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Lavrov: Behind the scenes, John Kerry deemed Crimea referendum legit, but urged a repeat


RT
Thu, 06 Jun 2019 17:35 UTC
kerry
© REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin
Former US Secretary of State John Kerry recognized that the outcome of the 2014 Crimea referendum reflected the will of the people, but instead of admitting it publicly, quietly called for a repeat vote, Sergey Lavrov said.

In an extensive interview with RBK news site, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the Obama administration's secretary of state, John Kerry, agreed with Moscow that the March 2014 referendum in Crimea, which turned out overwhelmingly in favor of reuniting with Russia, genuinely showed the people's support for the move.

At the same time, Kerry reportedly urged Moscow to conduct the popular vote again for the sake of protocol.

"I won't reveal a big secret if I say that John Kerry was telling me in April 2014: 'Everything is clear. Everything happened the way the Crimean people wanted. But, for form's sake, hold another one [referendum]," Lavrov stated.
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Quenelle

'Left-wing' party with strict immigration policy wins general election in Denmark


RT
Thu, 06 Jun 2019 17:02 UTC
Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen
© Reuters / Ritzau Scanpix
Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen of the Liberal Party reacts during a speech after the election results at Christiansborg Castle in Copenhagen, Denmark, June 5, 2019.
Denmark's prime minister has resigned after his conservative coalition was defeated by the left-wing opposition in a general election. The victorious Social Democrats have promised a tougher migration policy.

Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen announced his resignation on Thursday, leaving the center-left Social Democrats to try to form a minority government. Led by Mette Frederiksen, the Social Democrats won nearly 26% of the vote, giving them 48 seats in parliament. In total, the "red bloc" coalition consisting of the Social Democrats, the Social Liberals, the Socialist People's Party and the Red-Green Alliance now control a combined 91 of the 179 seats in the legislature, securing a parliamentary majority.

Comment: THAT is a real left-wing party, one that doesn't collapse under the pressure to conform to the phony 'multi-cultural diversity' program.

The effects of untrammelled asylum policies are now coming home to roost.

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Red Flag

Tucker Carlson endorses Elizabeth Warren's economic plan

Joseph Simonson
Washington Examiner
Wed, 05 Jun 2019 17:11 UTC
tucker
Tucker Carlson on his show Wednesday evening gave his backing in a monologue to Massachusetts senator and 2020 candidate Elizabeth Warren's plan to boost jobs and wages through domestic investment and economic protectionism.

"Yesterday, Warren released what she's calling her 'plan for economic patriotism.' Amazingly, that's pretty much exactly what it is: economic patriotism. There's not a word about identity politics in the document. There are no hysterics about gun control or climate change," Carlson said. "There's no lecture about the plight of transgender illegal immigrants. It's just pure old fashioned economics: how to preserve good-paying American jobs. Even more remarkable: Many of Warren's policy prescriptions make obvious sense: She says the U.S. government should buy American products when it can."

An individual close to Carlson described the show's opening as an endorsement.
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Bulb

Leaked audio reveals Pompeo telling Jewish leaders Maduro not going anywhere anytime soon - opposition divided, infighting

Zack Budryk
The Hill
Wed, 05 Jun 2019 17:01 UTC
pompeo
© AP Photo/Markus Schreiber
In a closed-door meeting last week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the U.S. has struggled to keep the opposition to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro united, according to The Washington Post.

"Our conundrum, which is to keep the opposition united, has proven devilishly difficult," Pompeo said in audio obtained by the Post. "The moment Maduro leaves, everybody's going to raise their hands and [say], 'Take me, I'm the next president of Venezuela.' It would be forty-plus people who believe they're the rightful heir to Maduro."

The secretary of State made the remarks last week during a meeting with Jewish leaders, according to the Post, at one point declining to answer a sensitive question because "someone's probably got a tape recorder on."

Pompeo added that while he believed Maduro would inevitably be ousted, he "couldn't tell you the timing." The secretary of State said the problems in uniting the opposition have been present since he became director of the CIA in 2017 and that internal squabbles among Maduro's enemies were preventing a successful uprising.
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Chess

Trump says prepared to talk to Iran but there's always a chance of military action


RFE/RL
Wed, 05 Jun 2019 16:58 UTC
trump
U.S. President Donald Trump says he is prepared to talk to Iran but that there was always a chance of U.S. military action against Tehran.

"So Iran is a place that was extremely hostile when I first came into office," Trump who is on a state visit to Britain, told ITV television on June 5. "They were a terrorist nation number one in the world at that time and probably maybe are today."

Asked if he thought military action might be needed, he said: "There's always a chance. Do I want to? No. I'd rather not. But there's always a chance."

He said, when asked, that he was prepared to talk to Iranian President Rohani: "Yeah of course. I would much rather talk."
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Question

Do Trump's hawks speak for Trump?

Patrick J. Buchanan
buchanan.org
Mon, 03 Jun 2019 16:53 UTC
hawks
For a president who won his office by denouncing the Middle East wars into which George W. Bush and Barack Obama plunged the nation, Donald Trump has assembled the most unabashedly hawkish conclave of foreign policy advisers in memory. And he himself seems to concede the point.

