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Trump to Investigate Alleged Chinese Trade Violations
Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman)
On Friday, Trump pressed China’s Xi Jinping to act tough against North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
They’re essential deterrents against feared US aggression, posing no threat to any nations except in self-defense if attacked.
On Saturday, the White House announced plans to investigate Beijing for alleged intellectual property violations. On Monday, Trump is expected to sign a memo authorizing it. Severe trade penalties could follow, including tariffs on Chinese steel and other imports. Although the Constitution grants Congress tariff-imposition authority, congressional legislation delegates the power to presidents under the following circumstances:
• under the 1917 Trading with the Enemy Act against any nation as long as America is at war somewhere;
• under the 1977 Emergency Economic Powers Act – during a real or invented national emergency; no legitimate one existed in America since WW II ended;
Netanyahu’s Pro-Nazi Lie: ‘Hitler wanted to expel the Jews.’
Eric Zuesse
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=37&v=dadgep_e0Hc
“Netanyahu: Hitler didn't want to exterminate Jews”
RT published Oct 21, 2015
Netanyahu (0:25-): “Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time [28 November 1941]; he wanted to expel the Jews.”
This statement by Israel’s Prime Minister is profoundly false; the record is clear on this matter: Hitler merely played along with Hjalmar Schacht and others who favored expulsion of Jews in preference to annihilating them; Nazis who expected all Jews ultimately to leave Germany were a significant part of Hitler’s constituency, and Hitler wanted their full cooperation at least until the “final solution” was beyond being any longer denied; he needed the services of all Nazis and of all Nazi-supporters, until he was ready to spring his trap (the extermination-program for Jews).
Here is how I had discussed this matter, on pages 218-219 of my 2000 book Why the Holocaust Happened:
The consensus with which he started was only for the elimination of the Jews, which could mean either expulsion or extermination. (Sterilizing the Jews was ruled out by Hitler: as an alternative to extermination, it might have drawn too much support.) Expulsion obviously had to be presented as having been tried but failed; only then could the entire hierarchy unite behind Hitler’s plan to carry out God’s “admonition finally to put an end to the permanently continuous original sin of a race poisoning and to give the Almighty Creator beings as He Himself created them.” Mere expulsion could provide no such assurance. But a display nonetheless had to be made.
North Korea Responds to Trump’s Fire and Fury Threat
Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman)
Heated rhetoric risks something much more serious. The problem lies in Washington, not Pyongyang.
Throughout its post-WW II history, the DPRK never attacked another country. In June 1950, it responded to repeated South Korean cross-border provocations.
Harry Truman’s devastating war followed - why Pyongyang genuinely fears US aggression now, doing what it thinks best to avoid it, the reason for its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Without them, it would be defenseless. With them, it’s a regional power to be reckoned with.
UN Sides with Fascists in Venezuela
Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman)
The UN is more an appendage of US foreign policy than a world body upholding its charter principles - far from it.
Former Jordanian UN envoy Prince Zeid bin Ra’ad Zeid al-Hussein is a member of its royal family, the nation hostile to democracy, notorious for human rights abuses, notably lack of free expression, political imprisonments and use of torture.
In September 2014, he succeeded US imperial tool Navi Pillay as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, a dismal choice - serving his imperial master like his predecessor since taking office.
On August 8, he disgracefully accused Venezuelan security forces of street violence - orchestrated by Washington, not them, part of a diabolical CIA plot to replace Bolivarian social democracy with fascist tyranny.
New Illegal US Sanctions on Venezuela
Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman)
US political and economic war on Venezuela continues, along with daily made-in-the-USA street violence.
It’s part of an ongoing color revolution attempt to topple its government, aiming to advance America’s imperium and gain control over the country’s vast oil reserves - along with destroying Bolivarian social democracy, a system neocons in Washington abhor.
On Wednesday, the US Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) imposed illegal sanctions on six members of Venezuela’s Constituent Assembly, a constitutionally authorized body. Two other officials were targeted.
Imposition followed last week’s illegal sanctions on President Nicolas Maduro and earlier ones on other Venezuelan officials.
Democratic Demagogues and ‘The Better Deal’
James Petras
Introduction
After 6 months of blaming Russia for the Democratic Party’s Presidential election debacle, the Party stalwarts have finally realized that the American electorate is not listening.
Democratic Party investigators in Washington still hold hearings and the mass media are still scandal mongering, but the public is not rallying to their cause. Trump’s demagogy may have lost its appeal, while the Republican Administration purges and internecine squabbles have been met with a huge collective yawn by the public. The Democratic Party proves itself to be a weird sideshow for the vast majority of American voters…and for good reason.
