[Majorityrights News] KP interview with James Gilmore, former diplomat and insider from first Trump administration Posted by Guessedworker on Sunday, 05 January 2025 00:35.
[Majorityrights News] Trump will ‘arm Ukraine to the teeth’ if Putin won’t negotiate ceasefire Posted by Guessedworker on Tuesday, 12 November 2024 16:20.
[Majorityrights News] Alex Navalny, born 4th June, 1976; died at Yamalo-Nenets penitentiary 16th February, 2024 Posted by Guessedworker on Friday, 16 February 2024 23:43.
Posted by DanielS on Tuesday, 05 September 2017 08:30.
Free Thought Project, “Rothschild Just Dumped Massive Amounts of US Assets, Sending an Ominous Signal”, 30 Aug 2017:
In an ominous move, Lord Jacob Rothschild has aggressively moved to limit his exposure to “risky” U.S. capital markets.
In what is a sure signal to oligarchs across the globe, Lord Jacob Rothschild, founder and chairman of RIT Capital Partners, has substantially minimized his exposure to what he views as a risky and unstable U.S. capital market. In the half-yearly financial report for RIT Capital Partners, Rothschild explained the company’s aggressive moves to significantly reduce exposure to U.S. assets.
“We do not believe this is an appropriate time to add to risk. Share prices have in many cases risen to unprecedented levels at a time when economic growth is by no means assured,” Rothschild said in his semi-annual report.
Additionally, Rothschild stated that he believes quantitative easing (QE) programs employed by central banks, such as the Federal Reserve Bank in the U.S. will “come to an end.”
Rothschild was quoted in the report as saying, “The period of monetary accommodation may well be coming to an end.”
Signaling a potential disaster in the making in the United States financial markets, Rothschild reduced the investments RIT Capital Partners has in the U.S. dollar by nearly fifty percent. On December 31, 2016, RIT Capital Partners reported a 62 percent net value asset investment in U.S. dollars. In the latest report released by RIT Capital Partners on June 30, 2017, the company has a 37 percent net value asset investment in U.S. dollars.
Over that same period of time, Rothschild increased RIT’s investment in Sterling and the Euro.
Just last year, the bond manager of what was once the world’s largest bond fund had a dire prediction about how “all of this” will all end. And by “all of this,” he means the propping up of financial markets by central banks.
Janus Henderson U.S. @JHIAdvisorsUS
Gross: Global yields lowest in 500 years of recorded history. $10 trillion of neg. rate bonds. This is a supernova that will explode one
When the U.S. stock market is trading at all-time highs, but Lord Rothschild is divesting RIT from those same markets, the central bank manipulation of market valuations becomes apparent.
Additionally, it’s worth noting that Rothschild’s RIT investment portfolio has returned roughly 2,000% since its formation – so he obviously understands how to position his assets to get big returns on investments, thus these recent moves should be a red flag to every American.
In explaining his recent investment moves, Rothschild, the RIT chairman stated:
“We have a particular interest in investments which will benefit from the impact of new technologies, and Far Eastern markets, influenced by the growing demand from Asian consumers.”
The report also noted that RIT had invested in Social Capital, a tech investment firm based in Silicon Valley, and that Francesco Goedhuis, Chief Executive of J. Rothschild Capital Management, will serve on the company’s advisory board. Social Capital provides seed funding for companies in the education, finance, and health care business sectors.
Rothschild also mentioned the advent of a fourth industrial revolution in the RIT Capital Partners report, noting, “As the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ develops, it becomes increasingly important for your Company to be able to assess investment opportunities in the innovation driven changes which are affecting almost every business sector.”
The fourth industrial revolution will be driven by new technologies that work to integrate the digital, biological, and physical worlds. Rothschild indicated in the report that the fourth industrial revolution was a driving factor in his investment in Social Capital.
Posted by DanielS on Sunday, 03 September 2017 07:39.
Newsweek, “Charlottesville’s Alt-right Leaders Have a Passion for Vladimir Putin”, 16 Aug 2017:
The alleged ties between the administration of President Donald Trump and Russia are currently the subject of intensive media scrutiny. But perhaps less well known are the connections between a Kremlin ideologue described as “Putin’s brain” and key members of the U.S. alt-right and white supremacist movement, including those behind the Charlottesville protest.
Alexander Dugin is a Russian ultranationalist and former adviser to Sergei Naryshkin, a key member of Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party who was appointed Russian foreign intelligence chief in 2016. Dugin supports Orthodox Russia’s role as a bulwark against what he has portrayed as the decadent forces of the liberal West.
Amongst Saturday’s headline speakers was Richard Spencer, who claims to have invented the term “alt-right,” and has disseminated its white nationalist ideology via his National Policy Institute think-tank, as well as a network of websites and publishing ventures.
Spencer has not disguised his fondness for Vladimir Putin’s Russia, describing the country as the “sole white power in the world.” In May, he led a smaller protest in Charlottesville, in which torch wielding white nationalists chanted “Russia is our friend.”
