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A Never-Trump Press in Near Panic

By Pat Buchanan • Unz Review • February 2, 2018

“All the News That’s Fit to Print” proclaims the masthead of The New York Times. “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” echoes The Washington Post.

“The people have a right to know,” the professors at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism hammered into us in 1962. “Trust the people,” we were admonished.

Explain then this hysteria, this panic in the press over the release of a four-page memo detailing one congressional committee’s rendering of how Trump-hate spawned an FBI investigation of Republican candidate and President Donald Trump.

What is the press corps afraid of? For it has not ceased keening and caterwauling that this memo must not see the light of day.

Do the media not trust the people? Can Americans not handle the truth?

Is this the same press corps that celebrates “The Post,” lionizing Kay Graham for publishing the Pentagon Papers, top-secret documents charging the “Best and the Brightest” of the JFK-LBJ era with lying us into Vietnam?

Why are the media demanding a “safe space” for us all, so we will not be harmed by reading or hearing what the memo says?

Security secrets will be compromised, we are warned.

Really? Would the House Intelligence Committee majority vote to expose secrets that merit protection? Would Speaker Paul Ryan and White House chief of staff Gen. John Kelly, who have read and approved the release of the memo, go along with that?

Is Gen. Kelly not a proven patriot, many times over?

The committee’s ranking Democrat, Adam Schiff, who earlier warned of a threat to national security, now seems ready to settle for equal time. If the majority memo is released, says Schiff, the minority version of events should be released.

Schiff is right. It should be, along with the backup behind both.

This week, however, FBI Director Chris Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein slipped into the White House to plead with Kelly to keep the Republican memo secret. Wednesday, both went public to warn the White House against doing what Trump said he was going to do.

This is defiant insubordination. And it is not unfair to ask if Rosenstein and Wray are more alarmed about some threat to the national security than they are about the exposure of misconduct in their own agencies.

The memo is to be released Friday. Leaks suggest what it contends:

That the Russiagate investigation of Trump was propelled by a “dossier” of lies and unproven allegations of squalid conduct in Moscow and Trumpian collusion with Russia.

Who prepared the dossier?

The leading dirt-diver hired by the Clinton campaign, former British spy Christopher Steele. In accumulating his Russian dirt, Steele was spoon-fed by old comrades in the Kremlin’s security apparatus.

Not only did the FBI use this dirt to launch a full investigation of Trump, the bureau apparently used it to convince a FISA court judge to give the FBI a warrant to surveil and wiretap the Trump campaign.

If true, the highest levels of the FBI colluded with a British spy digging dirt for Hillary to ruin the opposition candidate, and, having failed, to bring down an elected president.

Is this not something we have a right to know? Should it be covered up to protect those at the FBI who may have engaged in something like this?

“Now they are investigating the investigators!” comes the wail of the media. Well, yes, they are, and, from the evidence, about time.

In this divided capital, there are warring narratives.

The first is that Trump was compromised by the Russians and colluded with them to hack the DNC and Clinton campaign to destroy her candidacy. After 18 months, the FBI and Robert Mueller probes have failed to demonstrate this.

The second narrative is now ascendant. It is this:

In mid-2016, James Comey and an FBI cabal, including Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, lead investigator Peter Strzok and his FBI paramour Lisa Page, decided Clinton must not be indicted in the server scandal, as that would make Trump president.

So they colluded and put the fix in.

This alleged conspiracy is being investigated by the FBI inspector general. His findings may explain last week’s sudden resignation of McCabe and last summer’s ouster of Strzok from the Mueller probe.

If true, this conspiracy to give Hillary a pass on her “gross negligence” in handling secrets, and take down Trump based on dirt dug up by hirelings of the Clinton campaign would make the Watergate break-in appear by comparison to be a prank.

Here we may have hit the reason for the panic in the media.

Trump-haters in the press may be terrified that the memo may credibly demonstrate that the “Deplorables” were right, that the elite media have been had, that they were exploited and used by the “deep state,” that they let their detestation of Trump so blind them to reality that they made fools of themselves, and that they credited with high nobility a major conspiracy to overthrow an elected president of the United States.

Copyright 2018 Creators.com.

February 2, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | , | 1 Comment

Can the Impending Collapse of Russiagate Halt the Slide Toward a Nuclear 1914?

By James George JATRAS | Strategic Culture Foundation | 02.02.2018

In the period preceding WWI how many Europeans suspected that their lives would soon be forever changed – and, for millions of them, ended? Who in the years, say, 1910 to 1913, could have imagined that the decades of peace, progress, and civilization in which they had grown up, and which seemingly would continue indefinitely, instead would soon descend into a horror of industrial-scale slaughter, revolution, and brutal ideologies?

The answer is, probably very few, just as few people today care much about the details of international and security affairs. Normal folk have better things to do with their lives.

