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Kiriakou: Bolton's long goodbye

John Kiriakou
Consortium News
Wed, 12 Jun 2019 00:00 UTC
bolton
© Unknown
National Security Advisor John Bolton
Everybody in America knows that Donald Trump places a premium on what he considers to be "loyalty." You're either with him or against him. The White House staff has been a revolving door from virtually the start of his administration. It's not unusual for aides to last mere weeks or months, only to then be thrown out on the street.

Trump then inevitably says something about "loyalty."

The situation isn't unique to just the White House political and domestic policy staff. It is just as pervasive at the National Security Council. Nobody is sacred. Remember, you're either with him or against him. Now it's John Bolton's turn to find himself in a corner. I believe that his days as national security advisor are numbered - for reasons that have all played out in the press.

I'm one of those people - not at all unique in Washington - who has contacts and friends all over the political spectrum, including in the Trump Administration. After work and over drinks, they like to vent. What they are telling me privately is what other Washington insiders are telling the conservative press. The White House, and especially the National Security Council, are in disarray. And Bolton will soon be fired.

Comment: See also:

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Arrow Up

First round of votes: Boris Johnson runaway leader in UK PM race


RT
Thu, 13 Jun 2019 14:08 UTC
Boris Johnson
© Reuters/Hannah Mckay
Former British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson
Former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has blown away the competition in the first round of voting to decide the next Tory leader and UK PM, all but guaranteeing his place in the final round, after receiving 114 votes from MPs.

Johnson, the hotly-tipped favorite to succeed Theresa May, was expected to come out on top in the first round, but it's the huge margin of victory that will worry his opponents. He received 71 more backers than his nearest rival - the current Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt (43) - and 77 more votes than the Environment Secretary Michael Gove (37).

Former Leader of the House Andrea Leadsom, Mark Harper and Esther McVey are out, having failed to secure the 17 votes needed to progress to the next set of ballots, scheduled to take place next week.


Comment: George Galloway has commented on this development:
Boris Johnson possesses all of the prejudice and elitism of Britain's ruling class, but that certainly doesn't disqualify him from becoming the next prime minister, George Galloway told RT America.

The Tory MP and former foreign secretary is "the elite personified," said Galloway, who spent nearly 30 years in Parliament locking horns with Johnson's fellow Conservatives. Known for his posh persona and penchant for gaffes, Johnson is considered the clear favorite among the dozen Tories vying to replace Theresa May as party leader and prime minister.

"[Johnson is] carefully disheveled, utterly prejudiced, and very, very offensive. But that doesn't mean he's not going to win. Alas, that's Britain," Galloway noted.

Despite his shortcomings, Johnson is "the only Conservative" who can deliver on Brexit, Galloway believes, arguing that "none of the other Conservatives measure up." Johnson has been one of the few Conservatives to insist that the UK leave the European Union, with or without a deal, by the current October 31 deadline.

Theresa May announced her resignation as prime minister last month, bowing to pressure from her own party amid growing anger over her inability to push through a favorable Brexit deal with the EU. She stepped down as Conservative leader last week, setting the stage for a weeks-long process to select a new Tory leader and prime minister.


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Calendar

Survey: 69% of US CFOs predict a recession forthcoming 'by the end of 2020'

Michael Snyder
End of the American Dream
Wed, 12 Jun 2019 21:00 UTC
Tradewar arrows
© Grafissimo/iStock/KJN
Throughout 2017 and most of 2018, U.S. corporate executives were generally very optimistic about the future of the economy, but now that optimism has been replaced by a deep sense of doom and gloom. And of course there are very good reasons for all of the doom and gloom. The trade war with China looks like it is going to last for an extended period of time, recent global manufacturing numbers have been absolutely dismal, and it is being projected that corporate earnings will be down significantly in the second quarter. The economic environment is tough and it is rapidly getting tougher, and a brand new survey that was just released has found that 69 percent of U.S. CFOs believe that a new recession will start "by the end of 2020″...
The longest economic expansion in modern American history could come to a screeching halt right before the 2020 presidential election.