Neo-Eurasianist ideologue Alexander Dugin sits in his TV studio in central Moscow on August 11, 2016. Francesca Ebel/AP
In 2014, Spencer invited Dugin to an international far-right conference he planned to hold in Hungary, however international sanctions prevented Dugin attending and Hungarian police raided the meeting. Dugin has since become a frequent contributor to Spencer’s AltRight.com website, and has also contributed to his online journal Radix. Spencer has returned the favor, penning an article for Dugin’s Katehon website.
Spencer’s ex-wife is Nina Kouprianova, a tireless promoter of Russian nationalism and self-described “Kremlin troll leaders” who writes under the penname Nina Byzantina. She is also Dugin’s English translator.
Matthew Heimbach, co-founder of the white supremacist Traditional Workers Party, also attended Saturday’s rally and is a big fan of Putin.
“I really believe that Russia is the leader of the free world right now,” he recently told Business Insider. “Putin is supporting nationalists around the world and building an anti-globalist alliance, while promoting traditional values and self-determination.”
In 2015, he led a rally at which Russian and Confederate flags were flown alongside each other.
And, for good measure, here’s Heimbach with the Novorossiya flag, and leading a rally with both Confederate and Russian imperial flags: pic.twitter.com/5mHjHisfr7
12:26 AM - Jan 5, 2017
Heimbach, described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as the “face of a new generation of white nationalists”, has made several trips to Europe to meet the leaders of far-right parties, and at the official launch of the Traditional Workers Party in 2015 Heimbach hosted a Skyped-in congratulatory speech from Dugin.
And one more shot: Heimbach holding both a Dugin book and a neo-Confederate “League of the South” flag. ht @JvanDijkS pic.twitter.com/aY0KfVEhyS
6:41 PM - Jan 5, 2017
The following year he planned his first trip to Russia for the far-right World National Conservative Movement conference, which was ultimately postponed.
Infamous former KKK leader David Duke also made an appearance at the rally, which he called a “turning point” and pledged that white nationalists would “fulfill the promises of Donald Trump.”
Like his allies Spencer and Heimbach, Duke has made no secret of his admiration for Russia, describing the country as the “key to white survival,” and has been pictured alongside Dugin.
Just Rich @JustMeRich
Replying to @splcenter
Trump is in the side of David Duke and the Klan. Further speculation isn’t needed.
Follow
Trevor Smith @MrTSmith81
And david Duke and the klan are on the side of Russia, where’s that list of people trump won’t attack again? White supremacists and putin.. pic.twitter.com/4Nricps1N7
11:16 PM - Aug 15, 2017
Duke once lived in Moscow and owns an apartment in the Russian capital, which he reportedly sub-let to U.S. Neo-Nazi Preston Wigginton, who has in turn hosted web chats by Dugin at the University of Texas A&M college.
On Monday, the college announced it was cancelling a planned white nationalist rally on its campus to be led by Spencer.
Russian state media has also given a platform to Spencer and Duke, where their extremist beliefs were not flagged, and they expounded their racist views unchallenged. Spencer has frequently commented on the Syrian civil war on RT, where he has expressed support for Russian ally and alt-right icon President Bashar al-Assad.
Dugin himself has frequently appeared on Infowars, Alex Jones’ pro-Trump conspiracy theory site.
Anton Shekhovtsov, author of Russia and the Western Far Right: Tango Noir, tells Newsweek that ties between U.S. and Russian fascists were longstanding.
“There is no evidence that the Kremlin - as an official body - has ever tried to build ties with the US neo-Nazis such as Spencer or Duke. However, both have long-standing relations with their Russian fascist counterparts,” he says in an email.
In Europe, the story is different, with Neo-Nazis in Germany reportedly recruited by Russian intelligence via martial arts clubs, and Hungarian neo-Nazi István Győrkös, who shot dead a police officer last October, running paramilitary training camps for right-wing extremists alongside Kremlin officials.
In a blog posting Tuesday, former NSA analyst John Schindler explained the appeal of Russia to the U.S. far-right.
“Although our country has always had white supremacists, Russia has given them renewed focus and energy, as well as a ready-made worldview. This take on the world includes overt white nationalism which despises the United States as a decadent and multiracial society,” he wrote.
Posted by DanielS on Saturday, 02 September 2017 07:54.
“We’re talking total destruction”
Irma worst case scenario: Cat 5 storm, direct hit on Miami.
“Major Hurricane Irma now ... I’d be surprised if storm didn’t become Cat 5 during next 5-7 days. Many EPS ensembles are very intense.
It would be much worse than Harvey. Miami is built right up to the ocean, all those tall building would receive the impact of Cat 5 winds plus devastating storm surge. We are talking total destruction.”
- Ryan Maue, Meteorologist (PhD) | Free ex parte opinions on Weather | Hurricanes | Climate Science | Politics | Think Tanker @CatoCSS
The Economic Collapse, “Category 6? If Hurricane Irma Becomes The Strongest Hurricane In History, It Could Wipe Entire Cities Off The Map”, 1 Sep 2017:
Meteorologists have been shocked at how rapidly Hurricane Irma has been strengthening, and they are already warning that if it hits the United States as a high level category 5 storm the devastation would be absolutely unprecedented. Of course we are already dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, and many experts are already telling us that the economic damage done by that storm will easily surpass any other disaster in all of U.S. history. But there is a very real possibility that Hurricane Irma could be even worse. According to the National Hurricane Center, at 5 PM on Friday Irma already had sustained winds of 130 miles per hour. But it is still very early, and as you will see below, next week it is expected to potentially develop into a category 5 storm with winds of 180 miles per hour or more.
