Majorityrights News > Category: Russian Politics

While John Ziegler is a darling of (((the neo-cons))) in their criticism of Trump and his (((paleocon))) agenda, Ziegler’s criticisms of Trump remain informative nevertheless. In this podcast he criticizes Trump’s deal making preparation for meeting Kim Jong-un:

John Ziegler: “There are so many elements of this that are just mind-blowing. I can’t believe that he’s even meeting without any agreement being made to begin with. If you remember, when this whole thing started, the story was that he would meet IF North Korea would gave-up unilaterally their nuclear program. That was going to be a precondition for meeting. That’s gone! This is just an equal-footing get-together - giving-up what ever is left of the prestige of The Presidency of The United States, elevating this evil dictator, this horrible piece of crap - I mean Kim Jong-un is a horrible human being! who tortures people, tortures his own people, has threatened this country with nuclear war, and we’re elevating him! Trump has already called him ‘a very honorable person.’

Can you imagine if Obama or Hillary Clinton had decided to meet with Kim Jong-un with no precondition, with no agreement on his part - Kim doesn’t have to give up anything in order to meet with Obama or Hillary? Can you imagine the heads of Sean Hannity, Mark Levin and Rush Limbaugh exploding into fourth of July fireworks? over even the suggestion of this?

But instead, this is now praised as a great idea, and I think it’s a horrible idea. One of the more baffling takes I’ve heard on this is that ‘well, you need to give Trump credit for meeting.’

Why? What? Credit for meeting? The meeting does us no good. The meeting of itself only does Kim Jong-un good. We’re being brought down to their level, he’s being brought up to our level for nothing! He’s giving up nothing in return; and that’s just the best case scenario…

All Trump cares about is the headline of the day, ‘Trump Makes Historic Deal’, doesn’t matter that the deal might suck, and we get noting in return or that it creates further dangers down the road - Trump doesn’t care about anybody but himself - that is a double whammy when it comes to negotiating nuclear deals with deranged dictators. It’s effectively like he’s got the world’s credit-card and he’s having a big party for himself, and he’s not going to be around when we have to pay the bill.

And, by the way, the fact that comes out of the G7 meeting makes this even more vulnerable to a bad deal. Why? Because Trump had this bizarre temper-tantrum and we’re now - this is not an exaggeration folks, and its mind blowing to even contemplate, but - based upon the statements of our President in the last few days, Russia and North Korea are our allies, they’re the ‘good guys’ and Canada, Germany, Great Britain and France - they’re ‘the bad guys.’

And that’s the other part of this. There are people who think, bizarrely, that Trump knows what he’s doing!

There are two things I’m positive about - I’m not a foreign policy expert (but neither is Donald Trump) - there are two things that I’m positive about - if he was doing exactly the same things, and his name was Obama, or Hillary Clinton The Right would be going bananas! That is a hundred percent factual. And number two, there is absolutely no evidence, what-so-ever, that Donald Trump is playing some amazing eight-dimensional chess and knows what the hell he’s doing. He has no idea what he’s doing - none!

And more importantly, his goals are completely at odds with what is good for the world and good for the country because he wants the headline and he wants the history - and he needs it even more now that he took a dump at the G7. This dump at the G7 wasn’t just a little stinky-one. This was a massive dump.

....when Donald Trump said, on the eve of the G7, that Russia should be let back-in, there is no other way to interpret that but that they’ve got something on him!

...the key wasn’t the statement that Russia should be allowed back in the G7 - that got a lot of play - but what is most interesting was that he prefaced it with, ‘I have been Russia’s worst nightmare’ - that’s classic Trump; why is that classic Trump? Because Trump knows his own weaknesses. And Trump lies the biggest to cover those weaknesses. It’s been part of his M.O. for ever. So whenever he makes a declarative statement, for instance, ‘nobody reads the bible more than I do’, you know that’s bullshit - that means he never reads the bible. So when he says, ‘I have been Russia’s worst nightmare’, if you put that through the Trump translation machine, that means Putin has something on him. That’s the way Trump operates, he believes in the big lie theory - you cover your weakness with a massive lie because you know nobody will call you on it.”

BBC, “World Cup 2018: Welcome with a warning for England fans in Volgograd”, 6 June 2018:

World Cup venue guide

World Cup groups and schedule

Do you know your World Cup squads?

Sword raised in power and defiance, the figure is a monument to the brutal Battle of Stalingrad, as the city was then called. It is also a reminder of a time when Russia and Britain were allies.

But as Volgograd prepares to host crowds of England fans, that World War Two alliance is distant history.

The political hostility that exists now appears to have dampened appetite for Russia’s World Cup.

There were clear signs of the new reality as city residents made their annual pilgrimage up to Volgograd’s iconic war memorial to mark the anniversary of the Soviet victory over the Nazis.

