[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.
[Majorityrights Central] A couple of exchanges on the nature and meaning of Christianity’s origin Posted by Guessedworker on Tuesday, 25 July 2023 22:19.
[Majorityrights News] Is the Ukrainian counter-offensive for Bakhmut the counter-offensive for Ukraine? Posted by Guessedworker on Thursday, 18 May 2023 18:55.
Posted by DanielS on Tuesday, 05 December 2017 08:49.
Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s possible collusion with Russia took a surprising turn on Friday — to Israel. However, this process began with claims of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign to win the last US presidential elections. Now the discussion has shifted to potential deal-making – or even diplomacy – of an incoming administration seeking to avoid a virtually irrevocable policy mistake that would harm a close ally while undermining the goals of several previous administrations to secure peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Is this what should bring Kushner down? No. Absolutely not.
Anonymous White House sources claimed that Jared Kushner was the unnamed Trump transition member who sent the former national security adviser Michael Flynn to talk to the Russian ambassador and other foreign diplomats about a controversial United Nations resolution that would have certainly harmed Israel.
The Forward, “Jared Kushner was right to ‘collude’ with Russia because he did it for Israel”, 3 Dec 2017:
Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s possible collusion with Russia took a surprising turn on Friday — to Israel. Anonymous White House sources claimed that Jared Kushner was the unnamed Trump transition member who sent the former national security adviser Michael Flynn to talk to the Russian ambassador and other foreign diplomats about a controversial United Nations resolution that would have certainly harmed Israel.
That resolution was Resolution 2334, which effectively declared any Israeli neighborhoods beyond the 1949 Armistice lines (the Green Line) to be illegal under international law. It also demanded that Israel “cease” all settlement activity, and it declared all the land beyond the 1967 lines to be Palestinian.
In the waning days of his presidency, Barack Obama chose not to use the critical U.S. veto on the Security Council to stop the Resolution from being passed, and Flynn’s mission, allegedly put to him by Kushner, was to influence the Russians and other governments on the council to delay or defeat it.
The legality or illegality of Kushner’s alleged actions notwithstanding, it will be both ironic and unfair if battling 2334 brings down Kushner.
For starters, past presidents have also communicated with foreign governments during their transitional periods, sometimes in circumstances that challenged their predecessors’ foreign policy. Eisenhower’s transitional administration secretly organized a visit to Korea. Likewise, Henry Kissinger made a secret trip to North Vietnam during Nixon’s transition.
Dec. 1, 2017, will be remembered as the day when the vast majority of Americans fully grasped the consequences of the 2016 elections. They installed a man in the White House “likely to be under investigation for criminality for a very, very long time to come.” And they gave power to a Republican Party whose only purpose is to comfort the already extremely comfortable.
The quotation above, from Donald Trump’s campaign rhetoric against Hillary Clinton, is now a better fit than ever for his own circumstances. The day after Michael Flynn’s guilty plea on Friday, Trump compounded his legal jeopardy with a tweet suggesting that (contrary to what he had said before) he knew Flynn, his onetime national security adviser, had lied to the FBI.
Trump’s lawyers will keep trying to explain his tweet away, but his overall vulnerability on obstructing justice has increased exponentially.
But it’s almost as important that Friday was also the day Senate Republican leaders brought forth a tax bill heralding the death of anything resembling a populist form of conservatism within the Republican Party. Plutocracy will now be the GOP’s calling card. Facing one of the most scandalous special-interest tax bills in a long history of such measures, even supposedly moderate members of the party caved in before the power of big money when the votes were counted early Saturday morning.
[...]
The leaders of “the world’s greatest deliberative body,” as the Senate pretentiously calls itself, no longer feel any obligation even to provide legible copies of complex legislation. The chicken scratches scribbled on the margins of their tax giveaway signed away any legitimacy these politicians can claim for their political project.
And deficits? Ah, deficits. They matter not a whit when there is money to pass out to corporations, rich heirs, private jet owners and the beer lobby represented by the son of one of our fine senators. But deficits will matter again soon, when Republicans will insist that they have no choice but to slash programs for the elderly, the sick and the poor.