I suppose that it is appropriate that such a powerful storm has a very powerful name. In old German, the name “Irma” actually means “war goddess”…
The name Irma is a German baby name. In German the meaning of the name Irma is: Universal, from the Old German ‘irmin’. War goddess.
Irma began forming on Wednesday, and it intensified at a faster rate than any storm that we have seen in nearly 20 years…
Hurricane Irma formed early Wednesday in the warm waters off the coast of West Africa — and took just 30 hours to strengthen to a Category 3. That’s the fastest intensification rate in almost two decades. By Friday afternoon, the storm had also grown noticeably larger in size with a well-defined eye, a classic sign of a strong hurricane.
Though Irma poses no immediate threat to land, the outlook is ominous: In the Atlantic, Irma is expected to pass through some abnormally warm waters — the primary fuel source for storm systems. The official National Hurricane Center forecast says it will remain at major hurricane status for at least the next five days, and, in a worst-case scenario, Irma could eventually grow into one of the strongest hurricanes ever seen in the Atlantic.
So how powerful could Irma eventually become?
According to Michael Ventrice of the Weather Channel, Irma could easily become a “super typhoon” with “sustained speeds of over 180mph”…
Veteran USA forecaster Michael Ventrice posted the track model on Twitter overnight and warned it looked like the storm could be a “super typhoon”, with sustained speeds of over 180mph.
He wrote: “These are the highest windspeed forecasts I’ve ever seen in my 10 yrs of Atlantic hurricane forecasting.
“Irma is another retiree candidate.”
The scale we have right now really never envisioned storms that powerful. In fact, some have suggested that we need to add a “category 6” to describe the kind of “super storms” that are now developing in the Atlantic.
One of the reasons why Irma is so unique is because it is a “Cape Verde hurricane”…
There are a few factors that worry hurricane forecasters more about this storm when compared to the myriad other tropical storms and hurricanes that tend to form in the Atlantic.
First, it’s a so-called Cape Verde storm, having formed off the west coast of Africa. These storms tend to be the ones that go on to affect the U.S., after gathering strength for many days during their march across the ocean. For example, Hurricane Andrew, which was the most recent Category 5 storm to hit the U.S. in 1992, was a Cape Verde-type storm.
Because they begin at a relatively low latitude and move west rather than northwest, it can be harder for upper level winds blowing across North America to pick up and steer these types of storms away from the U.S. coast.
Let us hope that this storm does get steered away from our coastlines at some point, but so far that is just not happening.
Many hurricanes are often weakened by wind shear, but that isn’t happening to Irma either. In fact, CNN is reporting that “Irma will remain in a low-shear environment for the next several days”…
A strong high-pressure ridge to the north of Irma, over the Atlantic, is steering the storm to the west and limiting the wind shear in the upper levels of the atmosphere, which has allowed the storm to grow so quickly. Wind shear is like hurricane kryptonite, and prevents storms from forming or gaining strength.
Unfortunately, Irma will remain in a low-shear environment for the next several days, so there isn’t much hope that Irma will weaken any time soon.
Basically, conditions are nearly ideal for a “super storm” to develop, and if Irma does make it to the U.S. the destruction that it causes could be absolutely off the charts.
Of course at this point there is no guarantee that it will ever reach the United States. But if it does, and if it is still a category 5 storm when it arrives, we could be facing an event unlike anything that we have ever seen before.
Do you remember Hurricane Katrina? Well, scientists now know that when it hit New Orleans it had already been downgraded to just a “low category 3” storm…
To put this all in perspective, Katrina was a Category 5 hurricane out over some hot spots in the Gulf. But when it hit New Orleans, scientists now know, Katrina had winds at a low Category 3, and much of them Category 2, including the “left side winds” that then came down from the north and pushed the surge-swollen waters of Lake Pontchartrain over and through NOLA’s levees. (Hurricanes spin counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere, so when Katrina came ashore just east of New Orleans, its winds hit the city from the north.)
Only three Category 5s have come ashore in the United States in the past century — the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane, Camille in 1969 and Andrew in 1992.
And Hurricane Harvey was just a category 4 storm.
If Hurricane Irma were to make landfall as a category 5 storm with sustained winds of 180 miles per hour, it would rip buildings and everything else in its path to shreds.
Next week we shall find out what happens. Let us hope for the best, but let us also get prepared for the worst.
Michael Snyder is a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.
Irmina Update:
The Island Packet, “Hurricane Irma back to Category 2, but its track makes a pronounced turn”, 2 Sep 2017:
Hurricane Irma become a Category 2 storm once more in the National Hurricane Center’s 5 a.m. update, but as its strength fluctuates, its track now shows a distinct northwestern turn.
