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Snakes in Suits

The XXIII Olympic political games: The war against Russia on the South Korean front (Interview)

John Helmer
Dances with Bears
Thu, 07 Dec 2017 00:00 UTC
Olympic Doping
Carl von Clausewitz, the 19th century German soldier and military strategist, famously remarked that war is the continuation of policy (politics) by other means.

By war, von Clausewitz meant the old-fashioned idea of running people through or making them run away, so they give up their territory, treasure, and women. By war these days there are fresh ways of running people through and grabbing treasure and women. There's cyber warfare, which strikes at the enemy's minds, not their bodies; sanctions, which are the modern form of siege warfare, starving the enemy of cash for food; and sports warfare, which means killing the most popular entertainment in the world. Olympic Games and World Cup football have replaced rape and rapine of olden times, at least in countries which regard themselves as civilized.

Comment: For a further in-depth discussion read this recent SOTT Focus article by Joe Quinn The US-Inspired Olympic Ban on Russia: Another Pyrrhic Victory for the Ailing Empire of Chaos

Under the title 'The man who sold his soul' Grigory Rodchenkov figures most prominently, as do a few others;
As the head of the WADA-approved Moscow anti-doping laboratory, Grigory Rodchenkov was responsible for tampering with the samples of Russian athletes and developing a three-drug cocktail of banned substances that he mixed with liquor and sold for personal profit to Russian athletes that competed in the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. According to an investigator with Moscow City court, he prescribed many of these drugs as 'vitamins' to unwitting athletes. For years prior to this, Rodchenkov and his sister Marina also ran a sideline selling PEDs (Performance Enhancing Drugs) to anyone else who was willing to pay. In 2011, the two Rodchenkovs were arrested and found guilty of drug dealing. Marina spent 18 months in prison while Grigory escaped jail time by claiming insanity and spending time in the Kashchenko psychiatric hospital.
Also read:

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Bad Guys

Why US politicians keep Clinton probe under the rug, bolster Trump-Russia case

Ekaterina Blinova
Sputnik
Fri, 08 Dec 2017 22:23 UTC
trump_clinton
© REUTERS/ Jonathan Ernst
Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn's guilty plea has triggered a heated debate on the prospects of the Trump-Russia investigation. Speaking to Sputnik, Wall Street analyst Charles Ortel opined that potential disclosures are not a cause for US President Donald Trump's concern, adding that the Clintons' case deserves far more scrutiny.

Although more than a year has passed since the US 2016 presidential election, no solid evidence confirming the alleged "collusion" between Donald Trump and Russia has emerged, Wall Street analyst and investigative journalist Charles Ortel told Sputnik.

"So far, I have seen little hard evidence supporting the strident claims by Deep State actors and mainstream media proving claims of 'collusion' - this is surprising given that so much time has now passed since 8 November 2016," Ortel pointed out.
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Bullseye

Putin is quietly working to put out the Middle East fire that was just started by Trump

Adam Garrie
The Duran
Fri, 08 Dec 2017 13:32 UTC
Putin Egypt
While brokering a peace deal in the Israel-Palestine conflict is one of the most difficult tasks in the world - Putin already has one advantage over Trump. Putin listens.

Yesterday, Russian President Vladimir Putin held one of his increasingly frequent phone calls with his Turkey counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Russia said the following of the phone call in an official statement,
"Both sides expressed serious concern about the US decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital and plans to move the US Embassy there from Tel Aviv. Such steps can thwart all prospects for the Middle East peace process.

Further escalation of tensions in the region, it was noted, would be unacceptable. The efforts of the international community should be aimed at facilitating the resumption of Palestinian-Israeli talks in search of a compromise solution to all issues, including the status of Jerusalem.

Russia and Turkey reaffirmed their commitment to achieving a just and viable solution to the Middle East crisis based, above all, on the relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly, as well as the realization of the Palestinian people's right to their own state.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan informed President Putin about the calling of an emergency summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation devoted to this situation on December 13.

Topical aspects of bilateral cooperation were addressed, with special attention given to carrying out strategic energy projects.

