TBR News January 31, 2017

Jan 31 2017

The Voice of the White House 

Washington, D.C. January 31, 2017:“”Trump is obviously trying not to make the same error Germany’s Merkel did when she allowed floods of Mid-East refugees into her country without properly checking them first.

Now, Germany has a considerable problem with arrogant Muslims committing rape, robbery and murder.

The Germans are now, in many cases far too late, checking the immigrants and expelling those who are obviously trouble-makers.

All Trump has been trying to do is to slow down immigrant influx until the competent authority can be properly expanded to handle them.

Naturally, the left wing press howls with rage and sobs with grief over stranded foreigners in airports but their editors, and publishers, are well aware of the real situation.

Once the immigration agency is properly staffed, the flow of visitors and immigrants can continue.

None of this is a mystery to the media but as professional and ideological Trump haters, they choose to create a mountain of hysteria from a molehill of truth.”

Descending into Darkness: The Making of a Wartime President

by Brian Harring

www.amazon.com  kindle ebooks $3.99

 

“THE HARRING REPORT IS ANOTHER ‘DEEP THROAT’”

 

Published for the first time ever, Descending Into Darkness shows the actual, as opposed to the propaganda, background to the upheavals in the Middle East and the reasons for the 9/11 attacks. It also includes the complete, as contrasted with the false, official (at the time this book went to press) DoD listings of U.S. Military casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Also in Prelude to Disaster:

  • Events leading up to Operation Iraqi Freedom
  • War in Iraq – Russian Military Intelligence Reports & Assessment [March 17-April 8, 2003]
  • The “Nazi” Neocons – Who are they?
  • The Secret Downing Street Memo – Setting the Stage for 9/11
  • Israeli Espionage Against the United States

Table of Contents

  • Trump fires US Attorney General Yates who defied travel ban
  • Exclusive: Trump administration to allow 872 refugees into U.S. this week – document
  • Secret Docs Reveal: President Trump Has Inherited an FBI With Vast Hidden Powers
  • The McCain Malady
  • Trump pushes drugmakers for lower prices, more U.S. production
  • End of tax-free living in Saudi Arabia as oil revenues dry up
  • Israeli army gives West Bank settlers 48 hours to leave
  • Trump Quiets Some Russian Doubts
  • Turkey tourism stuck in crisis
  • The Zipper Documents and the Assassination of Kennedy- Part 4
  • ‘Mein Kampf’: Murphy translation: Part 21

Trump fires US Attorney General Yates who defied travel ban

US President Donald Trump has fired acting Attorney General Sally Yates, who hours ago directed Justice Department employees not to defend his travel ban. Yates’ replacement has been quickly sworn in.

January 31, 2017

DW

The White House announced on Monday evening that Trump had fired Yates for “betraying the Department of Justice” for refusing to enforce his executive order.

“Ms. Yates is an Obama Administration appointee who is weak on borders and very weak on illegal immigration,” the White House said in a statement.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer announced Yates’ replacement on Twitter.

The new acting Attorney General Dana Boente, who will work until Trump’s pick for attorney general, Jeff Sessions, gets confirmation from Senate, is expected to enforce the immigration order.

Yates’ Defiance

Sally Yates, who was named deputy attorney general by former US President Barack Obama in 2015, said Monday she was not convinced that Trump’s executive order to bar US entry to people from seven Muslim nations was lawful.

“The Department of Justice will not present arguments in defense of the executive order,” she said.

In a letter to Justice Department attorneys, Yates noted that Trump’s order had been challenged in court in a number of jurisdictions.

“My responsibility is to ensure that the position of the Department of Justice is not only legally defensible, but is informed by our best view of what the law is,” she wrote.

“I am responsible for ensuring that the positions we take in court remain consistent with this institution’s solemn obligation to always seek justice and stand for what is right.”

Resistance against the order

Earlier, Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed a lawsuit challenging the executive order as illegal and unconstitutional.

“No one is above the law – not even the president,” Ferguson told a press briefing. “And in the courtroom, it is not the loudest voice that prevails. It’s the constitution.”

At least three top national security officials – Defense Secretary James Mattis, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly and Rex Tillerson, who are awaiting confirmation to lead the State Department – reportedly said they were unaware of the details of the directive until Trump signed it.

Former US President Barack Obama on Monday added his voice to a myriad of American figures criticizing President Trump’s executive order.

Obama “fundamentally disagrees with the notion of discrimination against individuals because of their faith or religion,” the former president’s spokesman Kevin Lewis said in a statement .

Meanwhile, public protests against the “Muslim ban” continue in a number of major US cities.

Trump on Monday also replaced Daniel Ragsdale, the acting director of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), with Thomas Homan, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Homan has worked for ICE since 2013, where he has been in charge of the arrest and removal of undocumented immigrants.

Exclusive: Trump administration to allow 872 refugees into U.S. this week – document

January 31, 2017

by Julia Edwards Ainsley

Reuters

WASHINGTON-The U.S. government has granted waivers to let 872 refugees into the country this week, despite President Donald Trump’s executive order on Friday temporarily banning entry of refugees from any country, according to an internal Department of Homeland Security document seen by Reuters.

A Homeland Security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the waivers, noting that the refugees were considered “in transit” and had already been cleared for resettlement before the ban took effect.

Refugees preparing for resettlement typically have severed personal ties and relinquished their possessions, leaving them particularly vulnerable if their plans to depart are suddenly canceled.

The waivers, granted by the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), came amid international protests against Trump’s rushed executive order. Critics said the order in some cases was not clearly communicated to the agencies responsible for implementing it.

It was not known if additional waivers would be granted, the official said. The document did not give the nationalities of the refugees who will be admitted into the United States.

Over the weekend, non-refugee visitors from seven majority-Muslim countries also targeted in Trump’s executive order were detained, deported and in some cases blocked from boarding flights to the United States.

The countries covered by the traveler ban were Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Libya and Yemen.