Irma is currently located about 1300 miles east of the Leeward Islands, and is moving west at 14 mph. It has maximum sustained winds of 110 mph with gusts up to 132 mph.
While Irma has remained in a somewhat weakened state over the past day or so, it is expected to move into warmer waters and better wind conditions in about a day, and is expected to be a major hurricane again as it approaches the Lesser Antilles at the beginning of next week.
It is expected to reach Category 4 status by next Wednesday, with forecast sustained winds of 132 mph and gusts over 160.
The NHC track for Irma looks only five days out, but there are other, more speculative forecast models.
No coastal watches or warnings have yet been issued for Irma. Watches and warnings are typically issued 36 hours before a tropical cyclone poses a threat to a coastal area. So, as alarming as some of the information coming in might be, people can take solace in the knowledge that they will have plenty of warning if Irma looks to threaten the U.S. coast.
“It’s still 2,000 miles away, and anything over the Atlantic Ocean moving generally westward, by geographical definition, would be ‘aiming in the general direction of the United States,’” said NHC spokesman Dennis Feltgen. “It is far to early to tell what, if any, impacts will be felt on the continental U.S.”
Feltgen also said that Irma is a useful reminder that we are in the peak of hurricane season, and that as such, people in hurricane prone areas should be prepared, just in case.
“Check your supplies and make sure you have a hurricane plan,” said Feltgen. “The last thing you want is to be doing this on the fly if you happen to be in an area where hurricane watches or warnings go up. Not that we expect that to happen any time soon, but use this weekend, when stores are open and everyone has supplies, to take advantage of that.
Posted by DanielS on Tuesday, 29 August 2017 12:20.
Michael Cohen, liaising with the Russian Federation.
Washington Post, “Top Trump Organization executive asked Putin aide for help on business deal”, 28 August, 2017:
A top executive from Donald Trump’s real estate company emailed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s personal spokesman during the U.S. presidential campaign last year to ask for help advancing a stalled Trump Tower development project in Moscow, according to documents submitted to Congress on Monday.
The request came in a mid-January 2016 email from Michael Cohen, one of Trump’s closest business advisers, who asked longtime Putin lieutenant Dmitry Peskov for assistance in reviving a deal that Cohen suggested was languishing.
“Over the past few months I have been working with a company based in Russia regarding the development of a Trump Tower-Moscow project in Moscow City,” Cohen wrote to Peskov, according to a person familiar with the email. “Without getting into lengthy specifics, the communication between our two sides has stalled.
“As this project is too important, I am hereby requesting your assistance. I respectfully request someone, preferably you, contact me so that I might discuss the specifics as well as arranging meetings with the appropriate individuals. I thank you in advance for your assistance and look forward to hearing from you soon,” Cohen wrote.
Click to page showing Trump-Russian links
Cohen’s email marks the most direct outreach documented by a top Trump aide to a similarly senior member of Putin’s government.
Cohen told congressional investigators in a statement Monday that he did not recall receiving a response from Peskov or having further contact with Russian government officials about the project. The email, addressed to Peskov, appeared to have been sent to a general Kremlin press account.
The note adds to the list of contacts between Trump associates and Russian officials that have been a focus of multiple congressional inquiries as well as an investigation led by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III exploring Russian interference in the 2016 election. U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that the Kremlin intervened to help elect Trump.
Cohen’s email to Peskov provides an example of a Trump business official directly seeking Kremlin assistance in advancing Trump’s business interests.
Cohen told congressional investigators that the deal was envisioned as a licensing project, in which Trump would have been paid for the use of his name by a Moscow-based developer called I.C. Expert Investment Co.
Cohen said that he discussed the deal three times with Trump and that Trump signed a letter of intent with the company on Oct. 28, 2015. He said the Trump company began to solicit designs from architects and discuss financing.
However, he said that the project was abandoned “for business reasons” when government permission was not secured and that the matter was “not related in any way to Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign.”
Cohen’s request to Peskov came as Trump was distinguishing himself on the campaign trail with warm rhetoric about Putin.
Cohen said in his statement to Congress that he wrote the email at the recommendation of Felix Sater, a Russian American businessman who was serving as a broker on the deal.
In the statement, obtained by The Washington Post, Cohen said Sater suggested the outreach because a massive Trump development in Moscow would require Russian government approval.
Posted by DanielS on Monday, 28 August 2017 11:12.
Missile trajectory: it was launched from Pyongyang and flew in trajectory over Cape Erimo, Japan before landing in the distant Pacific.
Apologies for the story source below [Infowars], but this particular story is confirmed and does not have a conspiratorial spin.
Infowars, “North Korea Fires Ballistic Missile Over Japan”, 28 Aug 2017:
Launch represents first missile test ever to pass over Japan on a high altitude trajectory.
North Korea launched an intermediate-range ballistic missile Tuesday that flew over the island nation of Japan.
The suspected Hwasong-12 missile was fired from Pyongyang at 5:57 a.m. and passed over the Tohoku region at the northern end of the country, the South Korean military said.
“It passed through the sky over Japan,” South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said, later noting that the missile traveled 2,700 kilometers at a maximum altitude of around 550 km.
