America’s Most Popular Politician Is Nikki Haley — Let That Sink In

(MEMO) — US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley is America’s most popular politician according to a study by Quinnipiac University, CNN reported yesterday. Haley is viewed positively by some 63 per cent of US voters, while only 39 per cent gave their approval of US President Donald Trump. Haley’s popularity also stretched to both sides of the political […]

In an Attempt to Ditch the Dollar, Turkey Will Take Back All Its Gold From the US

(ZHE) After Venezuela, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands prudently repatriated a substantial portion (if not all) of their physical gold held at the NY Fed or other western central banks in recent years, this morning Turkey also announced that it has decided to repatriate all its gold stored in the US Federal Reserve and deliver it to the Istanbul Stock Exchange, according to reports […]

Pompeo Openly Brags About US Killing Hundreds of Russians in Syria

(ANTIMEDIA) — U.S. President Trump’s nominee to replace Rex Tillerson as secretary of state confirmed on Thursday that “a couple hundred Russians were killed by U.S. forces in Syria not too long ago,” TIME reports. Mike Pompeo, currently still serving as director of the CIA, offered this confirmation in response to questions from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about […]

‘Blood of Thousands on Their Hands’: Congress Votes to Continue US-Backed Yemen War

(CD) — While 44 U.S. Senators on Tuesday were applauded by peace groups for voting in favor of a resolution that would have allowed Congress to begin reclaiming its war-making authority and ended the U.S. military’s backing of Saudi Arabia’s assault on Yemen, it was ultimately not enough to overcome entrenched opposition from the 45 Republicans and […]

Major Escalation: Trump to Promote US Killing Russians as Proof He’s Not Putin’s Puppet

(ZHE) — In the aftermath of Robert Mueller’s indictment against 13 Russian “operatives” for meddling with the US presidential election, President Trump has been under fire for lashing out at everyone… except Russia. So, in response, Bloomberg reports that the Trump administration is weighing citing the deaths of more than 200 Russian fighters – or rather mercenaries – in […]

Hariri Backtracks, Prince Salman Goes Quiet, and Lebanon Takes a Breath

“When you make peaceful revolution impossible, you make bloody revolution inevitable.” ~ John F. Kennedy

The geo-political theater around the three-ring circus started by the Saudis yanking Prime Minister Saad Hariri out of Lebanon to get a Royal spanking and then put on his pitiful resignation show, has taken a pause. The Royals have gone quiet, while their own internal power struggle plays out.

Hariri is back in Beirut singing a different tune now, about how Lebanon has to remain united and not get involved in regional disputes, when two weeks ago he was point man on starting a war on Hezbollah as a way of getting to Iran.

Hezbollah’s Nasrallah was way ahead of him, with his MP delegation stating they were wide open to having a discussion on how best to maintain Lebanon’s stability, despite their having to drive a Saudi- and Israeli-backed ISIS out of Lebanon.

Walid Jumblatt, representing the Druze population, directly challenged Saudi Arabia to engage Iran to diffuse tensions in the region, saying that there has to be reconciliation and compromise. How wonderful to see little Lebanon standing up to the Saudi, Israeli and US bullies, despite all of its other problems.

No one is buying the Saudi new bogeyman story

It seems no one wanted buy the Saudi bait to be proxy cannon fodder in a Royals’ conflict with Iran. They have seen what happened to Syria and Iraq, and are not that stupid.

The Saudis’ bitterness at losing their terror war on Syria, and then trying to divert that failure into a new destabilization campaign against Hezbollah and Iran, did not play well in many capitals, including all those looking forward to doing a decade of big business with Iran. Frankly, everyone is getting tired of failed fake leaders trying to blame others for their self-created problems by starting new conflicts.

On the contrary, the world is much more aware of who the real threats to the Mideast are simply by looking at the team of gangsters who tried to carve up Syria, who thought their plan of attrition would bear fruit in time, while pretending that the carnage was all just the people’s will, a civil war among Syrians.

Hariri’s Saudi masters were exposed by Qatar’s Ex-Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim when he spilled the beans that the US Coalition, Turkey and the Gulf States had spent $137 billion trying to destroy Syria. Think of what that money could have done for the region if it had been invested in peaceful development.

That said, if the Saudis had given to Yemenis to develop what it has spent trying to conquer them, the Yemenis would be grateful Saudi allies. But the Warmongers do not choose the peace route, preferring to have everyone at each other’s throats, the divide-and-conquer routine.

Saudi Arabia and Israel attempt to replace ISIS with the Arab League

It has been a turbulent two weeks while the crisis built up. The Saudis and Israelis came out of the closet on their legacy relationship by announcing their decades of diplomatic relations and intelligence sharing. These two happening so close together, in the middle of the Hariri resignation fiasco, signaled that we were seeing the rollout of a new plan B to replace the failed Syria Balkanization project.

I had to pinch myself to make sure I was not dreaming when reading the news that, after a Saudi-called meeting, Arab League chief Ahmand Aboul-Giet announced moving forward with an anti-Iran resolution in the UN for destabilizing the Mideast.

Mind you, this is after the Arab League kicked Syria out while the other Gulf State Arabs were conducting an open terror war against Syria, with alleged arch enemy Israel helping them out in the Golan Heights by tying SAA forces down there and supplying ISIS.

Meanwhile Hezbollah, while designated a terrorist organization by the US, had found itself fighting ruthless terrorists in Syria, most of them just plain criminals there for the looting, and abusing women with permission from the Saudi Wahabbi imams, while riding around in Japanese Toyotas, using US and Gulf State supplied weapons, including US made TOW missiles, lots of them.

Back in Jerusalem, the Likud defense minister, Russian émigré Avigdor Lieberman, who has a seething hatred for all Arabs and Muslims, announced that he wanted to form an anti-Iran coalition with the Arab Nations. And at the same time, while Israel has been using settler extremists to defile the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, the Israeli minister of military affairs says he wants to buddy up with Arab countries in a new alliance against Iran.

When will we stand up to the real state-sponsored terrorists?

Do they really think that the UN Security Council is going to buy a new Iran boogeyman fairy tale? I don’t think so. It all looks like a weird Saturday Night Live comedy skit, especially after the Hariri stunt, and Macron hugging him like a long lost lover when he arrived in Paris.

A lot of the world has learned who the real terrorists are, and they aren’t Iranians or Yeminis. The chemical weapons that Saddam used on Iran were made in the USA, found by our troops, and at first thought to be the smoking-gun proof that Saddam had chemical weapons, until they saw the US manufacturer labels. The weapons were quickly removed from the country, never to be seen again.

The Iranians did not rain medium-range missiles down on Iraqi cities during their long war. It was the US ally, Iraq, that rained them down on Iranian cities; one of many details that few in the West remember, if they ever knew.

This new Fake War attempt puts the Russians in a tough position because, along with Iran and Hezbollah and the SAA, they saved Syria from being taken over by foreign-backed terrorists, and where Lebanon certainly would have been next.

