage of economic infrastructure, across Iraq and Syria, and further afield, including Europe," he said, as cited by Reuters.
Read More...
Arrow Down

Clintonites vote against Palestine, Democratic party platform

Philip Weiss
Mondoweiss
Sun, 10 Jul 2016 00:00 UTC
Cornel West
© www.commondreams.orgCornel West
In the continuing saga of the presence of Palestine in the Democratic Party platform, Clintonites on the platform committee yesterday voted down any reference to settlements and occupation and the misery of Gaza in the draft document. Progressives booed and shouted about the influence of AIPAC, the Israel lobby group, and a dozen stormed out of the hall in Orlando, FL, CNN reports.

Cornel West and Maya Berry of the Arab American Institute made inspiring speeches, to naught. West said that Palestine has become the "Vietnam War" issue for young Americans, to raucous applause. And said that the Democratic Party's indifference to Palestinian rights recalled the party's indifference to "these Negroes" in the Jim Crow era.

Here is video of yesterday's meeting. Consideration of Israel/Palestine planks begins at 7:38:30.

Comment: There was a promising increase in momentum on the Palestinian issue, but the tide just wouldn't turn. The funding from Israel and AIPAC pressure have all but glazed over the Democratic party. Easy marks, Israel bought and entrenched Hillary Clinton years ago, the US government decades ago. It has always been up to ordinary people to rescue the Palestinians...before they all disappear, before it is the last Palestinian...for surely that is Israel's intent. It means something, don't you think? Iranians next?

Read More...
Light Sabers

Worst coup ever: British establishment's failed attempt to get rid of Corbyn

Richard Seymour
teleSUR
Thu, 07 Jul 2016 02:44 UTC
corbyn
© CHRISTOPHER FURLONG/2016 GETTY IMAGESLabour Leader Jeremy Corbyn listens as former leader Ed Miliband addresses supporters and members of the public in Doncaster town centre
As the Chilcot Inquiry report is released to the public, those MPs attempting to depose Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn — their leading lights inescapably sullied by having supported the war — are suing for peace. Over a week of high-profile resignations, statements, demands, pleas and threats have seemingly done little but consolidate Corbyn's position. In record time, it has gone from being a coup to a #chickencoup to a #headlesschickencoup.

This could be the biggest own-goal in the history of British politics. Journalists steeped in the common sense of Westminster, assumed that it was all over for Labour's first ever radical socialist leadership. How can he lead, they reasoned, if his parliamentary allies won't work with him? This, in realpolitik terms, merely encoded the congealed entitlement and lordly presumption of Labour's traditional ruling caste. Even some of Corbyn's bien-pensant supporters went along with this view. They should have known better.

The putschists' plan, such as it was, was to orchestrate such media saturation of criticism and condemnation aimed at Corbyn, to create such havoc within the Labour Party, that he would feel compelled to resign. The tactical side of it was executed to smooth perfection, by people who are well-versed in the manipulation of the spectacle. And yet, in the event that Corbyn was not wowed by the media spectacle, not intimidated by ranks of grandees laying into him, and happy to appeal over the heads of party elites to the grassroots, their strategy disintegrated. This was not politics as they knew it.

Comment: The Duran's Alexander Mercouris adds:
As for the motives of the plotters, they have entirely failed to set out any sort of alternative programme to Corbyn's, and though they repeatedly say he is too left wing they have failed to identify a single domestic policy of his they say they disagree with. The dispute is in fact wholly about foreign policy and about power and patronage within the Labour party.

In the decades he has been an MP Corbyn has established himself as a principled opponent of the neocon/liberal humanitarian military adventures his Blairite opponents in the Labour party remain obsessed with. By contrast the profile of his challenger Angela Eagle shows that on both foreign policy and domestic policy she is a classic Blairite, voting for the Iraq war in 2003, voting against any proposal for investigations into its conduct thereafter, supporting the Libyan war in 2011, voting for the bombing of Syria in 2015, and voting for welfare cuts and for introducing university tuition fees.


Read More...
Handcuffs

Turkey arrests 7 more Istanbul attack suspects


RFE/RL
Tue, 12 Jul 2016 02:40 UTC
Erdogan Turkey
© Drop of Light / Shutterstock.comTurkish President Erdogan
Turkish court has arrested seven more suspects in connection with last month's triple suicide bombing at Istanbul's main airport, bringing the number in custody to 37, Turkish media reported.

