All this may just be routine strategic ambiguity. But, as ever with the Trump administration, we are in uncharted territory. No one quite knows whether Haley et al are speaking from a Trump-approved hymn-sheet, or concerned with protecting their own reputations in an administration not exactly known for its message discipline. No one quite knows whether Haley’s statement, only last week, that “Our priority is no longer to sit there and focus on getting Assad out,” will stand or be overturned. Since the latter would represent a 180-degree turn, however, it’s worth considering in more detail.AdvertisementThose celebrating the possibility of a shift should ask how it may have come about. If there’s one thing we do know, it’s that Trump wants us to see that he cares. This is a president who is obsessed with how he is perceived, griping about unflattering photos and the size of the crowd at his inauguration.It’s not even clear that he has any ideological aims, other than to win, and to be liked. He has, after all, donated to both Republicans and Democrats. He supported the Iraq war, then didn’t, then claimed that he never had.
Category Archives: Fascism
Fairfield Mexican woman with work permit detained by ICE agents
“I have no idea why an ICE agent would release her on Monday and then snatch her on the street,” Pucke said. (Because they can and feel it will make them look “tough” to their leadership!)
Source: Fairfield Mexican woman with work permit detained by ICE agents
Trump condemns chemical attack as his U.N. ambassador assails Russia’s role – The Washington Post #TraitorTrump, #LoserTrump still just selling himself and could care less about facts – Who unleashed the gas? All sides of this conflict spin and lie, so how are we to know who to blame?
“History will judge all of us in how we respond to these unforgettable and unforgivable images of the innocent,” British Ambassador Matthew Rycroft said. “How long are we going to sit here and pretend that actions in these chambers have no consequences?”
Source: Trump condemns chemical attack as his U.N. ambassador assails Russia’s role – The Washington Post
Trump, Citing No Evidence, Suggests Susan Rice Committed Crime – The New York Times #TraitorTrump, #LoserTrump, sell, sell, sell – no buyers – what did you do when and with whom?
“I think it’s going to be the biggest story,” Mr. Trump said in an interview in the Oval Office. “It’s such an important story for our country and the world. It is one of the big stories of our time.”He declined to say if he had personally reviewed new intelligence to bolster his claim but pledged to explain himself “at the right time.”
Trump: ‘If China is not going to solve North Korea, we will’: Shanghaiist
“Well if China is not going to solve North Korea, we will. That is all I am telling you.”Asked if that meant dealing with Pyongyang one on one, Trump said, “I don’t have to say any more. Totally.”Dennis Wilder, a former CIA China analyst, tried to shed some light on what exactly Trump meant with these cryptic statement. Wilder told Financial Times that the president is trying to warn China that the US is about to begin instituting “secondary sanctions” on North Korea, including sanctions on “Chinese companies and individuals who deal with North Korea.”Still, others aren’t so sure that Trump will back up his tough talk.
Source: Trump: ‘If China is not going to solve North Korea, we will’: Shanghaiist
Donald Trump and Russia: The Spanish connection with Trump’s Russia scandal | In English | EL PAÍS
On February 1, Alexander Torshin, 63, a Russian politician and banker who is close to Vladimir Putin and whom the Spanish anti-corruption prosecutor and the Civil Guard define in their reports as a godfather from a notorious Russian mafia organization, had in his diary for the next day an appointment to meet in Washington with the world’s most powerful man: Donald Trump. The encounter was due to take place before an official and well-attended breakfast meeting, which Torshin attended as the head of a Russian delegation. The meeting was canceled that very night, according to sources from the White House, given the wave of criticism in the US press related to the influence of determined Russian circles in President Trump’s power teams. But the information reveals the heights to which this person, who has been investigated by the Spanish authorities, had reached in his rise to the upper echelons of the American leader’s circle.
Source: Donald Trump and Russia: The Spanish connection with Trump’s Russia scandal | In English | EL PAÍS
Death: an occupational hazard in Donbass | News | DW.COM | 01.04.2017
the list of the early separatist leaders still alive in Eastern Ukraine has again gotten shorter. Many of those men have been murdered outright. In February, Mikhail Tolstykh was killed when an incendiary rocket was fired into his Donetsk office. A few months prior, Arsen “Motorola” Pavlov was killed when a bomb exploded in his apartment building’s elevator. Both men had been presented as war heroes on Russian state television. Separatists blame “Ukrainian saboteurs” for the murders – foreign agents in communist parlance. Kyiv denies the accusations.
Source: Death: an occupational hazard in Donbass | News | DW.COM | 01.04.2017
Tillerson′s first Turkey visit ends in impasse as US shifts position on Assad | News | DW.COM | 30.03.2017
Assad’s future up to Syrian peopleAnother key point of the press conference was the US diplomat’s comments on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad – the closest indicator to date on the Trump administration’s attitude towards Damascus.”I think the… longer-term status of President Assad will be decided by the Syrian people,” Tillerson told reporters. This was a turning point from the government of President Barack Obama, which regarded Assad’s removal as a key point of any future peace in Syria.Washington’s envoy to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, reiterated this position on Thursday when she said that the government had to prioritize defeating IS over forcing Assad to step down. “Our priority is no longer to sit and focus on getting Assad out,” Haley said.
White House to States: Shield the Undocumented and Lose Police Funding – The New York Times – They are sworn to protect and serve their citizens, not White House cronies and traitors.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions said state and local governments seeking certain law enforcement grants would have to certify that they were complying with a law that bars any official from withholding information from the Department of Homeland Security about a person’s immigration status. Those that are violating the policy could see such grants clawed back, he said.Mr. Sessions’s appearance was an effort to threaten painful consequences for so-called sanctuary cities, those that decline to cooperate with the federal government in efforts to track and deport undocumented immigrants.“I strongly urge our nation’s states and cities and counties to consider carefully the harm they are doing to their citizens by refusing to enforce our immigration laws and to rethink these policies,” Mr. Sessions said. “Such policies make their cities and states less safe — public safety as well as national security are at stake — and put them at risk of losing federal dollars.”
Rise of Hindu ‘extremist’ spooks 40 million Muslim minority in India’s heartland | World news | The Guardian – Hindu Fascists will go after Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Jains…
The men, allegedly part of a religious activist group called the Hindu Yuva Vahini, cornered one of the parishioners. Smartphone footage shows the woman pulling her blue shawl tightly around herself as she answers questions about her involvement with the church. “No one is forcing me to convert,” she insists.“If the police hadn’t arrived, we don’t know what would have happened next,” Joshua says. “After the men left, everyone in the church was silent, so frightened. This is a time of testing for us.”Last week, the monk who founded the HYV, and whose firebrand Hindu supremacist vision guides the organisation, was selected by the party of prime minister Narendra Modi to lead the most populous state in India – the equivalent of the sixth largest nation on earth.








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