One man climbing the long flight of steps wore a T-shirt depicting Mother Russia slicing the head off the US Statue of Liberty. “Welcome to Stalingrad,” the slogan read.

“I’m wearing this because the West is Russia’s enemy. They want to kill us all,” explained Ivan, a former history teacher. “I see that they hate us, and they have done for hundreds of years.”

Such hostile talk is increasingly common, fed from the top by both politicians and the state-run media machine. Both now portray the West as intent on “containing” Russia as Vladimir Putin oversees the country’s “rightful” return as a global power.

The same message came from spectators at last month’s Victory Day parade of soldiers and tanks through central Volgograd. “England was never our ally,” a pensioner in military uniform snorted. “No-one wants a strong and powerful Russia.”

Relations were far warmer in 2010 when Russia won the right to host the World Cup.

Then came the 2014 annexation of Crimea, the conflict in eastern Ukraine, Russia’s military campaign in Syria and, most recently, the poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter using a military nerve agent.

READ MORE...

Always quick to maintain the balance between our part as Whites, our fault as it were, in aiding or abetting the destruction of our borders and bounds, which I attribute to a general pattern of our penchant for anti-social, anti-relativist, right wing reaction to Jewish union and anti-White coalitions in hyperbolic abuse and misrepresentation of left concepts against us - i.e., which for us means hyperbolic liberalization of our social bounds - to which we react into kinds of objectivism and liberalism to seek “pure warrant” against this jaded sophist rhetoric against us ...and as I am always vigilant and diligent to maintain that heuristic as one of two poles to the blight against the human ecology of our ethnonational, White/European, group systemic homeo/stasis - the other pole being those most adept at taking advantage - of the attendant susceptibility, disingenuousness among those treacherous among our kind, who’d take the pay-off or seek to advance themselves under the airs of “objectivity’ and liberalism; “openness” to others (who somehow pay); or, those who naively see that “objectivism” as the voice of purity and the road to redemption for original sin or whatever kind of guilt they think they need to be freed-from that their relative interests might otherwise call to consciousness - including a consciousness of the threat to their interests by that group who’ve made a religion of placing the ethnocentric management of their group systemic homeostasis, placing it above all others on earth ...so practiced are they that they would resort, and have, to all manner of war - as their Mossad says, by deception - Manichean trickery in order to thwart upstart adversarial groups; they have practiced these strategies for ages - the YKW being responsible for the Christianity that would disarm us as a group (all non-Jews, finally, into the “undifferentiated Gentile other” as GW observes), to have us not recognize ourselves a group, to have us believe that we all are the same in the eyes of the poor, sacrificed, literally Jewish god that we are supposed to worship; laying down our arms even against the Muslims, whose Abrahamic religion they’ve also spawned, setting it to war against us where we might not yield to Abrahamism; setting up its imams as compradors in Asia as well, where the Asians may also see through their monotheistic, Abrahamic hoax; and want instead a religion of their people, serving their relative ethnonational interests.

I’m talking of course about the YKW - and here I want to go beyond my normal hypothesis that they are one of two major poles to the plight against our social systemic group maintenance as White/European peoples…. I want to identify, albeit in abstract form, the nine power and influence niches that they’ve come to wield hegemony within, with particular culmination following the 2008 subprime crisis and bail-out - among the largest ever thefts known to man.

This was the grand sweep of the boom/bust cycle. That is when they made “the left” as the enemy into a constant in their media and controlled opposition; that is when they devised the concept and got behind a re-branded right wing coalition centered on (((paleoconservatism))) called the “Alt-Right” and Zionist Trump with their clean break agenda ...and they are trying assiduously to ingratiate themselves with the White right now - can you imagine that (((Frame Games))) is proposing to JF the “White pill” (silver lining) that White right wingers can join in with Jews to take advantage of the bust cycle and gentrify places like Detroit with them - we can live with blacks again! stir up their resentment, jealousy and hostility, put ourselves amidst their violence and sexual imposition on our treasure - What a White pill (for Jews like Frame Game, I guess)!

In this episode of JF Gariepy’s “Public Space”, called “What is to come”, Gariepy’s talk with (((Frame Games))) goes through a solemn tour of how White dispossession plays out in five examples, including, Detroit, Washington D.C., Rhodesia, Haiti and of course, Iran!

That’s right, not only does (((Frame Games))) propose that despite the catastrophic results in places of White dispossession such as Detroit, that there remains “a white pill” (cause for optimism), that is the possibility for Whites and Jews to take advantage of lowered property value to gentrify these places - of course, Whites and Jews can “gentrify” Iran too .... Donald Trump can put a Trump tower hotel there lol - The Trump Taj Mahal-Tehran!

He can have Madonna, (((Barbara Streisand))), Kanye West and (((Roseanne Barr))) as opening night entertainment….