One salutary outcome of this episode is that Trump showed how nonsensical were the widely repeated assertions that he was outside the Republican mainstream. We now know he is just a flamboyantly clownish and unconscionably mean version of an old-fashioned corporate conservative.
There is not an authentically populist bone in this billionaire’s body. He regularly demonstrates his utter contempt for working people by treating them as rubes.
He seems to think that racist gestures and malicious comments about immigrants and Muslims will distract working-class voters from how far he is tilting government away from their interests and toward those of his family and his rich friends.
Trump and his party will learn how many of the Americans they are taking for granted are much smarter than this and know when someone is selling them out — because, sadly, it’s something they are familiar with.
This is why the coincidence of the tax bill’s passage and Flynn’s decision to cooperate with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is so dangerous to Trump: The president’s populist mask is slipping at the very moment when he most needs to rally the troops. Flynn, who cherished the phrase “lock her up,” came face to face with the slammer himself and decided that loyalty to this most unfaithful of leaders was not worth the price. About this, at least, Flynn is right.
But don’t count on Republican politicians abandoning Trump quickly now that their tax victory is in sight. They and the president have a lot more in common than either side wants to admit. The primary loyalty they share is not to God or country or republican virtue. It is to the private accumulation of money, and this is a bond not easily broken.
“I’m a Multi-Millionaire So Trump’s Tax Plan Is Great for Me. It’s a Disaster for Everyone Else”
Discussion from minute 8:25 - 9:02
On Sunday, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released its report on the effects of the Senate GOP tax plan, and the results aren’t pretty. According to the CBO, if this bill passes there will be a huge transfer of wealth in our country from the middle class to the rich. Nearly every American making under $75,000 a year will have less money in the long run, while millionaires like me will have more money from all our tax cuts.
The plan would also add an astounding $1.4 trillion to the national debt. That’s 1.4 trillion reasons Republicans are going to use in the future to justify cutting Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
Senate Republicans claim their bill is intended to help the middle class, and that tax cuts for millionaires and wealthy corporations are necessary to boost economic growth and raise wages. People who invest in job-creating businesses know that the most important factor for economic growth is customers who have the means and desire to buy their products.
Discussion from minute 8:25 - 9:02
The idea that this tax plan is going to help anyone beside the ultra-rich is ludicrous. Even a brief examination of their bill shows how blatantly untrue their claims are.
Yes, some middle-class Americans are going to get a tax cut, but it will be temporary and will leave millions worse off in the long run. If you make less than $75,000 a year, your taxes are going up so mine can go down.
What about those huge tax cuts for millionaires and wealthy corporations? Those are permanent. That disparity tells you everything you need to know about the bill.
To make matters worse, the Senate bill’s elimination of the Obamacare individual mandate would absolutely wreck the healthcare market. Without the mandate, health care premiums would rise across the board by about 10%, increasing costs for consumers and forcing those who can’t afford the increase to go without.
Discussion from minute 8:25 - 9:02
The CBO estimates that without the mandate an extra 4 million Americans would be without insurance by 2019, a number which rises all the way to 13 million by 2027. Some of those people will end up going bankrupt, and that won’t help them, the businesses where they shop or any other part of the economy besides the debt collection industry.
After years of talk about the danger of deficits and the importance of helping small businesses, this bill puts Senate Republicans’ priorities in the spotlight, and the American people (rightly) don’t like what they’re seeing. Any tax bill will naturally have winners and losers as rates are changed and loopholes are closed, but it’s striking how clearly the lines in this bill have been drawn. If you’re rich, you’re a winner. If you’re not, you’re a loser. That’s not tax reform, it’s a handout to the wealthy.
Discussion from minute 8:25 - 9:02
The zealous support for this bill by many Senators baffles me. Some of the bill’s loudest advocates, like Mitch McConnell of Kentucky or Tim Scott of South Carolina, represent states full of people that stand to lose if this passes. They are pushing a bill that will hurt the vast majority of their constituents, all to please a few wealthy donors. That decision isn’t just morally reprehensible, it’s political suicide.
