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The trouble with Mike Pence: Imagining a Christian Zionist neoconservative presidency

Barbara Boland
The American Conservative
Mon, 07 Oct 2019 00:00 UTC
Mike Pence
© Gino Santa Maria / Shutterstock.com
Mike Pence
Be warned, the Vice President's foreign policy positions invoke a messianism not seen since the Bush Administration.

As Congress lurches towards impeachment, complete with Cabinet-level subpoenas, the specter of a Mike Pence presidency looms larger.

But let's face it: Whether it's in 2024 or sooner, President Pence in the Oval Office would be a dream come true for establishment Republicans and war hawk neocons alike. Trump-style "America First" nationalism would be dead on arrival, in its place the zombified corpse of globalism.

During the run up to the 2016 election, the media criticized Trump's choice of Pence as hypocritical. Trump had famously broke with Republican orthodoxy when he called the Iraq war "a disaster." He never missed an opportunity to deride Hillary Clinton for her support of the 2003 invasion. But Trump didn't seem to mind that his choice for vice president had also voted for the war. Huh?

That's because Trump sees the presidency as a one-man band, and he prefers to lead it in the same style as the Trump organization, unshackled by the past policy positions of aides. Pence looks straight out of "central casting," Trump has been heard to say of his veep. For Trump, advisers are mostly decorative, and Pence is a vice president a Hollywood director might choose for a second-rate film.

Comment: See also:

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Eagle

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu: It is the West that is responsible for waging hybrid wars, not us

Paul Craig Roberts
paulcraigroberts.org
Tue, 08 Oct 2019 00:00 UTC
Defence Minister General Sergei Shoigu
Russian Defence Minister General Sergei Shoigu in a September 22, 2019 Interview:

We long failed to understand the essential nature of what was going on around us. If the West had continued to behave as it began behaving in Gorbachev's time - if it had kept all its promises, not moved NATO ever closer to our borders, not expanded its influence in our near abroad, not gotten involved in the internal affairs of our country - then it seems to me that the West would ultimately have succeeded in everything. They would have succeeded in attaining the objective they had set themselves — the objective of destroying and enslaving our country, as the West did to the former Soviet republics.

The process of recovering our common sense began in 1999. From that moment we have fought for all we are worth through difficulty and hardship to reach a situation whereby today the world has, nevertheless, ceased to be a unipolar world. And the West, naturally enough, is not at all happy about this, it is exerting every effort to recover for itself the monopoly of influence in the world. Some people believe that the West's wide-ranging overt opposition to Russia began only five years ago - with Ukraine and Crimea. But that is a mistake. I would recommend a detailed recollection of precisely what went on in the 1990's, in 2008, in 2013. What drivel was said and written about us at a time when we were preparing for the Olympic Games in Sochi! And this was by no means just a manifestation of information warfare.
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Quenelle - Golden

'Equation of power changed': Top Iranian official says Middle East is 'safer place' without US


Sputnik
Mon, 14 Oct 2019 23:29 UTC
Iranian Missile Test
© AP Photo / IRNA/ Mostafa Qotbi
Following the start of the Turkish military operation in northern Syria, the US announced that it would pull out some of its troops from the area, with President Donald Trump criticising the efforts of previous administrations that dragged Washington into wars in the Middle East.

Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani has stated that the Middle East would be "a safer place without the US", stating that Washington should withdraw its troops from the region entirely and not just from Syria. He argued that even US officials have acknowledged that getting involved in the region's wars was a mistake, apparently referring to US President Donald Trump's recent criticism of past US administrations' Middle East policies.

Commenting on the recent statement by the POTUS, Shamkhani alleged that his administration has realised that "the equation of power and politics in the Middle East has changed" and that the US can no longer claim the leading position in the region.

Comment: See also:

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Dreamsicle

Budapest elects liberal mayor as Hungary's liberal opposition breaks conservatives' winning streak - But Orban still reigns

Zoltan Simon
Bloomberg
Sun, 13 Oct 2019 00:00 UTC
Viktor Orban
© Ferenc Isza/AFP via Getty Images
Viktor Orban casts a ballot on Oct. 13
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's party lost control of Budapest and four of the country's biggest cities, in a major rebuke to his rule after a video of one of his allies at an orgy handed a last-minute gift to a galvanized opposition.


Comment: Sneaky. They did the same thing to the Austrian conservative govt on the eve of May's European Parliament elections. It hits conservative types every time...


The unexpectedly strong showing in local elections across Hungary gave opposition parties, which united behind joint candidates for the first time, momentum to build on their alliance against the self-styled opponent of liberal democracy. Gergely Karacsony, a former district mayor in Budapest, claimed the most important victory on Sunday.