As you should have heard me say many many times by now - but as the darlings of White advocacy continue to refuse to hear - the decades of anti White social coalition advocacy followed by the YKW cashing-in on the 2008 boom/bust, has created a situation with the YKW being on top of seven nine niches - whereof they want to cultivate an alliance with reactionary Whites into a rightist elitist alliance - paleocons permutated into an “alt right” to divert them into conceiving of the enemy as “the left” and its social unionization, its “social justice warriors” as the enemy, diverting attention to the stereotypes of the undergraduate students and teachers that they trained and backed in anti-White activism with misrepresentation of social philosophy through their long march through the academic institution to hegemony there.

Why, after all, would they want to encourage social group organization and unionization with an aim toward “social justice”, especially for people that they’ve screwed so horribly in order to get on top of these nine niches; and why would they want to call attention and have them raise consciousness of Jewish nepotism, exploitation, abuse and genocide even, from these perches in tandem with right wing/liberal traitors? They wouldn’t want-to; and now that the useful idiots of their “left coalitions” have hit upon the intersection where it calls attention to the nine power and influence niches wielded by Jewish interests to vast destruction of others, consciousness of which might threaten them with social unionization and coalition building, with social justice warriors indeed, arrayed against them to bring them down, to righteously secure reparation for some measure of compensation for their vast crime ...that is when they want to promote the right, anti-social, objective “facts” for their “merit’ in coming into these power and influence niches; but if selling the Whites on that materialistic objectivism doesn’t work, their paleoconservatism prescribes cultural fellowship with them through Abrahamic worship of the King of the Jews.

They need to maintain the falsehoods that they’ve promulgated, distortions and misrepresentations of post modernity, incommensurate cultures, social constructionism, left unionization, hermeneutics, diversity, multiculturalism, marginals etc., all represent “the left” - a cooler sounding “synonym” for “liberalism” as something to be against ....diverting from the fact that a White left would be a union, and thus by definition the antithesis of liberalism, i.e., NOT open to non-Whites and those who’d facilitate scabbing of them, that the concept is perfectly conducive to ethno-nationalism and the national scale; and with that, most of all, it is conducive to accountability to the full groups of White/ ethnonationals, including to disincentive those marginals who would be inclined to facilitate scabbery, incentivizing rather, their loyalty; but especially it is conducive to a vigilance on accountability of our elites, or, our would-be elites, those in position to do the most damage by betraying our group interests; also a vigilance on those elites of non-White groups who are most capable of preying upon susceptibilities of those among us who would betray us; further, a vigilance against those non-Whites with the biopower to impose scabbing on us, the “lowly” kind of non-White that we are not supposed to be concerned about compared to the real “problem” - “leftism”. But “the” left that they and their right wing lackeys dutifully talk about, nerd themselves away from, is a universalized coalition of any facile groups that will ultimately serve only one union, YKW against the goyim firstly, viz., ordinary White people and their would-be White left union(s).

No, no, this is anti-nature, they say. (((Hayek))) told Margarete Thatcher to say that there is “no such thing as society”.... and some boomers cleaned-up, made good money in the disarray. With confirmation bias, these boomer types are the types to go along with and train those in the millennial internet bubbles that “the left is the problem, that objectivism, scientism and Hitler are the answer.”

They didn’t tell Margaret that it is not only a problem that the unions have a propensity to be all too powerful, and they need accountability of themselves, at their parameters with the rest of society’s interests, but that the problem was that these unions were not a union of the people, the White people, but rather in protection of obsolete businesses and business practices.

It is not that unions are wrong, leftism is “anti-nature” and that pure objectivism (whether its naive White variant or is disingenuous YKW prescription) and the invisible hand is correct, but rather that social organization is something that needs to be conducted with the true sophistication, but not overly complicated understanding, of White post modern philosophy.

Toward a promotion of that sophistication and understanding of what we are up against, lets take a more specific, though still abstract enlisting of the power and influence niches that the YKW have hegemony in - from whence they lord themselves over and confuse the ordinary goyim; and wield as a power source to bribe the disingenuous un-conscientious White of middling intelligence, or to flatter others, a JF Gariepy, or what-have-you.

For the sake of White left activism and union organization for social justice warring against the nine niches of elite YKW hegemony; to hold accountable those right wingers complicit with them, taking the deracinating pay-off in whatever form, usually objectivism or Christianity, and for our coalition partners, certain non-White unions we may ally with, it would be helpful to have an acronym ready-to-hand for easy recall to guide attention to the power centers we need to position ourselves against and eventually maneuver against.