To be sure, in that bygone era of smug jingoism, there was always the entertainment aspect that “our” side had forced “theirs” to back down in some exotic locale, as in the Fashoda incident (1898) or the Moroccan crises (1906, 1911). Even the Balkan Wars of 1912-13 seemed less a harbinger of the cataclysm to come than local dustups on the edge of the continent where the general peace had not been disturbed even by the much more disruptive Crimean or Franco-Prussian wars.

Besides, no doubt level-headed statesmen were in charge in the various capitals, ensuring that things wouldn’t get out of hand.

Until they did.

A notable exception to the prevailing mood of business-as-usual, nothing-to-see-here-folks was Pyotr Durnovo, whose remarkable February 1914 memorandum to Tsar Nicholas II laid out not only what the great powers would do in the approaching general war but the behavior of the minor countries as well. Moreover, he anticipated that in the event of defeat, Russia, destabilized by unchecked socialist “agitation” amid wartime hardships, would “be flung into hopeless anarchy, the issue of which cannot be foreseen.” Germany, likewise, was “destined to suffer, in case of defeat, no lesser social upheavals” and “take a purely revolutionary path” of a nationalist hue.

When the great powers blundered into war in August 1914, each confident of its ability speedily to dispatch its rivals, the price (adding in the toll from the 1939-1945 rematch) was upwards of 70 million lives. But the cost of a comparable mistake today might be literally incalculable – if there’s anyone left to do the tally.

During the first Cold War between the US and the USSR, there was a general sense that a World War III was, in a word, unthinkable. As summed up by Ronald Reagan: “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” Then, it was understood that all-out war, however it started, meant massed ICBMs over the North Pole and the “end of civilization as we know it.”

Not anymore. What was unthinkable in the old Cold War has become all-too-thinkable in the new one between the US and Russia. As described by veteran arms control inspector Scott Ritter, in analyzing a draft of the 2018 US Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), the US threshold for the use of nuclear weapons has become dangerously low:

‘The 2018 NPR has a vision of nuclear conflict that goes far beyond the traditional imagery of mass missile launches. While ICBMs and manned bombers will be maintained on a day-to-day alert, the tip of the nuclear spear is now what the NPR calls “supplemental” nuclear forces – dual-use aircraft such as the F-35 fighter armed with B-61 gravity bombs capable of delivering a low-yield nuclear payload, a new generation of nuclear-tipped submarine-launched cruise missiles, and submarine-launched ballistic missiles tipped with a new generation of low-yield nuclear warheads. The danger inherent with the integration of these kinds of tactical nuclear weapons into an overall strategy of deterrence is that it fundamentally lowers the threshold for their use. […]

‘Noting that the United States has never adopted a “no first use” policy, the 2018 NPR states that “it remains the policy of the United States to retain some ambiguity regarding the precise circumstances that might lead to a US nuclear response.” In this regard, the NPR states that America could employ nuclear weapons under “extreme circumstances that could include significant non-nuclear strategic attacks.” … The issue of “non-nuclear strategic attack technologies” as a potential precursor for nuclear war is a new factor that previously did not exist in American policy. The United States has long held that chemical and biological weapons represent a strategic threat for which America’s nuclear deterrence capability serves as a viable counter. But the threat from cyber attacks is different. If for no other reason than the potential for miscalculation and error in terms of attribution and intent, the nexus of cyber and nuclear weapons should be disconcerting for everyone. […]

‘Even more disturbing is the notion that a cyber intrusion such as the one perpetrated against the Democratic National Committee and attributed to Russia could serve as a trigger for nuclear war. This is not as far-fetched as it sounds. The DNC event has been characterized by influential American politicians, such as the Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, as “an act of war.” Moreover, former vice president Joe Biden hinted that, in the aftermath of the DNC breach, the United States was launching a retaliatory cyberattack of its own, targeting Russia. The possibility of a tit-for-tat exchange of cyberattacks that escalates into a nuclear conflict would previously have been dismissed out of hand; today, thanks to the 2018 NPR, it has entered the realm of the possible.’

The idea that a first-strike Schlieffen Plan could knock out the Russians (and no doubt similar contingencies are in place for China) at the outset of hostilities reflects a dangerous illusion of predictability. Truth may be the first casualty of war, but “the plan” is inevitably the second. That’s because war planners generally don’t consult the enemy, which – annoyingly for the planners – also gets a vote.

Recently US Secretary of State James Mattis declared that “great power competition – not terrorism – is now the primary focus of US national security,” specifying Russia and China as nations seeking to “create a world consistent with their authoritarian models, pursuing veto authority over other nations’ economic, diplomatic and security decisions.” At least we can drop the pretense that US policy has been to fight jihad terrorism, not to use it as a policy tool in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Libya, Syria, and elsewhere. And of course Washington never, ever meddles in “other nations’ economic, diplomatic and security decisions”. ..