"This election was about how the power of the people is always stronger than the men of power," Karacsony said after Istvan Tarlos, the two-term Orban-backed mayor of Budapest, conceded defeat to him.

Comment: So Orban is still very much in favor in Hungary.

All the same, these local election results are very interesting.

It's remarkable how consistent the Liberal-Urban / Conservative-Rural divide is, right across the West. What is it with cities?

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Binoculars

Kurds face stark options after US pullback

Pepe Escobar
Asia Times
Mon, 14 Oct 2019 21:10 UTC
kurd syria
© AFP / Delil Souleiman
Syrian Arabs and Kurdish civilians arrive to Hassakeh city after fleeing bombardment on Syria's northeastern towns along the Turkish border on October 10, 2019 amid fears of a new humanitarian crisis.
In the annals of bombastic Trump tweets, this one is simply astonishing: here we have a President of the United States, on the record, unmasking the whole $8-trillion intervention in the Middle East as an endless war based on a "false premise." No wonder the Pentagon is not amused. Trump's tweet bisects the surreal geopolitical spectacle of Turkey attacking a 120-kilometer-long stretch of Syrian territory east of the Euphrates to essentially expel Syrian Kurds. Even after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan cleared with Trump the terms of the Orwellian-named "Operation Peace Spring," Ankara may now face the risk of US economic sanctions.

The predominant Western narrative credits the Syrian Democratic Forces, mostly Kurdish, for fighting and defeating Islamic State, also known as Daesh. The SDF is essentially a collection of mercenaries working for the Pentagon against Damascus. But many Syrian citizens argue that ISIS was in fact defeated by the Syrian Arab Army, Russian aerial and technical expertise plus advisers and special forces from Iran and Hezbollah.

As much as Ankara may regard the YPG Kurds - the "People's protection units" - and the PKK as mere "terrorists" (in the PKK's case aligned with Washington), Operation Peace Spring has in principle nothing to do with a massacre of Kurds.

Comment: See also:

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Bad Guys

Pepe Escobar: Behind Hong Kong's black terror

Pepe Escobar
Asia Times
Mon, 14 Oct 2019 21:16 UTC
Hong Kong black bloc
© The Yomiuri Shimbun
A radical protester throws a molotov cocktail at a government building in Hong Kong on Sept. 15, 2019.
"If we burn, you burn with us. Self-destruct together." (Lam chao.)
The new slogans of Hong Kong's black bloc - a mob on a rampage connected to the black shirt protestors - made their first appearance on a rainy Sunday afternoon, scrawled on walls in Kowloon.

Decoding the slogans is essential to understand the mindless street violence that was unleashed even before the anti-mask law passed by the government of the Special Administrative Region (SAR) went into effect at midnight on Friday, October 4.

By the way, the anti-mask law is the sort of measure that was authorized by the 1922 British colonial Emergency Regulations Ordnance, which granted the city government the authority to "make any regulations whatsoever which he [or she] may consider desirable in the public interest" in case of "emergency or public danger".
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Hourglass

COUNTDOWN: DOJ's IG report drops this Friday as Horowitz rolls truth grenades into deep state bunkers

Mike Adams
Natural News
Mon, 14 Oct 2019 20:10 UTC
James Comey
© NaturalNews.com
The DOJ's IG report detailing the deep state's FISA abuse will be released this Friday, October 18, according to Fox News host Maria Bartiromo (see video below). The report has been assembled by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who has focused on abuses of power, FISA court fraud and possible criminal conduct by deep state operatives like James Comey and Andrew McCabe.

We've previously described this pending report as "rolling truth grenades into deep state bunkers."

According to Bartiromo, the report is, "as thick as a telephone book."

The imminent release of the IG report may help explain the rapid acceleration of panic among Democrats and the deep state media as the truth bombs about corruption, collusion and fraud are about to be ignited.
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Yellow Vest

Spain sentences Catalonia independence leaders to 13 years imprisonment for sedition - Protests erupt in Barcelona - UPDATE: Airport occupied


RT
Mon, 14 Oct 2019 13:07 UTC
barcelona protest referendum
© REUTERS / Rafael Marchante
People march through Via Laetana Avenue during a protest after a verdict in a trial over a banned independence referendum.
Former Catalan Vice President Oriol Junqueras has been sentenced to 13 years in prison by Spain's Supreme Court for his role in the attempted secession by authorities in Barcelona in 2017.

Junqueras was among nine separatist leaders who were sentenced to between nine and 13 years in prison for sedition for their part in the region's failed 2017 independence bid which captured headlines around the world.

