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Trump Is Losing Some of His Base
Eric Zuesse
The main pro-Trump news-site, Breitbart News, is getting predominantly negative reader-comments on its articles that relate to Russia and the war in Syria. Whereas the reporters who write the articles trumpet the Trump line, the leading reader-comments to those Trump-trumpeters, under “Sort by Best” (meaning that at the top are the comments that have the highest net number of up-marks from readers, which indicates that the given comment is shared by the largest number of the readership), are hostile toward Trump, and are disappointed in the site itself for its remaining pro-Trump on the given matter.
For example, the April 11th article “In Trump White House, Wildcard Putin Faces First Assertive America of His Career” presents Trump as being the type of anti-Putin leader that America has long needed, so that:
Neither presidents George W. Bush nor Barack Obama responded to Putin’s belligerence on the world stage with decisive action. On the contrary, both attempted to establish friendly personal relations, treating Putin as a democratic leader with no ambition beyond his borders. Trump’s foreign policy, despite months of mainstream media coverage arguing the contrary, is to treat Putin’s Russia as a rogue state until it proves otherwise by eschewing Assad.
Trust Between Russia and America Kaput
Stephen Lendman
Candidate Trump said “Putin has done a really great job…I think I’d get along very well with” him…
“I have always felt that Russia and the United States should be able to work well with each other towards defeating terrorism and restoring world peace, not to mention trade and all of the other benefits derived from mutual respect.”
“…(T)here’s nothing I can think of that I’d rather do than have Russia friendly, as opposed to the way they are right now, so that we can go and knock out ISIS with other people.”
These and similar comments gave hope for improved bilateral relations under a Trump administration. Instead, things soured dramatically in short order on his watch.
He destroyed hopes for mutual trust and geopolitical cooperation. Chances for better US/Russia relations are nil.
Assad’s Response to Demands He Must Go
Stephen Lendman
In June 2014, he was overwhelmingly reelected Syria’s president - through a democratic process international observers called open, free and fair.
Syrians want no one else leading them. They alone have the right to decide, not foreign powers. He’s their legitimate president.
Given his popularity, he could serve as long as he wishes. On numerous occasions, he said he’ll step aside if Syrians want another leader.
Following the April 4 Kahn Sheikhoun CW attack, falsely blamed on Syria’s military, Secretary of State Tillerson said there’s “no role for (Assad) to govern the Syrian people.”
What a State-Owned Bank Can Do for New Jersey
Ellen Brown
Phil Murphy, the leading Democratic candidate for governor of New Jersey, has made a state-owned bank a centerpiece of his campaign. He says the New Jersey bank would “take money out of Wall Street and put it to work for New Jersey – creating jobs and growing the economy [by] using state deposits to finance local investments … and … support billions of dollars of critical investments in infrastructure, small businesses, and student loans – saving our residents money and returning all profits to the taxpayers.”
A former Wall Street banker himself, Murphy knows how banking works. But in an April 7 op-ed in The New Jersey Spotlight, former New Jersey state treasurer Andrew Sidamon-Eristoff questioned the need for a state-owned bank and raised the issue of risk. This post is in response to those arguments, including a short refresher on the stellar model of the Bank of North Dakota (BND), currently the nation’s only state-owned depository bank.
All the President’s Liars
Stephen Lendman
Lies, deceptions, distortions and misinformation provide bedrock justification for all wars - naked aggression when preemptively waged against countries threatening no one.
Syria was invaded and attacked. Its war isn’t civil. Its military is combating US-supported terrorists. Its survival as a nation depends on defeating them.
No evidence suggests Syria carried out CW attacks on civilians or militants any time throughout over six years of war - including on April 4 in Khan Sheikhoun, a likely CIA-orchestrated incident, using terrorists to do its dirty work. The attack came from the ground, not the air - likely from rockets filled with toxins.
Assad was falsely blamed for crimes committed by US-supported terrorists. It’s one of the oldest dirty tricks in the book - a US specialty, blaming victims for its high crimes, along with inventing phony pretexts for wars.
Keystone XL and America’s Psychopathic Government
Eric Zuesse
Keystone XL Pipeline is a long-controversial proposed Canadian pipeline project through the U.S. north to south, from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, to trans-ship the world’s most global-warming filthiest oil, from Canada’s tar-sands, to be burnt and used in Europe.
