11 Jews occupy top positions in Trump’s administration
Palestine Information Center – January 28, 2017
Eleven Jews assume top positions in the administration of the new US president Donald Trump, according to an Israeli report published on Friday.
Under the headline “Meet the top Jewish officials in the Trump administration”, the right-wing Israeli newspaper Jerusalem Post introduced the 11 influential Jewish figures working alongside Trump.
However, the newspaper pointed out that Trump won 24% of the Jewish vote.
According to the Paper, the 11 Jewish figures are:
Jared Kushner
Kushner is Trump’s 36-year-old son-in-law and will serve as his senior advisor.
The Paper said that Kushner will not receive a salary and will focus on the Middle East and Israel, partnership with the private sector, and free trade.
It added, “Kushner married Trump’s daughter in 2009 and played an essential role in the president’s election campaign especially in Israel.”
David Friedman
Friedman, who is in his late fifties, has worked for a long time as Trump’s lawyer. He speaks Hebrew and owns a house in al-Talbiya neighborhood in Jerusalem.
Trump announced Friedman US ambassador to Israel.
The Jerusalem Post noted that Friedman “funded and declared support for the Israeli settlements and expressed his doubts about the future of the two-state solution.”
Jason Greenblatt
He is an Orthodox Jew who studied in a religious school in the West Bank in the mid-eighties and did armed guard duty there, according to the newspaper.
Greenblatt is going to serve as special representative for international negotiations with focus on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the US-Cuba relations, and the US trade agreements with other countries.
Greenblatt told the Israeli Army Radio in November 2016 that Trump “will not impose any solution on Israel” and that “he doesn’t view the Jewish settlements as an obstacle to peace process.”
Steven Mnuchin
Mnuchin, 54, will serve as the US Treasury secretary.
The Paper mentioned that Trump and Mnuchin have been friends for 15 years, and before assuming the financial affairs of Trump’s campaign, Mnuchin served as his advisor.
Stephen Miller
Miller, 31, was named senior adviser for policy.
The Paper pointed out that Miller, who worked previously as a parliamentary assistant, played a vital role in Trump’s campaign by writing speeches.
Carl Icahn
An 80-year-old businessman and investor who is going to serve as special adviser in the regulatory reform issues.
The paper said that he will be working in his capacity as a private citizen not as a federal employee or a special government employee.
Icahn, who is one of the earliest supporters of Trump’s candidacy, is the founder of Icahn, New York-based diversified business companies.
Gary Cohn
Cohn, 56, will head the National Economic Council of the White House.
He occupied senior positions in a number of companies, according to Jerusalem Post.
Boris Epshteyn
Epshteyn is in his mid-thirties. He will work as a special assistant to the president, and also as an assistant communications director for surrogate operations.
Epshteyn, who moved to the United States from Moscow in 1993, is an investment and finance lawyer living in New York. He defended Trump on major TV networks more than 100 times.
David Shulkin
A 57-year-old internist who is going to serve as Minister of Veterans Affairs once the Congress accepts.
He worked as assistant minister for health in the Ministry of Veterans Affairs and held senior positions in hospitals, universities and companies.
Reed Cordish
Cordish is in his early forties and is going to serve as the president’s assistant for intragovernmental and technology initiatives. He will be responsible for the initiatives which require multi-agency collaboration focusing on technological innovation and modernization.
The newspaper said that he is a partner at his family’s real estate and entertainment company in the state of Baltimore.
Avrahm Berkowitz
The 27-year-old Harvard Law School graduate will serve as a special assistant to president Trump and Jared Kushner.
Berkowitz is a friend of Kushner, and after graduating from College, Berkowitz worked for Kushner’s Companies and wrote for his newspaper, the New York Observer.
German Academics Pen Open Letter Slamming Western Interpretation of Syria Crisis
Sputnik – 28.01.2017
In contrast to the West, which has been intent on destroying Syria and other Middle Eastern countries, Russia and Iran are playing a constructive role in preventing the overthrow of Assad and the formation of a fundamentalist Sunni government in the country, a group of German academics have written in an open letter.
A group of German university professors have penned a joint statement criticizing the mainstream media’s portrayal of the roles of Russia and Iran in regulation of the Syrian conflict, Sputnik Deutschland reported.
Called “a statement on the Syrian war,” the declaration was written by the scientific advisory board of the German branch of Attac, an international organization that campaigns for alternatives to globalization.
“Russia and Iran exhausted all the possibilities for a diplomatic and peaceful solution to the conflict; (although) such an attempt seemed be futile at first, they have for the time being ended military attacks and the war in Aleppo. Therefore, we think the attacks on Russia in the mainstream media are absurd,” they wrote.
The statement, written by 14 German university professors, recalls a 2011 interview with former NATO Secretary-General Wesley Clark, who revealed that just weeks after 9/11, the US had plans to not only invade Iraq, but five countries in the Middle East.
The Pentagon published a memo describing “how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and then finishing off (with) Iran,” Clark revealed.
With that aim in mind, the US has been preparing the conditions for regime change in Syria since 2005, including a media propaganda campaign against the Assad government.
The US also co-operated with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Israel in the training and funding of an army of Sunni jihadists who were supposed to overthrow the governments in Damascus and then Tehran, as investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reported in 2007.
The researchers agree with the assessment of Professor Gunter Meyer, director of the Center for Research on the Arab World (CERAW) at the University of Mainz, who told Germany’s Heute news program last month that the US bears the “main responsibility” for the Syrian crisis, and that Russia’s operation in support of the Syrian government has thwarted the US plan to overthrow the Syrian government.
