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'Putin's America' and a 'politicized military': Bizarre criticisms of DC Independence Day military parade


RT
Fri, 05 Jul 2019 02:33 UTC
DC parade
© Global Look / Stefani Reynolds
As Washington, DC prepared to celebrate Independence Day, Time Magazine editor at large Anand Giridharadas cast a sinister shadow over the festivities, suggesting a planned military parade is a sign he lives in 'Putin's America.'

Giridharadas tweeted the alarmist missive earlier this week, ahead of Thursday afternoon's parade, and was soon taken to task by several commenters who noted the editor's utter lack of context or historical perspective.

"I understand the hostility to Trump, but we've had military equipment in parades before in America," one user responded, adding "It's not exactly unprecedented. Let's not cross over into derangement."

Comment: RT reports that some generals refused to take part for fear of the military appearing politicized:
Fox News host Lou Dobbs angered Twitter with a snarky remark about US military brass, who he called "snowflake generals" after some decided not to show up at the 4th of July military parade amid politicization concerns.

Dobbs took a swipe at the generals on Twitter as he commented on reports alleging that, contrary to US President Donald Trump's claim, senior Army and Navy officials are less than "thrilled" about appearing alongside the commander-in-chief at the grandiose military show-off central to this year's 4th of July festivities.

"No wonder these Snowflake Generals haven't won a war since 1991," Dobbs wrote, provoking a massive backlash online.

CNN reported on Thursday, citing a military insider, that the top military officials were asked to appear alongside Trump, but grew uneasy about it amid concerns the parade may turn into a giant Make America Great Again rally, which would put them in potential violation of the Pentagon's political neutrality rules.

The July 4th celebration, touted by Trump as a 'salute to America', has seen tanks and warplanes parade through Washington, as well as protests by opponents of the costly (the White House has refused to say exactly how costly) military extravaganza, which has drawn scathing criticism from the anti-Trump crowd.

Dobbs' remarks may not sit well with many of Twitter's own 'snowflakes', but he is not wrong about at least one thing: despite its numerous military adventures, victories have been few and far between for the US, with its latest involvements, like Iraq and Afghanistan, turning into drawn-out fiascos costing hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives - mostly those of local civilians.

Still, he faced a torrent of criticism online, with many pointing out that Dobbs did not served in the military.


Trump himself was exempted from serving in Vietnam due to a medical condition, namely bone spurs in his heels, but his opponents have been skeptical of the validity of that diagnosis.

The Pentagon earlier announced that the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps chiefs won't be in attendance for the military parade, but would sent substitutes.

Joint Chiefs Chairman General Joseph Dunford and acting Defense Secretary Mark Esper are expected to show up.
Hereticus Economicus reminds us of the relentless US wars of aggression around the planet, and, as noted above, this began long before Putin came to power. H.E also lists the other countries that partake in military parades - surely they aren't all be beholden to Putin?
And if we contrast all the war crimes, all the corruption, all the theft, all the injustice perpetrated by US administrations since WW2 up to the present, including Donald Trump's administration - we see a clear pattern of militarism, hypocrisy, consistent war profiteering, violence, and death. "Fascism" didn't start with Trump or the GOP. It didn't stop with Obama or the Democrats. US financial and military hegemony is BIPARTISAN. It always was. Always will be. Liberals, kindly spare us of your hypocrisy, of your false humanitarianism. The World doesn't believe it.

Now, then, let's see some of the other countries who display military units during their national day celebrations: Mexico, South Africa, Romania, China, Iran, France, Russia, South Korea, Japan, North Korea, Italy, Brazil, Venezuela, Spain, Austria, Vietnam, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine, Poland, Greece, and many, many other countries.


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Quenelle

Corbyn wishes Amazon "many happy tax returns" on its 25th anniversary

Mark Sweney
The Guardian
Fri, 05 Jul 2019 10:45 UTC
corbyn amazon
© Jeremy Corbyn/Twitter
Jeremy Corbyn writing 25th birthday card to Amazon.
The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has sent a barbed birthday card to Jeff Bezos to mark Amazon's 25th anniversary, wishing the company "many happy tax returns" and demanding it pays more UK tax, pays its staff better and improves working conditions.

Amazon UK paid only £1.7m in corporation tax in 2017, its most recent annual public filing at Companies House, as pre-tax profits tripled to £72m. Turnover at its British business, which handles the packing and delivery of parcels and functions such as customer service, rose 35%, from £1.46bn to £1.98bn.

Corbyn's birthday message to the world's richest man, who has just finalised the world's biggest divorce settlement, worth $38bn, says: "Dear Jeff. Happy Birthday. You owe the British people millions in taxes that pay for the public services that we all rely on. This year, pay your fair share of taxes, give your hard-working staff a pay rise and respect workers' rights. Many Happy Tax Returns, Jeremy."

Comment: It's unlikely that any giants of the business world will pay their fair share anytime soon, because then the UK's unscrupulous politicians, who are often found to reaping similar benefits, might be expected to pay theirs too:

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People 2

Tunisia bans veil from government buildings following spate of attacks


Daily Mail
Fri, 05 Jul 2019 12:34 UTC
niqab veil

Tunisia has banned the niqab face cover in 'public institutions' (stock photo)
Tunisia has banned the niqab veil in 'public institutions'.

