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Fri, 05 Nov 2021
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The new leaders of the EU - A more incompetent and corrupt bunch we've never seen

New EU leaders
New EU leaders have just been chosen. Which one did you vote for? Well, none of course. This is the EU after all. Decisions about who makes the policies which rule our lives aren't for the likes of us. No, no.

EU leaders are carefully selected for what they bring to the table. They need to be able to enact the favoured policies, such as sustainable development goals, and further the ambitions, like military expansionism, of the corporate cartel who run the EU. All to be funded by the European tax paying citizenry.

So who has been chosen to deliver.

Attention

Freeland's message to Putin: Liberalism will prevail (and Nazis will help)

Chrystia Freeland
© Morocco World News
Canadian FM Chrystia Freeland
The elite attempting to control the world under an "end of history" neo-liberal doctrine have created a mountain of unresolvable paradoxes for themselves in Ukraine since unleashing the anti-Russian Euromaidan color revolution in late 2013 that unseated a pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovych government, and replaced it with a Nazi-infested technocratic regime which has played out like a disastrous circus for the past five years.

The paradox created is fairly straight forward: The Euromaidan was always wired to promote the integration of Ukraine into the Euro-Atlantic neo liberal order. When Yanukovych announced his plans to reject that euro integration in favour of joining the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union, some thought there could be no other way but violent regime change. Sounds simple and the plan worked. Within months, Yanukovych was out and a pro-NATO/EU regime was in power.

Here's the rub: The only way to activate a violent overthrow required the unleashing of vast networks of third generation neo Nazis to carry out the sort of dirty work which no one else had the stomachs to handle.

Comment: See also:


Question

Putin bemused by Zelensky's inclusion of May to chaperone their upcoming talks

ZelenskyMayPutin
© Efrem Lukatsky/AP/Daily Mail/Bloomberg/KJN
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, UK PM Theresa May, Russian President Vladimir Putin
Russian President Vladimir Putin offered a tongue-in-cheek approval for a proposed multilateral meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky, but questioned his choice of the outgoing British PM as a participant.

On Monday, Zelensky's office released a video address to Putin, in which he claimed that the two leaders needed to talk in person. "We do not change or reject any diplomatic format. We suggest talking. We need to have a talk, don't we?" Zelensky said.

Putin, who was asked for a response during a press conference on Thursday, agreed that a meeting with Zelensky "may be interesting," but chided the Ukrainian president over the list of proposed attendees. Zelensky wants the leaders of the US, the UK, Germany and France to chaperon him during the talks with Putin, and referred to them all by name in the address. The Russian leader said that the inclusion of the outgoing British Prime Minister Theresa May seemed strange to him.

"As far as I know, in a couple of weeks she resigns from the office of the prime minister of Britain. In what capacity is she being invited to the meeting? It's not clear. Did she even agree to it or not?" Putin remarked.

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Hammer

Federal judge puts another nail in the Russiagate coffin - destroys a key Mueller report claim

Mueller/report
© Unknown
Special counsel Robert Mueller's claim of "sweeping and systematic" Russian meddling in the 2016 US election just took another body blow, as a federal judge ruled that his indictment of a 'troll farm' is not actual proof of it.

Mueller's charges against Concord Management & Consulting, the Russian company accused of running a "troll farm" and "sowing discord" on US social media in 2016, do not establish a link between that private company and the Russian government, US District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich pointed out.

Yet the special counsel's much-publicized final report claims to have "established" and "confirmed" Russian government activities based in part on the indictment against Concord, which is a breach of prosecutorial rules, Friedrich said.

For example, Mueller's report says that Concord CEO Yevgeny Prigozhin "is widely reported to have ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin." That's an assertion, not evidence.


Comment: Daniel Lazare's commentary (video) cuts to the chase in analysis of Mueller's report.