The internal DHS document said that between late Friday and early Monday 348 visa holders were prevented from boarding U.S.-bound flights. In addition, more than 200 people landed in the United States but were denied entry, the document showed.

More than 735 people were pulled aside for questioning by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers in airports, including 394 legal permanent U.S. residents holding green cards, over the same time period.

Trump said the executive order he signed on Friday was designed to protect the United States “from foreign terrorist entry.”

The order stopped all refugee admissions for 120 days while government officials determine how to ensure that any refugees admitted do not pose a threat.

The 872 refugees to be admitted this week, under the waivers, were screened using Obama administration procedures, which typically take two years and include several interviews and a background check.

The DHS said on Sunday night that green card holders would be allowed to board U.S.-bound flights, but would be subjected to additional scrutiny upon arrival.

The public guidance from DHS also said some people from the seven majority-Muslim countries could be allowed entry to the United States on a case-by-case basis.

Congressional Democrats and some foreign countries, including key U.S. allies, put pressure on Trump on Monday over the executive order.

Democratic Senators tried to force a vote on a bill to rescind the order, but were blocked by a Republican lawmaker. Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein said she had 27 co-sponsors for the legislation. But under Senate rules it takes only one member to prevent a vote, and Republican Senator Tom Cotton blocked consideration of the measure.

The Democrats’ leader in the U.S. Senate, Chuck Schumer, said he would bring legislation on Monday evening seeking to end the ban, although the measure stood little chance of being passed by the Republican-led Congress.

(Reporting by Julia Edwards Ainsley; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Jonathan Oatis)

 Secret Docs Reveal: President Trump Has Inherited an FBI With Vast Hidden Powers

January 31 2017

by Glenn Greenwald and Betsy Reed

The Intercept

In the wake of President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the FBI assumes an importance and influence it has not wielded since J. Edgar Hoover’s death in 1972. That is what makes today’s batch of stories from The Intercept, The FBI’s Secret Rules, based on a trove of long-sought confidential FBI documents, so critical: It shines a bright light on the vast powers of this law enforcement agency, particularly when it comes to its ability to monitor dissent and carry out a domestic war on terror, at the beginning of an era highly likely to be marked by vociferous protest and reactionary state repression.

In order to understand how the FBI makes decisions about matters such as infiltrating religious or political organizations, civil liberties advocates have sued the government for access to crucial FBI manuals — but thanks to a federal judiciary highly subservient to government interests, those attempts have been largely unsuccessful. Because their disclosure is squarely in the public interest, The Intercept is publishing this series of reports along with annotated versions of the documents we obtained.

Trump values loyalty to himself above all other traits, so it is surely not lost on him that few entities were as devoted to his victory, or played as critical a role in helping to achieve it, as the FBI. One of the more unusual aspects of the 2016 election, perhaps the one that will prove to be most consequential, was the covert political war waged between the CIA and FBI. While the top echelon of the CIA community was vehemently pro-Clinton, certain factions within the FBI were aggressively supportive of Trump. Hillary Clinton herself blames James Comey and his election-week letter for her defeat. Elements within the powerful New York field office were furious that Comey refused to indict Clinton, and embittered agents reportedly shoveled anti-Clinton leaks to Rudy Giuliani. The FBI’s 35,000 employees across the country are therefore likely to be protected and empowered. Trump’s decision to retain Comey — while jettisoning all other top government officials — suggests that this has already begun to happen.

When married to Trump’s clear disdain for domestic dissent — he venerates strongman authoritarians, called for a crackdown on free press protections, and suggested citizenship-stripping for flag-burning — the authorities vested in the FBI with regard to domestic political activism are among the most menacing threats Americans face. Trump is also poised to expand the powers of law enforcement to surveil populations deemed suspicious and deny their rights in the name of fighting terrorism, as he has already done with his odious restrictions on immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries. Understanding how the federal government’s law enforcement agency interprets the legal limits on its own powers is, in this context, more essential than ever. Until now, however, the rules governing the FBI have largely been kept secret.

Today’s publication is the result of months of investigation by our staff, and we planned to publish these articles and documents regardless of the outcome of the 2016 election. The public has an interest in understanding the FBI’s practices no matter who occupies the White House. But in the wake of Trump’s victory, and the unique circumstances that follow from it, these revelations take on even more urgency.

After Congress’s 1976 Church Committee investigated the excesses of Hoover’s FBI, in particular the infamous COINTELPRO program — in which agents targeted and subverted any political groups the government deemed threatening, including anti-war protesters, black nationalists, and civil rights activists — a series of reforms were enacted to rein in the FBI’s domestic powers. As The Intercept and other news outlets have amply documented, in the guise of the war on terror the FBI has engaged in a variety of tactics that are redolent of the COINTELPRO abuses — including, for example, repeatedly enticing innocent Muslims into fake terror schemes concocted by the bureau’s own informants. What The Intercept’s reporting on this new trove of documents shows is how the FBI has quietly transformed the system of rules and restraints put in place after the scandals of the ’70s, opening the door for a new wave of civil liberties violations. When asked to respond to this critique, the FBI provided the following statement:

All FBI policies are written to ensure that the FBI consistently and appropriately applies the lawful tools we use to assess and investigate criminal and national security threats to our nation. All of our authorities and techniques are founded in the Constitution, U.S. law, and Attorney General Guidelines. FBI policies and rules are audited and enforced through a rigorous internal compliance mechanism, as well as robust oversight from the Inspector General and Congress. FBI assessments and investigations are subject to responsible review and are designed to protect the rights of all Americans and the safety of our agents and sources, acting within the bounds of the Constitution.

Absent these documents and the facts of how the bureau actually operates, this may sound reassuring. But to judge how well the bureau is living up to these abstract commitments, it is necessary to read the fine print of its byzantine rules and regulations — which the FBI’s secrecy has heretofore made it impossible for outsiders to do. Now, thanks to our access to these documents — which include the FBI’s governing rulebook, known as the DIOG, and classified policy guides for counterterrorism cases and handling confidential informants — The Intercept is able to share a vital glimpse of how the FBI understands and wields its enormous power.