There is much anticipation that release of a House Intelligence Committee memo “naming names” of those in the FBI and elsewhere inside and outside of government to thwart the election of Donald Trump and cripple his administration with a phony Russian “collusion” probe will be a silver bullet that upturns the Mueller probe and cleans the Augean stables of the Deep State. Even in that unlikely case, the damage is already done. The primary purpose of Russiagate was always to ensure Trump could not reach out to Moscow, as seems to be his sincere desire. Even as the narrative began to boomerang against those who launched it, Trump’s defenders (such as fanatical Russophobe Nikki Haley) are as adamant as his detractors that Russia is and will remain the main enemy: Russia was behind the Steele Dossier, Russia tried to “corner the market” on “the foundational material for nuclear weapons” with the Uranium One deal, etc. Hostility toward Russia is not a means to an end – it is the end.

At this point Trump is fastened to the neocons’ and generals’ axle, and all he can do is spin. Echoing Mattis, in his State of the Union speech Trump lumped “rivals like China and Russia” together with “rogue regimes” and “terrorist groups” as “horrible dangers” to the United States. (Note: The word “horrible” does not appear in the posted text. That evidently was Trump’s adlib.) The recently issued “name and shame” list of prominent Russians is a veritable Who’s Who of government and business, ensuring that there’s no American engagement with anyone within screaming distance of the Kremlin.

To be fair, the Russians and Chinese are making their own war preparations. Russia’s “Kanyon,” a doomsday nuclear torpedo carrying a massive warhead, is designed to obliterate the U.S east and west coasts, rendering them inhabitable for generations. (Wait a minute. Is it any coincidence, Comrade, that the coastal cities are just where the Democrats’ electoral strength is? Talk about “collusion!” Somebody call Bob Mueller!) For its part, China is developing means to eliminate our white elephant carrier groups – handy for pummeling Third World backwaters but useless in a war with a major power – with drone swarms and hypersonic missiles.

Just as in 1914, when Durnovo referred to “presence of abundant combustible material in Europe,” there are any number of global flashpoints that could turn Mattis’s “great power competition” into a major conflagration that probably was not desired by anyone. However, if the worst happens, and the lamps go out again – maybe this time forever – Americans will not again be immune from the consequences as we were in the wars of the 20th century. The remainder of our lives, however brief, might turn out very differently from what we had anticipated.

February 2, 2018 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

‘Vain Effort’: US’ Kremlin Report by the Eyes of International Observers

Sputnik | February 2, 2018

International observers have voiced their skepticism over the publication of the US Treasury’s Kremlin Report in their interview with Sputnik. According to the analysts, the document contradicts the norms of international law and is likely to prove inefficient as an instrument of pressure on Russia’s foreign partners and domestic elite.

The so-called Kremlin Report, released by the US Treasury Department on January 29, has stirred up a heated debate among international observers. Analysts from Iran, Italy and Turkey shared their views on the document with Sputnik.

Iran: Kremlin Report Violates International Norms

“Instead of pursuing a policy of widening and strengthening friendly ties, peace and stability, the [Americans] have chosen the path of aggression, interference, scandal and conflict-mongering, confrontation and destabilization,” Hossein Sheikholeslam, head of the Iranian social organization “Freedom to Holy Jerusalem” and a former adviser of Iran’s minister of foreign affairs, told Sputnik, dubbing Washington’s approach “stupid” and in contradiction to international laws and norms.

Drawing the parallel between the Kremlin Report and the anti-Iranian sanctions policy the former official noted that the US intimidating strategy has repeatedly failed: “If their sanctions were that effective, they would have been able to destroy Iran. But that did not happen. On the contrary, the sanctions stimulated the development of our country.”According to Sheikholeslam, “sanctions are for the weak, for those who cannot fairly face challenges.”

Maryam Jalavand, an international law specialist and a teacher at Payame Noor University in Tehran, echoed Sheikholeslam by stating that the US’ recent decision is illegal and violates international law.

The academic drew attention to the fact that to date the US has unilaterally introduced more than 61 types of sanctions against 35 countries. “And this is at least 40 percent of the world’s population,” Jalavand remarked.

“In the meantime, from the point of view of international law, such unilateral actions by the US towards countries such as Russia are considered a violation and a direct intervention in the country’s internal affairs. Because, according to international law, imposing sanctions is a measure that forces one’s counterpart to abide by certain restrictions, which creates a number of problems,” she stressed.

The academic explained that the inclusion of a large number of Russia’s top ranking officials in the list directly violates international law as it envisages the potential freezing of their assets: “This, in turn, means freezing the assets and credits of the state,” the specialist pointed out. “This is the reason why such a measure from the US is considered a violation of international law.”

She highlighted that “it violates the principle of freedom of movement, principle of sovereignty, principle of justice and the principle of freedom of human rights.”

Italy: It Looks Like a One-Sided Cold War of a New Type

Italian journalist and political analyst Giulietto Chiesa, a regular contributor to Sputnik, notes that the Kremlin Report includes officials “belonging to all political trends, from pro-Western to ardent patriots.”

“This is not just an ominous gesture addressed to Russian influential figures,” Chiesa noted, “I emphasize that the decree of the president of the United States dated December 21… gave the Treasury truly universal rights, granting it the capability to sequester all the assets of the persons mentioned in it, thus creating a kind of a new planetary legislation, under which the United States unilaterally obtains the right to decide the fate of political and economic figures of the rest of the world.”