Like Putin stating that it was better for Moscow to fight Russian citizen terrorists in Syria and kill them there so they could never return home, Hezbollah also knew it would be better to fight them in Syria. They all were fighting to save themselves and not get picked off one by one by the terror-sponsor proxies. The Russians had had a taste of the US doing that in the brutal Chechen war.

Billions for war or billions for peace?

Russia does not want to sell S-400s and nuclear plants to the Saudis, and build similar plants and LNG gas facilities for Iran just to see it all get blown up in a new war. Moscow wants stable, long term commercial customers to keep Russia’s technology brain-power base growing and increasing its own defensive power, as Iran is doing, and for the same reason as Iran does. They know they are in the crosshairs of the unipolar maniacs.

Every billion dollars that gets spent on stupid wars that destroy billions more in infrastructure impoverishes everyone but the warmongers. They don’t get killed or maimed, or carry the huge financial debt for the war and rebuilding afterwards.

The boiler room that is the main engine regional instability now is state-sponsored terrorism, not the online recruited cannon fodder variety, but the boardroom and officers’ club kind. Western nations and their intelligence agencies, including the US’ and Britain’s, have been involved in this up to their eyeballs.

As long as we have no recourse against them politically or legally, we are doomed, because time will be on their side. More false flag terror attacks will find us pleading for more protection, followed by having more of our rights taken away and rendering us incapable of reversing the situation. I pray that it is not already too late.

Jim W. Dean, managing editor for Veterans Today, producer/host of Heritage TV Atlanta, specially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

The World Passes the US By

Now that RT is no longer available on television in Philadelphia, I watch more France 24 than before, when I divided my TV-watching between those two and MSNBC. The difference in offerings never ceases to amaze me, but while ‘Putin’s bullhorn’ tended to focus on non-typical Russian subjects and America’s failings, France’s English language channel concentrates heavily on the Middle East and Africa.

Although many people are vaguely aware of China’s growing presence in Africa, without France 24, we wouldn’t know that it now welcomes African students. The Chinese have long been suspected of being allergic to Black people, but this report suggests that the government has made a decision in favor of color blindness – the students interviewed largely deny having encountered racism. Add to this that the One Belt One Road transportation project linking China and Russia to Europe will also have an African spur, and it becomes clear that in the post American era, Russians, Arabs, Orientals and Blacks are determined to work together.

This may seem like a contradiction with respect to President Vladimir Putin’s oft-heard criticism of multiculturalism, directed at Europe’s efforts to integrate Muslims. (Not to mention President Trump’s efforts to ‘whiten’ America, most recently by declaring that Haitians, who were welcomed on a ‘temporary’ basis after the 2010 earthquake, will have to leave by 2019…) President Putin’s position is that different ethnic groups should live in harmony with each other, each within their own borders. Today’s Russia, or rather the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) includes nine of the fifteen former member states of the Soviet Union, most of whose people are Muslims. (For reasons which are not entirely clear, Russia fought two wars to keep Chechnya under its control, and it has been a hotbed of terrorism. However its policies vis a vis the other Muslim states on its southern border as well as vis a vis a multi-racial world contrast with America’s.

While the US is mesmerized by ‘Russiagate’, Vladimir Putin draws to Moscow — or the Black Sea resort of Sochi — one national leader after another, offering Russia’s mediation in Africa and the Middle East.

Most recently he received Bashar al Assad, as well as the President of Sudan, while the Saudi King (with a 1500 person retinue) was in Moscow in October, Netanyahu having been there in March. Seven rounds of detailed Syrian peace talks involving the opposition have taken place in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, under President Putin’s leadership.

Meanwhile, notwithstanding criticism from readers about a recent article that reflects the current Russophobia, Harpers magazine’s forum on the nuclear clock, which is currently at two minutes to midnight, while evoking a possible nuclear attack by North Korea, informs us that “the Russians have rehearsed the use of nuclear weapons” without mentioning the buildup of NATO troops on its European border to which these preparations respond.

When Americans decry their choice of President, rather than blaming Russia, they should consider themselves lucky that there is at least one adult in the room, and that is Vladimir Putin. However, the Russian could be running a race against time, as he gathers around him the leaders of the majority of the planet.

Deena Stryker is an international expert, author and journalist that has been at the forefront of international politics for over thirty years, exlusively for the online journal “New Eastern Outlook”.

US Just Agreed to $250 Billion in Trade Deals With China: What You Need to Know

(ANTIMEDIA) Beijing — Last night, reports started rolling in that Donald Trump snagged over $250 billion in trade deals with Chinese enterprises. On the surface, it sounds like a score. To Trump supporters, who will see nothing but a big fat number to add to the “win” column of the man who promised to reduce the U.S. trade deficit with China, that’s certainly how it will be viewed.

It all looks rosy at first glance. Donald Trump gets to walk away looking like he’s making good on campaign promises, and Xi gets to demonstrate that he’s willing to work with both Trump and U.S. companies — many of whom have long had a gripe about access to Chinese markets.

Incidentally, the biggest deal involved the state-run China Energy Investment Corporation agreeing to invest $84 billion in shale and chemical projects in the state of West Virginia. Another big one is a $43 billion deal between China Petrochemical Corporation, another state-run enterprise, and the state of Alaska to jointly explore liquified natural gas projects.

Other deals are in areas of finance, agriculture, telecommunications, and aviation — state-run China Aviation Supplies Holding Company agreed to purchase 300 planes from Boeing in an order worth $37 billion. It all adds up to that lovely-sounding $250 billion figure.

The problem, however, is that the deals are non-binding in nature and held together mostly by pledges and initial agreements.

“I am somewhat skeptical of such a large number,” Alex Wolf, senior emerging markets economist at Aberdeen Standard Investments, told Reuters. “I suspect they might be primarily MOUs (memorandum of understandings) instead of actual contracts and the actual contract amount may be substantially less.”

In fact, it appeared to some that Trump was pulling a classic political move to try to make himself look good.

“To me this is an old-style visit when you pile up all the deals so you can to get a big number,” James McGregor, China chairman of the consultancy APCO Worldwide, told Bloomberg. “This is all for show for President Trump to demonstrate his deal-making prowess.”

Hugo Brennan, Asia analyst at risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft, agreed with McGregor. But he also noted that the deals conspicuously leave out details about what concerns U.S. businesses the most — access to Chinese markets.

“[These deals] allow Trump to portray himself as a master dealmaker,” Brennan told Reuters, “while distracting from a lack of progress on structural reforms to the bilateral trade relationship.”

For his part, President Xi did pledge to ease regulations that make it difficult for U.S. companies to do business in China. But Xi also said these changes will happen on China’s own “timetable and roadmap,” meaning Trump will likely have a hard time getting Xi to budge on policy in the immediate future.

Brennan also noted that the non-binding nature of the deals, while “politically expedient” for both sides, would give Chinese firms “the flexibility to quietly back away from the deal down the line.”

Max Baucus, former U.S. ambassador to China, told Bloomberg this seems like a “classic” move by China.

“It’s their technique to try to suck you in,” he said. “I think all this ceremony here is designed by the Chinese in part to prevent any serious conversation. The more there is pomp and circumstance, the less there is time to talk.”