For example, the bureau’s agents can decide that a campus organization is not “legitimate” and therefore not entitled to robust protections for free speech; dig for derogatory information on potential informants without any basis for believing they are implicated in unlawful activity; use a person’s immigration status to pressure them to collaborate and then help deport them when they are no longer useful; conduct invasive “assessments” without any reason for suspecting the targets of wrongdoing; demand that companies provide the bureau with personal data about their users in broadly worded national security letters without actual legal authority to do so; fan out across the internet along with a vast army of informants, infiltrating countless online chat rooms; peer through the walls of private homes; and more. The FBI offered various justifications of these tactics to our reporters. But the documents and our reporting on them ultimately reveal a bureaucracy in dire need of greater transparency and accountability.

One of the documents contains an alarming observation about the nation’s police forces, even as perceived by the FBI. Officials of the bureau were so concerned that many of these police forces are linked to, at times even populated by, overt white nationalists and white supremacists, that they have deemed it necessary to take that into account in crafting policies for sharing information with them. This news arrives in an ominous context, as the nation’s law enforcement agencies are among the few institutional factions in the U.S. that supported Trump, and they did so with virtual unanimity. Trump ran on a platform of unleashing an already out-of-control police — “I will restore law and order to our country,” he thundered when accepting the Republican nomination — and now the groups most loyal to Trump are those that possess a state monopoly over the use of force, many of which are infused with racial animus.

The Church Committee reforms were publicly debated and democratically enacted, based on the widespread fears of sustained FBI overreach brought to light by aggressive reporters like Seymour Hersh. It is simply inexcusable to erode those protections in the dark, with no democratic debate.

As we enter the Trump era, with a nominated attorney general who has not hidden his contempt for press freedoms and a president who has made the news media the primary target of his vitriol, one of the most vital weapons for safeguarding basic liberties and imposing indispensable transparency is journalism that exposes information the government wants to keep suppressed. For exactly that reason, it is certain to be under even more concerted assault than it has been during the last 15 years. The revealing, once-secret FBI documents The Intercept is today reporting on, and publishing, demonstrate why protecting press freedom is more critical than ever.

The McCain Malady

January 30, 2017

by Charles Goyette

AntiWar

You know you are in the presence of an emotional affect when there is not even the pretense of rationality to someone’s crazed outburst, not so much as a veneer or patina of sensibility.

But then John McCain has always been like that, hotheaded and short-fused.

Still, in his response to Trump’s executive order on refugees, McCain’s deep disturbance is plain for all to see. The Senator’s hometown newspaper headlined its account this way: “McCain calls ban good for ISIS propaganda.”

Here’s the lead:

US Senator John McCain on Sunday blasted President Donald Trump’s controversial temporary refugee ban… as ‘a confused process’ that will boost the terrorist Islamic State’s propaganda efforts.

Later on, we learn that McCain and his bombing buddy Lindsey Graham issued a statement saying that “this executive order may do more to help terrorist recruiting than improve our security.”

That’s funny. Nobody remembers McCain or Graham ever suggesting that bombing foreign people in their own countries would be “good for ISIS propaganda,” and that it just might “help terrorist recruiting.”

So to put the peculiar view into perspective: We can enter our neighbors’ homes and kill their family members without provoking them. But if we refuse to invite them into our home, they might react negatively.

McCain has distinguished himself for his bellicosity, constantly calling for US interventions around the globe. Among the countries that McCain has demanded the US invade, bomb, or destabilize are Syria, Iraq (repeatedly), Russia, North Korea, Afghanistan, Libya, Kosovo, Nigeria, Bosnia, Iran, Georgia, Sudan, Mali, and perhaps China. McCain is so identified with a happy trigger-finger that he has become an easy target for satire. The satirical newspaper The Daily Currant was spot on when it “reported on” McCain calling for the invasion and bombing of Belgium because of its defeat of the United States at the World Cup:

“Belgium is a rogue state whose outrageous behavior at the World Cup was a show of aggression toward the United States, for which President Obama must respond immediately with military force,” McCain told Fox News this morning. “In fact, I believe that anything less than a swift invasion and regime change in Belgium would show weakness to our enemies.”

We will all be better off when destructive psychological deficits and personal complexes, those of presidents, senators, news anchors and other public figures, can no longer play out on the world stage.

It’s a compelling reason to disempower the State.

Trump pushes drugmakers for lower prices, more U.S. production

January 31, 2017

by Roberta Rampton

Reuters

WASHINGTON-U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday called on the pharmaceutical industry to boost U.S. production and lower prices, while also vowing to speed up approval times for new medicines and appoint a new U.S. Food and Drug Administration leader soon.

Shares of five of the six drug companies at the White House meeting with Trump were up more than 1 percent on average following the president’s remarks, compared with a 0.5 percent drop in the broad S&P 500. The Nasdaq Biotech Index was up 1.1 percent, reversing earlier losses, and the S&P 500 health care index gained 0.7 percent.

Attending the meeting were the CEOs of Novartis AG, Merck & Co Inc, Johnson & Johnson, Celgene Corp, Eli Lilly & Co and Amgen Inc as well as the head of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America lobbying group.

Trump told the drugmakers that pricing had been “astronomical.”

“We have to get prices down for a lot of reasons. We have no choice, for Medicare and Medicaid,” Trump said at the meeting, citing the nation’s government insurance programs for the elderly, the poor and the disabled that together are the largest U.S. purchaser of medications.

Trump also said currency devaluation by other countries had increased drugmakers’ outsourcing their production and called on the companies to make more of their products in the United States.

He added that foreign countries must pay fair share for drug development costs.

“We’re going to end global freeloading,” Trump said.

Novartis CEO Joe Jimenez, who is chairman-elect of the industry lobbying group, said last week that he wanted to talk to Trump about efforts to develop pricing models that would pay for clinical results rather than a flat price per pill, as well as plans to replace the Affordable Care Act, which is popularly known as “Obamacare.”