At least that's what US finance leaders fear. Nearly half (48.1%) of chief financial officers in the United States are predicting the American economy will be in recession by the middle of next year, according to the Duke University/CFO Global Business Outlook survey released on Wednesday. And 69% of those executives are bracing for a recession by the end of 2020.
Other surveys have come up with similar results. For example, a recent National Association for Business Economics survey concluded that there is "a 60% chance" that a recession will start by the time next year ends...
There is about a 60% chance of a recession starting in the United States by the end of next year, according to a National Association for Business Economics survey published earlier this month. Most economists in that report cited protectionist trade policy as the leading risk to the US economy.
Even before trade negotiations with China completely broke down U.S. economic numbers were looking quite bleak, but now it has become clear that the trade war is going to accelerate our economic problems.

Comment: See also:

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Attention

Tankers incident in Gulf of Oman - Is it an invitation to war?


RT
Thu, 13 Jun 2019 19:33 UTC
Tanker on fire
© Reuters/ISNA
Thursday's Gulf of Oman tanker explosions may be exploited to trigger the war between US and Iran, an analyst told RT, adding that the links of Japan and Oman to the incident were no coincidence.

Two oil tankers were rocked by powerful blasts not far from Oman's shores on Thursday. Little is known about the incident so far, but some reports insist that one of vessels was hit by a torpedo.

"A torpedo does make sense," Alessandro Bruno of Gulf State Analytics said. "Some torpedoes can be launched by airplanes at a distance, as well as by submarines. Besides, if the tankers had been attacked from above the sea level -by boats- there would've been witnesses," he suggested, but apparently there aren't any.

Washington accused Iran of the attack, although it didn't provide any proof. Bruno believes "a number of people could be interested in it, and for a number of reasons. The obvious answer is Saudi Arabia and the US or the Iranian opposition group, Mojahedin-e Khalq, which sabotages Iranian government interests and facilities for the past few years."

The tanker explosions "look like a technique that Trump's national security adviser John Bolton would exploit to cause trouble in Iran and trigger a conflict," the analyst said, but Donald Trump "might not be prepared to take a dangerous line" as his hawks are pushing for.

Comment: See also:

Another false-flag: Two more oil tankers attacked in Gulf of Oman, possibly with torpedoes

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Network

Russia stays clear of US-China trade war... but roots for 'strategic partner' - Putin


RT
Thu, 13 Jun 2019 07:44 UTC
trump xi
© Reuters / Dmitri Lovetsky
While the raging trade dispute between the world's largest economies is none of Moscow's business, it is hard to remain impartial when it comes to the interests of strategic partners, Putin said ahead of the SCO summit.

"There is a dispute between the world's largest economies. And there are a lot of specific issues related to their bilateral ties... So of course, common sense suggests we have no reason to interfere in this negotiation process," Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview with MIR TV ahead of his visit to Kyrgyzstan for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit.

However, one crucial aspect makes it impossible for Moscow to remain impartial. "First of all, we have unprecedented, historically good relations with China. We are strategic partners in every sense of the word... Unfortunately, we can't say the same about our relations with the US, they are degrading from bad to worse."

Comment: See also: Far from quiet on the US vs Russia-China front

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Star of David

Persian Gulf tanker attacks: Israel has silent underwater nuclear submarines

Sebastien Roblin
The National Interest
Tue, 14 May 2019 18:20 UTC
The 2,400 ton Dolphin 2 model is based on the state-of-the-art Type 212 submarine, which features Air-Independent Propulsion technology and swim faster at twenty-five knots. While diesel submarines rely on noisy air-consuming diesel generators which require the submarine to regularly surface or snorkel, AIP-powered submarines can swim underwater very quietly at low speeds for weeks at a time.

(This article first appeared last year.)
Israel Dolphin-class nuclear submarine
© Reuters
One of Israel's Dolphin-class nuclear submarines
Israel has never officially admitted to possessing nuclear weapons.

Unofficially, Tel Aviv wants everyone to know it has them, and doesn't hesitate to make thinly-veiled references to its willingness to use them if confronted by an existential threat. Estimates on the size of Tel Aviv's nuclear stockpile range from 80 to 300 nuclear weapons, the latter number exceeding China's arsenal.

Originally, Israel's nuclear forces relied on air-dropped nuclear bombs and Jericho ballistic missiles. For example, when Egyptian and Syrian armies attacked Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, a squadron of eight Israeli F-4 Phantom jets loaded with nuclear bombs was placed on alert by Prime Minister Golda Meir, ready to unleash nuclear bombs on Cairo and Damascus should the Arab armies break through.

Comment: One month later...