There’s been plenty of that of late. As Anti-Media reported Wednesday, Donald Trump and his wife Melania got the red carpet treatment — literally — when they touched down in Beijing this week. The couple was then treated to a relaxing day of opera and sight-seeing before the two world leaders got down to business.

Don’t forget, also, that this warm reception by Xi only happened after weeks of Trump heaping praise on the Chinese president, culminating in statements like this one, made hours before the $250 billion “megadeal” was announced:

“I don’t blame China,” Trump said at a business event in Beijing — one Xi also attended. “After all, who can blame a country for being able to take advantage of another country for the benefit of its citizens? I give China great credit.”

If that sounds like a total position reversal from the man who consistently trashed China on the campaign trail, it is. But perhaps this is what Trump realized he needed to do to get the “win” he promised his constituents. Remember, China always had the upper hand here. After all, it’s the U.S. that has the estimated $347 billion trade deficit with China, not the other way around.

Creative Commons / Anti-Media / Report a typo

US House Overwhelmingly Passes “Harshest Ever” Sanctions Against North Korea

(ANTIWAR.COM) — In a 415-2 vote, the House of Representatives has passed the “Otto Warmbier Act,” a new round of sanctions against North Korea described as the “harshest ever” in US history. If it passes, it would ban anyone who does any business or cooperates in any way with North Korea from having US business ties.

The House just passed the Otto Warmbier North Korea Nuclear Sanctions Act, my bill to put the harshest sanctions ever on Pyongyang.

— Rep. Andy Barr (@RepAndyBarr) October 24, 2017

In addition to the sanctions, the bill also “honors” all Americans who have died while in North Korean custody. It is named after Otto Warmbier, who died in June after being in North Korean custody.

Reps. Justin Amash (R-MI) and Thomas Massie (R-KY) voted against the bill, with Massie warning he believed the bill moves the US closer to war, and creates tensions with natural allies.

Though soaring US-North Korea tensions have made the vote a fairly easy one in the House, it’s still not clear when the bill will be taken up by the Senate. Since North Korea has very little foreign economic ties, the bill’s impact will likely be very China-centric.

By Jason Ditz / Republished with permission / ANTIWAR.COM / Report a typo

This article was chosen for republication based on the interest of our readers. Anti-Media republishes stories from a number of other independent news sources. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect Anti-Media editorial policy.

America: The Dictatress Of The World

Authored by Jacob Hornberger via The Mises Institute,

On July 21, 1821, John Quincy Adams, who would go on to become the sixth president of the United States, warned that if America were ever to abandon its founding principle of non-interventionism in foreign affairs, she might well become the dictatress of the world.

Adams issued his warning in a speech he delivered to Congress, a speech that has gone down in history with the title “In Search of Monsters to Destroy.”

Adams was referring to the fact that the United States was founded as a constitutional republic, one whose military forces did not go around the world helping people who were suffering the horrors of dictators, despots, civil wars, revolutions, famines, oppression, or anything else. That’s not to say that America didn’t sympathize with people struggling to experience lives of freedom, peace, and prosperity. It was simply that the US government would not go abroad to slay such monsters.

Here is how Adams expressed it:

Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will recommend the general cause, by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.

Adams was summing up the founding foreign policy of the United States, a policy of non-interventionism in the affairs of other nations, specifically Europe and Asia.

And that’s the way the American people wanted it. If Americans had been told after the Constitutional Convention that the US government would be intervening around the world, there is no way that they would have ever approved the Constitution.

In fact, as a practical matter, throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, there is no way that US officials could have gone abroad in search of monsters to destroy. That’s because a nation needs a powerful military to go abroad and free people from dictators and despots or save people from famines or other bad things that happen in life.

When the Constitution called the federal government into existence, the last thing the American people wanted was a powerful military. They were overwhelmingly opposed to what they called “standing armies,” which was a term used describe a big, permanent military establishment. That was why there was no Pentagon, no big, permanent military-industrial complex, no CIA, and no NSA for more than 100 years after the country was established. The American people didn’t want those types of governmental apparatuses to be part of our nation’s political system.

The reason Americans were so opposed to standing armies is because they believed that standing armies constituted a grave threat to their freedom and economic well-being. They knew, from both first-hand experience and through history, that dictators and despots used powerful military establishments to destroy the freedom and prosperity of the citizenry, oftentimes in the name of keeping them safe, secure, and prosperous.

So, while there was a basic military force throughout the 19th century - large enough to suppress Native Americans or even to defeat a neighboring Third World nation like Mexico in the Mexican War, it certainly was nowhere near as large enough to cross the oceans and invade and conquer European or Asian countries. The one big exception, of course, was the Civil War, but the army immediately demobilized upon the conclusion of the war.

Things started changing with the Spanish American War in 1898. There were those who argued that America could not be a great nation without owning overseas colonies, like the British and French Empires. Opposed to that sentiment was the mindset that had guided the founding of the country: that empire and foreign interventionism would end up destroying the country from within.

The interventionists prevailed.

First, US officials misled and double-crossed the colonies of the Spanish Empire by leading them to believe that the United States was intervening against Spain to help the colonies win their independence. It was a lie. As the colonies soon learned, the real aim was to step into the shoes of the Spanish Empire by acquiring its colonies. That’s how the United States ended with Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines, and Cuba.

Second, the trend toward empire as a way to make America great was followed by foreign interventionism, with World War I and World War II being premier examples.

That was followed by the conversion of the US government from a constitutional republic to what is known as a “national-security state,” a governmental apparatus characterized by a massive, permanent standing military establishment and secretive agencies with the power to assassinate and spy on the citizenry, in the name of preserving “national security.”

That was followed by massive interventions “in search of monsters to destroy” through assassinations, coups, invasions, occupations, support of dictatorships, and regime change: Korea, Guatemala, Iran, Cuba, Congo, Brazil, Chile, Grenada, Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, and others.

Here is how Adams eloquently expressed what would happen to America if she were ever to abandon our nation’s founding principles of anti-empire and non-interventionism:

She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself, beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. The frontlet upon her brows would no longer beam with the ineffable splendor of freedom and independence; but in its stead would soon be substituted an imperial diadem, flashing in false and tarnished lustre the murky radiance of dominion and power. She might become the dictatress of the world: she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.

No one can seriously deny that Adams has been proven correct - that America - or, more correctly, the US government - has become the dictatress of the world - issuing orders and commands to people and regimes all over the world and backing them up with coups, assassinations, sanctions, embargoes, invasions, and occupations, and all headed today by a democratically elected president who has all the traditional traits of an old-fashioned dictator or despot.

The Truth About Russiagate: What the Media Doesn’t Want You to Know

As the U.S. government doles out tens of millions of dollars to “combat Russian propaganda,” one result is a slew of new “studies” by “scholars” and “researchers” auditioning for the loot, reports Robert Parry.

(CN) — The “Field of Dreams” slogan for America’s NGOs should be: “If you pay for it, we will come.” And right now, tens of millions of dollars are flowing to non-governmental organizations if they will buttress the thesis of Russian “meddling” in the U.S. democratic process no matter how sloppy the “research” or how absurd the “findings.”