Trump spooked investors in the pharmaceuticals and biotech sectors by saying on Jan. 11, before his inauguration, that drug companies were “getting away with murder” on what they charged the government for medicine and that he would do something about it.

That prompted the pharmaceutical lobbying group to unveil a new TV marketing campaign last week to improve its image by focusing attention on strides in research.

Company executives, meanwhile, have tried to tread a careful line in defending their industry while expressing optimism that the United States would continue to reward scientific advances.

(Additional reporting by Eric Beech, Ben Hirschler and John Miller; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

End of tax-free living in Saudi Arabia as oil revenues dry up

January 31, 2016

RT

Saudi Arabia has introduced a value-added tax (VAT) with the approval of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), indicating the end of life without VAT across the Gulf

The decision was taken on Monday and implies a five percent levy on some goods across the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council, which unites Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

Other Gulf countries are also expected to follow and introduce the VAT system by the beginning of 2018.

The move has IMF backing, which recommended the Gulf States impose revenue raising measures. The countries have already introduced taxes on tobacco and fizzy drinks.

“A Royal Decree has been prepared,” the official Saudi Press Agency said.

The tax on tobacco, now at 50 percent, will be increased to 100 percent, the same level as those for energy drinks and sodas.

Residents of the region had enjoyed the tax-free period before the oil prices more than halved. The price of a barrel of crude oil fell from over $114 in 2014 to just over $55 currently.

Last year, the world’s largest crude exporter announced some austerity measures. Saudi Arabia froze major infrastructure projects, slashed ministers’ salaries and imposed a wage freeze on civil servants. Riyadh managed to reduce the budget deficit from a record $98 billion in 2015 to $79 billion last year.

The country also made unprecedented cuts to fuel and utility subsidies, as it seeks to diversify its revenues to balance the budget by 2020.

 Israeli army gives West Bank settlers 48 hours to leave

Residents of the Amona outpost have been given 48 hours to evacuate the area, according to media reports. The move comes as tensions increase in Israel between nationalist hardliners and the country’s top court

January 31, 2017

DW

Israeli media outlets reported on Tuesday that the army was giving the settlers 48 hours before it blocked entry to the West Bank outpost. The settlement has been condemned as illegal by critics of the administration of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

According to Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the settlers must remove their property and leave by midnight Wednesday local time. The order comes as the High Court of Justice simultaneously deliberates over a relocation plan that would see the settlers moved to a nearby site.

The outpost, Amona, is the largest of about 100 outposts established in the West Bank without permission. The country’s Supreme Court ruled in 2014 that it should be demolished, with Wednesday February 8 being the last possible date for its removal.

In 2006, Israeli policies tore down nine homes at the outpost, sparking clashes between settlers and the authorities. Several dozen trailers remained at the location and have become a symbol for the settlers’ movement.

Simmering anger over outpost issue

Outposts like Amona have been the source of intense debate within Netanyahu’s government. Hardline nationalists in the prime minister’s cabinet have supported the settlers’ cause even as the top court ruled against them.

Palestinians have argued the settlements are illegal. They want the West Bank, along with the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, for a future  Palestinian state.

On Monday, demonstrators protested against the Israeli army ahead of the possible eviction.

Tensions have also run high in the country due to the election of US President Donald Trump. He has backed a proposal to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem. This has emboldened settlers and angered Palestinians and many on Israel’s political left.

Trump Quiets Some Russian Doubts

President Trump’s weekend phone call to President Putin seems to have quieted some of Russia’s concerns about the unpredictability of the real-estate-mogul-turned-politician

January 30, 2017

by Gilbert Doctorow

Consortium News

Donald Trump’s desire to establish constructive working relations with Russia got off to a rocky start, although for reasons that he might not have understood. In an interview with The Times of London just days before the Inauguration, Trump proposed changing the metrics used for possible lifting of sanctions on Russia from full implementation of the Minsk Accords, regarding the Ukraine conflict, to progress on curbing the nuclear arms race and disarmament.

While the shift was seen by many Western observers as a concession to Moscow – because it separated the sanctions from the nettlesome Ukrainian crisis – Trump’s proposal failed to take into account the Kremlin’s aversion to any reductions in its nuclear arsenal as long as there is no new security architecture in Europe that would reduce NATO’s advantage in conventional weapons. So, the response from Moscow was a firm “nyet.”

This false start was compounded by remarks from Trump’s White House spokesman suggesting that America still favored creation of safe havens or a no-flight zone in Syria. This American initiative had already been dismissed when advanced by President Obama as just another ruse to protect anti-Assad terrorists and armed rebels who are supported by Washington and its Gulf State allies.

But those early reversals were more than repaired by the 45-minute telephone call between President Vladimir Putin and Trump on Saturday. Trump appears to have kindled a very respectful and enthusiastic response from Official Russia, i.e., the Kremlin elites in parliament, in the universities and think tanks, and in the media upon whom Putin depends for nationwide support of his policies. Their collective views may be a better indication of where Russia is headed than remarks of Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesperson.

There is no need for a bug under Putin’s pillow or that of his Kremlin entourage to figure this out. The reality is clear from open sources, such as the premier television news and political talk shows that run every Sunday night.

The first half-hour or so of Vesti Nedeli (News of the Week) on Sunday might have been mistaken for a U.S.-origin program dubbed into Russian because it was almost entirely devoted to the phone call and to the demonstrations against Trump’s various executive orders. The presenter, Dmitri Kiselyov, is also the head of all news reporting on Russian state radio and television, so his giving his seal of approval to the talks between the two presidents carried a lot of weight.

Another Thumbs Up

But the more telling “thumbs up” evaluation came on the next featured program of the Rossiya-1/Vesti-24 channel, “Sunday Evening with Vladimir Soloviev,” which has a deserved reputation as the most serious political talk show in the country. It was posted on Youtube.com immediately after airing on nationwide television and within 12 hours had received more than 280,000 views, which is a fair indication of its popularity with Russia’s chattering classes.