“The West, in particular the USA, has provided the rebel jihadists with weapons and also partially trained them. The equipment, personnel and logistics were mainly handled by Turkey, while the financial support came mainly from Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Saudi Arabia has helped Salafist extremists to establish a radical Islamist government in Syria. Here the conquest of Aleppo in 2012 was an important step for the jihadists,” Meyer said.
“Without the military intervention of Russia in September 2015, not only would Aleppo have been completely conquered by the jihadists, but the Assad regime would also have collapsed long ago. The Assad opponents under the leadership of the US would have achieved their goal of the regime change. However, the strongest military forces would have seized power, and this would be Islamic extremists such as the al-Nusra Front, which is part of the Al-Qaeda network, and the Islamic State (Daesh), which is being combated by the international alliance under US leadership. Putin can say to people like the Israeli politicians who declared that a terrorist regime is better than Assad, that he prevented that.”
The evacuation of Aleppo was completed in December after Turkey and Russia brokered a ceasefire deal between government forces and the rebels who had controlled parts of the city since 2012.
The researchers wrote that the efforts of Moscow and Tehran to reach a diplomatic settlement to the conflict in Syria are in contrast to the “regime change” philosophy of the West, where politicians and the media have failed to acknowledge their crucial involvement.”
A few days after the evacuation of Aleppo was declared to have ended, Russia, Turkey and Iran held a meeting where they offered a guarantee that from now on the Syrian conflict would be resolved through diplomatic channels and negotiations.”
“Here, too, we must realize with bitterness that not one Western politician has taken Vladimir Putin, Hassan Rouhani and Recep Tayyip Erdogan at their word and accepted their guarantee as important and constructive. Western politicians do not seem to be able to react to these kinds of peaceful political signals.”
Unfortunately, some civilians lost their lives in the course of the anti-terror operation in Aleppo. However, the Western media failed to provide any sense of balance to their coverage.
“It must be remembered that 40,000 Iraqi civilians — at least four times as many as in Aleppo — have died since August 2014 at the hands of the US-led coalition alone, of whom 15,000 were in the region of Mosul. Since 1980 the US has attacked, occupied or bombed 14 Muslim countries,” the academics wrote.
“We find it very disturbing that the Western media, including the signatories of the anti-Russian declaration, don’t say anything about the fatal US policy of regime change in the Middle East, let alone criticize it. So-called ‘failed states’ are the obvious result of this policy, which are breeding grounds for the further spread of terrorism and the main reason for persistent flows of refugees. We ask, how blind do you really have to be to overlook a reality that is so difficult to deny?”
Liberals Morph from Peaceniks to Warhawks on Government Intelligence Agencies
By Stephen J. Sniegoski • Unz Review • January 28, 2017
During the latter decades of the Cold War with Soviet Russia, the charge of being “unpatriotic” or “anti-American” caused American liberals (excluding those who had to rely on the votes of regular Americans to hold political office) to burst into spasms of ridicule and howls of “Red-baiting,” “war-mongering,” “witch-hunting,” and “fascism.” Sophisticated folks, liberals implied, would never even deign to think of doing anything so gauche as to automatically support their country in its fight against what they sarcastically called the “Red Menace.” America’s very possession of nuclear weapons was considered a danger to all humanity and many liberals flirted with the idea of U.S. unilateral nuclear disarmament. And the slogan of the Democratic candidate for president in 1972, George McGovern, was “Come Home, America” — which meant U.S. military retrenchment that mainstream liberals now lambast as “isolationism.”
During this not-too-long-ago era (at least, it was not too long ago for me, who is too rapidly approaching the biblically allotted three-score and ten), the CIA and the FBI were considered the bête noire in this liberal Weltanschauung. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, with his penchant for spying on innocent people, was regarded as thoroughly vicious. The CIA was notorious for being involved in the overthrow of nice democratic governments (at least, that is how liberals viewed them) in such countries as Iran, Guatemala, and Chile, and spying on leftist critics in the United States. The villainous nature of the CIA and FBI was a theme in many Hollywood movies of the era.[1]
Now let’s return to the present and the liberal hysteria over purported Russian interference with the U.S. presidential election. The most bandied about charge involves “hacking” the DNC and Podesta emails and providing these to WikiLeaks to denigrate Hillary Clinton, thus preventing her from becoming president. The support for this claim, at least as it has been presented to the America public, rests only on assertions made by the U.S. Intelligence Community, and this dearth of proof was continued in the most recent report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections,” released to the public on January 6. The report represents the unclassified findings of the intelligence community’s investigation of Russian involvement in the 2016 election. In the words of the report: “Thus, while the conclusions in the report are all reflected in the classified assessment, the declassified report does not and cannot include the full supporting information, including specific intelligence and sources and methods.”[2]
Even some believers, especially those who might know something about cyber technology and the capabilities of America’s intelligence agencies, evinced some concern about the report’s lack of substantiating evidence. For example, Wired, a high-tech webzine that usually follows the current progressive line, published an article titled “Feds’ Damning Report on Russian Election Hack Won’t Convince Skeptics,” in which Robert Graham, an analyst for the cybersecurity firm Erratasec, was quoted as saying: “But knowing what data they [U.S. intelligence agencies] probably have, they could have given us more details. And that really pisses me off.”[3] The thrust of the article is that the lack of substantial proof fails to convince skeptics, not that the intelligence report’s claims could be wrong. This position is rather understandable since skepticism about traditional beliefs such as Christianity is highly lauded by progressives, but skepticism is not allowed to cast doubt on the progressive narrative of the day.