Footprints

'Ilhan Omar is a cautionary tale about US immigration, as was I'

Ilhan Omar
© REUTERS/Carlos Barria
US Representative Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota)
After a TV host called the congresswoman Ilhan Omar a poster child for US immigration troubles, her response - calling him a racist - proved his point. Yet she is only the latest such case. I should know, having been one myself.

Tucker Carlson hosts one of the most popular opinion shows on Fox News. On Tuesday, he had a segment calling out Omar (D-Minnesota) for accusing America of bigotry and racism in "virtually every public statement" and displaying "undisguised contempt for the US and its people."

"Ilhan Omar is living proof that the way we practice immigration is dangerous to this country," Carlson argued. "Some of the very people we try hardest to help have come to hate us passionately." Omar did not deny, or even contest, any of Carlson's claims or characterizations. Instead, she called him a "white nationalist" and threatened those who advertise on his show.

Watching this sordid spectacle unfold has left me shaking my head, because once upon a time I was just like Omar: rescued by America from the ruins of a country that US intervention helped destroy, brought into the utterly alien culture and landscape of the American Midwest, and given a lot of support but little guidance. One difference was that Omar came with her family and with the intent to settle, while I left mine behind and hoped to one day go back.

X

House Democrats scrub tweet showing photo of Obama-era detention center kids in cages used to attack Trump

kids in cage
© AP/Ross D. Franklin
2014 photo of detained immigrant children on Obama's watch.
House Democrats have erased a tweet promoting a hearing on the effects of President Trump's border policies on children after finding out they used a photo depicting a migrant detention center under President Obama's watch.

The tweet was posted in anticipation of a hearing scheduled for Wednesday afternoon, dubbed 'Kids in Cages: Inhumane Treatment at the Border', and included a dramatic photo backdrop displaying the dismal conditions at US migrant detention facilities - but it was soon deleted after conservative critics pointed out the origins of the image.


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Star of David

Haim Saban: Loves all Dem candidates - except Bernie Sanders who 'turns Democrats against AIPAC'

Haim Saban
© Variety
Haim Saban
In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Israeli-American media producer and Democratic mega-donor Haim Saban declares that he loves every Trump challenger besides Bernie Sanders and blames the Vermont Senator for stoking anti-Israel sentiment within the Democratic Party.

Saban, who is worth an estimated $3.2 billion, has donated millions of dollars to Democrats and pro-Israel efforts throughout the years alongside his wife Cheryl, president of their Saban Family Foundation. "The basic strategy is 50-50. Meaning for every dollar we give in America, we give a dollar in Israel," he says in the interview.

Although the couple says they have not picked a Democratic presidential candidate yet, they reserve a particular amount of scorn for Bernie Sanders' campaign. Saban tells the magazine:
"We love all 23 candidates. No, minus one. I profoundly dislike Bernie Sanders, and you can write it. I don't give a hoot. He's a communist under the cover of being a socialist. He thinks that every billionaire is a crook. He calls us 'the billionaire class.' And he attacks us indiscriminately. 'It's the billionaire class, the bad guys.' This is how communists think. So, 22 are great. One is a disaster zone."

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Attention

Duterte: 'I sense very dangerous times ahead'

Duterte
© RTVM Video
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte
Sensing "very dangerous times ahead," President Rodrigo Duterte said on Tuesday the government should continue its efforts in increasing the capabilities of the military and the police.

Speaking at the Manila Hotel during the appreciation dinner for outgoing Speaker Gloria Arroyo, Duterte said he intended to leave Malacañang in 2022 with a strong Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and Philippine National Police (PNP) equipped to face the enemies of the state.

He then asked Congress to support his administration by pushing for measures to ensure a stronger AFP.

"I hope that by the time I make my exit all that would be in place. I am not belittling the events to come, or the person coming in to be the next President. I don't know who. I'd rather leave with a strong military and police [that are] equipped to challenge the enemies of the state, especially terrorism."

The President said he could feel his hands "sweating" just thinking of the possibility of dealing with terrorism on a broader scope.