State-run Anadolu Agency said on July 11 that the seven suspects were detained on charges of "membership of an armed terrorist group" and being accomplices to murder.

The private Dogan news agency said all seven -- arrested late on July 10 -- were foreign nationals.

Comment: Inquiring minds want to know: Is Turkey rounding up some of its former assets? Key Daesh personnel in Turkey? or internal enemies unconnected with the attacks? In short, is it making good on its rapprochement with Russia, or simply conducting business as usual?

Read More...
Network

Hacktivists leak identity of ISIS cyber army top brass

Aveek Sen
Security Affairs
Fri, 08 Jul 2016 00:00 UTC
Hacktivists from Ghost Squad Hacker group made revealed the identities of hackers affiliated with the ISIS cyber army called United Cyber Caliphate.

Ghost Squad Hackers (GSH), a hacktivist group made public the identities of hackers affiliated with the ISIS cyber army called United Cyber Caliphate, including leader Mauritania Attacker.


Prior to this, Ghost Squad Hackers had also gone against a Jordan based bank in May 2016 as it laundered money for ISIS as part of Operation Icarus. Ghost Squad Hackers were also involved in Op ISIS. In collaboration with Anonymous and other groups, they took down the Twitter and Facebook accounts of ISIS sympathizers.
Read More...
Info

Will it hold? President Kiir declares immediate ceasefire in South Sudan


PressTV
Mon, 11 Jul 2016 23:39 UTC
Kiir
© AFP
South Sudan's President Salva Kiir has ordered a unilateral ceasefire after days of fierce fighting between troops loyal to President Salva Kiir and rebels backing former vice president, Riek Machar, claimed hundreds of lives in the capital Juba.

Information Minister Michael Makuei at 6:00pm local time on Monday announced on state broadcaster SSBC that President Kiir had issued directives for an immediate cessation of hostilities.

The president has called for the implementation of a peace deal signed between the two sides in August last year, the minister added.

"The president has reiterated his commitment to the continued implementation of the [peace] agreement in letter and spirit, and thus issues an order of cessation of hostilities with immediate effect," the minister said.

However media reports indicate that heavy gunfire was heard in Juba after the order.

Comment: Beware of the Western hand involved in the violence:

Read More...
Георгиевская ленточка

Putin wages anti-corruption campaign against Russian ruling class to prevent Ukrainian scenario

Eduard Popov
Fort Russ
Mon, 11 Jul 2016 23:19 UTC
putin corruption russia politics
Putin cleaning house
In recent weeks in Russia, significant internal political events have taken place tied to the arrest or detention of several senior officials on charges of corruption. The loudest of these was the arrest of the Kirov region (northern Russia) governor Nikita Belykh. The governor was arrested while receiving yet another bribe in the amount of 400,000 euros.

Over the last half a year, several arrests of high-ranking officials and politicians (including governor, regional center mayor, or deputy minister) have been made in Russia. On June 1st, the mayor of Vladivostok (a regional center on the Pacific coast), Igor Pushkarev, was arrested. Prior to Pushkarev, the governor of the Sakhalin region, Alexander Khoroshavin, and Deputy Minister of Culture Grigory Pirumov were also arrested. And this is far from a complete list of the arrests and detentions of high-ranking officials over the past six months. In all of these cases, the charges are the same: corruption and abuse of office. But these are only the most high-profile arrests and detentions. Judging by press reports, over the past year alone the number of high-ranking corrupt officials arrested has reached dozens (or, more likely, hundreds).

Election primaries have begun in Russia and elections to the State Duma (parliament) are set to be held in September. In this context, on June 27th, the congress of the ruling United Russia party opened and was addressed by President Vladimir Putin. The majority of the party is made up of representatives of the ruling establishment. Characteristically, Putin is distancing himself from the party as its leader, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, is not popular in society or among professionals. The arrest of several regional leaders is hurting United Russia's image, hence why, for the first time in its history, the party is holding primaries in the hope of repairing its image and updating its ranks.

Comment: This latest development may be to prevent a Ukraine-style uprising, but it is also part of a larger plan to remake Russia's civil service into an organization that truly serves its people:

Read More...