President Obama went somewhat further in his attack on non-believers. In an interview on ABC News on January 6, Obama insinuated, and, in some cases, openly stated that people who express skepticism about the findings and conclusions drawn by the U.S. Intelligence Community are not on America’s “team” and are siding with Putin; in fact, he maintains that they “love” Putin. In short, Obama has come to assume that the American people must not question the sanctity of the U.S. “Intelligence Community.” To do otherwise signifies not merely a lack of patriotism but actual love for America’s alleged number one adversary—Vladimir Putin. “One of the things that I’ve urged the president-elect to do is to develop a strong working relationship with the intelligence community,” Obama stated. “We have to remind ourselves we’re on the same team. Vladimir Putin’s not on our team.” Obama warned that “If we get to a point where people in this country feel more affinity with a leader who is an adversary and view the United States and our way of life as a threat to him, then we’re gonna have bigger problems than just cyber hacking.” It appears to Obama that some politicians and reporters “seem to have more confidence in Vladimir Putin than fellow Americans because those fellow Americans are Democrats.” And he solemnly pontificated: “That cannot be.”[4]
Obama continued with this rather dystopian view: “[I]n this new information age, it is possible for misinformation, for cyber hacking and so forth to have an impact on our open societies, our open systems, to insinuate themselves into our democratic practices in ways that I think are accelerating.” Although “cyber hacking” existed even before Obama entered the White House and “misinformation,” according to the Bible, existed even when Adam and Eve resided in the Garden of Eden, Obama implies that he only now became aware of this possibility.[5]
Now the term “open society” was popularized (at least in intellectual circles) by the philosopher Karl Popper.”[6] and its most prominent proponent today is billionaire George Soros (a student of Popper’s). Soros’ Open Society Institute has as its goal spreading the “open society” world-wide. An open society, as Popper presented it, would be open to all types of ideas with people being free to make their own decisions. Soros, in contrast, expressed a view similar to that of Obama, contending that “Popper failed to recognize that in democratic politics, gathering public support takes precedence over the pursuit of truth. In other areas, such as science and industry, the impulse to impose one’s views on the world encounters the resistance of external reality. But in politics the electorate’s perception of reality can be easily manipulated. As a result, political discourse, even in democratic societies, does not necessarily lead to a better understanding of reality.”[7] The implication is that gatekeepers are needed to protect “truth.” As one critic puts it: “the Open Society Institute embodies Popper’s idea of an open society the way the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) embodied democracy.”[8]
Moving away from the focus on hacking, the recent ODNI report describes the Russian effort to affect the US election as “multifaceted” and devotes almost half of the report to propaganda (despite the negative connotation, propaganda can be true) spread by Russia, especially by its major government-sponsored television network for foreign countries, RT.
Moreover, the intelligence report interprets the alleged Russian effort to aid Trump in the election as only one part of a broader goal to combat the United States’ “liberal democratic order,” stating: “Russian efforts to influence the 2016 US presidential election represent the most recent expression of Moscow’s longstanding desire to undermine the US-led liberal democratic order, but these activities demonstrated a significant escalation in directness, level of activity, and scope of effort compared to previous operations.”[9] Moreover, the report considers any type of criticism of the United States as a “desire to undermine the US-led liberal democratic order.” And the report deals with aspects of this broader goal that are entirely unrelated to any Russian effort to aid Trump. This is of the utmost importance since the media narrative focuses on the idea that Russia aided Trump in the 2016 election but, for proof, relies on a report that deals with a much broader subject. That Russian media provides a negative view of America does not mean that this propaganda played a role in making Trump president. And it is not only the mainstream media but even the leaders of the intelligence community who blur this distinction.
Illustrating the point made above about the report’s concern with Russia’s alleged broader goal is its devotion of considerable space to Russian news stories casting the United States government and economic system in a negative light, but having nothing to do with Trump or the 2016 election. For example, the report observed that “RT aired a documentary about the Occupy Wall Street movement on 1, 2, and 4 November [2016]. RT framed the movement as a fight against ‘the ruling class’ and described the current US political system as corrupt and dominated by corporations. RT advertising for the documentary featured Occupy movement calls to ‘take back’ the government. The documentary claimed that the US system cannot be changed democratically, but only through ‘revolution.’”[10] Although this report disparages the existing economic system in the United States, it could hardly be interpreted as encouraging anyone to vote for billionaire Donald Trump with his proposed agenda that included lower tax rates—especially the corporate tax rate–and a reduction in economic regulation that liberals and Democrats claimed helped only the wealthy.
The study also points out that “RT runs anti-fracking programming, highlighting environmental issues and the impacts on public health. This is likely reflective of the Russian Government’s concern about the impact of fracking and US natural gas production on the global energy market and the potential challenges to Gazprom’s profitability.”[11] That Russia’s alleged favored candidate Trump was pro-fracking whereas Hillary straddled the issue would mean that the RT anti-fracking program could militate against supporting Trump.
The report also maintains that “RT’s reports often characterize the United States as a ‘surveillance state’ and allege widespread infringements of civil liberties, police brutality, and drone use.”[12] Again, this would not seem to generate support for Trump.
The report refers to articles written in 2012 that deal with the U.S. presidential election that year, which did not involve Trump, and reflects the fact the study covers, as the title states, recent U.S. elections, not just the 2016 election. For example, “In the runup to the 2012 US presidential election in November, English-language channel RT America . . . intensified its usually critical coverage of the United States. The channel portrayed the US electoral process as undemocratic and featured calls by US protesters for the public to rise up and ‘take this government back.’”[13]
Still dealing with the 2012 election, the intelligence report stated: “From August to November 2012, RT ran numerous reports on alleged US election fraud and voting machine vulnerabilities, contending that US election results cannot be trusted and do not reflect the popular will.”[14] Oddly, this is almost identical to what the mainstream media has been saying since Trump won the election.
