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Best of the Web: Tucker Carlson: Republican politicians no longer lead the USA - The people have to. And when they do, the GOP will follow
© APBoris Johnson welcoming Benjamin Netanyahu to Downing Street
My first real experience of Israel came when I was 18, and spent several weeks working in the kitchens at kibbutz Kfar HaNassi. My fellow kibbutzniks managed to survive my contribution to their diet. I took away a profound attachment to the State of Israel.
My many visits in recent years have left a deep impression - whether the solemnity and dignity of Yad Vashem, memorial to a unique crime in world history; the extraordinary gathering of world leaders for the funeral of an old friend, Shimon Peres; or cycling down Rothschild Boulevard with the Mayor of Tel Aviv, marveling at the vibrancy of the White City.
I am a passionate defender of Israel. Few causes are closer to my heart than ensuring its people are protected from the menace of terrorism and anti-Semitic incitement. The UK has always stood by Israel and its right to live as any nation should be able to, in peace and security. Our commitment to Israel's security will be unshakable while I am Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. So it is with sadness that I have followed the proposals to annex Palestinian territory. As a life-long friend, admirer and supporter of Israel, I am fearful that these proposals will fail in their objective of securing Israel's borders and will be contrary to Israel's own long-term interests.
Comment: Sputnik reports:
Johnson, whose great-grandfather was Jewish, reflected on his time at an Israeli kibbutz as a teenager and called himself a "life-long friend, admirer and supporter of Israel."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long promised to extend Israeli sovereignty to parts of the West Bank; the Trump administration's support and the coalition agreement he struck with Benny Gantz have given a strong boost to those plans.
Netanyahu has set 1 July as the date from which he would start the process to take over roughly 30 percent of the West Bank. However, Benny Gantz, the alternate prime minister who supports the idea, cast uncertainty on the timeframe when he called on Monday for a delay to deal with the coronavirus pandemic first.
Johnson became the latest foreign leader to oppose Netanyahu's plans, after the United Nations, Russia, China and the European Union have all voiced concerns that it will lead to a spike in violence in the region and kill the peace process. Palestinians have condemned the idea, with Gaza rules Hamas calling it an effective declaration of war.
Palestinians leaders have called for protests on Wednesday in the Jordan Valley, the Gaza Strip and in Ramallah, the West Bank seat of the Palestinian Authority.
© Business Insider/KJN
As we discussed yesterday, the only correct response to unsubstantiated claims by anonymous spooks in a post-Iraq invasion world is to assume that they are lying until you've been provided with a mountain of hard, independently verifiable evidence to the contrary. The fact that The New York Times instead chose to uncritically parrot these evidence-free claims made by operatives within intelligence agencies with a known track record of lying about exactly these things is nothing short of journalistic malpractice. The fact that western media outlets are now unanimously regurgitating these still 100 percent baseless assertions is nothing short of state propaganda.
The consensus-manufacturing, Overton window-shrinking western propaganda apparatus has been in full swing with mass media outlets claiming on literally no basis whatsoever that they have confirmed one another's "great reporting" on this completely unsubstantiated story.
Comment: The New York Times and its cadre of parrots work the system and will continue to do so until the public wakes up and demands honest reporting. The American Collective Mind has been trained to believe what it is told.
See also:
Caitlin Johnstone: It is the US intelligence's job to lie to you. NYT's Afghan bounty story is CIA press release disguised as news
© Univision.comVenezuela presidential pretender Juan Guaido • US President Donald Trump
As Venezuela slides deeper into political chaos and financial ruin, billions of dollars of public assets looted by corrupt government officials and their cronies, are being held by governments around the world, including the Trump administration, gathering dust.
Now, Venezuela's U.S.-backed government is gearing up efforts to try and recover that money to help its impoverished population battle the coronavirus pandemic, on top of an already calamitous public health crisis.
Meanwhile, the U.S. government is fighting in court to keep control of hundreds of millions of dollars of those ill-gotten gains, part of a treasure chest of forfeited assets from around the world.
"There is a moral imperative to look closely at this issue. The need in Venezuela is growing and the scale of the corruption is industrial," said Michael Camilleri, who is writing a report on the forfeiture funds for the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington, D.C., group that promotes democracy in Latin America.