The Vladimir Soloviev show is important precisely because of the array of panelists having their own power bases and contributing what was complementary but clearly defined and individualistic appreciations of why the conversation between the presidents was so promising.

Among the panelists and the first to speak was Vyacheslav Nikonov, who as the grandson of Molotov may be called hereditary Soviet aristocracy; he is also chairman of the Duma’s Committee on Education; member of the top governing body of United Russia, chairman of the Board of Russky Mir, the NGO supporting Russian culture and the Russian diaspora abroad.

Second in the pecking order was Aleksei Pushkov, chairman of the Commission on Information Policy in the Federation Council and from 2011 to 2016 chairman of the Duma Committee on Foreign Affairs. Other notables included Oleg Morozov, member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Federation Council;  Andrei Sidorov, head of the World Politics Department, Moscow State University; and Sergei Stankevich, head of the  International Contacts section in the center-right Party of Growth (Boris Titov).

Another noteworthy aspect of the program and of the positive view presented on prospects for collaboration with Donald Trump’s America is that it unfolded under the direction of the great Trump-skeptic, Vladimir Soloviev himself.

As I know from talking to Soloviev on the sidelines of one of his broadcasts last September, Soloviev was no fan of Trump before the U.S. elections and preferred to see Hillary Clinton win on the logic that it’s better to deal with the devil you know. In Trump, he saw only unpredictability and volatility. He assured me that Trump’s pro-Russian statements were purely pre-election rhetoric which Trump would betray the day after taking office.

In later broadcasts, after Trump’s election, Soloviev was one of those who remained guarded, arguing that this businessman would hardly succeed in implementing his promises over the opposition of America’s Deep State. However, now it would appear that Soloviev is less leery of Trump and more hopeful.

With one phone call, it appears Donald Trump has set the stage for serious negotiations and, possibly, substantive “deals” with Putin at their eventual summit.

Below are translations of some select comments by the panelists:

Vyacheslav Nikonov

“All things considered this [Trump-Putin telephone chat] gave the maximum results one could hope for from the first conversation between Trump and Putin. To be sure, the American President is under very heavy pressure from opposition within his own party and the Senate of the USA, from the mass media with their anti-Russian tone. The fact that the conversation was constructive will, I think, disappoint many of the critics of Trump and Putin in America, though it did not really make the news there, being overtaken by the huge scandal over emigrants…. What were the main aspects? At the center of attention was Syria. This is precisely the aspect that was emphasized in the short press release from the White House. It means it is possible to create an anti-ISIS coalition with participation of both the USA and Russia. There are the first signs this is happening. The second important aspect I’d note is in the Russian press release, namely the agreement to the establish partnership on an equal basis The United States has not had partnership relations of equals not only with Russia but with no one else as well in the years following the end of the Cold War. They dealt with Russia as the side that had lost the Cold War and towards whom you can carry out any policy line without regard to our concerns. Then another very important word we noted was “restoration” – used to characterize our future trade and economic relations. Restoration of trade and economic relations is a rather transparent reference to the idea that one way or another the sanctions will be reexamined. This is so although the word “sanctions” itself was not mentioned. I’d also note that they reviewed a wide range of issues. Syria, Ukraine, Iran, the Korean peninsula, and non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. This presupposes, at a minimum, that in this rather short conversation there were no serious disagreements or differences of opinion. They discussed what they wanted to discuss. The questions were prepared and the participants in the discussion afterwards were satisfied. Therefore, I consider this a very good, encouraging start in Russian-American relations. Let us not tempt fate and let us knock wood..Let us hope this continues in the same way in the future. We could not hope for better than this.”

Vladimir Soloviev

“What bothers me is that I don’t remember that it was ever otherwise the first time in conversation with an American president. The first contacts with an American president always were very good, in their first terms in office. Is there anything special this time? You know, this Trump is a strange fellow. So far he is not at all like a traditional American president. He is fulfilling he pre-election promises like a bulldozer.”

Alexei Pushkov

“Trump is truly not like a traditional American president, because he does not come from the political milieu. He was never a Governor or a Senator or Congressman. He signifies a new style. Incidentally I think this is symbolic, because we are in new times. The times are changing. The world is changing. The US is changing. It think it makes sense that in new times Americans elected a new type of president. As for the suggestion that we always began this way with new American presidents, it’s not quite right. With Obama, yes. But then relations were not on such a negative basis. It appears that Trump set as his goal to improve relations with Russia considering that they are deeply negative. We are not starting out at 0 but at minus 10. A very negative zone. He said he wanted to pull us out of this during the pre-election campaign and now has repeated it during the conversation.  That is the first distinction. Next, consider how it was with Bush. He came to office on a very anti-Russian wave. He accused Clinton of having lost Russia, and he would apply a much tougher policy. Under Bush we established contact only 6 months after his [inauguration], that is in June 2001 when they met in Ljubljana and he said he looked into Putin’s eyes and saw his soul. But that is not how it started. At the very beginning, he criticized Clinton for his close relations with Yeltsin. I won’t go into the details but it was a different scenario. So what’s important here? It’s that Trump, unlike what his critics say, is very predictable. He said what he did in the campaign, and now he is taking steps in this direction. He said, by the way, ‘I don’t know if I will succeed with Putin, but I hope it will work out. That is, he puts the question quite openly and honestly. He doesn’t promise what he cannot be sure to achieve. ‘I’ll try…’ He will try to find common language. And this explains the general shock of the whole American elite who got used to candidates lying during the electoral campaigns and then backing off from it all. ….Let’s remember Obama. How much he promised. He tried to fulfill some of it, the medical insurance. “

Vladimir Soloviev

“So we should nominate Trump for the next Nobel Peace Prize?”