But what about the “fake news” — fictitious articles deliberately fabricated to deceive–that the mainstream media claimed helped Trump, largely by harming Clinton? For example, a Washington Post article, dated November 24, 2016, was titled: “Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during election, experts say.”[15] CNN, in its article, “The reality behind Russia’s fake news,” dated December 2, made similar claims, relying heavily on the aforementioned Washington Post article. [16]
(After extensive criticism including legal threats from the sites the Washington Post described as Russian propaganda outlets, the Post added its lengthy editor’s note distancing itself from the anonymous group that provided the key claims of Russian “fake news” saying that the Post would not vouch for its validity.) [17]
Even Director of National Intelligence James Clapper referred to the Russians making use of “fake news” during the election. In a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on “Foreign Cyber Threats to the United States” on January 5. 2017, Senator Jack Reed (Democrat, Rhode Island) asked Clapper about media reports that held that Russia was engaged in the creation of “fake news.” Clapper responded: “This was a multifaceted campaign. So, the hacking was only one part of it, and it also entailed classical propaganda, disinformation, fake news.”[18] When the January 6 ODNI report was released, NBC News even claimed that it mentioned “a series of fake news stories damaging to Clinton, many of which got their start with Russian-backed outlets.” [19]
Considering the many references to “fake news,” even by the Director of National Intelligence, it is astonishing that the January 6 report did not cite any examples of this alleged phenomenon—or even mention it. What stands out is the absence of the term “fake news.” Did “fake news” itself turn out to be “fake news”? Whatever the case, the mainstream media did not seem to notice the absence of “fake news” from the report.
While the Intelligence Community did not make any mention of “fake news” in its report, it did make general claims—assessments by the intelligence community — that held that Russia favored Trump over Hillary Clinton. For example: “We assess the influence campaign aspired to help President-elect Trump’s chances of victory when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to the President-elect.”[20] The report also states: “RT’s coverage of Secretary Clinton throughout the US presidential campaign was consistently negative and focused on her leaked e-mails and accused her of corruption, poor physical and mental health, and ties to Islamic extremism. Some Russian officials echoed Russian lines for the influence campaign that Secretary Clinton’s election could lead to a war between the United States and Russia.”[21] None of these political views differed from what the anti-Clinton media in the U.S. expressed, so it is not apparent how Russia would add any credibility to these claims. It might even have tended to detract from them, which seems to be the case after the election. And since Russian officials did make the aforementioned claim about war, the mention of it does not seem to reflect any type of bias.
In contrast to the Russian depiction of Clinton, the intelligence report stated that Russian government media outlets RT and Sputnik “consistently cast President-elect Trump as the target of unfair coverage from traditional US media outlets that they claimed were subservient to a corrupt political establishment.”[22] This view was also commonly expressed by the more conservative media in the U.S., even that media which was not supportive of Trump.
RT put forth an extensive refutation of the intelligence report’s claims in an article entitled, “All the ways RT ‘influenced’ American politics ‒ it’s not what the ODNI thinks,” dated January7.[23] In many cases, RT made an effort to show that it also presented news stories that were contrary to those that the report cited—in essence, that its reporting was balanced while the intelligence report “cherry picked” RT stories to fit its narrative. It should be noted that no supporter of the Intelligence Community’s findings, from either the U.S. Intelligence Community itself or the private media, made the effort to rebut RT’s detailed criticism of the report.
It would seem to be self-evident that Russian media would act to promote Russian interests—although information used to achieve this goal might be true–just as US government-sponsored international media is intended to promote the interests of the United States. However, while the intelligence report holds that the Russian media was biased in favor of Trump, it fails to prove that bias. The report, for example, did not come up with any obvious erroneous information, such as the U.S. media’s account of the alleged killing of the incubator babies during Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990; the WMD story in the run-up to the 2003 war on Iraq; and the recent story about the Russians hacking the Vermont power grid.
The report could have relied upon a statistical analysis of the Russian media’s election reporting. Numerous efforts have been made in the United States to use statistics and computer analysis in assessing media bias. Analyses that stand out tend to conclude that the U.S. media have a liberal bias. They include: The News Twisters (1976) by Edith Efron; T he Media Elite (1986) by Robert Lichter, Stanley Rothman, and Linda Lichter; Press Bias and Politics: How the Media Frame Controversial Issues (2002) by Jim A. Kuypers; and Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind, (2012) by Tim Groseclose. Many statisticians have found fault with these studies despite their often extensive use of statistical data and comparisons among various media outlets. If this extensive information can be rejected, how could one accept the intelligence report’s claims of Russian media bias where no statistical proof or even standards for determining bias exist? The intelligence report, indeed, not only eschews statistical analysis for its bias claims, but acknowledges that it does not even make a comparison between Russian media and U.S. media, stating that “it does not analyze US political processes or US public opinion.”[24]
Moreover, it is not apparent that the Russian media would affect how any significant number of Americans vote. And the report explicitly states: “We did not make an assessment of the impact that Russian activities had on the outcome of the 2016 election.”[25] With all the uproar about Russian meddling in the US election, and allegations by prominent figures that Trump is not a legitimate president, it would be expected that the report would try to determine if this alleged meddling had any effect on the election’s outcome.
The study does hint that Russian media might have had some effect on voting by using graphs that show it is competitive with leading international media—Al Jazeera English, BBC World, CNN/CNN International. The Economist, however, provides an effective statistical refutation of this claim: “In Twitter and Facebook, RT’s reach is narrower than that of other news networks . . . . Its biggest claim to dominance is on YouTube, where it bills itself as the ‘most watched news network’ on the platform. As the intelligence report fretfully notes, RT videos get 1m views a day, far surpassing other outlets. But this is mostly down to [due to] the network’s practice of buying the rights to sensational footage, for instance of Japan’s 2011 tsunami, and repackaging it with the company logo.”[26] A September 2015 article in The Daily Beast, “Putin’s Propaganda TV Lies about Its Popularity,” states: “As of 2015, RT is still largely absent from cable news rankings.”[27] Moreover, RT’s influence would seem to pale to insignificance compared to the totality of American media.
