Fired Trump Adviser Tells Moscow Audience How Great Exxon CEO Would Be For Russia
Carter Page, kicked off the campaign because of his ties to Russia, says he’s “personally excited” about the likely secretary of State pick.
12/13/2016 12:28 am ET



Carter Page, a former foreign policy adviser to President-elect Donald Trump, said on Monday in Moscow that members of the incoming Trump administration have a “great enthusiasm” for strengthening U.S.-Russian relations, starting with Trump’s reported pick for secretary of State, Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson.

“I’m really personally excited about Rex Tillerson,” Page said during his presentation at the Russian government-owned Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency. “Being awarded the [Russian] Order of Friendship, his [oil drilling] ventures in the Kara Sea and Black Sea, I mean the list goes on and on.”

The speech by Page, a global energy consultant who works closely with Russian state-owned companies, was carried live online by RT, a news outlet with ties to the Kremlin, and posted on YouTube. As a candid assessment of the incoming administration’s politics from someone with direct knowledge of them, his statements were remarkable for their divergence with Republican Party doctrine.

As Page skipped through slides (some below) unfavorably comparing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Tillerson ― and showing how much closer the Exxon CEO is to Moscow ― lawmakers from his own party were not only expressing concern over Tillerson’s potential nomination but also over allegations that Russia deliberately interfered in the presidential election to benefit Trump. The president-elect has dismissed those reports by arguing that the CIA’s credibility was shot during the run-up to the Iraq war.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/rex-tillerson-secretary-state-russia-carter-page_us_584f70ede4b0bd9c3dfe7991

West appeared in the lobby a short time later with Trump to pose for the cameras. The president-elect said the two men had been friends “a long time” and that they discussed “life.”

In response to questions about the meeting, West said only that he “just wanted to get a picture right now.”

It’s worth mentioning, given the time Trump allotted to his meeting with West, that the president-elect has not held a full-blown press conference since July. Presidents-elect usually hold a press conference a few days after the election, but there is no indication Trump will do that. On Monday, his team postponed a press conference scheduled for this week that was meant to address potential conflicts of interest over his business because, they said, he needed more time.

West has mentioned politics in the past, saying earlier this year he intended to run for president in 2020.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/kanye-west-trump-tower_us_58500356e4b0bd9c3dfeb8c5

Barack Obama Warns Trump Against ‘Flying Blind’ Without Intelligence
Obama says, “The truth of the matter is, it’s a big, complicated world.”
12/13/2016 02:27 am ET

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trevor-noah-barack-obama_us_584f9c88e4b04c8e2bb19cb5

The current president appeared on “The Daily Show” Monday for the whole show, and said he believed that Trump will realize the value of the briefings.

“I think the President-elect may say one thing and do another once he’s here (in the White House),” Obama said to Trevor Noah. “Because the truth of the matter is, it’s a big, complicated world.”

Obama said it doesn’t matter how smart you are, you have to have the best information possible to make the best decisions possible.

He then described the intelligence officers he’s worked with as “extraordinarily hard working, patriotic and knowledgeable experts” before adding: “If you’re not getting their perspective, their detailed perspective, you’re flying blind.”

https://twitter.com/colbertlateshow/status/808539810646278144



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“You’re out of your element, Donnie” –Walter from The Big Lebowski has a message for Donald Trump #LSSC

One of Bakker’s guests, Tom Horn, a prolific author of Last Days-themed books, spent an entire segment of the program explaining that “rabbis” have revealed that Trump may be the messiah, or a harbinger to the arrival of the messiah akin to John the Baptist.

“They’re looking at Donald Trump” as the messiah, Horn said of “the rabbis,” saying that Trump’s name “actually means ‘messiah.’”

Among the clues that Trump may be the messiah, he said, is that the president-elect is a kingly and warrior-like leader committed to protecting Israel and, according to Horn, rebuilding the Temple of Jerusalem.

Horn said that if Trump is not the messiah, then he is likely “the forerunner” to the messiah who “will start the message in the wilderness and the messiah is going to come in on his heels.”