And, if you think the pillars of the U.S. mainstream media – The Washington Post, The New York Times, CNN and others – will apply some quality controls, you haven’t been paying attention for the past year or so. The MSM is just as unethical as the NGOs are.

So, we are now in a phase of Russiagate in which NGO “scholars” produce deeply biased reports and their nonsense is treated as front-page news and items for serious discussion across the MSM.

Yet, there’s even an implicit confession about how pathetic some of this “scholarship” is in the hazy phrasing that gets applied to the “findings,” although the weasel words will slip past most unsuspecting Americans and will be dropped for more definitive language when the narrative is summarized in the next day’s newspaper or in a cable-news “crawl.”

For example, a Times front-page story on Thursday reported that “a network of Twitter accounts suspected of links to Russia seized on both sides of the [NFL players kneeling during the National Anthem] issue with hashtags, such as #boycottnfl, #standforouranthem and #takeaknee.”

The story, which fits neatly into the current U.S. propaganda meme that the Russian government somehow is undermining American democracy by stirring up dissent inside the U.S., quickly spread to other news outlets and became the latest “proof” of a Russian “war” against America.

However, before we empty the nuclear silos and exterminate life on the planet, we might take a second to look at the Times phrasing: “a network of Twitter accounts suspected of links to Russia.”

The vague wording doesn’t even say the Russian government was involved but rather presents an unsupported claim that some Twitter accounts are “suspected” of being part of some “network” and that this “network” may have some ill-defined connection – or “links” – to “Russia,” a country of 144 million people.

‘Six Degrees from Kevin Bacon’

It’s like the old game of “six degrees of separation” from Kevin Bacon. Yes, perhaps we are all “linked” to Kevin Bacon somehow but that doesn’t prove that we know Kevin Bacon or are part of a Kevin Bacon “network” that is executing a grand conspiracy to sow discontent by taking opposite sides of issues and then tweeting.

Yet that is the underlying absurdity of the Times article by Daisuke Wakabayashi and Scott Shane. Still, as silly as the article may be that doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous. The Times’ high-profile treatment of these gauzy allegations represents a grave danger to the world by fueling a growing hysteria inside the United States about being “at war” with nuclear-armed Russia. At some point, someone might begin to take this alarmist rhetoric seriously.

Yes, I understand that lots of people hate President Trump and see Russiagate as the golden ticket to his impeachment. But that doesn’t justify making serious allegations with next to no proof, especially when the outcome could be thermonuclear war.

However, with all those millions of dollars sloshing around the NGO world and Western academia – all looking for some “study” to fund that makes Russia look bad – you are sure to get plenty of takers. And, we should now expect that new “findings” like these will fill in for the so-far evidence-free suspicions about Russia and Trump colluding to steal the presidency from Hillary Clinton.

If you read more deeply into the Times story, you get a taste of where Russiagate is headed next and a clue as to who is behind it:

“Since last month, researchers at the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a bipartisan initiative of the German Marshall Fund, a public policy research group in Washington, have been publicly tracking 600 Twitter accounts — human users and suspected bots alike — they have linked to Russian influence operations. Those were the accounts pushing the opposing messages on the N.F.L. and the national anthem.

“Of 80 news stories promoted last week by those accounts, more than 25 percent ‘had a primary theme of anti-Americanism,’ the researchers found. About 15 percent were critical of Hillary Clinton, falsely accusing her of funding left-wing antifa — short for anti-fascist — protesters, tying her to the lethal terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012 and discussing her daughter Chelsea’s use of Twitter. Eleven percent focused on wiretapping in the federal investigation into Paul Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, with most of them treated the news as a vindication for President Trump’s earlier wiretapping claims.”

The Neocons, Again!

So, let’s stop and unpack this Times’ reporting. First, this Alliance for Securing Democracy is not some neutral truth-seeking organization but a neoconservative-dominated outfit that includes on its advisory board such neocon luminaries as Mike Chertoff, Bill Kristol and former Freedom House president David Kramer along with other anti-Russia hardliners such as former deputy CIA director Michael Morell and former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers.

How many of these guys, do you think, were assuring us that Iraq was hiding WMDs back in 2003?

This group clearly has an ax to grind, a record of deception, and plenty of patrons in the Military-Industrial Complex who stand to make billions of dollars from the New Cold War.

The neocons also have been targeting Russia for regime change for years because they see Russian President Vladimir Putin as the chief obstacle to their goal of helping Israel achieve its desire for “regime change” in Syria and a chance to bomb-bomb-bomb Iran. Russiagate has served the neocons well as a very convenient way to pull Democrats, liberals and even progressives into the neocon agenda because Russiagate is sold as a powerful weapon for the anti-Trump Resistance.

The Times article also might have mentioned that Twitter has 974 million accounts. So, this alarm over 600 accounts is a bit disproportionate for a front-page story in the Times, don’t you think?

And, there’s the definitional problem of what constitutes “anti-Americanism” in a news article. And what does it mean to be “linked to Russian influence operations”? Does that include Americans who may not march in lockstep to the one-sided State Department narratives on the crises in Ukraine and Syria? Any deviation from Official Washington’s groupthink makes you a “Moscow stooge.”

And, is it a crime to be “critical” of Hillary Clinton or to note that the U.S. mainstream media was dismissive of Trump’s claims about being wiretapped only for us to find out later that the FBI apparently was wiretapping his campaign manager?

However, such questions aren’t going to be asked amid what has become a massive Russiagate groupthink, dominating not just Official Washington, but across much of America’s political landscape and throughout the European Union.

Why the Bias?

Beyond the obvious political motivations for this bias, we also have had the introduction of vast sums of money pouring in from the U.S. government, NATO and European institutions to support the business of “combatting Russian propaganda.”

For example, last December, President Obama signed into law a $160 million funding mechanism entitled the “Combating Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act.” But that amounts to only a drop in the bucket considering already existing Western propaganda projects targeting Russia.

So, a scramble is on to develop seemingly academic models to “prove” what Western authorities want proven: that Russia is at fault for pretty much every bad thing that happens in the world, particularly the alienation of many working-class people from the Washington-Brussels elites.

The truth cannot be that establishment policies have led to massive income inequality and left the working class struggling to survive and thus are to blame for ugly political manifestations – from Trump to Brexit to the surprising support for Germany’s far-right AfD party. No, it must be Russia! Russia! Russia! And there’s a lot of money on the bed to prove that point.

There’s also the fact that the major Western news media is deeply invested in bashing Russia as well as in the related contempt for Trump and his followers. Those twin prejudices have annihilated all professional standards that would normally be applied to news judgments regarding these flawed “studies.”

On Thursday, The Washington Post ran its own banner-headlined story drawn from the same loose accusations made by that neocon-led Alliance for Securing Democracy, but instead the Post sourced the claims to Sen. James Lankford, R-Oklahoma. The headline read: “Russian trolls are stoking NFL controversy, senator says.”