Considering all the information provided by the U.S. Intelligence Community, it would appear that the entire issue of the alleged Russian meddling in the election turns out to be, to quote the Bard, “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
[1] Maria Lauino, “Hollywood Presents: Government as Villain,” New York Times, February 12, 1995, http://www.nytimes.com/1995/02/12/movies/film-hollywood-presents-government-as-villain.html?pagewanted=all
[2] “Background to ‘Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections’: The Analytic Process and Cyber Incident Attribution,” January 6, 2016, p. 1.
[3] Andy Greenberg, “Feds’ Damning Report on Russian Election Hack Won’t Convince Skeptics,” Wired, January 6, 2017, https://www.wired.com/2017/01/feds-damning-report-russian-election-hack-wont-convince-skeptics/
[4] Kevin Liptak, “Obama: ‘Vladimir Putin is not on our team,’” CNN, January 6, 2017, http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/06/politics/obama-vladimir-putin-is-not-on-our-team/
[5] Liptak.
[6] Noted philosopher Henri Bergson actually introduced the term “open society.”
[7] George Soros, Project Syndicate, November 8, 2007, https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/from-karl-popper-to-karl-rove—and-back?barrier=accessreg
[8] Jonathan David Carson, “The Left’s Theft of the Open Society and the Scientific Method,” American Thinker, April 24, 2008, http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2008/04/the_lefts_theft_of_the_open_so.html
[9] Intelligence Community Assessment, “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections,” p. ii.
[10] Assessing, p.7.
[11] Assessing, p.8.
[12] Assessing, p. 7.
[13] Assessing, p. 6.
[14] Assessing, p. 6.
[15] Craig Timberg, “Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during election, experts say,” Washington Post, November 24, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/2016/11/24/793903b6-8a40-4ca9-b712-716af66098fe_story.html?utm_term=.715bb
[16] Jill Dougherty, “The reality behind Russia’s fake news,” CNN, December 2, 2016,http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/02/politics/russia-fake-news-reality/
[17] Glenn Greenwald, “WashPost Is Richly Rewarded for False News About Russia Threat While Public Is Deceived,” The Intercept, January 4, 2017, https://theintercept.com/2017/01/04/washpost-is-richly-rewarded-for-false-news-about-russia-threat-while-public-is-deceived/
[18] Alex Griswold, “James Clapper Confirms Russia Was Behind Fake News During 2016 Election,” Mediaite, January 5, 2017, http://www.mediaite.com/tv/james-clapper-confirms-russia-was-behind-fake-news-during-2016-election/
[19] Ken Dilanian, “Report: Putin, Russia Tried to Help Trump By ‘Discrediting’ Clinton,” NBC News, January 6, 2017, http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/report-putin-russia-tried-help-trump-discrediting-clinton-n703981
[20] Assessing, p.2.
[21] Assessing, p. 4.
[22] Assessing, p.4.
[23] RT, “All the ways RT ‘influenced’ American politics ‒ it’s not what the ODNI thinks,” January 7, 2017, https://www.rt.com/usa/372890-odni-rt-influenced-election/
[24] Assessing, p. i.
[25] Assessing, p. i.
[26] RT’s propaganda is far less influential than Westerners fear,” The Economist, January 19, 2017, http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21715031-kremlin-backed-network-inflates-its-viewership-youtube-disaster-videos-rts-propaganda
[27] Katie Zavadski, ‘Putin’s Propaganda TV Its Lies About Popularity,” The Daily Beast, September17, 2015, http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/17/putin-s-propaganda-tv-lies-about-ratings.html
Star Wars 2.0: Pentagon at Full Throttle Toward Militarization of Space
Sputnik – 27.01.2017
US Air Force Gen. John E. Hyten’s statement that Russia and China will soon pose a threat to American spacecraft resembles nothing so much as an attempt to justify the militarization of space by the Pentagon, Russian military expert Konstantin Sivkov told RIA Novosti.
The US continues to take steps toward the militarization of space, Konstantin Sivkov, Russian military expert and First Vice President of the Academy of Geopolitical Issues in Moscow, told RIA Novosti commenting on US Air Force Gen. John E. Hyten’s recent remarks.
Speaking at Stanford University’s Center for Security and Cooperation, the commander of US Strategic Command highlighted the importance of “deterrence in space.”
“That’s where we do our special communications, from national command-and-control communications [to]… our nuclear business,” Gen. Hyten said as quoted by DoD News.
“We have to deter bad behavior in space and we have to deter conflict in space,” the general emphasized, referring to China and Russia as potential trouble-makers.
Gen. Hyten claimed that “in the not-so-distant future” Moscow and Beijing will be able to threaten every spacecraft the US has in space.
“We have to prevent that,” Hyten said, “and the best way to prevent war is to be prepared for war. So the United States is going to do that, and we’re going to make sure that everybody knows we’re prepared for war.”
While Hyten’s claims about the threat posed by China and Russia to American spacecraft bear no relation to reality, it becomes clear that the Pentagon is pushing ahead with a new round of an arms race, Sivkov believes.
“The United States is seeking justification for a new round of the arms race. Every day we hear that the United States must be prepared for war and that’s what this general [Hyten] has repeated. He merely pumps up the war hysteria, that’s all,” the Russian expert pointed out.
According to Sivkov, the Pentagon is trying to justify the need for new research and production of more sophisticated systems of anti-satellite weapons.