Another false-flag: Two more oil tankers attacked in Gulf of Oman, possibly with torpedoes

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Network

Putin invites Indian PM Modi to be 'main guest' at Russia's Eastern Economic Forum


RT
Thu, 13 Jun 2019 19:55 UTC
putin and modi
© Sputnik / Grigoriy Sisoev
Russian President Vladimir Putin has invited recently re-elected Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to attend the Eastern Economic Forum, which takes place in Vladivostok in September.

The two leaders held talks on Thursday in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, which is hosting the 2019 Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit. Putin and Modi discussed all aspects of bilateral relations, including cooperation in the military, space and nuclear energy spheres.

"I want to invite you as the main guest to the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok in September this year," Putin said.

The Indian prime minister has already accepted the invitation and suggested meeting the Russian leader even earlier, on the sidelines of the G20 summit, which will take place in Osaka, Japan, at the end of this month. Modi also wants to hold a trilateral meeting between Russia, India, and China during the G20.
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V

'Completely baseless': Tulsi slams US media smears against her campaign


RT
Thu, 13 Jun 2019 19:38 UTC
tulsi
© Reuters / Stephen Lam
Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard took the media to task for what she called biased and misleading coverage of her campaign, arguing the facts no longer matter to some outlets.

Speaking at an event in New York recently, Tulsi said the press had given up on any semblance of balanced or accurate reporting, replacing news coverage with panels of jabbering pundits.

Instead of factual reporting, she said: "We see opinions, we see panels of people on all the news channels - I don't care which one you watch - sharing their opinions."
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Bomb

Saudi arms sales may be at center of the next showdown between Trump and Congress


RT
Thu, 13 Jun 2019 18:42 UTC
Riyadh Saudi Arabia
© AP Photo / Hassan Ammar
The Trump administration's arms sales to Saudi Arabia are facing stiff opposition in Congress. However, the power to veto means that the ball remains in President Trump's court for now.

Bipartisan opposition to President Trump's cosy relationship with Saudi Arabia has been building for some time, stoked by the brazen - and, some say, state-backed - murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October, and by Riyadh's ongoing involvement in Yemen's brutal civil war.

Despite lawmakers from both parties calling Washington's relationship with Riyadh into question, the Trump administration has pressed ahead with arms sales to the kingdom. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced late last month that some $8 billion-worth of weaponry would be exported to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to counter the supposed threat posed by Iran - a move allowed without congressional sign-off in the event of an emergency.

Congress is pushing back. On Wednesday, House Democrats will unveil four measures of disapproval, aimed at blocking the 22 deals announced by Pompeo. Three of these focus specifically on the sale of precision-guided munitions, like the GBU-12 bomb that killed 40 schoolchildren in Yemen last August. The House Foreign Affairs Committee will also grill a senior State Department official on the emergency declaration that allowed the deals to go through.

Though these measures are likely to pass the Democrat-controlled House, getting them through the Republican-majority Senate will prove more difficult, as will President Trump's power to veto any law that passes the upper house without a two-thirds majority. Still, a number of Senate Republicans and key Trump allies are prepared to break ranks with the president over the Saudi issue.
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Telephone

Iranian leader to Japanese PM: Trump not worthy of engaging in communication


PressTV
Thu, 13 Jun 2019 18:26 UTC
rouhani abe khamenei

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (C) meets with Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei (R) and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Tehran, June 13, 2019.
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei dismisses US President Donald Trump as a person not worthy of a response or a message, stressing that negotiations with Washington cannot help solve any problem.

Ayatollah Khamenei made the remarks in a Thursday meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who told the Leader he was carrying a message from the US president.

"We have no doubts about your (Japan's) goodwill and seriousness, but regarding what you quoted from the US president, I personally do not consider Trump worthy of exchanging any messages with, and do not have and will not have any response for him," the Leader told Abe.

The Leader said Iran has "no trust" in the United States and will not at all "repeat the bitter experience" it gained from the negotiations that led to the conclusion of a 2015 nuclear deal, which Washington later ditched.

"Iran engaged in talks with the US and the Europeans for some five or six years, and achieved a result. The Americans, however, breached a done deal," said the Leader, emphasizing that no wise man would enter talks with a country that has reneged on all agreements.

Comment: Here's the thing about Khameini: none of what he said is wrong. Trump shot himself in the foot with the Iranians by pulling out of the nuclear deal. He only confirmed their view of Americans as untrustworthy back-stabbers.

Here's Trump's response:



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