The “evidence” cited by Lankford’s office was one “Twitter account calling itself Boston Antifa that gives its geolocation as Vladivostok, Russia,” the Post reported.

By Thursday, Twitter had suspended the Boston Antifa account, so I couldn’t send it a question, but earlier this month, Dan Glaun, a reporter for Masslive.com, reported that the people behind Boston Antifa were “a pair of anti-leftist pranksters from Oregon who started Boston Antifa as a parody of actual anti-fascist groups.”

In an email to me on Thursday, Glaun cited an interview that the Boston Antifa pranksters had done with right-wing radio talk show host Gavin McInnes last April.

And, by the way, there are apps that let you manipulate your geolocation data on Twitter. Or, you can choose to believe that the highly professional Russian intelligence agencies didn’t notice that they were telegraphing their location as Vladivostok.

Mindless Russia Bashing

Another example of this mindless Russia bashing appeared just below the Post’s story on Lankford’s remarks. The Post sidebar cited a “study” from researchers at Oxford University’s Project on Computational Propaganda asserting that “junk news” on Twitter “flowed more heavily in a dozen [U.S.] battleground states than in the nation overall in the days immediately before and after the 2016 presidential election, suggesting that a coordinated effort targeted the most pivotal voters.” Cue the spooky Boris and Natasha music!

Of course, any Americans living in “battleground states” could tell you that they are inundated with all kinds of election-related “junk,” including negative TV advertising, nasty radio messages, alarmist emails and annoying robo-calls at dinner time. That’s why they’re called “battleground states,” Sherlock.

But what’s particularly offensive about this “study” is that it implies that the powers-that-be must do more to eliminate what these “experts” deem “propaganda” and “junk news.” If you read deeper into the story, you discover that the researchers applied a very subjective definition of what constitutes “junk news,” i.e., information that the researchers don’t like even if it is truthful and newsworthy.

The Post article by Craig Timberg, who apparently is using Russiagate to work himself off the business pages and onto the national staff, states that “The researchers defined junk news as ‘propaganda and ideologically extreme, hyperpartisan, or conspiratorial political news and information.’

“The researchers also categorized reports from Russia and ones from WikiLeaks – which published embarrassing posts about Democrat Hillary Clinton based on a hack of her campaign chairman’s emails – as ‘polarizing political content’ for the purpose of the analysis.”

So, this “study” lumped together “junk news” with accurate and newsworthy information, i.e., WikiLeaks’ disclosure of genuine emails that contained such valid news as the contents of Clinton’s speeches to Wall Street banks (which she was trying to hide from voters) as well as evidence of the unethical tactics used by the Democratic National Committee to sabotage Sen. Bernie Sanders’s campaign.

Also dumped into the researchers’ bin of vile “disinformation” were “reports from Russia,” as if everything that comes out of Russia is, ipso facto, “junk news.”

And, what, pray tell, is “conspiratorial political news”? I would argue that the past year of evidence-lite allegations about “Russian meddling” in the U.S. election accompanied by unsupported suspicions about “collusion” with the Trump campaign would constitute “conspiratorial political news.” Indeed, I would say that this Oxford “research” constitutes “conspiratorial political news” and that Timberg’s article qualifies as “junk news.”

Predictable Outcome

Given the built-in ideological bias of this “research,” it probably won’t surprise you that the report’s author, Philip N. Howard, concludes that “junk news originates from three main sources that the Oxford group has been tracking: Russian operatives, Trump supporters and activists part of the alt-right,” according to the Post.

I suppose that since part of the “methodology” was to define “reports from Russia” as “junk news,” the appearance of “Russian operatives” shouldn’t be much of a surprise, but the whole process reeks of political bias.

Further skewing the results, the report separated out information from “professional news organizations [and] political parties” from “some ‘junk news’ source,” according to the Post. In other words, the “researchers” believe that “professional news organizations” are inherently reliable and that outside-the-mainstream news is “junk” – despite the MSM’s long record of getting major stories wrong.

The real “junk” is this sort of academic or NGO research that starts with a conclusion and packs a “study” in such a way as to guarantee the preordained conclusion. Or as the old saying goes, “garbage in, garbage out.”

Yet, it’s also clear that if you generate “research” that feeds the hungry beast of Russiagate, you will find eager patrons doling out dollars and a very receptive audience in the mainstream media.

In a place like Washington, there are scores if not hundreds of reports generated every day and only a tiny fraction get the attention of the Times, Post, CNN, etc., let alone result in published articles. But “studies” that reinforce today’s anti-Russia narrative are sure winners.

So, if you’re setting up a new NGO or you’re an obscure academic angling for a lucrative government grant as well as some flattering coverage in the MSM, the smart play is to join the new gold rush in decrying “Russian propaganda.”

[For more on this topic, see Consortiumnews.com’s “The Rise of the New McCarthyism”; “WPost Pushes More Dubious Russia-Bashing”; “The Crazy Imbalance of Russiagate”; and “More Holes in Russiagate Narrative.”]

By Robert Parry / Republished with permission / Consortium News / Report a typo

This article was chosen for republication based on the interest of our readers. Anti-Media republishes stories from a number of other independent news sources. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect Anti-Media editorial policy.

Pepe Escobar: Why Jihadism Won't Be Allowed To Die

Authored by Pepe Escobar via SputnikNews.com,

A serious working hypothesis is being discussed for a while now among independent geopolitical analysts. Here it is, in a nutshell.

Daesh may be dying – but the world is still encumbered with its walking corpse.

Plan B of Daesh’s masters may have been to indoctrinate repeated waves of misguided youth across the EU and “seduce” them into D.I. Y. jihadi terror, creating fear and insecurity in Europe. I’ve just been to Barcelona — and that’s not happening. No Fear.

Daesh can also manipulate its brand name to stake a claim into what we may call the New War Belt in Southwest Asia. That’s also not happening, because the “4+1” – Russia, Syria, Iran, Iraq, plus Hezbollah – with the addition of Turkey, and with China in a “leading from behind” role, are all working together.

The unfinished war across “Syraq” coupled with spasms of jihadism in Europe could certainly still metastasize into a massive Eurasian cancer, spreading like a plague from Afghanistan to Germany and vice-versa, and from the South China Sea to Brussels via Pakistan and vice-versa.

What would happen under this cataclysmic scenario is the complete derailment of the Chinese-driven New Silk Roads, a.k.a. Belt and Road Initiative (BRI); its integration with the Russia-driven Eurasia Economic Union (EAEC); and a massive security threat to the domestic stability of the Russia-China strategic partnership, with uncontrollable bellicose scenarios developing very close to their borders.

It’s no secret which elements and institutions would very much cherish internal political chaos in both Russia and China.

Charlie gets stronger

Dr. Zbig “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski may be dead, but geopolitics is still encumbered with his corpse. Brzezinski’s life obsession is that no peer competitor to the US should be allowed to emerge. Imagine as he lay dying contemplating the ongoing, ultimate nightmare; a Russia-China pan-Eurasian alliance.

The less disastrous scenario in this case would be to seduce either Moscow or Beijing into becoming a US partner, based on which one would pose a lesser “threat” in the future. Brzezinski focused on Russia as the immediate threat and China as the long game threat.