By analogy, there is an acrynomal sentence which allows one to easily remember the nine planets:

My (Mercury)
Very (Venus)
Elegant (Earth)
Mother (Mars)
Just (Jupiter)
Served (Saturn)
Us (Uranus)
Nine (Neptune)
Pizzas (Pluto)

Another acrynomal sentence might be proposed to facilitate quick recall of the seven nine choke points of YKW power:

My Religiously Polite Mother Always Buys Courtley Assistance to Negotiate Good Organized Union Coalitions

Media

My (Media - which has extended from times of Judeo-Christian bible (as Bowery observed) to Internet choke points and advanced interactive and mobile technology - e.g., to be used in cyber warfare).

Religion

Religiously (Religion - The Abrahamic religions beginning with the monotheistic Judaism and “evangelizing” its monothestic, imperialistic Noahide law through Christianity and Islam).

Politics

Polite (Politics, usually backing both/all “legitimate”, “opposing sides” in a political system, so that they can play them off one another to their favor generally, but not lose in serving their interests, either way - irrespective of who wins an election, e.g., Trump or Clinton).

Mother (Money: finance, perhaps the mother of all capacity to buy people off in a desperate, neo-liberal, no account anti-ethnonationalist union system - whether buying off right wingers and having them oppose White unions and other anti-Jewish supremacist unions in coalitions, or funding anti-White coalitions straight out; financing unprofitable but psychologically destructive anti-racist/race mixing media; or to fund law careers and coerce political careers to change the laws, as in the case of “disparate impact”) ...etc. anywhere where there are poor, desperate people, perhaps threatened with loss of livelihood, property, freedom and life, they might easily be bought off as opposed to taking the side of their own whose patterned merits are jaded, dubious - made basely selfish and unsympathetic for the decades, and centuries even, of liberal and right wing destruction, for absence a true moral order in service of their homeostatic systemic interests, their accountable, participatory place therein).

Money

In finance, the boom-bust cycle they’ve marshaled with “democratic socialist outreach” - like Fannie Mae (low interest, risky loans required to be given to blacks; while investment mediums of “guaranteed insurance of these loans” were sold on top of them!)/ followed by “objectivist austerity” through Reagan, Thatcher and following through the 2008 bail-out (the biggest theft in history), getting behind coalitions with right wing, recently “alt-right” propaganda against “the left” - which might otherwise ensconce consciousness to see them in their power niches, and provide for activism against them, to marshal social organizational power to do something about their niche occupation and its abuse.

Related Story: Orthodox Jewish boys go secular, reap compound fortune in another Jewish tradition - loan sharking.

Academics

Always (Academics: as (((Frame Games))) has acknowledged and my experience bears-out, the YKW are always determined to have hegemony in academics, since that’s where top-down power and influence is established; as demonstrated through their nepotistic, unmerited hegemony at Harvard and other Ivy league colleges. The Ivy league colleges are the gate way to the professions, political and public influence. The big academic business of selling talk to undergraduates is a way to connect empathically with youthful anxieties and aspirations, to direct them by selling them on talk that serves YKW interests, creating phony “movements” and ‘rebellions”, “social justice activism” (if only against Whites) that they can be a part of…

Business

Buys (Business, international and domestic - in this part of the cycle, securing US real estate with Russian (((mafia))) money bailing out Trump’s domestic assets and helping him to advance to the presidency. US domestic (((business))) has emerged as a “concern” to bolster (((conservative))) backing of Trump in order to garner bible belt, evangelical sympathy for the Zionist agenda and its operation clean break implementation in Iran) ... Plenty of other shady (((business))), ranging from H1b Visas, cheap business loans for Indians to buy-up convenience stores and motels, in order to gain Indian connection and cooperation ...then there is the off-shore money laundering schemes through shell companies revealed in the Panama Papers, etc.

Related Story: The Sackler Family, Pushers of Opioids, profiteers on created addiction in vulnerable peoples.

Related story: 3 of Them Defraud London Olympics Investors of £80 million.

Attorneys

Law & Courts

Courtly Assistance (Courts and Attorneys - to influence law and its implementation, as in the example of “Brown vs.Board of Education”, “Disparate Impact”, the “Civil Rights Act”, the “Rumford Fair Housing Act”). Even Trump had his kosher legal mentorship and advocacy against “the” left, in the person of attorney Roy Cohn.

So where do NGO’s - like The Jewish Community Relationship Council - and Unions (including make shift “unions”/ and coalitions thereof) - fit in? hmmm ...we’re going to have to add that in; should have long ago:

NGO’s

Coalitions anti-White: King and Levison, N.A.A.C.P.

Negotiate Good Organized (NG0’s)

Union Coalitions (Social group organizations - literal or make shift unions and coalitions thereof - liberal social groups, liberal in the sense of denying and scabbing White social unionization. These are social communitarian groups primarily devised by Jewish interests in coalition building of anti-White organization).

Unions

He’ll add sanctions as well, which will drive up oil prices to the delight of his Russian colleagues.

“Iran deal: Donald Trump may have put the Middle East on a path to disaster”

ABC, 9 May 2018:

Donald Trump announced US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, imposes sanctions on regime.

