Category Archives: Clown

Struggle for Global Power Status – GERMAN-FOREIGN-POLICY.com – Trump declaring war on Germany and EU

Dispute over Nord Stream 2 Now the Trump Administration is taking the offensive in two other fields, in which Germany seeks to defend its interests, diverging from those of the USA, to enforce its “strategic autonomy.” One is the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which assures Germany – for the time being [6] – exclusive access to Russian natural gas deposits, as well as granting Berlin a key position in the EU’s natural gas supply. Already at the beginning of the month, a high-ranking State Department official confirmed that if European companies continue construction of the pipeline, they risk “significant sanctions.”[7] Another US government official has now confirmed in the business press that Washington is already preparing sanctions. Reportedly, in Berlin, this is clearly considered an aggression against a NATO partner. Sanctions would certainly lead “to a confrontation – not only with Germany, but with Europe,” a government official in Berlin was quoted. “We will do everything necessary to complete the pipeline.”[8] Dispute over Huawei Simultaneously, the conflict is escalating over the use of the Chinese Huawei Corporation’s technology for setting up the 5G grid in Germany and the E

Source: Struggle for Global Power Status – GERMAN-FOREIGN-POLICY.com

US warns Germany over use of ′untrusted vendors′ in 5G network | News | DW | 11.03.2019 How will Trump and Trump Family/Friends profit by stalking Huawei?

The US has sent the German Economy Ministry a letter warning of the risks posed by using “untrusted vendors” in its 5G network. The letter comes amid tensions between Chinese telecom giant Huawei and the US.

Source: US warns Germany over use of ′untrusted vendors′ in 5G network | News | DW | 11.03.2019

American Citizen In Detention – In Saner Thought

A US citizen has been detained and tortured in Saudi Arabia and may be on his last leg, sources tell the New York Times. Walid Fitaihi was apparently held against his will in November 2017 at the Ritz Carlton in Riyadh, where guards blindfolded, stripped, slapped, and bound him, then shocked him with electricity for about an hour. A friend says the Harvard-trained doctor was whipped so badly he couldn’t sleep on his wounded back for days. “It is believed that Dr. Fitaihi has been and is tortured at least psychologically during his imprisonment,” his attorney Howard Cooper wrote the State Department in January, per CNN. Cooper described his client as “physically deteriorated” and “emotionally broken.” Now American friends of Fitaihi, 54, are pressing Washington to address his case and criticizing President Trump’s inaction.

Source: American Citizen In Detention – In Saner Thought

Four journalists barred from covering U.S.-North Korea summit events – IFEX

“It is deeply disturbing to see the President of the United States restrict journalists’ access in a retaliatory manner in front of a dictator who leads the most restrictive country on earth. With this move, the White House has yet again demonstrated precisely the pattern of retaliation PEN America cited in filing its recent lawsuit against the president for his retaliatory tactics to suppress reporters from doing their job, especially when it might seem to portray him in ways he dislikes. This summit with North Korea should have been an opportunity for the president to lift up what makes democracy special. Instead, this attempt to silence American journalists seeking to cover this historic event demonstrates the president’s inclinations to use his power to limit constitutional freedoms, rather than protect them.”

Source: Four journalists barred from covering U.S.-North Korea summit events – IFEX

Trump tweet about Scottish golf course an ‘invitation to graft’ | US news | The Guardian

The president sent the tweet in the early hours of Saturday. He later went on to deliver a rambling, controversial and sometimes obscene speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, near Washington. “Very proud of perhaps the greatest golf course anywhere in the world,” Trump wrote, embedding a Trump Organization tweet in praise of Trump International Scotland, the Aberdeenshire course he opened in 2012. “Also, furthers UK relationship!” In response Walter Shaub, a former head of the independent US Office of Government Ethics, wrote: “This is Trump’s most explicit commingling of personal interests and public office to date. This is the tone from the top that leads his appointees to violate ethics rules. This is shameless, corrupt and repugnant presidential profiteering. This is an invitation to graft.”