Pentagon spokesman Col. Rob Manning similarly confirmed the missile’s flight path.
“We assess North Korea conducted a missile launch within the last 90 minutes,” Manning said. “We can confirm that the missile launched by North Korea flew over Japan.”
U.S. intelligence agencies were reportedly monitoring the launch site when Hwasong-12 missile equipment began to move in.
The Japanese government urged people living in Tohoku to take cover in underground shelters or solid buildings, Japanese broadcaster NHK reported.
A video posted to Twitter from the region revealed the warning message sent out to local residents over loudspeaker.
“I woke up with a Siren and an announcement that North Korea launched a missile that would possibly hit cities within Hokkaido,” a Twitter user said.
Joe @jtnarsico
I woke up with a Siren and an announcement that North Korea launched a missile that would possibly hit cities within Hokkaido.
11:30 PM - Aug 28, 2017 · Hakodate-shi, Hokkaido
A senior U.S. intelligence official speaking with NBC News said the launch represents the first missile test ever to pass over Japan on a high altitude trajectory. North Korea previously launched a missile over the country in 1998 and again in 2009 – although Pyongyang claimed the second launch was of a satellite and not a missile.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe vowed Tuesday morning to protect the country.
“We’ll make the utmost effort to protect the public,” Abe told reporters.
NHK later reported that the North Korean missile broke into three pieces during its 733 mile trip into the Pacific Ocean east of Hokkaido’s Cape Erimo.
Earlier this month Pyongyang put a plan on hold that called for launching four Hwasong-12 missiles over Japan and into waters near the U.S. territory of Guam.
The launch comes just hours after the U.S. and Japan ended the joint military exercise “Northern Viper” on Hokkaido.
On Saturday North Korea also launched three short-range ballistic missiles. Although U.S. Pacific Command initially reported that two of the missiles “failed in flight,” the agency later confirmed that both projectiles survived and flew “250 kilometers in a northeastern direction.”
U.S. Pacific Command also stated that one of the three missiles blew up “almost immediately” after launch.
The U.S. and South Korea, much to the dismay of Pyongyang, are currently carrying out the joint annual military exercise Ulchi-Freedom Guardian.
Reports Monday also indicated that North Korea is showing signs that indicate preparations for its sixth nuclear weapons test.
In a closed door parliamentary session, Seoul’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) told South Korean lawmakers that recent activity at the Punggye-ri nuclear test site suggests an underground detonation may be in the works.
Pyongyang, according to Kim Byung-kee, a lawmaker of South Korea’s ruling Democratic Party (DP) who attended the meeting, “has completed its preparation to carry out a nuclear test at Tunnel 2 and Tunnel 3 of the Punggye-ri nuclear test site.”
Byung-kee also said the NIS report detailed new construction at Tunnel 4, where excavation work paused last year.
This story is developing and will be updated as more information becomes available.
Posted by DanielS on Wednesday, 23 August 2017 09:59.
When considering that the population of North Korea has virtually the same genetics as South Korea (demographic “twins” - not all that different from Japan, either) an interesting case study is presented for the influences of social construction, as the contrasts of North Korean and South Korean society are vast despite indiscernible genetic differences. Nevertheless, let us not lose site of the obviously important evidence and factors of biological determinism either: the high i.q. of North Korea (like the south) can account for their capability to rapidly develop full nuclear capacity on their own.
DT, “North Korea shows Guam attack in new video as it warns of ‘merciless revenge’ against US over drills”, 22 Aug 2017:
North Korea has unveiled a propaganda video of its threat to fire missiles near the US territory of Guam as it threatened the US with “merciless revenge” for ignoring Pyongyang’s warnings over annual military drills with South Korea.
Displaying images of Donald Trump staring at a cemetery filled with crosses and Vice-President Mike Pence enveloped by flames, the nearly 4 minute video showed the island of Guam being targeted by intermediate-range ballistic missiles.
“Americans should live with their eyes and ears wide open. They will be tormented day and night by the Hwasong-12 rockets without knowing when they will be launched,” the caption reads, according to Yonhap. “They will be in jitters.”
“(We) just wish US policymakers should seriously think twice ahead of an obvious outcome (of a war),” another caption says, showing a photo of US Defence Secretary James Mattis. “Time is not on the US side.”
With the exercises continuing on Tuesday, North Korea upped its rhetoric, saying it would be a misjudgment for the US to think that Pyongyang would “sit comfortably without doing anything,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency said, citing an unidentified military spokesman.
The ongoing drills and visits of US military officials to South Korea create the circumstances for a “mock war” on the Korean peninsula, KCNA said.
The comments represent a more belligerent tone after a war of words between the US and North Korea appeared to have subsided.
Mr Trump praised North Korean leader Kim Jong-un last week for waiting to launch missiles over Japan into waters near Guam, after previously warning of “fire and fury” if he continued to threaten the American homeland.
Tensions increased in July after North Korea conducted two intercontinental ballistic missile tests. Mr Trump has said military force is an option to prevent Mr Kim from gaining an ICBM that could deliver a nuclear weapon to the US.
Missile launch shown in new North Korean propaganda video, which threatens the US generally and Guam specifically.