Under the new rules, people wearing the Muslim face covering will not be allowed to enter government buildings.

Tunisian Prime minister Youssef Chahed has brought in the new measure 'for security reasons', his office said.

Chahed signed a circular on Friday 'banning access to public administrations and institutions to anyone with their face covered', a spokesman said.

The 'security reasons' were not explained, but Tunisia has been rocked by a series of explosions in recent days.

Comment: Tunisia certainly seems to be of interest to the chaos creators operating in the region, and, as evidenced by the 'Arab spring', it's clearly vulnerable to their machinations:

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Dollars

'G'bye dollar, t'was nice knowing you!'

Philip Giraldi
Strategic Culture Foundation
Thu, 04 Jul 2019 00:00 UTC
buckshred
© Getty Images
Over the past two years, the White House has initiated trade disputes, insulted allies and enemies alike, and withdrawn from or refused to ratify multinational treaties and agreements. It has also expanded the reach of its unilaterally imposed rules, forcing other nations to abide by its demands or face economic sanctions. While the stated Trump Administration intention has been to enter into new arrangements more favorable to the United States, the end result has been quite different, creating a broad consensus within the international community that Washington is unstable, not a reliable partner and cannot be trusted. This sentiment has, in turn, resulted in conversations among foreign governments regarding how to circumvent the American banking system, which is the primary offensive weapon apart from dropping bombs that Washington has to force compliance with its dictates.

Consequently, there has been considerable blowback from the Make America Great Again campaign, particularly as the flip side of the coin appears to be that the "greatness" will be obtained by making everyone else less great. The only country in the world that currently regards the United States favorably is Israel, which certainly has good reason to do so given the largesse that has come from the Trump Administration. Everyone else is keen to get out from under the American heel.
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X

Mueller report wrong on Trump Tower meeting, deceptively promotes Browder hoax

Lucy Komisar
Consortium News
Wed, 03 Jul 2019 00:00 UTC
Nataliya Veselnitskaya
© Lucy Komisar
Nataliya Veselnitskaya
A "key event" described in the Mueller Report is the Trump Tower meeting where a Russian lawyer met with the president's son Donald Trump Jr, his son-in-law Jared Kushner and his campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

Russiagaters have been obsessed with the meeting saying it was the smoking gun to prove collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign to steal the 2016 election. Months after Mueller concluded that there was no collusion at all, the obsession has switched to "obstruction of justice," which is like someone being apprehended for resisting arrest without committing any other crime.

The Mueller report thus focuses instead on "efforts to prevent disclosure of information about the June 9, 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Russians and senior campaign officials."

But the report on this topic is deceptive. Ironically, as it attacks Donald Trump and top campaign officials for lying, the report itself lies about the issue the meeting addressed.
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Oil Well

Mystery trader barters Maduro's oil, avoids US sanctions

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Wed, 03 Jul 2019 09:55 UTC
Dragoslav Ilic
© Unknown
Dragoslav Ilic
A new report from Bloomberg exposes how international traders can skirt around US sanctions to buy and sell Venezuelan oil, which allows the Maduro regime to remain in power.

Dragoslav Ilic, a Serb with a Panamanian trading company, trades Venezuelan oil and avoids US sanctions in global markets by bartering oil and reselling to third parties. MS Internacional Corporation exchanges crude for gasoline and gasoline components, allowing the Maduro regime to supply heavily subsidized fuel to his faithful supporters.

Bloomberg notes, until the last several months, no one in the business has ever heard of Ilic or his company.

Francisco Monaldi, a professor at Rice University's Baker Institute, said the emergence of new traders reminds him of those who helped the Venezuelan government survive the strike of 2002-2003. "These tiny trading houses are doing the same, helping out the regime to either get cash or gasoline or dilutents to produce crude oil," Monaldi said.

Along with new trading houses, Russia's state-controlled oil company Rosneft, Indian refiners and China are supporting Petróleos de Venezuela, SA (PDVSA) with billions of dollars in loans for the chance to purchase oil.

Comment: See also:

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Take 2

Putin to Guaido: Time to get back to reality


Sputnik
Thu, 04 Jul 2019 22:03 UTC
PutinGuaido
© Reuters
Russian President Vladimir Putin • Venezuelan pretender Juan Guaido
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday urged the leader of Venezuelan opposition Juan Guaido to "return back to reality and follow democratic procedures", stressing that Guaido's appeal to God remained unanswered.

"The leader of the [Venezuelan] opposition, Mr. Guaido, appeared before the public, looked up to the sky and, addressing the Lord, declared himself president. Ok. But the Lord did not tell us how He reacted to this appeal, He did not give us any signal", Putin said at a press conference following talks with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte in Rome. "Therefore, I think that he should return to our sinful and mortal Earth and follow the democratic procedures and rules that boil down to one thing: dialogue and appeal to the people, to voters - you need to go to the elections and solve future development issues through the elections."