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/end-times-pastor-donald-trump-could-be-the-messiah-or-his-forerunner/

Mitt Romney Is Not Donald Trump’s Secretary Of State Pick
Trump is to announce his choice on Tuesday.
12/12/2016 10:07 pm ET

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mitt-romney-trump-secretary-state_us_584f63cee4b04c8e2bb186f4

Trump notified Romney he would not get the job in a phone call prior to Romney’s announcement, CNN reported.

Trump is expected to announce his choice for the top diplomatic post on Tuesday, with many sources reporting that the President-elect has settled on Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson.

‘It’s happening’: Maddow previews ‘explosive’ Newsweek story that hints at Turkey’s blackmail of Trump

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/12/its-happening-maddow-previews-explosive-newsweek-story-that-hints-at-turkeys-blackmail-of-trump/

In a preview of a Newsweek article due to be released Tuesday morning, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow explained that writer Kurt Eichenwald has uncovered evidence that President-elect Donald Trump may have already been compromised by a foreign leader holding the power to threaten his overseas holdings to gain a political advantage.

“The day after our presidential election in this country, one of the world leaders who called up Trump tower and spoke with the president-elect was the president of Turkey,” Maddow explained. “And one of the perk up your ears strange things reported about that call is that while Donald Trump was on the phone taking that congratulatory phone call from the president of Turkey, in that same call, Mr. Trump brought up to the president of Turkey by name that executive from the Doğan company, the guy who was the key guy on Trump’s big twin towers in Istanbul.”

“Now Newsweek reports that Turkey has figured out how to turn that to their advantage and how to put the president of the United States over a barrel in the process,” Maddow explained. “On December 1st, the top representative of the Doğan company, in Turkey’s capital city, got arrested by the Turkish police. Again, Trump as president-elect had taken an official call from the Turkish president and used that occasion to tell the Turkish president how much this one particular company meant to him, going so far as to name specific executives.”

“Turkey desperately wants the U.S. government to extradite an imam (Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen),” Maddow explained. “They (the U.S.) have said that they are not extraditing him. But if that’s what you wanted, what if you could squeeze the personal financial interests of the American president as a way to get what you want from the American government?”

WASHINGTON ― President-elect Donald Trump will not hold a press conference on Thursday to announce plans for his billion-dollar real estate and licensing business, as he had promised.

Trump said on Nov. 30 that he would hold “a major news conference in New York City” to explain how he’d leave his Trump Organization “in total” when he takes office on Jan. 20. Trump will postpone the announcement until next month, an adviser said Monday night, after the Electoral College votes Dec. 19 on Trump’s election. Bloomberg reported the announcement may come before Trump’s inauguration.

Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway attributed the delay to “how convoluted and complex many of these business holdings are.”

“The press announcement has been delayed until January, as the Trump Organization experts and other counsel are trying to decide which is the best organizing structure for the Trump Organization going forward,” Conway told CNN’s Anderson Cooper. “As you know, it’s a very unconventional situation.” She said Trump still intends to give control of his businesses to his children “and other corporate officers whom he trusts.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-conflict-of-interest_us_584f3777e4b0e05aded57793

According to a review of public records, the outlet found that Palantir, Thiel’s data analysis company, would likely provide its services to the Trump administration’s deportation efforts.

Already, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement’s Office of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) has used Palantir to create its own data mining system called FALCON.

The program’s Search & Analysis System “enables ICE law enforcement and homeland security personnel to store, search, analyze, and visualize volumes of existing information in support of ICE’s mission,” according to the program description. Palantir was paid millions of dollars for providing its services to create and assist in operating the program.

Palantir is also building a case management system for HSI, according to the records, which show that the contract is worth millions of dollars. The New York Times reported earlier this year that Thiel’s company had made nearly $340 million from the federal government.

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/12/tech-billionaire-advising-trump-might-rake-in-millions-with-software-for-mass-deportations/