According to the Italian journalist the whole spectrum of relations between the two countries has been put at risk while all the existing opportunities for holding a dialogue have been undermined.

“So far, Moscow has no choice but to take a step towards a further deterioration of ties, which looks like a one-sided cold war of a new type which could lead to a complete severance of relations,” he warned.

Turkey: US Actions Won’t Undermine Russia’s Relations With West Asian States

Volkan Ozdemir, chairman of the Ankara-based Institute for Energy Markets and Policies (EPPEN), and Yunus Soner, deputy chairman of Turkey’s left-wing Vatan Party (the Patriotic Party), believe that Washington’s actions are doomed to failure.

According to Soner, the Kremlin Report is nothing but a US attempt to maintain its hegemony amid the swift rise of Eurasian nations.

“The US actions are directed not only against Russia, but also against the countries of the Eurasian and Asian region interacting with Russia,” Soner suggested, adding that “Washington is concerned that the Eurasian Economic Union is emerging as a real alternative to American dominance.”

However, the politician assumed that the release of the report will produce little if any effect on the world affairs.”This US step would once again demonstrate to the world the ineffectiveness of instruments of pressure used by the US since the Cold War,” Soner said. “The United States should abandon the tools of imposing its will unilaterally and take its place in the modern multipolar world system.”

For his part, Ozdemir suggested that Washington’s major goal is to sow discord among the Russian elite which US politicians want to use as a bargaining chip in its game with Moscow.

According to the scholar, the White House is sending an unambiguous message to Russia’s influential circles: “Either act against your leadership, or reap the fruits of inaction.”

“We are witnessing how finance and economics are used as a political tool,” Ozdemir noted warning that the US recent move may “lead to increased tensions in the relationship,” and “even become a reason for financial war.”

The Kremlin Report contains a list of persons related to Russia’s leadership and are presented as potential targets for the US’ new anti-Russia sanctions. The document which was created in compliance with the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) and signed into law by President Donald Trump on August 2 names 114 Russian politicians and 96 businessmen.

February 2, 2018 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

Dennis Kucinich Hit with Spurious Criticism over Fox News Connection

By Adam Dick | Ron Paul Institute | February 1, 2018

A recent poll places Dennis Kucinich, who announced his run for Ohio governor on January 17, in second place among five Democratic primary contenders. When you are doing well in an election, like appears to be the case with Kucinich, you can expect attacks, including attacks based on deception, to start coming at you.

Ed Kilgore, in a Monday New York Magazine article, criticized Kucinich’s work as a Fox News contributor between Kucinich leaving the United States House of Representatives in 2013 and announcing his governor candidacy this month. Kilgore asserts Kucinich’s work with Fox News involved “steady criticism of the Obama administration’s hostility to Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime” and “turned more sinister as Donald Trump began his climb toward the presidency, with the former lefty gadfly often expressing agreement with the mogul’s anti-globalist rhetoric.” Further, Kilgore writes, Kucinich agreed in a Fox News interview in May that President Trump was then under attack from the deep state in the intelligence community.

Here are the facts. Kucinich has long been a supporter of nonintervention overseas. That includes in Syria. Over his 16 years in the House as a Democratic representative from Ohio, Kucinich opposed US “regime change” efforts and wars no matter the political party affiliations of the president and congressional leadership pushing such. Kucinich has also long been an opponent of so-called globalist policies in the form of huge international trade deals.

Kucinich, who served in Congress as a Democrat and is now running for Ohio governor in that party’s primary, has not been a party-line guy who follows leadership orders and blindly joins in whatever attacks are being hurled at people in the opposing political party. If, in his judgement, he sees a Republican is being unfairly attacked, do not be surprised to see Kucinich defend the Republican or at least refrain from joining in the attack.

Indeed, Kucinich’s independence has enabled him to consistently take his stands against foreign intervention and huge trade deals even when his party leadership supported the opposite.

On these issues, as well as others including opposing the USA PATRIOT Act, Kucinich would work with like-minded Republicans in the House. Among them was then-Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX). In fact, Paul was so impressed by his interactions with Kucinich that, when Paul decided to found the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity (RPI) after leaving the House, Paul invited Kucinich to join the institute’s Advisory Board. Kucinich accepted the invitation and spoke at the 2013 event announcing the institute’s formation as well as at RPI’s 2017 annual conference.

In his speech at the 2013 RPI inaugural event, Kucinich said, “I’m shoulder to shoulder with Ron Paul in being concerned about how war enables the state to become more powerful; and, as a result, it deprives our citizens not only of economic vitality, but also of civil liberties.” Continuing, Kucinich expressed that RPI “has so much importance because it will provide a place for people to gather from across the political spectrum so that we can as Americans address our common concerns about freedom, about peace, about prosperity, and, in doing so, help to rescue our country from a trajectory that it’s on right now that can only lead to our destruction.”