Posted by DanielS on Tuesday, 22 August 2017 07:46.
Robert Kuttner revealed his conversation with Bannon: “To me,” Bannon said, “the economic war with China is everything.” ... “Ethno-nationalism—it’s losers. It’s a fringe element. I think the media plays it up too much, and we gotta help crush it, you know, uh, help crush it more.” ...“These guys are a collection of clowns,” he added.
Democracy Now, “American Prospect Editor Robert Kuttner on His Extraordinary Interview with Steve Bannon”, 22 Aug 2017:
Democracy Now, Juan Gonzalez: Bannon’s departure came after a series of meetings last week with billionaire funder Robert Mercer who funds Breitbart and funded Trump’s campaign. Bannon met with Mercer on Wednesday and Trump met with Mercer on Thursday. Bannon departed the White house the following day.
Amy Goodman, Democracy Now: Just before he was ousted, Steve Bannon granted an extraordinary interview to Bob Kuttner, co-editor and co-editor of the liberal magazine the American Prospect
Robert Kuttner: “Every once in a while you get lucky as a journalist, and he never bothered to put the conversation off the record. As you know in journalism if a high public official or anybody calls you and doesn’t bother to say that its off the record it’s the default is that its on the record ...and he proceeded to say a bunch of staggeringly incuatious things; on the assumption because I had also criticized America’s China policy as having been dominated by corporations at the expense of workers; and because that sort of overlapped his critique that we were sort of old buddies and soul-mates…and he spent to first few minutes of the interview kind of ingratiating himself with me, telling me what a thrill it was to meet me after all these years, he’s been reading my stuff…
It was one part naivete (which is an odd word to use for Bannon), it was one part bravado, it was one part recklessness, and it was weird, because if he knew that he he was on thin ice, what’s he doing reaching out to me? Can you imagine Bannon trotting into a meeting of the National Security Council saying, “you’ll never guess who agrees with my analysis, Bob Kuttner’ ...that would push him over the edge and in fact it kind of did.”
... (the best explanation is that) he was on the ropes and he was negotiating with General Kelley and Trump to postpone his departure to after labor day and he thought he could rally his forces on let’s get tough with China….
....if he’d already been fired it would have been completely bizarre that he would have called me and said, ‘hey won’t you come to the White house?’ because that would have been complete fantasy land.
...this is not the world’s most stable person; on the other hand he has a very strategic analysis of how you connect ‘neo-Nazi’, ‘White supremacy’ nationalism to economic nationalism. What’s interesting here is that he’s been able to sell his boss, Trump, on the get in bed with the White supremacist parts of nationalism but he hasn’t been able to sell the rest of the administration on economic nationalism because of course they’re in bed with the corporations; its complete fake populism:
The most recent example of that is the idea that he would use crony capitalism, hiring these private armies and masquerade as isolationism. Who does he think pays for those private armies? It’s the US taxpayer and expensive as the pentagon is, these private armies are even more wasteful and more expensive; so he’s all over the map on a lot of stuff.
But on one thing he’s quite coherent and that came through in the interview: he thinks the winning strategy is, you connect racist nationalism, anti-immigrant nationalism, to economic nationalism.
The other interesting question going forward is whether Bannon is going to play a kitchen cabinet role, where he talks to Trump in the middle of the night, coaches him; Trump is famous for these midnight phone calls.
Or is he going to join a Breitbart who right now is kicking the president in the shins as kind of a sell-out.
....and in that interview with The Weekly Standard he was kind of on both sides of the question, he said that the Trump presidency that we fought for was over….so, even Bannon can’t have that both ways, especially because Trump hates being upstaged by his advisors. That’s what did in Bannon, its what did in Scaramucci.”
Amy Goodman: Talk about the other issues he addressed with you, for example, Charlottesville. ...with Charlottesville his brand of White supremacy, neo-Nazi, the whole issue of The Confederacy, he suddenly comes front and center…and this is when he’s talking to you ...in the midst of this catastrophic news conference on Friday…in fact what was the timing and Trump saying both sides were responsible on Saturday…
Kuttner: He called me about 20 minutes before the press conference started and its pretty clear that his finger prints were all over Trump’s strategy of doubling down on the racism.. there was a kind of a war between the people like Jared and Ivanka, who wanted him to back off, General Kelley, and Bannon who wanted him to double down, which makes the timing of the phone call even weirder.
Goodman: He said to you ‘the Democrats, the longer they talk about identity politics, I got ‘em; I want them to talk about racism every day; if the left is focused on race and identity and we go with economics we can crush the Democrats.’
Kuttner: Yeah, and I pushed him very hard on that in the interview. I said look, even if we agree that our China policy is basically selling-out to a combination of Bejing’s economic nationalism and our own corporations who are happy to take the subsidies, happy to take the slave labor in China and then re-export back to the United States, that really does hurt American industry, hurts American workers; but, I said, even if we agree on that, why do you have to get in bed with neo Nazis on order to take a harder line on China on behalf of American workers? And that’s when he kind of drew this picture of a grand strategy where you connect the economic nationalism and the racism to the idea you box in the Democrats by forcing the Democrats to defend people of color.