“In fact this is the way to justify the beginning of a large-scale militarization of space by the United States, under the pretext of the Russian and Chinese threat,” Sivkov explained.
In its latest saber-rattling move, The Pentagon is ramping up efforts to build an space war headquarters, in order to protect US satellites from hypothetical attacks by Russia and China.
The Russian military expert has called attention to the fact that while Russia is only exploring means to tackle the threat posed by its potential adversary’s satellites, the United States has already tested systems aimed at destroying spacecraft.
“This is the sea-based missile defense system combined with command and control Aegis combat system equipped with the [RIM-161] Standard Missile 3. The Americans have repeatedly tested the system shooting down low-altitude satellites,” Sivkov pointed out, stressing that this system has already been placed on alert.
He assumed that Russia and China are apparently taking efforts to narrow the gap with the Pentagon in this field.
Sivkov recalled that the Soviet Union had developed a system to control satellites. However, the system had not been put into service.
“Now [this research] could be resumed,” the military expert suggested, “It is also possible to create a laser gun to combat satellites. The US is developing such programs actively.”
Back in October, 2016 Russian military expert and observer Viktor Baranets expressed concerns over the US developing space weapons in his interview with Radio Sputnik.
“The current situation in space is that no satellites are protected, no matter at what orbits they are. The reason is that alongside the development of space systems, the US is running on all cylinders developing space weapons,” Baranets said.
‘Madeleine Albright supported murder of Muslims, but now wants to register as Muslim!’
Press TV – January 27, 2017
Former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright supported the murder of hundreds of thousands of Muslims, but now she wants to register as Muslim, American political analyst Myles Hoenig says.
“Albright, who bragged that the murder of half a million Iraqis, mostly children and other civilians, was worth it in order to take out its president Saddam Hussein, now says she’s willing to register as a Muslim if Trump signs an executive order for the creation of a Muslim database. Can hypocrisy know no shame?” Hoenig asked.
“Where was she when she was laying the groundwork for the murder of Muslims in the Middle East? Where was she for eight years under Obama when he was supporting Takfiri terrorists in Syria and throughout the area? And where was she when her candidate Hillary Clinton was running for office and calling for her to stop her campaign belligerency towards Muslims?” the analyst continued.
Hoenig made the remarks during a phone interview with Press TV on Friday.
Albright has said she is “ready to register as Muslim” if President Donald Trump moves ahead with a plan to create a database of Muslim Americans.
“I stand ready to register as Muslim in #solidarity,” Albright, the first woman to run the State Department, said in a tweet on Wednesday.
Her comments came amid news of a draft executive order by Trump which would announce a ban on arrivals from seven Muslim-majority countries.
Albright joined thousands of Americans who have pledged to register as Muslim in response to Trump’s proposal on the campaign trail to set up a Muslim registry in the US.
‘A quiet movement in the US’
Hoenig said that there is “a quiet movement in the US to register our protest by registering as Muslims if the orders are given.”
“Others are considering wearing Jewish stars on their overcoats as was done to them by the Nazis. Either approach would be symbolic and a sign of solidarity with not just Muslims, but all minorities, including immigrants, who are, and have been, persecuted by US officials for many, many years,” he added.
“There is a Yiddish word to describe what Albright is proposing: chutzpah. Loosely translated, it is the boy who kills his parents and asks for mercy because he’s an orphan. What Albright is suggesting she would do equals that; the murderer of hundreds of thousands of Muslims now wants to identify as such when her choice for president was not elected,” he stated.
“If Hillary Clinton were the president, we would likely not see such a registration. But we certainly would see more bloodshed in Muslim countries on her orders. Where would Albright be then? the activist asked in his concluding remarks.
Those ‘Resignations’: What Really Happened at the State Department
By Peter Van Buren | We Meant Well | January 26, 2017
Yesterday at the State Department five officials resigned or retired. Another one today.
The media has gone near-insane, claiming State is crumbling in protest under the Trump administration. This is not true. What happened at State is very routine.
Leaving the Department are head of the Management Bureau Pat Kennedy, Assistant Secretary of State for Administration Joyce Anne Barr, Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Michele Bond, Ambassador Gentry O. Smith, director of the Office of Foreign Missions, arms control official Tom Countryman, and Victoria Nuland (above).
Here’s the story:
— No one at the State Dept resigned in protest.
— No one was formally fired.
— Six people were transferred from or retired from political appointee positions. Technically those who did not retire can be considered to have “resigned,” but that is a routine HR/personnel term used, not some political statement. The six are career Foreign Service career personnel (FSOs) They previously left their FSO job to be appointed into political jobs and now have resigned those (or retired out of the State Department) to return to career FSO jobs. A circle. They are required to submit a letter of resignation as a matter of routine when a new president takes office.
— As for perspective: only one Under Secretary of State (Alan Larson) stayed through the transition from Bill Clinton to George W. Bush. It is routine for senior officials to leave or be reassigned.
— Several of the six are connected to the Clinton emails and/or Clinton’s handling of Benghazi. One of these people, Pat Kennedy, played a significant role in both, as well as many other controversial issues during Clinton’s term. Sources tell me that although officially Kennedy “retired,” he was more or less required to do so by the Trump administration.
— I have no information on the others, whether they were asked to retire, or just part of a reshuffling of positions and will routinely be reassigned. Most likely the latter, as such reshuffling is very common as administrations change. As everywhere in the government, the new administration fills its own political appointee slots.
— Some of the six will hit mandatory retirement age on January 31 anyway.
— Reports that these people represent “senior management” at State confuse terms. Because of the odd way State is organized, four of the six work in the Management Bureau, M in State talk. Kennedy was the head of the Bureau. The four play varying roles and collectively are not the senior management of the State Department. Two work in other parts of the Department (Countryman and Nuland) and are more directly tied to policies likely to change under the new administration.