Kucinich, in making these comments at the event, is not saying that he has become a libertarian like Paul or that he agrees with Paul on every issue. Instead, Kucinich is saying that he desires to work on a group of important matters with people who agree with him on those matters even if those individuals’ views on other matters differ very much from his. In this case, the common ground is expressed at the RPI website as “advocacy for a peaceful foreign policy and the protection of civil liberties at home.”

Similarly, Kucinich having worked as a contributor at Fox News does not mean he is or ever was in lockstep agreement with, say, Fox News host Sean Hannity. Instead, Kucinich at Fox expressed his own views on matters, just as an opinion columnist with a “left,” “right,” or whatever political orientation does so at a newspaper that generally has a different editorial viewpoint.

In fact, appearing on Fox News or Fox Business, Kucinich could potentially make a bigger impact than he would if he had chosen to work with a media company that is more closely aligned with his political views. At Fox, Kucinich was not preaching to the choir. Instead, he was communicating to an audience a large percentage of whose members were unfamiliar with or antagonistic to his thoughts on many issues.

Indeed, Kucinich alludes to his work with Fox News in a new interview at WOSU radio of Columbus, Ohio as helping contribute to his ability to win the Ohio governor general election for just this reason. “How do you court Republicans? How do you court the small government voters who propelled Trump to victory?” Steve Brown asks Kucinich in the interview. Answers Kucinich in part: “Because for the last five years I’ve had the ability to stand in the same position that I’ve always took on the floor of the House and to communicate with a constituency that most Democrats never get a chance to talk to.”

Suppose Kucinich is right. Suppose he can reach across party lines in the general election, leading to his winning the governorship. That prospect, combined with his apparent strength so far in the Democratic primary, is sure to draw out more criticisms of Kucinich. Expect more criticism, including criticism that, like the criticism of Kucinich for having worked with Fox News, may sound incriminating on a first hearing but is based on no more than misleading innuendo and fallacious guilt by association.

February 1, 2018 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | 4 Comments

A $1 billion proposal will exploit Gaza for the benefit of Israel’s security narrative

By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | February 1, 2018

When considering Gaza’s dire humanitarian conditions, it is impossible not to remember what Israeli government adviser Dov Weisglass said in 2006 when the Israeli siege started: “The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.” How much of that callous, initial calculation remains valid today is debatable, as Palestinians in Gaza suffer health issues which are a direct consequence of Israel’s restrictions on the food available for the population, the illegal blockade on the enclave and the disaster wrought by the periodic bombardments of Gaza, the latest major offensive being “Operation Protective Edge” in 2014.

The international community has repeatedly echoed a statement that Gaza will be “unliveable” by 2020. It appears that the deadline might need an extension as Israel will be submitting a $1 billion aid request to the international community because, according to the colonial power, it is Gaza itself that has brought the population to the verge of implosion.

Haaretz has reported comments that attest to Israel’s attempt to deflect its own responsibility and accountability. According to Israeli President Reuven Rivlin: “The entire world must know and understand that the ones preventing reconstruction are Hamas. Israel is the only party in the region that, under any conditions, supplies the residents’ minimal needs so that body and soul can survive.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu echoed Rivlin’s words: “It’s absurd that Israel has to take care of the most basic necessities of life which the Hamas government ignores.” Major General Yoav Mordechai was more forthright in amalgamating the proposed projects to Israel’s security narrative, albeit while misrepresenting legitimate resistance as “terror”. Exonerating Israel of all blame for Gaza’s “failed economy”, he added that investing in the enclave is “an additional element of the IDF’s security doctrine.”

There is nothing new about this Israeli tactic. As part of its colonial expansion, it embarks upon destruction, displacement and deprivation; in compensation, it draws up projects for the international community to fund. Although Israeli officials eliminate culpability and timeframes in their rhetoric, it is obvious that, if there was no colonial presence in Palestine, it is likely that Palestinians would not have experienced the humiliation of aid dependency and having their needs classified according to what Israel decides the international community should focus upon.

Taking their cues from the misguided and erroneously depicted narrative about Gaza, the international community will likely acquiesce to Israel’s latest demand and thus, as a result, fund both colonialism and Israel’s security narrative which is integral to the development which Israel is allegedly envisaging for the territory. Considering that Israel’s focus on Gaza comes after US cuts in financial aid to Palestinians, it should prompt some close scrutiny. It may applaud what officials define as combating the purported bias against Israel, yet the vacuum left by the US withholding aid to Palestinians, although meagre when compared to the accumulation of needs, exposes colonial violence yet further.

The Israeli plan for Gaza’s infrastructure, therefore, is a step towards alienation. Ushering in a new form of dependency upon Palestinians in Gaza is not a step towards economic opportunity. This time there are many opportunities for Israel, which can extend its warped concept of humanitarian aid and development to a population which it has coldly and deliberately terrorised, murdered and maimed over many decades. Approval by the international community, including finance for the proposed projects, will allow Israel to push the limits in collaboration further. In the event that Israel decides to raze Gaza again with another brutal military offensive, the financial hits will be incurred by its international accomplices, following the established pattern of Israel’s demolition of EU-funded structures, only more severely. It is clear that Israel is seeking to inflict similar repercussions on the remaining fragments of Palestinian territory and there is no swifter way to achieve this than by inviting the international community to participate.