The effects of this tax bill are clear — I’ll get a tax cut, and the middle class gets screwed. That’s apparently an acceptable tradeoff for many members of the Senate, but it’s not ok with me, and it shouldn’t be ok with the American people.
Posted by DanielS on Saturday, 02 December 2017 09:51.
President Donald Trump sits alongside Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and senior adviser Jared Kushner during a meeting at the White House in Washington on Sept. 26, 2017. AP Photo, Evan Vucci
Bloomberg, “Kushner Is Leaving Tillerson in the Dark on Middle East Talks, Sources Say”, 2 Dec 2017:
- Rex Tillerson worries secret plan could plunge region into chaos.
-White House rejects accusation State Department isn’t informed.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is increasingly alarmed by what he sees as secret talks between Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, and Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman—fearful that the discussions could backfire and tip the region into chaos, according to three people familiar with Tillerson’s concerns.
The central goal of the Kushner-Prince Mohammed negotiations, as described by two people with knowledge of the talks, is for an historic agreement featuring the creation of a Palestinian state or territory backed financially by a number of countries including Saudi Arabia, which could put tens of billions of dollars toward the effort.
A lasting Middle East peace treaty has been a U.S. goal for decades, and at the start of his administration Trump assigned the 36-year-old Kushner to head up the effort to make it happen.
Tillerson believes Kushner hasn’t done enough to share details of the talks with the State Department, according to the people, leaving senior U.S. diplomats in the dark on the full extent of the highly sensitive negotiations.
“The problem is, the senior presidential adviser does not consult with the State Department—and it’s unclear the level of consultation that goes on with the NSC,” one of the people familiar with Tillerson’s concerns said, referring to the National Security Council. “And that’s a problem for both the NSC and the State Department and it’s not something we can easily solve.”
The concerns predate reports this week that Trump may move to oust Tillerson by the end of the year—reports the president rejected but which Tillerson’s team believes are being stoked by Kushner allies, one person said. An administration official said Kushner had nothing to do with those reports.
[...]
It isn’t clear how far along the discussions are between Kushner and Prince Mohammed, three people said. And some in the U.S. government are skeptical the effort will succeed, in part because of the historic intractability of Israelis and Palestinians and because any peace deal would ultimately require the support of many competing leaders in the region.
The State Department officials’ skepticism about the Middle East discussions also reveals ongoing frustration at the president’s decision to go around them and the U.S. diplomatic corps he frequently disparages. Instead, Trump placed delicate peace negotiations in the hands of Kushner, who has no experience in diplomacy and little background in the complexities of one of the world’s most volatile regions.
Yet Trump, who has long spoken of Mideast peace as the ultimate trophy for a career dealmaker, has shown unwavering faith in his son-in-law’s ability to deliver.“If you can’t produce peace in the Middle East, nobody can,” the president told Kushner onstage at a black-tie event celebrating his inauguration in January. “All my life I’ve been hearing that’s the toughest deal to make, but I have a feeling Jared is going to do a great job.”
“The greatest dangers in the Middle East today are Jared Kushner and Mohamed bin Salman”
The sort of Neo-con and right-wing think tankers, who in 2003 were saying that a war with Iraq would be a doddle, are back in business in Washington, pushing for war with Iran – and are stronger than ever.
Shortly before the earthquake in Baghdad, I was making the above point about Iraq stabilising to a European diplomat. He said this might be true, but that real danger to peace “comes from a combination of three people: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Trump’s son-in-law and Middle East envoy Jared Kushner, and Bibi Netanyahu in Israel.”
Probably, the Saudis and the Americans exaggerate the willingness of Netanyahu and Israel to go to war. Netanyahu has always been strong on bellicose rhetoric, but cautious about real military conflict (except in Gaza, which was more massacre than war).