Donald Trump’s decision to violate the Iran nuclear deal and reimpose US sanctions will not lead us immediately to disaster. That may come later.

Right now, America is on one side of the argument while its key allies including the UK, Germany and France, stand with Iran. Australia, by the way, also opposed scrapping the deal.

The leaders of the UK, Germany and France, say as a result of the deal “the world is a safer place.” And, while Donald Trump seeks to hurt Iran economically, they are working with Iran to see what they can offer to keep the Iranians in the deal, “including through ensuring the continuing economic benefits to the Iranian people”.

The most immediate effect of the US decision will be the re-imposition of sanctions against Iran’s oil industry and its banking sector which will kick in over several months. The sanctions previously had a crushing effect on Iran’s oil exports and since the nuclear deal was implemented oil exports have more than doubled.

So make no mistake, they will cause a major financial hole which won’t be easy for the Europeans to fill. And, in an increasingly integrated global economy, it’s not easy to remain untouched by US sanctions.
A mini trade war?

Europe’s leaders might convince the US to effectively exempt European companies from the sanctions regime. Or they could pass laws to protect their companies and claw back penalties imposed by the US by imposing tariffs on US goods.

To some, a mini trade war and division among key NATO allies on a crucial global security issue may already count as a disaster. But it could get worse

Mortifying:

With cheerful taken-for-grantedness of the ‘unassailable’ virtue of their motives, this panel at CFR discusses the prospect of “democratization” of “illiberal democracies” by having them accept non-White migrants and integration; i.e., cheerful acceptance of the destruction of our European genome. Primarily with the targeted “problem” of Eastern European countries Not accepting immigrants.

Published on Apr 23, 2018 by Council on Foreign Relations -

Speakers discuss the growing trend toward populism around the world and the current global state of democracy.

Speakers
Michael Abramowitz

President, Freedom House; Former White House Correspondent, Washington Post

Nicole M. Bibbins Sedaca

Chair, Global Politics and Security Concentration and Professor in the Practice of International Affairs, Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown U; Former Senior Advisor to the Undersecretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs, US Department of State

Timothy Snyder

Richard C. Levin Professor of History, Yale University; Author, The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America

Presider
Kati I. Marton

Author and Human Rights Activist

Kati I. Marton (15:56): We haven’t yet mentioned one of the most powerful motives for the rise of populism, which is the fear of refugees - migrants.  Most graphically on display in Hungary where you can’t go a block without seeing a billboard showing George Soros’s smiling face, and the headline over that face is, ‘don’t let him have the last laugh.’

Six months ago George Soros was known to a very small handful of Budapest literati. Now he is probably the second best known person in Hungary after Victor Orban. And this manipulation of the fear of migrants, of which by the way, there are virtually none in Hungary and very few in Poland, as opposed to over a million in Germany, where this problem doesn’t exist…is something that uh, that we haven’t really dealt with sufficiently.

We seem to step-by-step, accept that his is the way of the world now. I frequently ask myself what didn’t my Hungarian grandparents, whose lives didn’t end well, what didn’t they do in the 30’s? that we should be doing today? Rather than sleepwalking thought this rather dangerous passage.

So, the migration problem and how it relates to the rise of populism - AdF (eg) is entirely about fear of outsiders.

When an audience member suggest the problem of Eastern European countries having a bad track record with regard to democracy, Snyder draws comparisons -

Snyder: (36:00): When the Supreme Court decides in 2013 that racism is no longer a problem, twenty two states then pass voter suppression laws - that’s not democratization, whatever you think of the legality of it.

...its been very hard for the West European countries to extend democracy over second class citizens (empire/subject relation)...asking about the things that make democracy possible….which for me precisely have to do with integration - the European Union, whatever its chances are, is the hope for democracy.

Kati I. Marton (38:00) ...these countries are not destined to be undemocratic, there are a whole bunch of other factors and one of them, frankly, is the luck of leaders (Merkel!)

Trump took over Republican party on behalf of the Jewish Right in tandem with disingenuous, deracinating, oligarchic, objectivist, propositional Right…through its kosher, paleocon safety net/valve, false opposition, (((the Alt-Right))).

After Trump committed what was to Republican insiders the great sin of saying “there were good and bad on all sides” at the Unite the Right rally…

(((Corey Lewandowski))): “He has to fight back. So when you accuse him of being a racist he doesn’t want to back up, he wants to double down to prove to you that that’s not true, and that’s what the President is.”

Trump: “What about the ‘Alt-Left?” Not to be confused with what we define as White Left, nor the Jewy, fraud “Alt-Left” that also goes by that name; Trump was certainly not addressing that anyway, but rather a trendy way of addressing the motley “left” as it is commonly known - the pivotal move - to redirect attention and blame to “the Left”  - in orchestration of the White Right through the “Unite the Right” rally.