February 1, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | 3 Comments

Israel expels Palestinian girl from West Bank to Gaza without notifying her parents

MEMO | February 1, 2018

Israeli authorities expelled a 14-year-old Palestinian girl from the occupied West Bank to the occupied Gaza Strip without even notifying her parents, it has emerged.

According to Israeli NGO HaMoked, the child, identified only as Ghada, was arrested by Israeli forces on 13 January for being in Jerusalem without a military-issued permit. At the time she was arrested, Ghada was returning home after visiting her aunt in Issawiya, part of occupied East Jerusalem.

Born in Ramallah, Ghada now lives with her family in Al-Ram, in the West Bank. Her father was born in the Gaza Strip, and, when Ghada was born, Israeli authorities listed her address as Gaza (Israel maintains control over a Population Registry for Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territory).

After being detained, Ghada was taken for interrogation and then a remand hearing. Her parents were not present through any of this process. She was then woken at 5am on 15 January and told she would be released at Qalandiya checkpoint, a few minutes from her hometown.

Instead, Israel Prison Service officers dropped her off, after dark, at Gaza’s Erez Crossing.

According to HaMoked, there are approximately 21,000 Palestinians living in the West Bank but whose addresses are listed as Gaza. Israel “refuses to update their address and considers them ‘illegal aliens’ unless they have a special military permit to live in the West Bank”.

Last year, 27 Palestinians in the West Bank were forcibly expelled to the Gaza Strip, according to official Israeli military data provided to HaMoked.

Read Also:

Israeli forces shoot 14-year-old inside his home with rubber bullet

February 1, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | 1 Comment

Lying, Spying and Hiding

By Andrew Napolitano • Unz Review • February 1, 2018

I have argued for a few weeks now that House Intelligence Committee members have committed misconduct in office by concealing evidence of spying abuses by the National Security Agency and the FBI. They did this by sitting on a four-page memo that summarizes the abuse of raw intelligence data while Congress was debating a massive expansion of FISA.

FISA is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, which was written to enable the federal government to spy on foreign agents here and abroad. Using absurd and paranoid logic, the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which only hears the government’s lawyers, has morphed “foreign intelligence surveillance” into undifferentiated bulk surveillance of all Americans.

Undifferentiated bulk surveillance is the governmental acquisition of fiber-optic data stored and transmitted by nearly everyone in America. This includes all telephone conversations, text messages and emails, as well as all medical, legal and financial records.

Ignorant of the hot potato on which the House Intelligence Committee had been sitting, Congress recently passed and President Donald Trump signed a vast expansion of spying authorities — an expansion that authorizes legislatively the domestic spying that judges were authorizing on everyone in the U.S. without individual suspicion of wrongdoing or probable cause of crime; an expansion that passed in the Senate with no votes to spare; an expansion that evades and avoids the Fourth Amendment; an expansion that the president signed into law the day before we all learned of the House Intelligence Committee memo.

The FISA expansion would never have passed the Senate had the House Intelligence Committee memo and the data on which it is based come to light seven days sooner than it did. Why should 22 members of a House committee keep their 500-plus congressional colleagues in the dark about domestic spying abuses while those colleagues were debating the very subject matter of domestic spying and voting to expand the power of those who have abused it?

The answer to this lies in the nature of the intelligence community today and the influence it has on elected officials in the government. By the judicious, personalized and secret revelation of data, both good and bad — here is what we know about your enemies, and here is what we know about you — the NSA shows its might to the legislators who supposedly regulate it. In reality, the NSA regulates them.

This is but one facet of the deep state — the unseen parts of the government that are not authorized by the Constitution and that never change, no matter which party controls the legislative or executive branch. This time, they almost blew it. If just one conscientious senator had changed her or his vote on the FISA expansion — had that senator known of the NSA and FBI abuses of FISA concealed by the House Intelligence Committee — the expansion would have failed.

Nevertheless, the evidence on which the committee members sat is essentially a Republican-written summary of raw intelligence data. Earlier this week, the Democrats on the committee authored their version — based, they say, on the same raw intelligence data as was used in writing the Republican version. But the House Intelligence Committee, made up of 13 Republicans and nine Democrats, voted to release only the Republican-written memo.

Late last week, when it became apparent that the Republican memo would soon be released, the Department of Justice publicly contradicted President Trump by advising the leadership of the House Intelligence Committee in very strong terms that the memo should not be released to the public.