The presidents agreed to continue personal contacts".

Comment: One could well argue that there really is nothing to mediate in the Middle East. Israel behaves like an intractable foe - not only to Palestinians and to Iran - but to any nation or people that threatens to get in the way of its plans for a 'greater Israel'. There is no amount of diplomacy, or agreement, or compromise, or law - that can, or will, assuage Israel's ambition. At the end of the day, Israel's goals - and the ways in which it goes about pursuing those goals - will be its fatal undoing.

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Binoculars

You can expect some desperate and insane behavior from the U.S. government in 2018

Michael Krieger
Liberty Blitzkrieg
Thu, 07 Dec 2017 11:43 UTC
Dylan quote
In the first two installments of this series, I discussed the potential for the U.S. federal government to make some spectacularly foolish moves against its own people in the realms of cannabis and Bitcoin. My basic assumption is that government tends to despise freedom, and that "leaders" of an empire in decline like the U.S. are particularly vulnerable to very bad decisions.

Government propagandists constantly instruct the public that they need to be fearful of their neighbors or some guy in a cave overseas (who they probably funded in the first place), when they themselves tend to be the most unethical, corrupt thieves of all. It's a very clever scam.


Comment: If there was ever a chance that Trump could steer the U.S. away from the road of foreign policy disasters that we have seen for the past few decades, that moment seems gone. He has been surrounded by, manipulated by and probably bullied by a pathological mindset and agenda that is embodied by hysterical politicians like Tom Cotton - who would have no qualms with crushing the jugular of humanity out of anyone who isn't on board with their agenda of power games and world dominance.

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Arrow Down

Champion of women? Franken's unapologetic resignation rankles his accusers

Addy Baird
ThinkProgress
Thu, 07 Dec 2017 21:27 UTC
Al Franken
© REUTERS/Yuri Gripas
Senator Al Franken (D-MN)
On Thursday, in an emotional speech on the Senate floor, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) resigned. The senator was facing a number of sexual harassment allegations, but in his speech, he admitted no wrongdoing and did not apologize for any of his alleged behavior.

"I am proud that during my time in the Senate I have used my power to be a champion of women and that I've earned a reputation as someone who respects the women I work alongside every day," Franken said. "I know there's been a very different picture of me painted over the last few weeks, but I know who I really am. Serving in the United States Senate has been the great honor of my life. I know in my heart that nothing I have done as a senator - nothing - has brought dishonor on this institution."


Comment: Oh, except for calling for a crackdown on the internet to curtail free speech and advocating for even more state surveillance?

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USA

US lawmaker Trent Franks quits over 'surrogacy' talks with aides


BBC News
Fri, 08 Dec 2017 22:26 UTC
Trent Franks is accused of offering a former aide $5m to act as a surrogate mother

Trent Franks is accused of offering a former aide $5m to act as a surrogate mother
Arizona Republican Trent Franks has resigned amid an ethics investigation into claims he repeatedly asked female staff to be surrogate mothers.

The announcement came after a congressional panel said it was opening an inquiry into sexual harassment allegations against Mr Franks.
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Snakes in Suits

Selective memory: Obama was worst US postwar economic President, yet richly takes credit for Trump's economic growth

Alex Christoforou
The Duran
Fri, 08 Dec 2017 19:52 UTC
S ovakvim prijateljima ...: Obama je privatno ismijavao
Number don't lie. Barack Obama was the worst US postwar economic president.

Obama was the only US president to never reach at least one year of 3% GDP growth.

Comment: Obama hasn't been able to find anything productive to do with his retirement, so is doing his utmost to stab Trump in the back at every opportunity.

A few reminders of the amount of damage done to the US economy during Obama's reign: The depressing economic realities that Donald Trump will inherit from Obama

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Calculator

Brexit breakthrough: Talks enter new phase after UK agrees to 'no hard border' in Ireland


RT
Fri, 08 Dec 2017 17:16 UTC
theresa may juncker

Shake on it?
Following Monday's false dawn Britain, the EU and Ireland have finally reached a deal on Brexit, meaning talks can now move onto phase two.