You know, I was listening before we went on, Amy, to the fellow who was talking about pulling down the statue of Columbus, because it all started with Columbus. If that’s the strategy that the left adopts, it almost plays into Bannon’s hands… I think if you took a vote and asked people do you agree that we ought to pull down the statue of Columbus because the racism and the anti-native peoples all started with Columbus, most people would side with Bannon; so he’s very astutely playing off of liberals and decent people against this idea that the White working class is beleaguered; he does this much more deftly than his boss does. You get the feeling that Trump’s default setting is now just pure racism, pure jingoism, nativism and even getting in bed with Neo-Nazis; whereas Bannon at least (((has a grand theory))) about what he’s doing.
There are two ways to look at what’s going to happen going forward, either with Bannon out Trump becomes even more unhinged, left to his own devices, or he decides to pull back and make more (((an alliance with the mainstream - laughs - far right, otherwise known as the Republican Party.)))
I think we’ll get an indication of this in Phoenix, if he does pardon Sheriff Arpaio, that’s doubling down on the Bannon recipe, because Bannon was the buy who really coached him, using Breitbart, about the genius of going after Mexicans as rapists, and going after anti-immigrants and building a wall, that was pure Bannon.
Juan Gonzalez: I would like to ask you about his remarks on North Korea?
Kuttner: He made it very clear that he completely disagreed with his boss and on this point Bannon was actually right, he said unless someone can explain to me how ten million South Koreans in greater Seoul are not going to be killed by conventional weapons in the first thirty minutes, this talk of war is not sensible, and of course that directly contradicted what his boss had said just days earlier.
Bannon’s view is that because the Chinese are not really helping us out with the North Koreans, they just go through the motions of that, it’s the logic of mutually assured destruction that prevents Kim from launching a nuclear attack on The United States, even Kim is not that crazy. And because that’s the reality, says Bannon, and I agree with him on this one point, we could be taking a much harder line on China. But State Department, Defense Department, U.S. Trade Rep. are all backing off on China on the belief that China is going to pull its chestnuts out of the fire with regard to North Korea.
That’s a shrewd analysis, this is not a stupid man. But its a hundred degrees opposite to what his boss says.
And iterestingly, both Trump and Kim have pulled back in the last few days and that’s also classic Trump, ‘oh, that was yesterday, never mind.’
Goodman: In fact, after pulling back on North Korea, Trump said he was going to bomb Venezuela.
Kuttner: Yeah, and what’s really interesting about bombing Venezuela is that he’s given a free pass dictators from the Philippines to Turkey to Hungary, to Moscow… but somehow..
Goodman: to Saudi Arabia
Kuttner: to Saudi Arabia, we could go on, but somehow he picks Venezuela to go after, so if you have a left wing regime violating human rights you go after them, if you have right wing dictatorships going after human rights, god bless them.
Goodman: So, he talked about the White supremacists at Charlottesville as clowns; can you talk about his evaluation of what took place there?
Kuttner: I think that was another effort in his part, completely insincere to ingratiate himself with a progressive journalist.. ...it’s like the guy who’ll say anything to get a woman to got o bed with him, so he starts improvising, ‘oh, they’re clowns, we don’t take them seriously, we’ve got to crack down on them’ ...you don’t think he believes that for ten seconds and his base knows he doesn’t believe that for ten seconds.
....it’s very encouraging to see the upsurge of activism on the anti-racist side. What is tricky is that most Americans who are not well defined left or well defined far right...
Goodman: Interestingly, the White nationalists have just cancelled a bunch of rallies after getting trounced in these organizing counter measures from Boston on…
Kuttner: I was very proud of Boston. We had upwards of 40,000 demonstrators.
The far right people who called for this rally were revealed to be the pitifully small group that they really are. And that’s what we need to show them up for.
....at the end of the day, there are not that many Neo-Nazis.
Part of the way that the way this is playing out makes it look as if a lot of American sympathize with neo-Nazis, they don’t. And they need to be contained, and the fact that decent Americans all over the spectrum are willing to come out, demonstrate, contain them, that’s fantastic.
Posted by DanielS on Wednesday, 16 August 2017 17:33.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s son, Yair. (AFP)
Times of Israel, “Yair Netanyahu says leftists more dangerous than neo-Nazis”, 16 Aug 2017:
Echoing Trump, PM’s son claims ‘thugs of Antifa and Black Lives Matter are getting stronger’ while Nazis are a thing of the past.
The son of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday said American left-wing groups are more dangerous than neo-Nazis.
Weighing in on the weekend’s violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, during a far-right march, and US President Donald Trump’s controversial statements that “both sides were to blame” for the deadly incident, Yair Netanyahu said he was far more concerned by leftist organizations that have recently come into public focus.
“To put things in perspective,” Netanyahu wrote on Facebook, “I’m a Jew, I’m an Israeli, the neo nazis scums [sic] in Virginia hate me and my country. But they belong to the past. Their breed is dying out.
“However the thugs of Antifa and [Black Lives Matter] who hate my country (and America too in my view) just as much are getting stronger and stronger and becoming super dominant in American universities and public life.”