It soon became apparent that, notwithstanding the DOJ admonition, no one in the DOJ had actually seen the memo. So FBI Director Chris Wray made a secret, hurried trip to the House Intelligence Committee’s vault last Sunday afternoon to view the memo. When asked by the folks who showed it to him whether it contains secret or top-secret material, he couldn’t or wouldn’t say. But he apparently saw in the memo the name of the No. 2 person at the FBI, Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, as one of the abusers of spying authority. That triggered McCabe’s summary departure from the FBI the next day, after a career of 30 years.

The abuse summarized in the Republican memo apparently spans the last year of the Obama administration and the first year of the Trump administration. If it comes through as advertised, it will show the deep state using the government’s powers for petty or political or ideological reasons.

The use of raw intelligence data by the NSA or the FBI for political purposes or to manipulate those in government is as serious a threat to popular government — to personal liberty in a free society — as has ever occurred in America since Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, which punished speech critical of the government.

What’s going on here?

The government works for us; we should not tolerate its treating us as children. When raw intelligence data is capable of differing interpretations and is relevant to a public dispute — about, for example, whether the NSA and the FBI are trustworthy, whether FISA should even exist, whether spying on everyone all the time keeps us safe and whether the Constitution even permits this — the raw data should be released to the American public.

Where is the personal courage on the House Intelligence Committee? Where is the patriotism? Where is the fidelity to the Constitution? The government exists by our consent. It derives its powers from us. We have a right to know what it has done in our names, who broke our trust, who knew about it, who looked the other way and why and by whom all this was intentionally hidden until after Congress voted to expand FISA.

Everyone in government takes an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. How many take it meaningfully and seriously?

Copyright 2018 Andrew P. Napolitano. Distributed by Creators.com.

February 1, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception | , , , | Leave a comment

Meet the Corrupt Billionaire Who Has Brought About a New Cold War

By Philip M. GIRALDI | Strategic Culture Foundation | 01.02.2018

One has to ask why there is a crisis in US-Russia relations since Washington and Moscow have much more in common than not, to include confronting international terrorism, stabilizing Syria and other parts of the world that are in turmoil, and preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons. In spite of all that, the US and Russia are currently locked in a tit-for-tat unfriendly relationship somewhat reminiscent of the Cold War.

Apart from search for a scapegoat to explain the Hillary Clinton defeat, how did it happen? Israel Shamir, a keen observer of the American-Russian relationship, and celebrated American journalist Robert Parry both think that one man deserves much of the credit for the new Cold War and that man is William Browder, a hedge fund operator who made his fortune in the corrupt 1990s world of Russian commodities trading.

Browder is also symptomatic of why the United States government is so poorly informed about international developments as he is the source of much of the Congressional “expert testimony” contributing to the current impasse. He has somehow emerged as a trusted source in spite of the fact that he has self-interest in cultivating a certain outcome. Also ignored is his renunciation of American citizenship in 1998, reportedly to avoid taxes. He is now a British citizen.

Browder is notoriously the man behind the 2012 Magnitsky Act, which exploited Congressional willingness to demonize Russia and has done so much to poison relations between Washington and Moscow. The Act sanctioned individual Russian officials, which Moscow has rightly seen as unwarranted interference in the operation of its judicial system.

Browder, a media favorite who self-promotes as “Putin’s enemy #1,” portrays himself as a selfless human rights advocate, but is he? He has used his fortune to threaten lawsuits for anyone who challenges his version of events, effectively silencing many critics. He claims that his accountant Sergei Magnitsky was a crusading “lawyer” who discovered a $230 million tax-fraud scheme that involved the Browder business interest Hermitage Capital but was, in fact, engineered by corrupt Russian police officers who arrested Magnitsky and enabled his death in a Russian jail.

Many have been skeptical of the Browder narrative, suspecting that the fraud was in fact concocted by Browder and his accountant Magnitsky. A Russian court recently supported that alternative narrative, ruling in late December that Browder had deliberately bankrupted his company and engaged in tax evasion. He was sentenced to nine years prison in absentia.

William Browder is again in the news recently in connection with testimony related to Russiagate. On December 16th Senator Diane Feinstein of the Senate Judiciary Committee released the transcript of the testimony provided by Glenn Simpson, founder of Fusion GPS. According to James Carden, Browder was mentioned 50 times, but the repeated citations apparently did not merit inclusion in media coverage of the story by the New York Times, Washington Post and Politico.

Fusion GPS, which was involved in the research producing the Steele Dossier used to discredit Donald Trump, was also retained to provide investigative services relating to a lawsuit in New York City involving a Russian company called Prevezon. As information provided by Browder was the basis of the lawsuit, his company and business practices while in Russia became part of the investigation. Simmons maintained that Browder proved to be somewhat evasive and his accounts of his activities were inconsistent. He claimed never to visit the United States and not own property or do business there, all of which were untrue, to include his ownership through a shell company of a $10 million house in Aspen Colorado. He repeatedly ran away, literally, from attempts to subpoena him so he would have to testify under oath.