Source: Trump tweet about Scottish golf course an ‘invitation to graft’ | US news | The Guardian

Republican who denied he was racist suggested Obama was born in Africa | US news | The Guardian

“What we’re going to do is take back our country,” Meadows said. “2012 is the time that we’re going to send Mr Obama home to Kenya or wherever it is. We’re gonna do it.” In an interview with Roll Call in 2012, Meadows said he had used a “poor choice of words” and acknowledged that Obama was an American citizen.

Source: Republican who denied he was racist suggested Obama was born in Africa | US news | The Guardian

The U.S.-Venezuela Aid Convoy Story Is Clearly Bogus, but No One Wants to Say It

In fact, no neutral observer of international aid thinks Bolton and Abrams’ convoy is anything but a mechanism to foment civil war and regime change. We know this because high-level administration officials and their allies on the right keep telling us that’s the case. As the New York Post recently proclaimed, “U.S. delivers aid to town bordering Venezuela to undermine President Nicolas Maduro.” Donald Trump delivered a long and rambling speech in Miami last week and didn’t once mention human rights, instead railing against the evils of socialism. Former acting FBI director Andrew McCabe reflects in his new book that Trump has openly fantasized about overthrowing Maduro, something he has discussed in White House meetings. “That’s the country we should be going to war with,” Trump said, according to McCabe. “They have all that oil, and they’re right on our back door.” Determined to maintain U.S. hegemony and control over the world’s largest-known oil reserves, the Trump officials plotting this latest coup aren’t even bothering to take its humanitarian pretext seriously. Why, then, are purportedly centrist and liberal media outlets?

Source: The U.S.-Venezuela Aid Convoy Story Is Clearly Bogus, but No One Wants to Say It

Polish premier pulls out of Visegrad Israel summit after Nazi comments | News | DW | 17.02.2019 Autocrats have trouble cooperating, when truth gets in the way of their strategies.

Poland has downgraded its delegation to the Visegrad Group summit in Israel after premier Benjamin Netanyahu suggested “Poles cooperated with the Nazis.” The four-state group is a key element in Israel’s diplomacy.

Source: Polish premier pulls out of Visegrad Israel summit after Nazi comments | News | DW | 17.02.2019

Trump’s emergency: the arbitrary action of an instinctive autocrat | Simon Tisdall | US news | The Guardian

The declaration, or attempted diktat, is the arbitrary action of an instinctive autocrat. It trashes convention, and co-equal Congressional rights and oversight. It is the product of an immature, egotistic mind. And it is based on a lie – namely, that Trump repeatedly promised he would make Mexico pay for the wall, not US taxpayers. More than anything, the wall is physically as well as politically divisive – and division is a trademark of Trumpism. It features in almost everything he does, whether the issue is race in the US, gun control, press freedom, Venezuela, Iran or the Israel-Palestine conflict. Trump is not alone in his myopic, fearful outlook. Walls, or the more euphemistic, antiseptic “separation barriers”, have been proliferating globally in recent years – in the West Bank, between India and Pakistan, and between EU countries, the Balkans and the Middle East. Another may soon be erected, in one form or another, on the island of Ireland. The world can be divided into those who build walls and those who build bridges. There is no doubt which side Trump is on.

Source: Trump’s emergency: the arbitrary action of an instinctive autocrat | Simon Tisdall | US news | The Guardian

Dear Mister President: The Royal We – LA Progressive

those four words – “I am extremely unhappy” – betrayed that your cause is not so much about ideology as about ego – the matter not public, but personal. And not, of course, personal to the kids in the cages or their brown-skinned parents, but personal to you. The dark cloud of your mood will hang over us all until your whim lets the lightning flash. When Louis XIV frowned, courtiers trembled in corners and whispered about whether the king’s displeasure meant war or peace.

Source: Dear Mister President: The Royal We – LA Progressive