On March 24th, U.S. President Trump informed the to-be-owner of the Keystone XL Pipeline project, that he gives them the go-ahead to build it, after U.S. President Barack Obama had, near the end of his Presidency, prohibited it. Obama had wanted it built (and had pressured the EU to accept the oil that would be shipped to them from the proposed Pipeline’s southern terminus in Galveston, to sell this Canadian oil in Europe), but the EU said no; they wouldn’t relax their anti-global-warming standards to accept the world’s dirtiest oil, and this refusal by them eased Obama’s decision to give Ms. Clinton’s campaign the boost it needed by his simply nixing the project altogether. He nixed it in order to show Democratic voters that the Democratic Party cares about the environment, so as not to depress the electoral turnout for Hillary Clinton (who was actually a big supporter of fossil-fuels) on Election Day November 8th. But not only did the EU say no; the voters said no, to Clinton, too. So, this was a double disappointment to Obama; he had turned the Pipeline down for nothing — nothing that he had wanted, anyway, because global warming never seriously mattered to him (and therefore what he was doing about it in secret was supportive of the gas-and-oil industries).
Irreconcilable East/West Differences
Stephen Lendman
Russia and America are geopolitical opposites. Irreconcilable differences separate them.
Russia supports diplomatic conflict resolution, stability, security and multi-world polarity. America wages endless wars, seeking dominion over planet earth, its resources and populations.
Good faith isn’t a US tradition. Whether Republicans or Democrats are in charge, negotiating with America diplomatically achieves nothing.
Agreements reached are consistently breached. Washington seeks dominance, not cooperative relations. Ahead of his arrival in Moscow, Secretary of State Tillerson said Assad’s tenure as Syria’s leader is “coming to an end…(S)teps are underway” to remove him, without further elaboration.
Trump Administration Preparing Options to Confront North Korea
Stephen Lendman
Instead of engaging North Korea responsibly, ending decades of hostility, Trump intends confrontation - how yet to unfold.
The USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier strike group was ordered to position itself off North Korea’s coast, a show of force, a hostile act.
A spokesman for Pyongyang’s Foreign Ministry said America’s action “goes to prove (its) reckless moves for invading the DPRK have reached a serious phase.”
Its military “is ready to react to any mode of war desired by the US. We will take the toughest counteraction against the provocateurs in order to defend ourselves by powerful force of arms.”
Selling Escalated War on Syria
Stephen Lendman
Selling war requires inventing enemies, fear-mongering, substituting fake news for truth-telling, manipulating public opinion, and manufacturing consent.
Media scoundrels play along, feeding the public a steady diet of managed news misinformation, suppressing full and accurate reporting - featuring state-sponsored press agent journalism instead of the real thing, most people none the wiser.
Since GHW Bush’s 1991 Gulf War, America raped and destroyed Iraq, Somalia, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and Yemen.
It colluded with Kiev’s war on Donbass, partnered in three Israeli wars on Gaza, and toppled governments in Haiti, Honduras, Paraguay, Ukraine, Egypt and Brazil, along with other coup attempts.
Advertisers Want Media that Trump Watches & Reads
Eric Zuesse
On April 5th, Laura Nichols at Morning Consult bannered “Advertisers, Consumers Take Notice of Trump’s Unusual Media Diet”, and reported that:
Advertisers are scrambling to adjust how they reach the White House, … faced with a president who prefers Twitter and Fox News to a more wide-ranging media diet. Bill Pierce, an executive at public relations firm APCO Worldwide, explained that in the past, figuring out how to target the president would be underway before a new administration took office. This time around, some marketers are still looking for answers because they were anticipating a Hillary Clinton win. “[The outcome of the election] was a surprise to a lot of people. Everybody kind of made their plans based on a Clinton presidency, and this has meant a lot of questions, a lot of curiosity about how to talk to him, who to talk to, and what’s important,” Pierce said.
Advertisers aren’t only aiming to attract the attention of the American public to their brands; nowadays they also are aiming to attract the attention of the American President. Selling to a consumer will mean only the profits on the sales to that particular individual, but selling to the nation’s leader could mean far more than just that: perhaps federal contracts, or, ultimately, even special consideration in the event that a regulatory agency of the federal government might be considering whether or not to bring an enforcement action — and there are also many other ways in which a corporation’s drawing favorable attention to itself could possibly more than justify the choice of an advertising medium that reaches the U.S. President, instead of one that doesn’t.
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