Per Simmons, in Russia, Browder used shell companies locally and also worldwide to avoid taxes and conceal ownership, suggesting that he was likely one of many corrupt businessmen operating in what was a wild west business environment. My question is, “Why was such a man granted credibility and allowed a free run to poison the vitally important US-Russia relationship?” The answer might be follow the money. Israel Shamir reports that Browder was a major contributor to Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland, who was the major force behind the Magnitsky Act.

February 1, 2018 Posted by | Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | 1 Comment

US Senators Urge to Prevent Alleged ‘Russian Meddling’ in Mexico’s Election

Sputnik – February 1, 2018

WASHINGTON – The Trump administration should take steps to deter alleged Russian interference in the upcoming presidential election in Mexico and other parts of the Western Hemisphere, US Senators Tim Kaine, Marco Rubio and Robert Menendez said in a letter to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and USAID Administrator Mark Green.

“We are deeply troubled by recent news articles that Russia is reportedly using sophisticated technology to meddle in Mexico’s upcoming election,” the letter said on Wednesday. “As such, we believe it is critical that USAID continue to play an active role in providing technical assistance, education and training to support countries’ efforts to strengthen electoral systems.”

The lawmakers fear Russia’s alleged actions in the region will cause instability, especially as six contentious presidential elections will take place this year in the Western Hemisphere, including in Brazil and Colombia, the letter said.

Tillerson is set to visit Mexico City on Friday to meet with Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray and Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chyrstia Freeland for talks on regional issues.

Russian ambassador to Mexico Eduard Malayan earlier this month dismissed rumors about Russia’s “interference” in Mexico’s forthcoming election as “nonsense.”

Russia has faced numerous accusations of meddling in elections since the 2016 US presidential vote in which then-Republican candidate Donald Trump claimed victory against the odds. The US intelligence community alleged that Trump’s campaign team colluded with the Kremlin to bring him victory in the election.

Similar accusations followed France’s presidential election, Spain’s Catalan referendum and the United Kingdom’s Brexit vote.

Russian officials have repeatedly refuted such accusations. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has called the claims groundless. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has stressed that the accusations of Russia meddling in the elections of foreign states were unsubstantiated.

READ ALSO:

CIA Prediction of Russian Meddling in US Midterm Elections ‘Nonsense’

February 1, 2018 Posted by | Russophobia | , , , , , | 1 Comment

Top sports court overturns IOC’s ban on 28 Russian athletes in groundbreaking ruling

RT | February 1, 2018

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has cleared 28 Russian athletes and dropped their life-bans over alleged doping. Their results have been reinstated and the athletes are eligible to compete in the 2018 Winter Games.

“Both CAS panels unanimously found that the evidence put forward by the IOC in relation to this matter did not have the same weight in each individual case,” the statement from the Lausanne-based international body said.

According to the ruling, in 28 cases filed by the Russian athletes the evidence was “insufficient” to establish that “an anti-doping rule violation (ADRV) was committed by the athletes.”

“With respect to these 28 athletes, the appeals are upheld, the sanctions annulled and their individual results achieved in Sochi 2014 are reinstated,” it said.

CAS also partially upheld the appeals of other 11 Russian athletes as the evidence collected “was found to be sufficient to establish an individual ADRV.”

The ruling said that these 11 athletes were declared “ineligible” for the upcoming PyeongChang Olympic Winter Games, instead of a life ban from all Games.

Among those allowed to participate in the games are Sochi Olympic champion cross-country skiers Alexander Legkov and Maxim Vylegzhanin.

Speed-skater Olga Fatkulina, bobsledders Dmitry Trunenkov and Alexey Negodaylo, and skeleton racer Aleksandr Tretiakov – all of whom won gold or silver medals at the 2014 Sochi Olympics – were given permission to take part in the Games this year.

The CAS decision proves that Russian athletes who were accused of doping violations are indeed “clean,” Russian Sports Minister Pavel Kolobkov told journalists. “We are all happy that justice has finally been served,” he said.

On December 5, the IOC Executive Board banned team Russia from the PyeongChang Winter Games due to allegations of state-sponsored doping.

The ruling said that “clean” Russian athletes can only compete under a neutral flag in South Korea.

The decision came after the results of two separate investigations of alleged Russian doping: one regarding individual athletes, the other focusing on alleged institutional violations.

More than 40 Russian athletes, including Sochi Olympic champions, have been slapped with life bans from the IOC and had their Sochi records annulled as punishment for alleged doping violations in Sochi.

The CAS decision doesn’t necessarily mean that these 28 athletes will be invited to the 2018 Games, the IOC said in a statement. “Not being sanctioned does not automatically confer the privilege of an invitation,” the organization added.

According to the Olympic governing body, Russian athletes “can participate in PyeongChang only on invitation by the IOC.”

Russian Olympic Assembly chief Alexander Zhukov called the CAS decision “fair,” adding that these 28 athletes are now able to take part in the 2018 Olympic Games. “From the very start, we’ve insisted that our athletes are not involved in any doping frauds, and now we are happy that the court has restored their name and all rewards were returned to them,” he said.

February 1, 2018 Posted by | Russophobia | | Leave a comment

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