"I see very dangerous times ahead. And I hope that we will be able to contain whatever there is really to... My hands sweat just thinking about [what would happen] if it would go awry outside of Sulu and Basilan Islands," the President, speaking partly in Filipino, said.

Evil Rays

Well, that's a relief: UK foreign minister assures 'no evidence of hacking' in ambassador's Trump leak row

british ambassador residence washington dc
© mbell1975/Flickr
British Ambassador Residence Washington, DC
The UK government has found no evidence of computer hacking of emails sent by the British ambassador to the US that heavily criticised US President Donald Trump and his administration, a UK government official has revealed.

Foreign Minister Sir Alan Duncan told MPs in the House of Commons on Thursday that they are focusing their investigation on individuals within the UK system, after failing to find any evidence of outside interference.
We do not, at the moment, have any evidence that this was a hack so our focus is on finding someone within the system who has released illicitly these communications.

Comment: A political hit job? That what Trump's former communications chief Anthony Scaramucci told RT's Going Underground:
The UK diplomatic memo leak was a hit job on the British envoy to the US, while Trump is seizing the moment to "press" Britain for future talks, Trump's former communications chief Anthony Scaramucci told RT.

The leaking of the diplomatic cables was "a political hit job" on the British envoy Kim Darroch, financier and former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci told RT's Afshin Rattansi on his show, Going Underground.
The transition is going to happen in the UK government, and somebody wanted to embarrass him and knock him out of that post.
Darroch resigned on Wednesday after his memos were leaked to the press, in which he described President Trump's administration as "dysfunctional" and "diplomatically clumsy and inept." Speaking to RT before the resignation was publicly announced, Scaramucci argued that it would be "a huge mistake" for London to sack the envoy who is "very well liked in Washington."


Trump lashed out at Darroch after the leak, calling the UK diplomat "a very stupid guy" and "a pompous fool." The president also said he will no longer deal with him. Trump seized the opportunity to blast Prime Minister Theresa May as well, insisting she ignored his advice on Brexit and went her "own foolish way." Britain's Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, in turn, branded Trump's outburst "disrespectful and wrong."

Scaramucci, who founded the investment firm SkyBridge Capital, stressed that Trump has "thin skin" when it comes to public criticism. "I don't think the president is actually mad at Ambassador Darroch. But that's the president's style: you hit the president [and] he's going to hit you ten times," he said.

As damaging as the leaks may be to relations between Britain and the US, professional diplomats are expected to stay blunt and not mince words in their internal correspondence, Scaramucci noted.
This was an embarrassment. [But] ambassadors all over the world [operate in a way that] if they got their internal confidential assessment memos leaked, there would be a lot of embarrassing conversations. It's not a big deal.
Nevertheless, Trump wants to use the fallout from the scandal by "pressing down" on London ahead of trade talks in the future, Scaramucci said.



Vader

The smoking gun of US involvement in Brazil's neoliberal ousting of President Dilma Rousseff

operation carwash brazil deltan dallgnol lula
© Arquivo
Prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol is accused of colluding with former judge and current Minister of Justice and Public Security Sergio Moro to convict former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
Ever since the Obama administration's silence in 2016 when Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff was removed in a legally-spurious impeachment that constituted a congressional coup, the question of the role of the United States in that process has been the elephant in the room.

Even a casual student of history knows that the U.S. has seldom hesitated to attempt to overthrow troublesome Latin American governments. Guatemala's Arbenz in 1954, Brazil's Goulart in 1964, Chile's Allende in 1973, Panama's Noriega in 1989, Venezuela's Chávez in 2002 - the list goes on.

Since this time there were no American marines landing in Rio, no American ambassadors publicly cheerleading for the coup, no premature recognition by Washington of post-coup governments, it was hard to see what shape U.S. involvement might be taking. Since 2016 this question has come into sharper focus, and this week has added another huge piece to the puzzle, perhaps the smoking gun.

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