Israel’s military strength tends to be exaggerated and its army has not won a war outright since 1973. Previous engagements with Hezbollah have gone badly. Israeli generals know that the threat of military action can be more effective than its use in maximising Israeli political influence, but that actually going to war means losing control of the situation. They will know the saying of the 19th century German chief of staff, Helmuth Von Moltke, that “no plan survives contact with the enemy”.
But even if the Israelis do not intend to fight Hezbollah or Iran, this does not mean that they would not like somebody else to do so for them. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi told me in an interview earlier this month that his greatest fear was a US-Iranian confrontation fought out in Iraq. This could happen directly or through proxies, but in either case would end the present fragile peace.
On the optimistic side, US policy in Iraq and Syria is largely run by the Pentagon and not the White House, and has not changed much since President Obama’s days. It has been successful in its aim of destroying Isis and the self-declared caliphate.
The wars in Iraq and Syria already have their winners and losers: President Bashar al-Assad stays in power in Damascus, as does a Shia-dominated government in Baghdad. An Iranian-backed substantially Shia axis in four countries – Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon – stretches from the Afghan border to the Mediterranean. This is the outcome of the wars since 2011, which is not going to be reversed except by a US land invasion – as happened in Iraq in 2003.
The great danger in the Middle East today is that Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman and Jared Kushner appear to have a skewed and unrealistic understanding of the world around them. Inspector Clouseau seems to have a greater influence on Saudi policy than Machiavelli, going by the antics surrounding the forced resignation of Saad Hariri as Prime Minister of Lebanon. This sort of thing is not going to frighten the Iranians or Hezbollah.
The signs are that Iran has decided to go a long way to avoid confrontation with the US. In Iraq, it is reported that it will support the re-election of Abadi as prime minister which is also what the US wants. Iran knows that it has come out on the winning side in Iraq and Syria and does not need to flaunt its success. It may also believe that the Crown Prince is using anti-Iranian nationalist rhetoric to secure his own power and does not intend to do much about it.
Nobody has much to gain from another war in the Middle East, but wars are usually started by those who miscalculate their own strengths and interests. Both the US and Saudi Arabia have become “wild cards” in the regional pack. The sort of Neo-con and right-wing think tankers, who in 2003 were saying that a war with Iraq would be a doddle, are back in business in Washington, pushing for war with Iran – and are stronger than ever.
The wars in the Middle East should be ending, but they could just be entering a new phase. Leaders in the US and Saudi Arabia may not want a new war, but they might just blunder into one.
Politico, “Kushner took unannounced trip to Saudi Arabia”, 29 Oct 2017:
President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner returned home Saturday from an unannounced visit to Saudi Arabia — his third trip to the country this year.
Kushner left Washington, D.C., via commercial airline on Wednesday for the trip, which was not announced to the public, a White House official told POLITICO. He traveled separately from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who led a delegation to Riyadh last week to focus on combating terrorist financing.
Kushner was accompanied in the region by deputy national security adviser Dina Powell and Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt. Greenblatt continued from Saudi Arabia to Amman, Jordan; Cairo; the West Bank city of Ramallah; and Jerusalem, where he was on Sunday.
Haaretz, “Israel, Egypt Pushed U.S. to Bomb Iran Before Nuclear Deal, John Kerry Says”, 29 Nov 2017:
Speaking at a Washington forum, the former secretary of state said that Prime Minister Netanyahu was ‘genuinely agitating toward action’ against Iran.
Former Secretary of State John Kerry said both Israel and Egypt pushed the United States to “bomb Iran” before the 2015 nuclear deal was struck.
Kerry defended the deal during a forum in Washington, where he said that a number of kings and foreign presidents told the U.S. that bombing was the only language Iran would understand.
Kerry said that in his opinion it was “a trap” because the same countries would have publicly criticized the U.S. if it did carry out a bombing of Iran as they were secretly supporting.
Kerry said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was “genuinely agitating toward action.”
Kerry said he didn’t know whether Iran would resume pursuing a nuclear weapon in 10 to 15 years after restrictions in the deal sunset, but he said it was the best deal the U.S. could get.