Thus the obsession of the US deep state and the Clinton machine in demonizing all things Russia – like an infantile neo-McCarthyism on steroids. Inevitably, what this geopolitical back hole has precipitated is China’s even more rapid advance on all fronts.

Not to mention that the Russia-China strategic partnership kept getting stronger every day – an eerie echo of Capt. Willard’s line in Coppola’s Apocalypse Now; “Every minute I stay in this room I get weaker, every minute Charlie squats in the bush, he gets stronger”.

And yet Charlie is not squatting; he’s conquering via trade and investment. And he’s not in the bush; he’s all over the Eurasian plains.

A basket of Hobbesian flare-ups

The other American dalang, Henry Kissinger, is still alive, at 94. Advising President Trump before the January inauguration, and posing as the supreme gray eminence on China matters, he suggested Russia should be courted.

But then came the clincher. Clearly identifying that the Russia-China-Iran alliance holds the key to Eurasia integration, Kissinger revealed his true colors; it’s the weakest link – Iran – that should be neutralized.

Thus his recent proclamation/warning about an “Iranian radical empire” developing/stretching from Tehran to Beirut as the “vacuum” left by Daesh is filled by the Persians.

And here we have Kissinger once again as the unreconstructed Cold Warrior that he is; exit Communism, enter Khomeinism as the supreme “evil.” And may the Lord bask in praise of the Wahhabi matrix of jihadism enablers; the House of Saud.

The Kissingerian recipe sounds like music to the US deep state; Daesh should not be routed, it should be “realigned” as a tool against Iran.

Who cares that the notion of an “Iranian radical empire” per se does not even qualify as a joke? Lebanon is multicultural. Syria will continue to be ruled by the secular Baath Party. Iraq rejects Khomeinism – with tremendously influential Ayatollah Sistani privileging the parliamentary system.

The “4+1” – backed by China — have forged a serious alliance in the fire of the Syrian war. None of this will change by a Kissinger decree. As for “filling the vacuum”, the alternative is Daesh and Jabhat al-Nusra, a.k.a. al-Qaeda in Syria. “But wait!” — say the neocons/neoliberalcons of the War Party. “We like that!”]

And that brings us full circle to the initial working hypothesis. Daesh won’t be allowed to die – as much as the geopolitical re-engineering of what Dr. Zbig used to call the “Eurasian Balkans” refuses to die.

ISIS-Khorasan, or ISIS-K – that regroup in Afghanistan – can be so handy to wreak havoc in the intersection of Central Asia and South Asia, so close to key BRI development corridors.

Moscow and Beijing though, know exactly what’s goin’ on. The phony Caliphate was useful in an attempt to break off BRI across “Syraq”, as much as Maidan in Ukraine was useful to break off the EAEU.

Other war fronts will follow – from the Philippines to Venezuela, all bent on disrupting regional integration projects under a Divide and Rule strategy of US satraps manipulated into Hobbesian asymmetrical flare-ups.

Sixteen years after 9/11, the name of the game is not GWOT (Global War on Terror) anymore; is how, under the cover of GWOT, to disturb geostrategic expansion by the people who matter; “peer competitors” Russia and China.

This Is the Real Reason Why the US Wants War Between Iran and Saudi Arabia

(ANTIMEDIA) — Though on the campaign trail Donald Trump bragged about making America great again (MAGA™) and creating jobs for 25 million ordinary Americans, most people may be surprised to learn that his foreign policy, in particular, will provide jobs and wealth for the American markets. Unfortunately, those jobs will materialize in America’s fracking industry, which has been waiting for something to kickstart their potential to further exploit the planet.

By supporting Saudi Arabia and its allies in their confrontation with Iran— preparing the groundwork for an all-out confrontation between the regional powerhouses — Donald Trump may help foster a major disruption in Middle East oil supplies and drop the price of crude oil. This is, according to Forbes, a dream scenario for American frackers who will be able to pump oil quickly to supply America’s allies amid any potential Middle East oil crisis.

Iran has already signaled its intention to close the Strait of Hormuz should the U.S. or one of its client states, such as Saudi Arabia or Israel, decide to wage a war against the Islamic Republic. Iran even has plans to mine the waterway, and just last month Iran and China held joint naval drills in this vitally strategic body of water.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), 17 million barrels of oil pass through this strait per day, representing 30% of all maritime-traded petroleum. The closure or disruption of this strait alone will directly impact on the world’s oil markets.

As Forbes notes, there are signs that Saudi Arabia and Iran are edging closer to a direct confrontation (they have already been heavily engaged in proxy wars in the region against each other as it is). Saudi Arabia’s promotion of anti-Iranian war-hawk Prince Salman, the King’s son, to Crown Prince is but one of the indicators that Iran and Saudi Arabia may soon be fighting out their disputes militarily.

“The biggest gainers will be the US frackers,” says Athens-based shipping expert Theo Matsopoulos, as reported by Forbes. He continued:

“With an extremely wide break-even range from $32 to $55 per barrel, an increase in the oil price to levels higher than $50 will make the overwhelming majority of them smile. The US will soon be able to finance its trading deficit and solidify even more its position as a major oil exporter. The longer a potential crisis in the Middle East lasts, the more the market share of the US companies will increase — because apart from prices and commodities the political stability of the USA can act as a guarantee for a smooth supply of oil for many consumers.”

According to Forbes, this is why Washington may “do little if anything to stop a direct war between the two old adversaries.”

Forbes also suggested that if Russia were to buy into this scenario, their own oil producers would benefit. However, the U.S.’ aim in controlling the oil market and reaping all the rewards would surely not allow a place for Russia to join in this venture, so it seems likely that Russia would ultimately be an indirect target of this potential strategy, as well.

Because of the high stakes involved in such a conflict, a war between Saudi Arabia and Iran may not be on the horizon anytime soon. However, in the event that this inevitable clash does break out into something tangible, remember that Donald Trump has had American financial interests at heart the whole time — as he promised in his campaign.

That’s all that matters, right? Money, wealth, and natural resources.

And let’s not forget the billions of dollars the U.S. will make in arms sales, alone (maybe the U.S. will secretly arm Iran again just to maximize the chaos).

Let’s just put out of our head the millions upon millions of people who die in American-led wars across the Middle East. As long as someone can make a fast buck out of the chaos, Trump and his followers can sleep soundly at night.

Creative Commons / Anti-Media / Report a typo

Bernie Sanders: Corbyn Surge in UK Proves the World is Rising Up

“People in the U.K., the U.S. and elsewhere want governments that represent all the people, not just the 1%,” Sanders said.

(COMMONDREAMS) — Responding to the results of the U.K. election, which commentators have already deemed a “political upset” for the ages and a stunning backfire for Prime Minister Theresa May, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Thursday congratulated Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and the British people for “rising up against austerity and massive levels of income and wealth inequality.”

People “all over the world” are fighting the same battle, Sanders added, concluding:

“People in the U.K., the U.S. and elsewhere want governments that represent all the people, not just the 1%. I congratulate Jeremy Corbyn for running a very positive and effective campaign.”