If foreign policy were decided by my security adviser John Bolton, the president confided recently, "We'd be in four wars by now."

It was Bolton who ordered the Abraham Lincoln carrier group and B-52s to the Gulf and told the Pentagon to draw up plans to send 120,000 U.S. troops. It is Bolton who is charging Iran with using mines to sabotage four oil tankers outside the Strait of Hormuz.

Asked for evidence, Bolton barked back at reporters: "Who else would you think is doing it? Somebody from Nepal?"
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Eye 1

YouTube issues site-wide crackdown on 'hateful' videos

Max Jaeger
NY Post
Wed, 05 Jun 2019 22:52 UTC
Getty Images
YouTube will yank down and ban "hateful" and "supremacist" videos - including those that deny violent, well-documented events such as the Holocaust, the company announced Wednesday.

"Today, we're taking another step in our hate speech policy by specifically prohibiting videos alleging that a group is superior in order to justify discrimination, segregation or exclusion based on qualities like age, gender, race, caste, religion, sexual orientation or veteran status," YouTube said in a blog post.

"This would include, for example, videos that promote or glorify Nazi ideology, which is inherently discriminatory. Finally, we will remove content denying that well-documented violent events, like the Holocaust or the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, took place."

Critics have accused the video-sharing website of enabling hate speech by turning a blind eye to it on its platform.
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Clock

Netanyahu picks Likud MK to serve as justice minister

Gary Willig
Israel National News
Wed, 05 Jun 2019 16:27 UTC
amir ohana
© Flash 90
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has selected Likud MK Amir Ohana to replace Aleyet Shaked as acting Justice Minister, the Prime Minister's Office announced Wednesday evening.

"MK Amir Ohana is a jurist who knows the legal system well. He holds a bachelor's degree in law, specializing in the Central District Attorney's Office," the PMO stated.

"For a decade, MK Ohana worked as a lawyer and appeared in various courts throughout Israel, and the Knesset led a series of laws, including the Basic Law on Nationality."

The Likud party emphasized the fact that Ohana is the first member of the LGBTQ community to be appointed as Israel's Justice Minister.

Prime Minister Netanyahu fired Shaked and Education Minister Naftali Bennett from the Cabinet on Sunday in a surprise move.

Netanyahu had reportedly sought to give the justice portfolio to Minister Yariv Levin, another Likud minister. However, Levin has refused to be made Justice Minister on an interim basis and will only seek the Justice Ministry after the next elections in September.

National Union chairman MK Bezalel Smotrich has also sought the justice portfolio.

Comment: So Netanyahu served a full day as Justice Minister. That was one day too many, but at least it's over:

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Gem

'My closest friend': China's President Xi hails his personal relations with Putin


RT
Wed, 05 Jun 2019 18:12 UTC
Putin Xi
© Sputnik / Alexei Druzhinin
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping shake hands during their meeting in the Kremlin.
Xi Jinping visits Russia more than any other country - and his great personal relationship with Vladimir Putin is one of the reasons for that, the Chinese President revealed after talks with his Russian counterpart in Moscow.

"This is my eighth trip to Russia since 2013," Xi told the journalists, who gathered at the Kremlin on Wednesday.

According to the Chinese leader's stats, he and Putin "have met almost thirty times over the past six years."
Russia is the most visited foreign state for me and President Putin is my closest friend and a good colleague.

Comment: These statements by Xi should really come as no surprise. In addition to the constructive leadership qualities of both men, they both share a positive and shared vision of cooperation, growth and stability for their respective countries. And they both have a shared enemy...

See also:

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Snakes in Suits

Gaetz: Biden had to 'copy and paste' Green New Deal because there is no inspiration behind his campaign - 'Donald Trump will trounce him'

Jeff Poors
Breitbart
Wed, 05 Jun 2019 14:57 UTC
Joe Biden
© Michael Dwyer/AP Photo
Joe Biden rolled out his climate policy on Tuesday after facing weeks of criticism from the Democratic Party's left flank for reportedly considering a plan to strike a "middle ground" on the issue.
Tuesday on Fox News Channel's "Hannity," Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) mocked former Vice President Joe Biden, a candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, for his newly unveiled climate proposal.

Gaetz coined the term "Plagiarizing Joe Biden" when asked about the proposal, noting its similarities to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's (D-NY) so-called Green New Deal.

"We could even get a new nickname," he said. "We could call him Plagiarizing Joe Biden. Well look, I mean Joe Biden once bragged that foreign leaders were calling asking him to run for President and now we know why. The Biden plan would unilaterally disarm the American economy, exporting carbon-based jobs to emerging economies where they're not going to put off their own prosperity for a generation for any environmental concern."

"Now, I do believe the climate is changing," Gaetz continued. "I think that humans have an impact on it, but the right approach is the one taken by President Trump to stand up for American innovation by putting tariffs on the Chinese when they steal our intellectual property and hollow out American businesses. So I think that has far more to do with the ultimate environmental consequence protecting the American innovator than trying to regulate our way through this challenge with a plan that Joe Biden didn't even write. His staffers went and took it off of media reports and other interest group websites."
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