— All six persons come from offices with a deep bench. It is highly unlikely that any of the work of the State Department will be impeded by any of these changes. Every office has a second, third, fourth, etc., person in charge who will step up pending formal replacements to be nominated and confirmed. This is all part of the standard transition process.
— As an example, I worked in the Bureau of Consular Affairs for most of my 24 years at State, including working with/for Michele Bond, one of the resignees. I personally know the people in the next rank below her, and all have equal experience and tenure as Bond. There will be no gap in experience or knowledge as some press reports have fretted. There will be no “void.” A slightly more dire, but responsible take, here.
— There will very likely be more, similar, “resignations” and reshuffling at State. New political appointees will bring in their own staff, for example. But unless and until an employee holds a press conference to announce s/he is resigning out of protest, the media should take care to calm down, verify facts, and report accurately.
— The Washington Post stated these changes were part of an “ongoing mass exodus of senior Foreign Service officers who don’t want to stick around for the Trump era.” I am not aware of any other noteworthy departures (two lesser officials left earlier this month in circumstances not clearly connected to Trump) and as stated above, the six did not resign in protest. Regardless, eight people in any context do not constitute a mass exodus.
— The Post article is, in my opinion, grossly alarming. It reflects a reporter apparently unfamiliar with transitions at State.
The Party’s Over
By Missy Comley Beattie | CounterPunch | January 27, 2017
In 2003, I was living in NYC. The George Bush Administration was manipulating intelligence, stating a case for the invasion of Iraq—a war in which 4500 U.S. troops died, including my nephew who was killed in 2005. No one knows the number of Iraqi casualties, but it’s estimated that this could be as high as one million.
Many journalists, most notably the New York Times’ Judith Miller, were complicit in convincing readers that Saddam Hussein was producing WMD. During 2001 and 2002, Miller wrote a series of articles based on false information. Alternative facts.
In February of 2003, I gathered with protesters to oppose the war. Several foreign media venues were present, however the event—coinciding with rallies throughout the world—was downplayed, minimized by U.S. establishment news. Instead of reporting an accurate presence, the press estimated crowd size at tens of thousands.
Recall Colin Powell’s advice to Bush, “If you break it you own it,” yet despite his misgivings, Powell spoke to the United Nations just 10 days before the antiwar march, presenting a detailed description of Iraq’s weapons program—one that didn’t exist.
Determined to remove Saddam Hussein, Bush ignored the sentiment of the people and said he wasn’t concerned with focus groups. A boneless Congress followed, fearful of being labeled weak on terror. Thus ensued an epic clusterfuck whose first campaign was named Shock and Awe.
Those who spoke out against war often were vilified. Sean Hannity’s guests who questioned war were accused of hating America. Politicians and aspiring politicians had as wardrobe staples an American flag pin.
Cut now to the January 21, 2017 Women’s March. This event was covered from start to finish by members of the U.S. press. Reporters engaged participants, interviewed, asking why they were there and what’s next.
A friend who went to D.C. to attend the march was exuberant. I asked if she’d have gone if Hillary Clinton had won the election. She said yes. I countered, “No, if Clinton had won there wouldn’t have been a protest march.”
Instead there would’ve been a celebratory assembling of vagina voters. Despite Hillary Clinton’s warmongering. Despite the blood dripping from her hands for foreign policy catastrophes in Libya, Syria, Haiti, Honduras, Iraq, and Yemen.
Meanwhile, Women’s March attendees, many of whom never raised their voice to denounce Clinton/Obama carnage, are being encouraged to utilize their energy, increase their activism, run for public office … as Democrats. Please.
This just in and let’s hope it’s faux news: Hillary Clinton has told friends she’s considering hosting a talk show to remain visible for another run in 2020. When there’s raging dissatisfaction with Trump, seems Clinton must seize an opportunity, be more than wallpaper. According to author Ed Klein, she believes she, not Obama, is the Democratic Party’s leader-in-exile.
The party’s over. Dead. Should be enclosed in yellow tape with signage stating, “CRIME SCENE DO NOT ENTER”.
One down.
Perhaps soon the Republican Party, that other head of the Military-Industrial-Complex Monstrosity, will roll.
Missy Beattie has written for National Public Radio and Nashville Life Magazine. She was an instructor of memoirs writing at Johns Hopkins’ Osher Lifelong Learning Institute in Baltimore. Email: missybeat@gmail.com
DJT: TPP, RIP!
Foes of War, Now Silent, Should Celebrate
By John V. Walsh | Dissident Voice | January 25, 2017
On day one of Donald Trump’s presidency, he drove a stake through the heart of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), as he had repeatedly promised during his campaign. Foes of war should rejoice and congratulate Trump since the TPP was the economic arm of the “Pivot to Asia”, the military/economic assault on China promoted vigorously by Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, neocons and humanitarian interventionists of every stripe. It was a trade agreement that linked twelve Pacific Rim powers but pointedly excluded China in an effort to isolate and weaken it.
Thus in his first hours in office Trump has, in fact, made a move away from confrontation with China – and the goal of US global domination. Such a move should elicit support and congratulations for Trump from foes of war and Empire. So far there has not been much of that.
Let us be clear. If Donald Trump were lying during the campaign about the TTP, so beloved by corporate America and the neocons, he could have revived it – easily. After all he has a clear majority in both House and Senate whom he is increasingly bending to his will. And there are many Democrats pining to please their corporate masters who would have joined his effort at TPP resuscitation. But Trump did not do this. He was dead serious about his promise. Expect the same on Détente 2.0 with Russia and other policies to which he has made a solid commitment.