In addition to Mnuchin using “Unite The Right” to offend Gary Cohn through it and Trump’s neutral response, to get Cohn out of the way, there were key Republican insiders that needed ingratiation for the Jewish Right to be able to take-over and join forces with the (deracinating) American right through front man Trump.

Following Trump’s first political victory on their behalf, the passing of the tax-cut bill:

Paul Ryan heaps saccharine, about face praise of Trump for making the rich, richer…

As Mitch McConnell has been kissing black ass since the days of “civil rights” when he marched with M.L. King, Trump had to be sure to burnish his pro-black credentials for him (note Uncle Tom/ Satchmo Step n’ Fetch-it type to Trump’s right).

Mitch McConnell: “You’ve made the case for the tax-bill (so that the rich could get richer and the poor, poorer - typical Repugs). We’ve cemented the Supreme Court to the right of center for a generation (pro-black women having babies). You’ve ended the over regulation of the American economy (pro-pollution). Thank you Mr. President, for all you’re doing.”

(((Corey Lewandowski))): “In essence this became Trump’s Republican party.

The testimony that people gave there is hard to take back”

- Oren Hatch, for example: “You’re one heck of a leader…and we’re going to make this the greatest Presidency that we’ve seen, not only in generations, but maybe ever.”

(((Corey Lewandowski))): “What the Republican establishment now know, is that Donald Trump is unequivocally the leader of the Republican party” (The Jewish Right-wing has taken over from Jewish liberals).

“He’ is the one who sets the tone of what takes place in Washington. He is the leader of our country - both politically and from a legislative side of things. I think they’ve learned that over the last year.”

Related Story: Unite the Right Charlottesville: successful neocon/liberal operation forces wedge against paleo-Cohn

Special Counsel Robert Mueller has evidence that Donald Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen made a late-summer trip to Prague during the 2016 presidential campaign, around the time a British spy says Cohen met with a Kremlin official there to discuss Russian interference in the U.S. election, sources have told McClatchy. Cohen, pictured on April 11, 2018, has vehemently denied ever visiting Prague. Mary Altaffer AP

McClatchyDC, 13 April 2018:

“Sources: Mueller has evidence Cohen was in Prague in 2016, confirming part of dossier.”

WASHINGTON

The Justice Department special counsel has evidence that Donald Trump’s personal lawyer and confidant, Michael Cohen, secretly made a late-summer trip to Prague during the 2016 presidential campaign, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

Confirmation of the trip would lend credence to a retired British spy’s report that Cohen strategized there with a powerful Kremlin figure about Russian meddling in the U.S. election.

It would also be one of the most significant developments thus far in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of whether the Trump campaign and the Kremlin worked together to help Trump win the White House. Undercutting Trump’s repeated pronouncements that “there is no evidence of collusion,” it also could ratchet up the stakes if the president tries, as he has intimated he might for months, to order Mueller’s firing.

Trump’s threats to fire Mueller or the deputy attorney general overseeing the investigation, Rod Rosenstein, grew louder this week when the FBI raided Cohen’s home, hotel room and office on Monday. The raid was unrelated to the Trump-Russia collusion probe, but instead focused on payments made to women who have said they had sexual relationships with Trump.

Cohen has vehemently denied for months that he ever has been in Prague or colluded with Russia during the campaign. Neither he nor his lawyer responded to requests for comment for this story.

It’s unclear whether Mueller’s investigators also have evidence that Cohen actually met with a prominent Russian – purportedly Konstantin Kosachev, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin — in the Czech capital. Kosachev, who chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee of a body of the Russian legislature, the Federation Council, also has denied visiting Prague during 2016. Earlier this month, Kosachev was among 24 high-profile Russians hit with stiff U.S. sanctions in retaliation for Russia’s meddling.

But investigators have traced evidence that Cohen entered the Czech Republic through Germany, apparently during August or early September of 2016 as the ex-spy reported, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is confidential. He wouldn’t have needed a passport for such a trip, because both countries are in the so-called Schengen Area in which 26 nations operate with open borders. The disclosure still left a puzzle: The sources did not say whether Cohen took a commercial flight or private jet to Europe, and gave no explanation as to why no record of such a trip has surfaced.

Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller’s office, declined comment.

Unconfirmed reports of a clandestine Prague meeting came to public attention in January 2017, with the publication of a dossier purporting to detail the Trump campaign’s interactions with Russia – a series of reports that former British MI6 officer Christopher Steele gathered from Kremlin sources for Trump’s political opponents, including Democrat Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee. Cohen’s alleged communications with the Russians were mentioned multiple times in Steele’s reports, which he ultimately shared with the FBI.

When the news site Buzzfeed published the entire dossier on Jan. 11, Trump denounced the news organization as “a failing pile of garbage” and said the document was “false and fake.” Cohen tweeted, “I have never been to Prague in my life. #fakenews.”