Corbyn’s strong run—which culminated in an additional 31 seats for Labour and a hung parliament—was, in many ways, reminiscent of the Sanders “revolution” in the United States, which posed a stark challenge to “the billionaire class” and a political establishment flush with corporate money. Sanders himself drew the comparison between his campaign and Corbyn’s recently on a three-day U.K. speaking tour, during which he praised the Labour leader’s “willingness to talk about class issues.”

“These problems are not unique to the U.S.,” Sanders noted. “Globalization has left far too many people behind. Workers all over the world are seeing a decline in their standard of living. Unfettered free trade has allowed multinational corporations to enjoy huge profits and make the very rich even richer while workers are sucked into a race for the bottom.”

“Globalization has left far too many people behind.” —Sen. Bernie Sanders

Corbyn utilized similar messaging. Under his leadership, the Labour Party this year published one of the most left-wing manifestos in its history, adopting a slogan Sanders backers surely recognized: “For the many, not the few.”

It is unsurprising, then, that British voters were seen donning Sanders apparel as they cast their ballots for Labour.

Peter Bloom, writing for Common Dreams, argued the campaigns of Sanders and Corbyn both successfully harnessed similar forces, and thus “exposed the beginnings of a potentially new political mainstream.”

Bloom concluded:

“Corbyn’s strong campaign is no small political achievement. Historically, he has altered the public discussion on major issues of the economy and foreign policy. He has also shown that a full throttled progressive agenda is not only not suicidal but potentially downright popular.”

For many, Corbyn’s remarkable surge in recent weeks and his performance in an election that was prematurely viewed as a landslide opportunity for the Conservatives is a strong indicator of the electoral viability of left populism and of the strong desire for systemic change.

Corbyn is way to the left of Bernie, smeared more by the media (& Bernie has way more legislative accomplishments). Bernie would have won.

— Lee Fang (@lhfang) June 9, 2017

UK voters weren"t voting against the US President; they came out to vote FOR progressive policies that build a better future for their kids. https://t.co/bcV9Et2BIe

— Our Revolution (@OurRevolution) June 9, 2017

LONG lines of young voters all across U.K. As w/@BernieSanders, @jeremycorbyn draws a new generation to the polls.https://t.co/bGtrPw6ny9

— John Nichols (@NicholsUprising) June 8, 2017

Pollsters and analysts—even those who had for weeks closely documented Corbyn’s rapid rise in the polls—were openly startled by the results.

“No major left-wing politician had been so often accused of being unelectable—not even Sanders,” wrote the Washington Post‘s Dave Weigel. “All through election night, the BBC and other organs of an infamously Corbyn-skeptical media marveled at how Labour had gained ground.”

In a triumphant rally on Thursday, Corbyn argued that his party’s gains portend a seismic shift in the landscape of British politics.

“Politics has changed,” Corbyn declared as the results rolled in. “Politics isn’t going back into the box where it was before. What’s happened is people have said they’ve had quite enough of austerity politics.”

By Jake Johnson / Creative Commons / Common Dreams / Report a typo

Corbyn Stuns UK: “Most Incredible Amazing Political Upset in British History”

“UK to humanity – we just killed neoliberalism,” says one Labour supporter as progressive leader’s bold vision credited with delivery crushing blow to Tory rule.

(COMMONDREAMS) — As it looked as though U.K. election might be heading towards shocking results and a hung Parliament, Labour leady Jeremy Corbyn called on Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May to resign while declaring his party’s campaign “has changed the face of British politics.”

Based on exit polling and early returns, indications of the shocking outcome were being widely viewed as a rejection of May’s Conservative Party rule and a win for the bold, progressive vision Corbyn asserted—despite internal party tensions—as the Labour leader. If the trend holds, said journalist and Labour supporter Owen Jones, “then this is the most incredible amazing political upset in British history.”

U.K. to humanity – we just killed neoliberalism

— Paul Mason (@paulmasonnews) June 9, 2017

Labour"s change is now permanent. A party committed to radically transforming Britain in the interests of the many, not the few. https://t.co/ph3s485mGj

— Owen Jones (@OwenJones84) June 9, 2017

The British right wing press led a vicious campaign of lies, smears, hatred and bigotry. And millions told them where to stick it

— Owen Jones (@OwenJones84) June 9, 2017

Though final results have yet to be determined, British politics were nonetheless turned upside as it appeared that May and the Tories failed expectations and would likely be unable to claim a majority in Parliament. Even if the Tory’s retain the most seats overall, the ability of other parties to form a coalition with Labour would put her political future in severe jeopardy and make Corbyn the “odds on favorite” to become the nation’s next Prime Minister.

Politics is on its head. Anything could happen. Would never have believed it, but I"m pleased. Change is possible. #GE2017

— Nick Dearden (@nickdearden75) June 9, 2017

The Independent explains:

Many polls predicted a crushing defeat for Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour, with the Conservatives gaining a considerable majority. Others were less generous towards May, and showed a dramatic narrowing between the two parties as their campaigns progressed. But even then, when the numbers were relatively favourable for Labour, the Conservatives were still out in front.

If you cast your mind back before the snap election was called, you may remember the double-digit leads the Tories held over Labour, and the huge advantage in popularity May had over Corbyn. With these in mind, many Labour supporters were resigned to the fact they were never going to win, and had their eyes on simply reducing Theresa May’s majority.

But as the tallies continue to come in, the newspaper added, “the future of [May’s] premiership, party and legacy could all be in doubt.”

If May is ousted from leadership, explained columnist Laurie Penny writing at Salon, that would tell a tale of deep dissatisfaction in the U.K., especially among younger voters and those who have suffered most directly at the hands of Tory policies:

The Tories haven’t just fucked up this election. They’ve fucked up the country, mercilessly and for eight long years, and people are sick of them. In less than two terms, they have destroyed the welfare state; almost bankrupted our health service and school system; plunged millions of children into poverty; presided over an enormous uptick in racism, social division and terrorist violence; almost lost Scotland; utterly failed to balance the nation’s finances; and sent us spinning out of the European Union into the maw of decades of uncertainty, recession and fear. Racists are running brave in the streets. Food banks are the new normal. Millions of people are languishing in exhausting, low-paid work. People with disabilities are dying in their homes. School buildings are rotting. The mental health system is close to collapse. Young people have given up hope of starting families. People are poor, angry and scared.

In a speech accepting victory for his own seat in North Islington, Corbyn also said the elections results show that the British people have had enough of May and the Tories’ economic policies. He said people were inspired by the “For the Many, Not the Few Manifesto” that Labour put forth during the campaign and that he was proud people from across the country were “voting for hope for the future, and turning their backs on austerity.”

He added: “If there is a message from tonight’s result is this: the Prime Minister called the election because she wanted a mandate and lost votes, lost support and lost confidence. I would have thought that is enough to go, actually, and make way for a government which will be representative of all of the people!”