In October, lawmakers in the United States approved four different pieces of legislation targeting Iran and its proxy terror group in Lebanon, Hezbollah, after U.S. President Donald Trump refused to re-certify the nuclear deal, leaving its fate to Congress.
At the time, Netanyahu congratulated Trump for what he called his “courageous decision” not to recertify the nuclear deal with Iran.
“He boldly confronted Iran’s terrorist regime,” Netanyahu said. “If the Iran deal is left unchanged, one thing is absolutely certain. In a few years’ time, the world’s foremost terrorist regime will have an arsenal of nuclear weapons. And that’s a tremendous danger for our collective future.”
Netanyahu said Trump has created an “opportunity to fix this bad deal, to roll back Iran’s aggression and to confront its criminal support of terrorism.”
“That’s why Israel embraces this opportunity,” Netanyahu said.
Earlier this month, the United Nations agency monitoring Iran’s compliance with a landmark nuclear treaty issued a report Monday stating that the country is keeping its end of the deal that U.S. President Donald Trump claims Tehran has violated repeatedly.
The International Atomic Energy Agency report stopped short of declaring outright that Iran is honoring its obligations, in keeping with its official role as an impartial monitor of the restrictions the treaty placed on Tehran’s nuclear programs.
But in reporting no violations, the quarterly review’s takeaway was that Iran was honoring its commitments to crimp uranium enrichment and other activities that can serve both civilian and military nuclear programs.
Foreign Policy, “Kushner, Mohammed bin Salman, and Benjamin Netanyahu Are Up to Something”, 7 Nov 2017:
It looks a lot like a plan to squeeze Iran.
There seems to be a general consensus in Washington that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s ongoing purge of princes and businessmen — including the wealthiest of them all, the business mogul and Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal — is motivated by his determination to consolidate his power, well before his father, King Salman, passes from the scene. He is in this regard a latter-day Adonijah, who had himself crowned king while his father King David was alive. And, like Adonijah, Mohammed bin Salman has made some very powerful enemies in the process. Unlike that Biblical figure, however, he has his father’s support and has taken care to arrest anyone who might threaten his drive to preeminence.
Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor, was in Riyadh again only recently. It was his third trip to Saudi Arabia since Trump took office. He again met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, with whom he appears to have established a close personal relationship. It should therefore come as no surprise that Trump, who shares the young crown prince’s antipathy toward Iran, has commented favorably on the recent developments in Riyadh.
Posted by DanielS on Saturday, 02 December 2017 06:04.
Red Ice, “Free Sweden: An Association to Ensure a Future for Swedish People”, 1 Dec 2017:
Dan Eriksson lives in Berlin, Germany and is Nationalistic writer, public speaker, podcaster and online video producer for Motgift (antidote). Ingrid Carlqvist worked in mainstream media for many years, before starting Dispatch International with Lars Hedegaard in 2012. She has been a writer for Gatestone Institute and co-hosts the popular Swedish podcast, Ingrid & Conrad. Daniel Frändelöv, who goes by the name Conrad, has been running the popular Swedish podcast Ingrid & Conrad since 2015. For the past five six years, he’s been preoccupied with the thought of the destruction of Sweden and was previously the co-host of Radio Länsman.
Our guests join us to discuss a new exciting nationalist initiative called Free Sweden. First, we discuss how Free Sweden came to be. We learn that the organization, which was created to serve the interests of Swedes, has gathered gained an impressive membership and substantial funding since its recent launch. We then discuss Sweden’s demographic woes. Our guests explain that the Swedish state has become hostile to the interests of ethnic Swedes, which is why Free Sweden is so necessary. Later, we discuss how Free Sweden is not a separatist organization – quite the contrary, The show also covers the need to reconnect with nature, the Swedish government’s response to Free Sweden, and the meaning behind the organization’s symbol.
Posted by DanielS on Friday, 01 December 2017 10:07.
The New Arab, “China to deploy ‘Night Tigers’ to Syria in support of Assad’s forces”, 29 Nov 2017:
China will deploy troops to Syria in support of President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, as the East Asian country becomes increasingly concerned about the presence of Islamic militants in its far western region of Xinjiang.