In the ensuing months, he allowed Buzzfeed to inspect his passport and tweeted: “The #Russian dossier is WRONG!”

Last August, an attorney for Cohen, Stephen Ryan, delivered to Congress a point-by-point rebuttal of the dossier’s allegations, stating: “Mr. Cohen is not aware of any ‘secret TRUMP campaign/Kremlin relationship.’”

However, Democratic investigators for the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, which are conducting parallel inquiries into Russia’s election interference, also are skeptical about whether Cohen was truthful about his 2016 travels to Europe when he was interviewed by the panels last October, two people familiar with those probes told McClatchy this week. Cohen has publicly acknowledged making three trips to Europe that year – to Italy in July, England in early October and a third after Trump’s November election. The investigators intend to press Cohen for more information, said the sources, who lacked authorization to speak for the record.

One of the sources said congressional investigators have “a high level of interest” in Cohen’s European travel, with their doubts fueled by what they deem to be weak documentation Cohen has provided about his whereabouts around the time the Prague meeting was supposed to have occurred.

Cohen has said he was only in New York and briefly in Los Angeles during August, when the meeting may have occurred, though the sources said it also could have been held in early September.

Evidence that Cohen was in Prague “certainly helps undermine his credibility,” said Jill Wine-Banks, a former Watergate prosecutor who lives in Chicago. “It doesn’t matter who he met with. His denial was that I was never in Prague. Having proof that he was is, for most people, going to be more than enough to say I don’t believe anything else he says.”

“I think that, given the relationship between Michael Cohen and the president,” Wine-Banks said, “it’s not believable that Michael Cohen did not tell him about his trip to Prague.”

READ MORE...

“Russia blames Israel for attack on Syrian air base as pressure mounts over gas atrocity”

Telegraph, 8 April 2018:

At least 14 fighters, including Iranians, were killed in the early morning strike, according to the monitoring organisation the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Syria also accused Israel of carrying out the strike.

A military spokeswoman for Israel, which has struck Syrian military positions several times in recent years, declined to comment on the strike.

A Syrian military source was quoted in local media as saying air defences shot down eight missiles fired at the base, where defence analysts say there are large deployments of Russian forces, and where jets fly regular sorties to strike rebel-held areas.

It came after Donald Trump on Sunday warned Russia’s Vladimir Putin that there would be a “big price to pay” for a suspected Syrian chemical weapons attack that killed 70 people, including children.

In his harshest criticism of the Russian leader since taking office, Mr Trump said Mr Putin was partly “responsible” for the attack on rebels in Douma, a town in Eastern Ghouta

Donald J. Trump@realDonaldTrump

Many dead, including women and children, in mindless CHEMICAL attack in Syria. Area of atrocity is in lockdown and encircled by Syrian Army, making it completely inaccessible to outside world. President Putin, Russia and Iran are responsible for backing Animal Assad. Big price…
3:00 PM - Apr 8, 2018

87.2K51.6K people are talking about this

“Syria conflict: Israel blamed for attack on airfield”

BBC, 9 April 2018:

Monday’s attack hit the Tiyas airbase, known as T4, near the city of Homs. Observers say 14 people were killed.

Israel, which has previously hit Syrian targets, has not commented. Syria initially blamed the US for the strike.

Could Israel be involved?

Syrian state news agency Sana, quoting a military source, reported that air defences had repelled an Israeli missile attack on T4, saying the missiles were fired by Israeli F15 jets in Lebanese airspace.

Claim - Iran building base in Syria:

Israel has said it will not allow Iran, its arch-foe, to set up bases in Syria or operate from there, something Israel considers a major threat.

UK-based monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said that fighters of various nationalities - meaning Iranians or members of Iranian-backed Shia militias - were among the 14 dead at the base.

Complicated equation

By Jonathan Marcus, BBC defence and diplomatic correspondent

This attack could be part of Israel’s growing effort to contain Iran’s military build-up in Syria and to interrupt the supply of advanced Iranian missiles to its Lebanese Shia ally, Hezbollah.

Any Israeli operation would have been closely monitored by Russian air defence radars in Syria. There is also a telephone hotline between the Israelis and the Russian headquarters in Syria.

So far Moscow has done nothing to interfere with Israel’s air operations.

But the presence of Russia’s air defences in Syria certainly complicates the strategic equation as Western governments ponder their response to the recent chemical attack.

“Trump tweets condemnation of Syria chemical attack, saying Putin shares the blame”

Washington Post, 9 April 2018:

In a series of tweets on the morning of April 8, President Trump condemned an apparent chemical attack near Damascus on April 7.

The likelihood of a military strike against Syria after a suspected chemical weapons attack increased Sunday as President Trump said there would be a “big price to pay” and officials in France vowed the country would “do its duty” in responding.