Trump’s first full day in office was a great day for peace on another front as well. Marco Rubio, aka “Little Marco,” announced he would vote to confirm Rex Tillerson as Trump’s Secretary of State. Tillerson, a friend of Putin and someone with a clear understanding of Russia, is associated with Trump’s oft-stated desire to “get along” with Russia. Tillerson has been the target of the neocons who hoped to stop him, and Rubio tried to pressure him into declaring Putin a “war criminal” in his confirmation hearings, something that Tillerson refused to do. Like Trump, Tillerson does not seem like the kind of person who is easily pushed around.
That was two strikes for peace on Day One of the Trump presidency.
As is well known, the TPP was opposed by many progressives and labor leaders for reasons other than a desire for peace. For these activists it was correctly seen as one more attack on democracy and sovereignty, written in secret and designed to give corporations and banks control over the terms of trade and laws of the land. Democratic Party progressives opposed it vehemently, and so it would make sense for them to hail Trump’s action.
But look at the comments at that bastion of conformist progressivism, the HuffPost, and you will find that many progressives have abruptly switched and are opposing Trump and even praising the TPP! Thankfully at least a few commenters over there are honest enough to admit the hypocrisy behind this switch. One HuffPost commenter wrote:
OK, when Bernie was talking about how bad the TPP was almost every comment here (on Huffington Post) was how they didn’t trust Hillary to get us out of the TPP. Now that Trump pulled us out, people are taking the opposite view. … At least admit that this is a good thing. Does it matter who stops TPP? 9 months ago we all agreed it was a bad thing.
This stance is all too reminiscent of Democratic “progressives” who were out in force opposing the war on Iraq under Bush but were nowhere to be seen when Obama came into office and continued the war.
But let us give credit where credit is due. Bernie Sanders announced his pleasure with Trump’s deep sixing of the TPP, according to the Guardian, which reported:
Sanders praised Trump’s decision, saying TPP is ‘dead and gone’….If President Trump is serious about a new policy to help American workers then I would be delighted to work with him.
Richard Trumka, head of the AFL-CIO also praised the termination of TPP, but unlike Bernie he did not mention Trump by name as the terminator. This is not surprising since the labor misleadership did not back Bernie, the choice of the rank and file, but instead squandered their dues on support of pro-TPP Hillary.
Sanders’s and Trumka’s concerns about TPP are economic and these concerns are the ones usually reported in the mainstream media. But the neocon hawks understand the imperial aspects of the TPP as shown by the words of the hegemonist John McCain, again according to the Guardian:
Senator John McCain criticized the move. ‘President Trump’s decision to formally withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a serious mistake that will have lasting consequences for the American economy and our strategic position in the Asia Pacific region,’ he said. (Emphasis, jw)
Looking abroad, TPP has been running into troubles in East Asia as well, with Vietnam, the Philippines Malaysia and possibly even the Republic of Korea (South Korea) moving toward closer ties with China and away from U.S. engineered strife between China and its neighbors. We might well regard Trump’s position and those of the East Asian countries pulling away from the U.S. as manifestations of a new view of the world and a new balance of power already in place. From that point of view President Trump, by rejecting the TPP, is simply moving to negotiate the best deal possible for the U.S. in this new developing global arrangement.
The question for liberals/progressives is will they mindlessly oppose Trump on everything he does or support what is desirable and criticize what is not. That question will come to the fore soon if Trump and Tillerson manage to fashion Détente 2.0 with Russia. The War Party, both its neocon and liberal interventionist wings, will fiercely oppose this. Will liberals/progressives support and defend Détente 2.0 – or oppose it simply because it comes from Donald J. Trump?
John V. Walsh can be reached at john.endwar@gmail.com.
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Are There 50,000 ‘Israeli-born’ Individuals Living in the UK?
By Professor David Miller | August 18, 2026
Recent disclosures by the Zionist regime show that some 2,069 British nationals were serving in the IDF as of March 2025, according to Freedom of Information (FoI) requests submitted to the occupation forces (1,686 dual British-Israeli, plus 383 multinational). We cannot tell from the figures how many of these were already settler colonists and intend to stay in the colony, and how many will return or have returned to the UK. Presumably, those returning to the UK will number far fewer than 2,000, since many are known to have become permanently residents of the colony.
Additionally, the IDF figures only provide a snapshot, and do not tell us how many have served in the Jewish supremacist military either before or after March 2025. One way into the question of how many genocidaires are living in Britain is to ask how many current British residents were born in the Zionist colony. There is data on that, as we shall see. … continue
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- The Leak That Arrived Right on Cue
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- Are There 50,000 ‘Israeli-born’ Individuals Living in the UK?
- If Americans Knew
- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
- No Tricks Zone
- German Authorities Start Initiative To Evaluate Public Register For Climate “Disinformation” Spreaders!
- Zonal Asymmetry of Temperature Change in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current
- New Study: The Net Fossil Fuel Contribution To Rising Atmospheric CO2 Has Been Zero For 500 Years
- Germany’s Green Energy Transition Becoming Increasingly Expensive…Another 6 Trillion Euros!
- Sudden Stratospheric Warming, Powerful El Niño Combination May Lead To Extreme Europe Cold, Energy Crisis!
- Two New Studies Find Thwaites Glacier Melt Cannot Be Driven By Human Activity Or A Warming Ocean
- E-Cars Reduce CO2 Emissions By Only 41% Compared To Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles
- Predictions Made By Renowned Climate Professor Over Past Decades Have Been Proven To Be Poor
- New Study Suggests Large Regions Of The Pacific Ocean Have Been Cooling For The Last 80 Years
- Germany’s Green Energy Debacle: High Energy Costs Force Kahla Porzellan to Close After 182 Years!