Alexei Pushkov

“I think the Nobel Prize Committee is also in shock over Trump. They are liberal and Obama was rather close to them. Trump is on another branch entirely. The second thing I’d note, and this is in the American release, that the conversation between Trump and Putin took place in a warm atmosphere. It was a ‘warm conversation.’ By contrast the conversation with Merkel was ‘business-like’ and rather dry. And the conversation with Hollande was tense. These are the terms they used. Hollande is the outgoing president; he has practically no importance and can say what he likes. Trump called him out of respect for France and the French people, not respect for Hollande who has ratings of 10% if not less. The value of the conversation between Trump and Hollande was, for us, that Hollande, unlike Merkel, who is trying to stay in power and is very cautious and careful in my view, Hollande presented Trump with the whole list of liberal claims against him. You can see in his list the pressure points liberal Europe will try to use against Trump: that you cannot remove the sanctions until the full implementation of Minsk Agreements, that half-dead formula; then on Syria…..Hollande presented this fully aware of what he was doing. …. Trump has to find common language with Europe, with NATO allies. You have to remember that around Trump there are people who are accept the concerns of Europe. So not everything is decided. “

Sergey Mikheyev – political scientist

“This is not Reagan and Gorbachev…Gorbachev was trying so hard to please the West he forgot about the Soviet Union and everything else. ..If only they would like him in the West, he could change the whole world. Putin cannot do the same because over these years we learned a lot. If Trump tries to behave with Putin the way Reagan did with Gorbachev then that is an absolute dead end and will lead to conflict. If we try to behave like Gorbachev and please the President, then that is also a dead end. The challenge before them and us is to find a wholly new formula. ….We need to find a qualitatively new form of dealing with one another. In my view that will not be very easy. “

Oleg Morozov

“You posed the question – what has changed with the coming of Trump. I understand perfectly that the times of Gorbachev are long gone and thank God they will not return. ….What did we have before? There was always an agenda from one side and an anti-agenda from the other side. Each side set out an agenda that was not necessarily at all topical or important for the other side.   What did they set out 4 years ago: how to build democracy in Russia in dialogue with the USA , or human rights defenders, or whether it is good or bad that rockets appear right on the border with Russia because there is some sort of threat from Iran, so let’s put rockets in the Baltic States, in Romania, in Poland. What is now radically new is that the agenda proposed in this dialogue, which was clearly discussed in advance, this is an agenda that is absolutely interesting in equal measure to both sides. My second observation: all of the issues discussed are really of prime importance. They only had 45 minutes and Putin and Trump managed to cover it all. …Thirdly, I want to continue the idea of Alexei Pushkov. Here in this studio, but more especially outside this studio, there was a very strange reading of Trump – that he is a populist, that he doesn’t understand what foreign policy is all about, he doesn’t understand where Russia is located and what to do about Russia, that he will look to his more experienced partners who understand the world much better than he and so what will happen is he will succumb. But look at what is happening: instead he is constantly seeking to strengthen his own positions. Intuitively he entirely correctly guides the policy line he set out in his electoral campaign. He does not weaken his position but instead strengthens it. So when Trump says ‘let’s try to find a dialogue with Russia,’ in my view this Is not just tactics, it is really a long-term strategy of Trump today. And this gives us a good chance for this format…”

Vladimir Soloviev

“We have no illusions. We don’t expect anything good from Trump. Our task is to formulate our own agenda…..Soviet and Russian diplomacy had a tendency to get disappointed. When they say we have to reexamine our commercial and economic relations, remember that they will never be what they were before. We don’t need it. We were used to setting the table for guests. The vodka and snacks were gone and we were left asking, where is their technology, where is…? That won’t happen again. We seek equal relations. “

Alexei Pushkov

“We have just heard the phrase that ‘Europe has been sleeping.’ The discussion today is between Trump and Putin. ….Merkel and Hollande are stuck in the old formulas…..They have an old agenda. They don’t have anything in particular to offer…..Europe is off the highway and sidelined. This is another point that comes out of the [Trump-Putin] conversation.”

Yakov Kedmi [Israel, ex-Soviet, ex-Israeli intelligence]

“The conversation showed Trump’s rejection of bloc mentality. – EU and NATO are blocs. The USA prefers to deal with nations one to one. There is sense in this. When the US is so confident in its might, it is easier to deal with one than with many. They expect to achieve better results, and most likely it is correct….Two other observations. The conversation with President Putin was in a constructive tone, to agree and resolve conflicts. This is not due to Russia having changed its policy. Russia has not moved a millimeter from the position it held. The US administration was obliged to change its position. That is the US was obliged to change its positions and Russia stayed in the positions it held. The same happened with Turkey, which has radically changed its position.”

Sergey Stankevich

“It is good that the Presidents of the United States and Russia had a conversation. As a citizen of Russia, I don’t like to think half the world is holding its breath over how they prepare for this conversation and then hangs on every word, that we expect the course of the world to change or of Russia to change as a result of the two presidents conversing. I’d like a predictable international order. And I hope after this conversation it will begin. An order that is safe, comfortable and pleasant to live in. I’d like to see in this diplomacy the start of it which responsible statesmen….”

Vladimir Soloviev

“And I think of battalions marching when I hear the term ‘new world order.’ This is a dangerous combination of words.”

Sergey Stankevich

“We had a new world order at Yalta, Potsdam, then the creation of the UN, then in Helsinki where a new order was set down that included many elements including humanitarian issues and defense of human rights that were necessary for the world. I’d like to see this now, in the sense of building on predictability…”

Oleg Morozov

“Before this telephone conversation the world order existed in a state that did not suit anyone. Even the Americans were not satisfied with it. Not one of the tasks called out could be resolved. Dialogue between Russia and the USA is precisely the foundation on which you can build the new world order.”