France called for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Monday to discuss the weekend attack, and eight other nations joined in the request, including the United States and Britain.

In reference to a warning by President Emmanuel Macron last month that France would strike unilaterally if Syria used chemical weapons again, Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said that the nation would assume its responsibilities.

[Dozens killed in apparent chemical attack on Syrian civilians]

Several prominent Republicans urged Trump to act — and to reconsider his plan to draw down the 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) told ABC News’ “This Week” that this is a “defining moment” in Trump’s presidency that demands follow-through. Speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) suggested that Trump change his mind about withdrawing troops from Syria, place more sanctions on Russia and consider targeted attacks on Syrian facilities, similar to one he ordered a year ago after a chemical attack on civilians.

Trump wants them home, but how long will U.S. troops really be in Syria?

President Trump said he wants to pull all U.S. troops out of Syria where they’re supporting the Syrian Democratic Forces in the fight against the Islamic State.

Even before the lawmakers spoke, Trump himself hinted that a military strike might be at hand if the use of chemical weapons by Syrian government forces is verified.

As grisly images emerged, showing bodies of babies in basements and bloodied survivors at hospitals in Eastern Ghouta, Trump made a rare direct criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin. He said Putin shared blame for the deaths through Russia’s support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“President Putin, Russia and Iran are responsible for backing Animal Assad. Big price to pay,” Trump said in back-to-back tweets. “Open area immediately for medical help and verification. Another humanitarian disaster for no reason whatsoever. SICK!”

Late Sunday, SANA, Syria’s state-run news agency, said that an air base in central Syria was hit by a missile attack and that the military shot down eight missiles. The report initially said the attack in Homs province was “likely to be an American aggression.” Later, however, Syrian officials and allies in Russia said the airstrike was carried out by Israel, which also struck the same airfield in February.

Israel did not immediately confirm the reports of the Sunday attack.

In a statement, the Pentagon denied the report: “At this time, the Department of Defense is not conducting airstrikes in Syria. However, we continue to closely watch the situation and support the ongoing diplomatic efforts to hold those who use chemical weapons, in Syria and otherwise, accountable.”

Injured victims of an alleged chemical attack rest Sunday in rebel-held Douma, Syria.

The crisis in Syria is escalating at a pivotal moment for the White House’s national security team. John Bolton, a noted hawk on Russia and Iran, begins work as Trump’s national security adviser on Monday. On Thursday, CIA Director Mike Pompeo has a confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on his nomination as secretary of state.

Trump also blamed his predecessor for not following through on his threat that Assad’s chemical weapons use was a red line that would not be tolerated, something that Trump suggested he would not repeat.

[Trump instructs military to begin planning for Syria withdrawal]

“If President Obama had crossed his stated Red Line In The Sand, the Syrian disaster would have ended long ago! Animal Assad would have been history!” he tweeted.

Echoing Trump, V.P. Pence tweeted that U.S. officials were monitoring the events. “The Assad regime & its backers MUST END their barbaric behavior,” he added. “As POTUS said, big price to pay for those responsible!”

Syrian, Russian denials

Syria and its main backers, Russia and Iran, are not only denying responsibility, they question whether there even was an attack. SANA said the reports originated with “terrorists” who are on the verge of collapse under an offensive by the Syrian army. “Such allegations and accusations by the Americans and certain Western countries signal a new conspiracy against the Syrian government and people, and a pretext for military action,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

And Russia’s Foreign Ministry released a statement claiming that information on the reported attack is a tactic being used to cover up for terrorists.

“The goal of these false conjectures, which are without basis, are designed to shield the terrorists and the implacable radical opposition, who reject a political settlement,” the statement said.

The crisis over Syria is likely to accelerate the downward spiral of the relationship between Russia and the United States, already at its lowest point in decades. On Friday, the administration placed economic sanctions on some Russian tycoons. The sanctions give the United States a potent weapon to pressure international financial institutions not to lend money or facilitate transactions by the well-connected Russians.

“Whatever was driving Trump to leave Putin alone, it’s over,” said Cliff Kupchan, chairman of the Eurasia Group, an analytical firm. “Over the course of 48 hours, Trump basically sanctioned the Russian system and fingered Putin for backing the ‘Animal Assad.’

“If the U.S. confirms chemical weapons were used, I think we get a strike on Syria. As harsh as Friday’s sanctions were, they also set the precedent for sanctioning anyone who benefits from the Russian system.”

Trump’s gradual shift

Trump has come reluctantly to this crucible over Syria.

Assad has never been a priority for Trump. Though he called him a “bad guy,” he repeatedly said on the campaign trail and in the White House that Assad is not a U.S. priority. He was willing to be involved in Syria as long as the fight against the Islamic State was going on, but not much more. His announcement that the U.S. military role in Syria was “coming to a rapid end” was a continuation of that belief.

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