The Israeli premier himself tweeted Tuesday that he was “outraged by expressions of anti-Semitism, neo-Nazism and racism. Everyone should oppose this hatred,” after he was criticized for staying silent on Charlottesville.
In a response Wednesday afternoon to Yair Netanyahu’s comments, sources close to the prime minister said, “Yair is an adult and his views are his alone”
Trump’s stance was also supported by Likud MK Oren Hazan, who said Tuesday that the president “is right. Violence and extremism on any side is forbidden and demands condemnation. That doesn’t matter to the bleeding hearts on the left and in the media. After all, they believe that only the right is extremist and violent.”
Other Israeli politicians - from left and right - have been far more critical of Trump’s position, some more directly than others.
Education Minister Naftali Bennett has called on US leaders to denounce the rally’s “displays of anti-Semitism.” Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked of Bennett’s Jewish Home party has urged prosecution of neo-Nazi activists.
Yesh Atid chair MK Yair Lapid and Zionist Union number two MK Tzipi Livni explicitly criticized Trump’s equivalence.
“There aren’t two sides,” Lapid said in a Wednesday statement. “When Neo-Nazis march in Charlottesville and scream slogans against Jews and in support of white supremacy, the condemnation has to be unambiguous. They represent hate and evil. Anyone who believes in the human spirit must stand against them without fear.”
Livni said “When it comes to racism, anti-Semitism and Nazism, there are never two equal sides. There’s good and there’s evil. Period.”
Trump sparked a political firestorm Tuesday when he doubled down on his initial response to the violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville that ended in bloodshed, saying there was “blame on both sides.”
The Republican president — who the previous day solemnly denounced racism and singled out the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis as “criminals and thugs” — also hit out at what he called the “alt-left” over the weekend melee.
Trump has faced days of criticism from across the political spectrum over his reaction to Saturday’s unrest in the Virginia college town, where a rally by neo-Nazis and white supremacists over the removal of a Confederate statue erupted in clashes with counter-demonstrators.
The violent fracas ended in bloodshed when a 20-year-old suspected Nazi sympathizer, James Fields, plowed his car into a crowd of anti-racism protesters, leaving one woman dead and 19 people injured.
In a rowdy exchange with journalists at Trump Tower in New York, Trump made clear on Tuesday that he was fed up with continued questioning about the issue.
“I think there is blame on both sides,” Trump said.
As he spoke, his new White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, a former Marine general, appeared displeased during the president’s long tirade, standing rigidly.
“You had a group on one side that was bad, and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent. And nobody wants to say that, but I’ll say it right now,” Trump continued. “What about the alt-left that came charging… at the, as you say, the alt-right? Do they have any semblance of guilt?… There are two sides to a story.”
“What about the fact they came charging with clubs in their hands, swinging clubs? Do they have any problem? I think they do. As far as I am concerned, that was a horrible, horrible day,” Trump said.
Trump’s comments were immediately welcomed by David Duke, a former “grand wizard” of the Ku Klux Klan and a key figure at Saturday’s rally.
“Thank you President Trump for your honesty & courage to tell the truth about #Charlottesville & condemn the leftist terrorists,” Duke tweeted.
Torch-wielding white supremacists march at the University of Virginia on August 11, 2017 (Screen Capture/ YouTube)
But on the political left, the president’s words were met with indignation.
“Charlottesville violence was fueled by one side: white supremacists spreading racism, intolerance & intimidation. Those are the facts,” said Tim Kaine, a former Democratic vice presidential candidate and senator from Virginia.
The state’s other Democratic senator, Mark Warner, tweeted: “No words.”
Trump’s fellow Republicans also didn’t mince words.
“We must be clear. White supremacy is repulsive,” Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan wrote on Twitter.
“This bigotry is counter to all this country stands for. There can be no moral ambiguity.”
When asked why he waited until Monday to explicitly condemn hate groups present in Charlottesville, Trump said he wanted to be careful not to make a “quick statement” on Saturday without all the facts.
“I wanted to make sure, unlike most politicians, that what I said was correct,” Trump insisted.
Trump called Fields, who has been charged with second-degree murder, a “disgrace to himself, his family and this country.”
But he also said that while there were troublemakers at the rally, there were also many people there “to innocently protest and very legally protest” the removal of a “very important statue” of Confederate general Robert E Lee.
“I wonder, is it George Washington next week? And is it Thomas Jefferson the week after?” he said angrily, referring to the fact they owned slaves.
“Are we going to take down statues to George Washington? How about Thomas Jefferson? … You’re changing history. You’re changing culture.”
Robert Kuttner revealed his conversation with Bannon: “To me,” Bannon said, “the economic war with China is everything.” ... “Ethno-nationalism—it’s losers. It’s a fringe element. I think the media plays it up too much, and we gotta help crush it, you know, uh, help crush it more.” ...“These guys are a collection of clowns,” he added.
“We’re talking total destruction” 
Michael Cohen, liaising with the Russian Federation.
Click to page showing Trump-Russian links
Benjamin Netanyahu’s son, Yair. (AFP)