A further three defendants were found guilty of disobedience but were not handed prison sentences for their participation in both the banned referendum and short-lived independence declaration. All defendants were acquitted of the most serious charge of rebellion.

Comment: Update 21:45 CET

Barcelona resembles Hong Kong today, with police going all-in to clear protesters who have gathered at the airport:











It's not just the airport either; protests have erupted across Barcelona and the whole Catalonia region. Here people are banging pots and pans out their windows as a form of 'prison protest' in support of the jailed leaders:


We can confirm that Spanish police are firing 'flash-balls' at them - the same thing the French police used to suppress Yellow Vest protesters:


Macron, Merkel, MSM, corporate media, alt-media, et al... any comment?? Should Spain not be "respecting the democratic rights" of Catalans? Should it not be "engaged in political dialogue"? Y'all have so much to say about Hong Kong ought to be run...

Or is this latest symptom of the 'Western House Divided on Itself' all Russia's doing?!

What's deliciously ironic about this development is that pro-independence Catalans were probably watching what has been happening in HK, what was happening in the Spanish courts, and hand planned beforehand to storm Barcelona's airport when their leaders' sentences were handed down...

They were thus inspired by pro-independence Hong Kongers, who were trained and at least partially funded by Western NGOs... and so it all feeds back into the system against the system itself.

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Bell

Hear those alarm bells going off? Ukraine scandal leads to the Clinton Foundation

Wayne Allyn Root
The Gateway Pundit
Thu, 10 Oct 2019 00:00 UTC
HRC/ClintFound
© stream.orgwp
Hillary Clinton Foundation Scandal
Trump is not getting thrown out of office. Not with his remarkable record of economic success for the average American worker. Not going to happen. 63 million Trump voters will insure that never happens. We have your back, Mr. President.

President Trump has the highest approval rating among Republicans in history. 95%. No one is impeaching this president. Now, let's discuss why this is happening...

Trump touched the third rail of Democrat/Deep State/DC Swamp politics. He asked Ukraine's President to investigate massive Democrat corruption and theft of taxpayer money. Suddenly alarm bells went off at the DNC. I believe Trump is about to expose the biggest scandal in US political history. Trump is about to put powerful people in prison. Trump is about to destroy the Democrat Party and expose the Deep State.

So, it was all hands-on-deck. President Trump had to be framed and destroyed.

Enter Joe Biden. Few in the Democrat Party wanted an old white guy as the nominee anyway. Especially Obama. In order to frame Trump, Biden had to be sacrificed. In my opinion, this second-hand "whistleblower" was meant to kill two birds with one stone: Trump and Biden. Biden is the Democrats' fall guy.

But the real story is about the Clintons, the Clinton Foundation, Obama, Pelosi, Kerry and many other powerful Democrats. Their fingerprints are all over Ukraine.

Comment: When money influences power, power, in turn, influences money. It becomes a closed circuit. Whether this particular scenario has teeth or is merely speculation, it suggests examining a broader and deeper context for the gigantic cover-up efforts by the Clintons, Obama, the DNC and a myriad of cohorts.

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Star of David

Netanyahu's heir? Israeli spy chief Yossi Cohen

Jonathan Ofir
Mondoweiss
Mon, 14 Oct 2019 00:00 UTC
Neti/Cohen
© Benjamin Netanyahu and the head of Mossad, Yossi Cohen in December 2016. Kobi Gideon/GPO
Benjamin Netanyahu and the head of Mossad, Yossi Cohen in December 2016.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is fighting for his political survival, but it is clear also to him that at some point, there will be a post-Netanyahu era. He has already broken Ben-Gurion's record of 13 years at premiership, but he doesn't want a shift to happen too fast. When he recently called for snap Likud primaries in order to secure his standing, he panicked when his rival Gideon Sa'ar tweeted "I'm ready". Netanyahu went chickenshit, reversed the decision within an hour and said it wasn't primaries, only a confirmation of his leadership.

Netanyahu wants heirs that are loyal to him, and that he has suggested, at the time he finds suitable.

Enter Yossi Cohen, chief of the Israeli Mossad: "If there is someone whom we eliminate without hesitation, it's Hamas people abroad," said Cohen in an interview this week for the ultra-orthodox newspaper Family (Mishpacha in Hebrew), where he boasted of the spy and assassination agency's achievements under his leadership since 2016.

Cohen is one of the two people directly suggested by Prime Minister Netanyahu as his successors in the future - the other being Ron Dermer, who is now Ambassador to US.

Comment: See also:

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