The Russian president also said that he and the Italian leadership share concern about the situation in Venezuela, and the external pressure only aggravates the internal crisis, forcing the citizens to flee the country.
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Stop

Wikipedia co-founder offers a 'declaration of digital independence' to stop abuse by Big Tech - will it work?


RT
Thu, 04 Jul 2019 19:52 UTC
Social media
© Global Look Press/Frank Hoermann/Sven Simon
Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger is calling for a decentralized internet and a boycott of social media while his own brain child is accused of corporate-like intrusion into the community's self-governing domain.

Every person using the internet has "unalienable digital rights," a lengthy document, conspicuously resembling the US Declaration of Independence and published on the Sanger's website says, defining these freedoms as "free speech, privacy and security."

The appeal published in late June - just days before Independence Day in the US - states that these rights were unceremoniously violated by the "vast digital empires," which have been mercilessly exploiting humanity for their own profit. It then goes on to list the "long train of abuses" that ordinary internet users have suffered at the hands of greedy corporations, which includes a wide range of misdeeds - from extracting private data without the explicit consent of the owners, and marketing them to advertisers, to allowing corporate and government surveillance over social media users, and the arbitrary banning of undesired opinions due to political and ideological reasons.

Comment: See also:

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Bandaid

Putin regarding sanctions: No 'insurmountable' rift between Russia and Europe


RT
Thu, 04 Jul 2019 23:02 UTC
PutinConte
© Reuters
Russian President Vladimir Putin • Italian Prime Minister Giuseppi Conte
The anti-Russian sanctions imposed by the EU go both ways and hurt not only Moscow, but the bloc itself, Russian president has said, adding that he sees no "insurmountable obstacles" to fix the bilateral relations.

The restrictions, imposed on Moscow by the EU over the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, have been quite damaging to trade - turnover dropped from $450 billion in 2013 to some $279 billion now, Vladimir Putin said on Thursday at a joint press conference with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte.

Where did those billions go? I'll tell you - it's profits not received by us, as well as by European countries, including Italy.

Russia is ready to "do its part" in fixing the relations with the EU, but it's up to the bloc's new leadership to show it wants it as well, Putin said, when asked for his opinion on the new head of the European Commission German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyden.
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Star of David

Why hasn't the 'NY Times' done a profile of Israel's most notorious general, Ofer Winter?

James North
Mondoweiss
Fri, 05 Jul 2019 17:17 UTC
ofer winter israel
© Ariel Hermoni/Israeli Ministry of Defense
Moshe Ya'alon, left, meets with Col. Ofer Winter in December 2013.
Reporters at the New York Times love to have their stories featured on the front page. In fact, among themselves they dismiss articles that run inside as merely "vitamin page" reports — because the Times labels the pages in its print edition as A6, B3, and so on.

The paper's Jerusalem bureau has missed another sure-fire chance to get on page A1. Brigadier General Ofer Winter, the Israeli army's most controversial officer, just got promoted again — but the Times continues to ignore him. Winter's notoriety is summarized in Haaretz's characterization: "a Pattonesque holy warrior on the battlefield." Winter has been well-known since the early 2000s, but one Times reporter after another has somehow failed to write a profile.

Here's why: one of the ways the Times rigs its coverage of Israel/Palestine is by covering up Israeli extremists, to make Israel seem a much more moderate place than it really is. You will rarely if ever read about the far-right leaders of the West Bank settler/colonists, for example, nor will you learn about the vicious anti-Palestinian racism that is becoming steadily more normalized in Israeli life.

Comment: You get the leaders you deserve. Israel has made its choice clear. Tikun Olam's Richard Silverstein wrote in 2014:
After Operation Cast Lead, peace activists prepared a list of 200 IDF officers who played major roles in the sowing the killing fields of Gaza with blood. I'm hoping someone is right now preparing a similar list for Operation Protective Edge. The level of mass mayhem in it far exceeds that of the prior campaign. More dead, more injured, more orphans, more devastation.

Remember this name in particular: Ofer Winter. He's the poster boy of IDF war criminals. He was also high on the list of those accused of similar acts during Cast Lead. It was he who wrote the genocidal battle plan announced to his troops in the accompanying image:
History has chosen for us to be the bayonet point of battle against the Gazan terrorist enemy which curses, defames and abuses the God of Israel's military campaigns...

God, the Lord of Israel, make our path successful, as we are about to fight for Your People, Israel, against an enemy who defames your name. In the name of the IDF fighters...make the phrase "For the Lord your God is he that goeth with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you." come true, and we shall answer: Amen.
Lest you think I overstated the term "genocidal" above, anyone who knows their Bible will recognize this language. It is the language used to describe those tribes which the Israelites wiped out in their campaign to capture the land of Israel and populate it with their offspring. Tribes like the Amalekites, Moabites, Jebusites and others were all exterminated in battles in which the ancient Jews followed what they perceived as God's will in taking over the land.

Winter's Givati brigade played a key role in the slaughter in Rafah (English edition) in the last week of the war in which 160 Palestinians were killed by vengeful IDF forces seeking vengeance after a Hamas attack that killed an IDF major, sergeant and captured Lt. Hadar Goldin.


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