© Alexey Babushkin/RIA NovostiRussian President Vladimir Putin
What is so problematic with the current 1993 Constitution, and what are the reasons behind the proposed amendments? The answers can be found in the circumstances under which President Boris Yeltsin's document came into effect and in the major transformation that Russia has undergone since then.
First of all, it is necessary to stress that Russia in 1993 and Russia in 2020 are essentially two different countries. In 1993, it was a bleak shadow of the Soviet Union, with a grim present and uncertain future. Yeltsin, along with Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrey Kozyrev and other liberal-minded members of his team, were doggedly pushing their country into the American sphere of influence.
It, therefore, comes as no surprise that Yeltsin's Constitution - adopted just two months after his team's undemocratic usurpation of power (by means of shelling and storming the parliament during the October putsch) - wasn't fit for its purpose as the supreme law of a great power. Instead, it legitimized the servicing of Western elites and Washington in particular.
© Spc. Ryan Lucas/U.S. ArmyU.S. Army paratroopers
"The Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff briefed the President yesterday on plans to redeploy 9,500 troops from Germany. The proposal that was approved not only meets the President's directive, it will also enhance Russian deterrence, strengthen NATO, reassure Allies, improve U.S. strategic flexibility and U.S. European Command's operational flexibility, and take care of our service members and their families.The movement of 9,500 U.S. service members from Germany resurfaces claims made by the Trump administration that the NATO ally has been "delinquent in their payments" to NATO.
"Pentagon leaders look forward to briefing this plan to the congressional defense committees in the coming weeks, followed by consultations with NATO allies on the way forward,"
© Sean Gallup/Getty Images
The euro crisis that erupted a decade ago has long been portrayed as a clash between Europe's frugal North and profligate South. In fact, at its heart was a fierce class war that left Europe, including its capitalists, much weakened relative to the United States and China. Worse still, the European Union's response to the pandemic, including the EU recovery fund currently under deliberation, is bound to intensify this class war, and deal another blow to Europe's socioeconomic model.
Comment: While money makes the world 'go round', the lack of it stops countries in their tracks.
© Getty Images/Odd Andersen/KJNBritish PM Boris Johnson • German Chancellor Angela Merkel
Speaking in the German parliament the chancellor said negotiations were being accelerated to try and reach a deal in the autumn that could be ratified by the end of the year. But she told the Bundestag that the EU "must and should prepare for a situation in which an agreement does not happen". She added:
"The progress made during the negotiations have been, to put it mildly, minimal. With Great Britain, we have agreed to speed up these negotiations to be able to agree on a deal in autumn, which would then also need to be ratified until the end of the year."Her warning comes as the deadline for extending talks passes, with negotiations now surely set to end on 31 December with or without a deal.
Both side met face-to-face for the first time in months on Monday as UK negotiators travelled to Brussels. Previously rounds of talks have been held via videolink because of the pressures of the cornavirus pandemic.
© UnknownTurkish Troops in salute
Comment: See also:
- Libya's GNA officially requested military aid from Turkey
- Macron accuses Turkey of playing 'dangerous game' in Libya - Egypt, Saudi Arabia and UAE weigh in on the fray
- Joanne Moriarty: Turkey proceeds with invasion of Libya, tribes respond
- Libya: Erdogan's power play and what it means to the tangled conflict - UPDATE
- Turkey threatens to take Libya by force and install Turkish governor
- Erdogan: Turkey ready to increase military support to Tripoli government in Libya
© Global Look Press / Ricky Fitchett / ZUMAPRESS.com
A sanctions bill currently being debated in the US Congress is "a widespread, unjustified attack on the European economy and unacceptable interference with EU sovereignty and energy security in Western Europe," former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder argued in a position paper drafted ahead of parliamentary hearings on the matter.
The penalties - which affect "over 120 shipbuildng, engineering, environmental and security companies that work or have worked with Nord Stream 2" - mark the "definite termination of the Transatlantic partnership," the retired chancellor's statement said, as cited by the German business daily Handelsblatt.
"Behind each of these companies are European jobs that are at risk," it warned. Schroeder's judgment appears to match that of Nord Stream AG, a company operating the pipeline.
Comment: God bless Tucker Carlson. At this point, ordinary working people successfully turning things around in spite of atrocious leadership is a long shot, but maybe, somehow, just articulating what needs or ought to be done can offset some of the mayhem to come.