Their perpetual (corrupt and senile) leaders are unwavering supporters of every indignity and economic hardship that the majority of worker families have suffered for the last three decades.
Democratic Party Senator Chuck ‘the Schmuck’ Schumer and Congresswomen Nancy ‘The Loser’ Pelosi have spent a collective sixty-five years in Congress. Their joint tenure marks a period of long decline in working class living standards and even worker life expectancy, while they have made possible the greatest concentration of wealth in the hands of the 1% plutocrats.
The Long Ordeal of One of Bahrain’s Leading Human Rights Activists
Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman)
Nabeel Rajab is president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR).
For years, he’s been hounded, harassed, persecuted, beaten, and imprisoned for supporting fundamental human and civil right in a nation denying them to its citizens, the Al Khalifa monarchy ruling despotically, justice entirely absent.
He’s facing trial, automatic conviction, sentencing and likely imprisonment again for his heroic activism, not for any criminal activity he abhors.
He’s accused of publicly expressing views via Twitter considered harmful to regime interests. On August 8, a Bahraini kangaroo court postponed action on his case until September 11.
Democracy: What America Fears Most
Stephen Lendman
Throughout its history, America has been run by the people who own it - its privileged class for its own self-interest.
The nation’s first Supreme Court Chief Justice John Jay explained US governance works this way. John Adams called America’s ruling class its “rich, well-born and able.”
Today, one party rule with two right wings runs things, each taking turns in charge, in lockstep on issues mattering most - notably supporting imperial wars, corporate empowerment, police state harshness against nonbelievers, and eliminating all sovereign independent states by color revolutions or naked aggression.
In Latin America, Venezuela is in the eye of the storm, US-waged economic and political war, along with months of street violence aiming for regime change - maybe by force if current methods fail, including imposition of sanctions, often prelude to something more sinister.
Its Bolivarian social democracy represents an unacceptable threat of a good example, perhaps to spread.
Polls: U.S. Is 'the Greatest Threat to Peace in the World Today'
Eric Zuesse
It has happened again: yet another international poll finds that the U.S. is viewed by peoples around the world to be the biggest threat to world peace.
But, to start, let’s summarize the first-ever poll that had been done on this, back in 2013, which was the only prior poll on this entire issue, and it was the best-performed such poll: "An end-of-the-year WIN/Gallup International survey found that people in 65 countries believe the United States is the greatest threat to world peace”, as the N.Y. Post reported on 5 January 2014.
On 30 December 2013, the BBC had reported of that poll: "This year, first [meaning here, ‘for’] the first time, Win/Gallup agreed to include three questions submitted by listeners to [BBC’s] Radio 4's Today programme.” And, one of those three listener-asked questions was phrased there by the BBC, as having been “Which country is the biggest threat to peace?” The way that WIN/Gallup International itself had actually asked this open-ended question, to 67,806 respondents from 65 countries, was: “Which country do you think is the greatest threat to peace in the world today?” #1, 24% of respondents, worldwide, volunteered that the U.S. was “the greatest threat.” #2 (the second-most-frequently volunteered ‘greatest threat’) was Pakistan, volunteered by 8%. #3 was China, with 6%. #s 4-7 were a four-way tie, at 5% each, for: Afghanistan, Iran, Israel, and North Korea. #s 8-10 were a three-way tie, at 4% each, for: India, Iraq, and Japan. #11 was Syria, with 3%. #12 was Russia, with 2%. #s 13-20 were a seven-way tie, at 1% each, for: Australia, Germany, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, South Korea, and UK.
Israel’s War on Al Jazeera
Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman)
Owned and operated by the Qatari government, it functions much like Western media, featuring content the Al Thani monarchy wants aired.
It’s sympathy toward Palestinian suffering is why Israel wants it shut down. Earlier it considered declaring the news agency a hostile entity. Instead, it restricted its activities in the country.
It no longer renews visas for its staff or issues new ones. Its journalists are denied access to government briefings, limited access alone to political and military officials - only to spokespersons of the prime minister, foreign ministry and IDF. In August 2011, Al Jazeera (AJ) journalist Samer Allawi was arrested and detained for making contact with Hamas’ military wing.
Jerusalem is its headquarters in Israel, perhaps not much longer. According to Israeli communications director Ayoub Kara, “professional discussions” were initiated to draft legislation, shutting down the network.
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