Watch:

By Joe Queally / Creative Commons / Common Dreams / Report a typo

Caught On Video: Hockey-Playing Putin Reacts To Comey Termination

(ZHE) In a rare appearance of the Russian president in his natural sporting habitat, CBS caught up with Russian President Putin rink side and asked him about the firing of former Director Comey. Here is a transcript of the conversation:

Palmer: How will the firing of James Comey affect US-Russia relations?

Putin: There will no effect. Your question, please don’t get mad, is silly. We have nothing to do with that. President Trump is acting in according with his competence, and in acordance with his law and constitution. And what about us? Why us? You see I am going to play hockey with the hockey fans. And I invite you to do the same.”

By Tyler Durden / Republished with permission / Zero Hedge / Report a typo

Is Someone Else Making Trump’s Decisions for Him? It Certainly Seems That Way

(ANTIMEDIA) At the end of last week, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said arresting Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is now a “priority.” Not long after, CNN reported that authorities have prepared charges against Assange, who is currently seeking refuge at the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

Donald Trump’s response to these recent developments was “It’s OK with me.” Trump is not included in the decision-making process as to whether Assange should be charged. Bear in mind, however, that Trump once told his fanbase, “I love Wikileaks,” and the fact that he is merely “OK” with the decision seems, if anything, to indicate he is claiming little to no say at all on what is going on in his administration regarding this issue.

Most of the world watched with horror — or awe, depending on your level of humanitarian indifference — as the U.S. military dropped the so-called Mother of all bombs (MOAB) on an ISIS position in Afghanistan. Conservative estimates show that for every ISIS fighter killed, the financial cost of the bomb was $450,000.

Yet, according to Fox News, Trump was told of the decision to drop the MOAB after it had already been detonated. Fox reported:

“The new approach was on display this week in Afghanistan, where Gen. John Nicholson, head of the U.S.-led coalition there, decided to use one of the military’s biggest nonnuclear bombs—a Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb, or MOAB—to hit a remote Islamic State underground network of tunnels and caves.”

Fox adds:“A senior administration official said Mr. Trump didn’t know about the weapon’s use until it had been dropped.”

This recent development is part of a broader strategy that has seen the Trump administration give enormous power and responsibility to generals on the battlefield with very little oversight. The loosening of these restrictions was already done in Somalia and parts of Yemen but has now been deployed in the Iraq arena. Supposedly, the process put in place under the Obama administration frustrated many within the military, even as they were still able to drop over 26,000 bombs last year, alone. Now, the military establishment has almost free reign to do as it wishes.

We have already seen the effects of this, as an air strike was recently ordered in on a civilian area in Mosul, killing over 200 civilians in a single bombardment. In March alone, the U.S.-led coalition killed 1,782 civilians in Iraq and Syria.

In the words of the New Republic, “the Generals have won their war with Trump.”

Donald Trump’s original pick for national security advisor was Michael Flynn, who was well on his way to restoring ties with Russia before leaked intelligence forced his resignation. Flynn was replaced by General H.R. McMaster, a staunch cold warrior. It speaks volumes that not long after McMaster booted Steven Bannon off the National Security Council, the U.S. military struck the Syrian government directly. As noted by the New Yorker, Bannon, a genuine nationalist, would not have been in favor of such a move to strike Russia’s close ally:

“In the dystopian ‘Clash of Civilizations’ scenario that Bannon and his supporters subscribe to, Syria represents an important staging ground in the U.S.-led crusade against radical Islam, and an example of what future U.S.-Russian coöperation could look like.”

Asked about the decision to strike the Syrian government, Trump’s recollection of the cake he was eating at the time was far clearer than which country he actually bombed:

“I was sitting at the table. We had finished dinner. We are now having dessert. And we had the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that you have ever seen. And President Xi was enjoying it,” Trump said, as reported by the Guardian.

“And I said: ‘Mr. President, let me explain something to you … we’ve just launched 59 missiles, heading to Iraq,’” he said before the interviewer interjected to clarify. He then corrected himself.

Without getting too entangled in these contradictory actions, it is also worth pointing out that Trump was dining with the Chinese president, a complete policy switch from his furious attempts to berate China in the early days of his political career.

Further, the following statement seems to cast doubt on how involved Trump really is in the formulation of these incredibly important decisions:

“And I was given the message from the generals that the ships are locked and loaded. What do you do? And we made a determination to do it. So the missiles were on the way.”

What do you do? You say no. You say what you said at least 18 times previously before you became president, namely that the U.S. should “stay the hell out of Syria.”

On a side note, it was McMaster who presented the Syrian military strike proposal to Trump in the first place. Shortly after the MOAB was dropped in Afghanistan, McMaster took an unannounced visit to the war-ravaged nation. According to the Military Times, McMaster’s visit was a surprise move not just to the Afghans, but also to Pentagon officials. As a result, the White House was forced to dispute the notion that McMaster is operating independently from the Department of Defense.

In the most recent development, which has resulted in the accumulation of Trump’s power giveaway, Vice President Mike Pence was busy last week threatening North Korea directly with war while the Donald played golf. As noted by Paul Craig Roberts, not even king of neoconservatives Dick Cheney took the spotlight away from Bush Junior to declare war on his behalf.

Of course, it is worth noting that Pence just recently announced this Saturday that this issue could be solved by “peaceful means.” However, the fact still remains that the issue to be solved is the establishment of a “nuclear-free Korean peninsula,” something North Korea would be unlikely to accept in the face of repeated provocation from the U.S. government over the last decade or so (including Obama’s use of cyber warfare). In North Korea’s eyes, the only thing stopping their country from turning into Iraq is their stockpile of nuclear weapons.

Pence has essentially given North Korea a lose-lose ultimatum: either give up their nuclear weapons and make themselves an easy target or prepare for a direct war with America’s naval fleet. As Anti-Media predicted in March, Mike Pence was likely always going to be the “Deep State’s Insurance Policy” against a nationalist Trump administration.

For those who voted Trump into office, his complete indifference — as demonstrated by him playing golf all day while the neocons completely infiltrate his administration to make important decisions on his behalf — is nothing more than a giant slap in the face.

The rest of the die-hard Trump supporters who will support him no matter what should know they are supporting Clinton-style policies that are being pursued by the neoconservatives inside his administration.

They may as well have voted for Clinton.

However, these Trump supporters can finally admit the fact that neither party represents them (something more and more people are realizing) and that America’s illusion of democracy is dangerous, at best. Even if Trump was genuine during his presidential campaign, many of the most important decisions taking place right now are not being formulated by anyone who was democratically elected — especially not Trump.

In McMaster’s case, he wasn’t even involved in Trump’s original assembly. He is only part of the Trump administration because someone from within the intelligence community decided the restoration of U.S.-Russia relations was a complete dealbreaker and forced Flynn’s resignation. At least when the American people were casting their votes for Trump, they were well aware of who Bannon was, for example. McMaster’s name would have hardly been commonplace at anyone’s dinner table, yet this is a man who is advising Trump directly (including on his potential plan to send as many as 50,000 Americans to fight and die in Syria in a war that Trump dismissed numerous times in the past due to its projected catastrophic consequences).

Is this democracy?

Creative Commons / Anti-Media / Report a typo