The Chinese Ministry of Defence intends to send troops from its Special Operations Forces to Syria in support of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime
The Chinese Defence Ministry intends to send two units known as the “Tigers of Siberia” and the “Night Tigers” from the Special Operations Forces to aid regime troops against militant factions, New Khaleej reported, citing informed sources.
Some 5,000 ethnic Uighurs from China’s violence-prone region of Xinjiang are fighting in various militant groups in Syria, the Syrian ambassador to China said earlier this year.
Chinese state media has blamed violence in Xinjiang on extremists who were trained in Syria.
Hundreds of people have been killed in Xinjiang in the past few years, most in unrest between Uighurs and ethnic majority Han Chinese. The government blames the unrest on Islamist militants who want a separate state called East Turkestan.
Uighurs themselves complain of discrimination and say their traditional and religious way of life is being eroded by Chinese domestic policy and an influx of settlers from elsewhere in China.
China has said that “East Turkestan terrorist forces” had posed several threats against the government.
Assad has previously praised “crucial cooperation” between Syria and Chinese intelligence against Uighur militants, adding ties with China were “on the rise”.
Chinese military personnel have been on the ground in Syria since at least last year, training Syrian forces to use China-made weapons.
China has also joined Russia in blocking resolutions critical of the regime at the United Nations Security Council, as one of the five vetoing powers on the panel.
The very last line of this article is inarticulate in the sense that China has not “joined” Russia in a partnership of sorts; but is rather acting in its own interests in vetoing the UN Security Council resolution; a veto which happens to coincide with Russia’s veto of UN Security Council resolutions critical of al-Assad.
Posted by DanielS on Thursday, 30 November 2017 07:53.
Orthodox Christians look quite similar to orthodox Jews. (((Cohencidence)))
Blessed Jewish mother’s ‘immaculate conception of god’ - i.e., king of the Jews - crucified by the Romans.
Radio Aryan, “The Orthodox Nationalist: Soviet Ideology, Western Delusion and the ROC in the USSR” - TON 112917
22:08: “The fact is that Orthodox politics has been set down in the Old Testament; and in the political theory of the great Orthodox nations and empires from Byzantium to Russia.”
- ‘The Orthodox Nationalist’, Dr. Matthew Raphael Johnson
Posted by DanielS on Wednesday, 29 November 2017 06:01.
Ann Marie Waters:
How it feels to me is that the walls are closing-in, and the walls are closing-in more every day. You see it all the time: There was a girl, a woman in Sweden, recently, and she was raped by Syrian migrants in her own flat. Now, the evidence was all there, her body was black and blue, there was DNA, there was semen, there was all the rest of it. And the prosecution, the police told her that there wasn’t enough evidence for a prosecution, and she killed herself.
Now, we have seen this happen up in Sunderland, with Justice for Chelsea, again, a massive load of evidence, but no prosecutions brought. So, they are closing in, they are closing-in and we are being told that black is white. We have all this evidence and we’re being told there’s no evidence. We have all these migrant rapes and we’re being told there’s no migrant rapes. We have what happened in Cologne; and the next day we were told that it has nothing to do with migrants, even though migrants had committed it.
We are essentially living in Orwell’s 1984, where we are seeing something with our own eyes and we’re told it’s not happening. And if we identify it and we dare to speak it, then we are shunned. We have people who are threatened with loss of their livelihood. A friend of mine, Annie the Greek, who some of you who follow me on Twitter might know, has lost her job. She lost her job in the NHS because she refused to apologize for her political opinion.
Now we’re in a situation, now take this in, take this in. In the last… I remember twenty years ago, it wasn’t like this, it wasn’t like this; ten years ago, it wasn’t like this; but take it in - we are now at risk of losing our jobs if we say the wrong thing. We are at risk of having our venues closed if we say the wrong thing. We are at risk of going to prison, quite frankly, if we say the wrong thing. That’s the situation we’re in. It is deathly serious. it really is. And no amount of calling me a far-right fascist is going to change the reality.