Andrei Sidorov

“I’d like to start with agreeing terms. World order is precisely the agreements between victorious powers after a global war. That is what was done at Yalta, Teheran, Potsdam. Helsinki was not on that level. When the Yalta arrangements collapsed the West, and the USA in particular took this to mean its victory. And it was not accidental that we had all those discussions about the unipolar world. And it was the dissatisfaction of Russia and others with this unipolar world led to the fact that now Trump will set up a new world order by reaching agreement with those powers who did not accept globalization from the 1990s which was supposed to set up a new world order. ….Russia can now be a participant in the creation of the new world order. Putting aside the list of issues, the main item on the conversation was when do we meet and in what format…..ISIS is the number one evil of our times. And if it is possible to joining forces to combat ISIS why not do so. That would be the implementation of precisely what Trump spoke about all during his electoral campaign.”

Yakov Kedmi

“What we are talking about is not a new world order but a new set of rules of conduct. It is not just a stop to military interventions but also to interference in other countries in general. That is what Trump was talking about. ….Order is too rigid…. That is what Trump was saying, what Putin was saying. Let’s set up proper relations: everyone will live at home as he wishes. No one will give instructions to others. Not in the name of democracy, not in the name of God…All the wars and cruelty took place in the name of ideals. Therefore let’s not speak about a new world order but about a new, civilized way of communicating and dealing with one another.”

Vyacheslav Nikonov

“In fact that world order which is now being reconstructed, it was born not in Yalta or Potsdam but in the end of the Cold War. This was a unipolar world order in which strictly speaking the ‘world government’ was the United States itself , which was more powerful than the Roman Empire in its day, or the United States and its allies acting through the NATO bloc and the international financial institutions. This was the global, liberal world order in which Russia had its place as a conquered power on which others wiped their feet or in the best of circumstances was ignored. Precisely this world order is passing into history. Firstly because the United States was unable to maintain world domination nor did it have the desire to do so as we now see. As Trump said in his Inauguration speech, you have to allow that other states have their own interests. That had a revolutionary sound to it coming from an American President, since they never recognized national interests other than their own and their allies. Nobody now wants to dissolve the NATO bloc, but I’d call attention to the following. During all the years of NATO’s existence, the press of the member states has not been allowed to ask any serious questions about the American leadership, except for the period of the war in Iraq. Now 90% of what you read in the newspapers about the USA is so very negative like we never saw before. A real trans-Atlantic split that never existed before. So, what is coming? We see application of the term “new normalcy,” which is very debatable. The “new normalcy” of a world with Trump, Putin, Brexit. What does that mean? There are various opinions, but it is clear it will be a multi-polar construction in which the poles are the great powers: ….China, India, Russia, United States. Maybe it will be 4-sided. Brzezinski recently spoke about the need for a triangular system: the USA, Russia and China. We also have a place in the Eurasian project, in the Chinese Silk Road, which might include the European Union. Ahead will be very serious re-formatting over the coming years, not months….But one thing is clear, in the new world order one of the decisive places will be held by our country.”

Turkey tourism stuck in crisis

The Turkish government has announced that revenues from tourism have taken a full-year dive as holiday-makers have stayed away after the failed coup and a series of terror attacks. Economists see no speedy turnaround.

January 31, 2017

DW

Turkey’s tourism revenues tanked 27.2 percent in the final quarter of last year, state-run agency Turkstat announced Tuesday. Income from the sector was recorded at $4.7 billion (4.4 billion euros).

Revenues from tourism for the whole of 2016 dropped by 29.7 percent to $22.1 billion, with 73 percent of it coming from foreign visitors.

Throughout last year, Turkey logged 31 million visitors, compared with nearly 42 million in 2015, Turkstat said.

Looking ahead

Tourists had been put off in particular by attacks in locations frequented by foreign visitors and blamed on jihadists.

But Turkish officials said they were still hoping for better times in 2017, pinning expectations on a surge in tourism from key market Russia after a bilateral deal to normalize relations.

Despite the recent terror attacks and uncertainties arising from the failed coup in the country, UN World Tourism Organization Secretary General Taleb Rifai called Turkey “a perfect destination,” adding that “traveling to Turkey is the best response to give to terrorism.”

Tourism is a key economic sector in the country, accounting for some 5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). The slowdown in the sector has contributed to lower growth.

The Zipper Documents and the Assassination of Kennedy- Part 4

January 31, 2017

by Gregory Douglas

The Official Cover Up

Soviet Intelligence Study (translation)

  1. A very large number of published books about the assassination have appeared since the year 1963. Most of these books are worthless from a historical point of view. They represent the views of obsessed people and twist information only to suit the author’s beliefs.
  2. There are three main ideas written about:
  3. The American gangsters killed the President because his brother, the American Attorney General, was persecuting them;
  4. Cuban refugees felt that Mr. Kennedy had deserted their cause of ousting Cuban chief of state Castro;
  5. Various American power groups such as the capitalist business owners, fascist political groups, racists, internal and external intelligence organization either singly or in combination are identified.
  6. American officials have not only made no effort to silence these writers but in many cases have encouraged them. The government feels, as numerous confidential reports indicate, that the more lunatic books appear, the better. This way, the real truth is so concealed as to be impenetrable.
  7. It was initially of great concern to our government that individuals inside the American government were utilizing Oswald’s “Communist/Marxist” appearance to suggest that the assassination was of a Soviet origin.
  8. In order to neutralize this very dangerous theme, immediately after the assassination, the Soviet Union fully cooperated with American investigating bodies and supplied material to them showing very clearly that Oswald was not carrying out any Soviet designs.
  9. Also, false defectors were used to convince the Americans that Oswald was considered a lunatic by the Soviet Union, and had not been connected with the Soviet intelligence apparatus in any way. He was, of course, connected but it was imperative to disassociate the Soviet Union with the theory that Oswald, an American intelligence operative, had been in collusion with them concerning the assassination.
  10. The false defector Nosenko, a provable member of Soviet intelligence, was given a scenario that matched so closely the personal attitudes of Mr. Hoover of the FBI that this scenario was then officially supported by Mr. Hoover and his bureau.
  11. Angleton of the CIA at once suspected Nosenko’s real mission and subjected him to intense interrogation but finally, Nosenko has been accepted as a legitimate defector with valuable information on Oswald.
  12. Because of this business, Angleton was forced to resign his post as chief of counter intelligence. This has been considered a most fortunate byproduct of the controversy.
  13. The FBI has accepted the legitimacy of Nosenko and his material precisely because it suited them to do so. It was also later the official position of the CIA because the issue dealt specifically with the involvement, or non-involvement, between Oswald, a private party, and the organs of Soviet intelligence. Since there was no mention of Oswald’s connection with American intelligence, this was of great importance to both agencies