Talks ran through the night between UK Prime Minister Theresa May, leader of the DUP - Northern Ireland's biggest party - Arlene Foster, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and Irish leader Leo Varadkar.

Tensions between the leaders had reached fever pitch during the week as the heads of state fought their country's corner. However, by Friday morning it was announced that marathon all-night talks had culminated in an initial plan on which everyone agreed.

Comment: Technically, Varadkar's message was just to the Irish nationalist community in Northern Ireland, which has been treated abysmally by Dublin govts since the 1980s, when they bowed to the British narrative about 'fighting evil Irish terrorists'.

But that's all water under the bridge now. The 1998 Good Friday Agreements have brought two decades of peace to the north. It's a safe bet that a majority of people, both north and south, do not want what has effectively become an open border to return to being a hard one with checkpoints and customs controls.

And this is why London is having to negotiate a minefield in delivering the mandate British people as a whole gave it in last year's
Brexit referendum. If the UK leaves the EU, it cannot take Northern Ireland with it. But it also won't leave it behind in the EU, so something has to give...

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Bad Guys

FBI Deputy Director McCabe accused of ordering agents to lie about Benghazi

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Thu, 07 Dec 2017 17:03 UTC
Andrew McCabe
© AP Photo/ Jacquelyn Martin
GOP lawmakers have come forward with new allegations of political bias or interference at the FBI - this time involving the 2012 Benghazi attack. John Solomon of The Hill reports that Rep. Ron Desantis (R-FL) recently interviewed a retired FBI supervisor who told him he was instructed by Deputy Director Andrew McCabe not to call the 2012 Benghazi attack an act of terrorism when distributing the FBI's findings to the larger intelligence community - despite knowing exactly who conducted the attack.
The agent found the instruction concerning because his unit had gathered incontrovertible evidence showing a major al Qaeda figure had directed the attack and the information had already been briefed to President Obama, the lawmaker said. -The Hill
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Hiliter

The UK can't leave the EU and keep Northern Ireland, so it appears to have chosen to ditch Brexit

Fintan O'Toole
Irish Times
Fri, 08 Dec 2017 19:48 UTC

Comment: Today's Brexit agreement in Brussels - whereby the govts of the UK and the Republic of Ireland agreed that no 'hard border' would reform between the Republic and the British province in the north of Ireland - means, in effect, that the UK government is taking the position of making a 'qualified' Brexit.

This op-ed in the Irish Times goes further, however, saying that today's agreement increases the probability that Brexit won't happen at all.


cartoon brexit
© Dave Simmonds
What it comes down to, at the end of the day.
Let's not understate the import of what Ireland has just achieved. It has not just secured an outcome that minimises the damage of Brexit on this island. It has radically altered the trajectory of Brexit itself, pushing that crazy careering vehicle away from its path towards the cliff edge.

This saga has taken many strange turns, but this is the strangest of all: after one of the most fraught fortnights in the recent history of Anglo-Irish relations, Ireland has just done Britain a favour of historic dimensions. It has saved it from the madness of a hard Brexit. There is a great irony here: the problem that the Brexiteers most relentlessly ignored has come to determine the entire shape of their project. By standing firm against their attempts to bully, cajole and blame it, Ireland has shifted Brexit towards a soft outcome. It is now far more likely that Britain will stay in the customs union and the single market. It is also more likely that Brexit will not in fact happen.

Comment: In short, the only way out of the EU for the UK - assuming it does not allow a border poll; a referendum put to people in Northern Ireland on the question of (re-)unification with the Republic of Ireland - is that the whole of the UK must take on a 'special status'... which means it effectively remains in the customs union, which means it effectively remains in the European Union.

People in favor of Brexit point out that the referendum result represents the will of the people, and thus that a complete break with the EU must happen. But the UK is an unusual country. It is itself a union of four member-states, each with varying degrees of political autonomy, and two of whom made clear that 'the will of the people' was to remain within the EU...

UK Brexit referendum result map


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