The DIA Analysis

  1. The concern of Soviet intelligence and government agencies about any possible connection between defector Oswald and themselves is entirely understandable. It was never seriously believed by any competent agency in the United States that the Soviet Union had any part in the assassination of Kennedy and also known that Oswald was a government agent, working for various agencies in his lifetime.
  2. Because of the emotional attitudes in official Washington and indeed, throughout the entire nation immediately following the assassination, there was created a potentially dangerous international situation for the Soviets. Oswald was an identified defector with Marxist leanings. He was also believed to be a pro-Castro activist . That both his Marxist attitudes and his sympathies and actions on behalf of the Cuban dictator were simulations was not known to the Warren Commission at the time of their activities.
  3. To bolster their eager efforts to convince the American authorities that their government had nothing to do with the assassination, men like Nosenko were utilized to further support this contention. It is not known whether Nosenko was acting on orders or whether he was permitted access to created documentation and given other deliberate disinformation by the KGB and allowed to defect. A great deal of internal concern was expressed upon the Nosenko’s purported defection by Soviet officials but this is viewed at merely an attempt, and a successful one, to lend substance to his importance.
  4. James Angleton’s attitude towards Nosenko is a commentary on the duality of his nature. On one hand, Angleton was performing as Chief of Counter Intelligence and openly showed his zeal in searching for infiltrators and “moles” inside his agency while on the other hand, Angleton had very specific personal knowledge that the Soviet Union had nothing to do with the Kennedy assassination

Author’s Comments

The death of President Kennedy was, on the surface at least, a straightforward act. He was shot to death while riding in a motorcade. The shooting itself was photographed (and subsequently, the FBI seized a number of these pictures and none of them have ever been seen again) by a number of bystanders in Dealy Plaza and the famous Zapruder motion picture has been viewed by a large number of people.

The murder of Oswald two days later by a petty criminal in a heavily guarded police facility clearly sowed the seeds of the following cloud of controversy and doubt that has surrounded this act.

The hastily cobbled together Warren Report was of such a nature as to raise far more questions than it answered and the attempts on the part of establishment supporters to validate it merely lend credence to the suspicions of growing legions of doubters.

When the establishment formulates an official version of an important incident, this version is strongly supported by not only the establishment itself, but by the sections of the media and academia that are beholden to them.

Anyone who entertains, or even more important, presents for public consumption, views that are in opposition to the establishment are either ignored or trivialized. In the case of the growing number of those who have brought the Warren Commission Report into question, the usual dismissive phrase is “conspiracy buff.” The implication is that anyone who questions the Warren Report is merely a gadfly amateur, protected under the First Amendment, but, of course, just another eccentric. And, as such, to be ignored.

On the other hand, authors like Gerald Posner who support the Warren Report are given prominent coverage in the establishment papers, and one sees such comments as “Persuasive…brilliantly illuminating…more satisfying than any conspiracy theory.” This is credited to a reviewer for the New York Times,  a newspaper that has always been a powerful supporter of the establishment point of view of the Kennedy assassination.

The official version of this event is always given the most positive adjectives in media comment while anything that would negate the official version is always termed “conspiracy theory” and generally dismissed as being the product of a disordered mind and, certainly, not having been proven.

There have been, of course, no other documents available to the public other than the ones under governmental control, and this absence has powerfully strengthened the establishment position.

Should any documents appear that would seriously question that position, the formula for negation is already well in place. Proof would be demanded, and if it were forthcoming, it would be rejected.

The motives of the supporters of the government’s thesis and their methods will be discussed in a separate chapter.

‘Mein Kampf’: Murphy translation: Part 21

January 30, 2017

There have been a number of translations of Hitler’s seminal book. Most have been heavily edited so as to promulgate disinformation about Hitler’s views and remove passages that might offend the sensitive.

The Murphy translation is considered to be the most accurate and is being reprinted in toto here.

Our next publication of this work will be the unexpurgated original German edition.

German officially- approved historians have recently released a highly doctored edition of ‘Mein Kampf’ that is selling very well in Germany.

Perhaps a free copy of the unredacted original work would do better in the same marketplace. Ed

 

VOLUME II: THE NATIONAL SOCIALIST MOVEMENT

 

CHAPTER XV

EPILOGUE

On November 9th, 1923, four and a half years after its foundation, the German National Socialist Labour Party was dissolved and forbidden throughout the whole of the REICH. To-day, in November 1926, it is again established throughout the REICH, enjoying full liberty, stronger and internally more compact than ever before.

All persecutions of the Movement and the individuals at its head, all the imputations and calumnies, have not been able to prevail against it. Thanks to the justice of its ideas, the integrity of its intentions and the spirit of self-denial that animates its members, it has overcome all oppression and increased its strength through the ordeal. If, in our contemporary world of parliamentary corruption, our Movement remains always conscious of the profound nature of its struggle and feels that it personifies the values of individual personality and race, and orders its action accordingly–then it may count with mathematical certainty on achieving victory some day in the future. And Germany must necessarily win the position which belongs to it on this Earth if it is led and organized according to these principles.

A State which, in an epoch of racial adulteration, devotes itself to the duty of preserving the best elements of its racial stock must one day become ruler of the Earth.

The adherents of our Movements must always remember this, whenever they may have misgivings lest the greatness of the sacrifices demanded of them may not be justified by the possibilities of success.

THE END

 

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