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Reds Plot to Control America!

By Peter Van Buren | WeMeantWell | September 19, 2020

Like me, you got most of your news from PeaceData.net. It was what you looked to to form your opinions, including the all-important one about which way to vote. What you missed on PeaceData you caught up with via Facebook memes and Tweets from people you do not know.

Or maybe not. Maybe like nearly everyone on planet earth you have no idea what I’m talking about and have never looked at the PeaceData site. That reality should pretty much end the discussion but this is 2020. So you must know by now Facebook claims an unvisited and now defunct web site named PeaceData was actually a Russian influence operation posing as an independent news outlet targeting voters in the United States. Including in their sneaky tactics were hiring American freelance “journalists” to write about US politics and racial tensions from their parents’ basements.

PeaceData operated 13 Facebook accounts, now suspended, supposedly using fake identities and “coordinated inauthentic behavior” by people with some kind of link “to individuals associated with past activity by the Internet Research Agency,” the Russkie company which US intelligence officials say was part of Comrade Trump’s 2016 win.

Yep, that old story, Russians, social media, blah. To say Peacedata itself truly does not matter, especially in relation to the attention it has received in death, gives too much credit to not mattering. What does matter is how the intel community, quasi-private tech firms, the media, and the Democrats worked together to exaggerate the threat and create the narrative outcome of “foreign influence.” Pay attention; this is the magician revealing how the trick is done.

It seems the Russians have gotten so good at influencing cow-like Americans that only five percent of English-language articles on PeaceData actually directly concerned the US election, out of over 700 articles published. You’d think no one would have even noticed they existed. However, some sneaky company called Graphika nonetheless told Facebook to conclude “this facet of the operation suggests an attempt to build a left-wing audience and steer it away from Biden’s campaign.” See, the conclusion from Graphika is by making almost no impact whatsoever, PeaceData was actually “trying harder and harder to hide.” Graphika found most of the English-language posts achieved only single-digit engagement.

Who funds net nanny Graphika? Their venture capital was raised privately, in two tranches of about three million dollars each, in 2014 and 2019. We do know who they work with. Their current “Innovation Officer” is Camille François, who once worked for Google’s analytics offshoot Jigsaw before quitting to run a secretive project for the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, alongside now Graphika CEO John Kelly (no relation to the Marine.) Their December 2018 reporting helped “prove” how the Russians used social media networks like Facebook and Twitter to influence the 2016 election. Graphika also has ties to the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Defense Department’s Minerva Initiative. If you pay to look at their stuff you realize they write like spooks, talk like spooks, and snitch out news sites like spooks. So you can decide if they’re involved in all this again because they are just good at proving Russian stuff or because they are tied to a corporate-quasi government structure alongside the intel community.

What is missing from Graphika’s work is any evidence whatsoever of any actual influence on the only thing that matters: how people vote. Graphika offers nothing quantitative, claiming only that by using American freelancers PeaceData was part of the “fabric” of communities and this made them credible. A step up from 2016 efforts, which relied on what Graphika said were foreign “trolls who typically researched American life so they could more effectively pose as US citizens online. One key trick was to watch American TV shows like House of Cards.”

One is inclined to imagine here the customer service rep with a south Indian accent who asks you to call him “Mike” and wonders “How it goes my man in that American town of Iowa?” Older readers, please substitute Boris and Natasha voices.

So who are these nefarious America writers unknowingly selling out their country? The New York Times tracked down one freelancer who ended up writing for no money somehow, though PeaceData rates of $75-$200 per article fluttered below average (lots of unknown sites recruit freelancers for small payouts; PeaceData used Guru.) This particular PeaceData journalist also once played Rusty in Starlight Express before selling insurance. One of his recent articles outlines his battle with dementia. Sorry to pick on the poor guy, but the NYT profiled him and it seems using such services to influence an election may not be the best use of those rubles.

He did write a nice piece claiming Susan Rice would have made a fine Vice President. One point in her favor was “I challenge anyone to find a video, or statement which shows Susan Rice raising her temper, shouting, acting hysterical or making comments.” Rice of course is known for her signature profanity and temper; here’s the Washington Post calling her out for describing Lindsey Graham as a “piece of sh*t.” Her f-bombs are legend. She famously flipped the bird at Richard Holbrooke, told France’s U.N. ambassador “you’re not going to drag us into your sh*tty war” and drew complaints of disrespect from allies on the U.N. Security Council.

But before just calling a Susan Rice-like bullsh*t on this whole sad attempt to frighten Americans into believing foreigners are here to steal our precious bodily Internet fluids, let’s go have a look at some of what else PeaceData had to say.

For example, here’s a quote from a PeaceData article about Q-Anon: “The effort to mainstream conspiracy is meant to distract from the true mechanisms of exploitation and alienation, while allowing for the continued consolidation of capital and upending norms with power grabs. As liberal institutions fail and capitalism continues to deliver uncertainty, the extension of a false mythos — that promises to yield revolutionary change and free the masses — gives allure to desperately confused people.”

Ok, that was too easy, somebody just held on to their Socialism 101 textbook. From a PeaceData article on the post office is lifted idea-for-idea from the NYT : “One way or another, the truth always comes out and with President Donald Trump, his motives were especially apparent after a news conference in the White House Briefing Room. He admitted on Thursday he opposed additional funding for the United States Postal Service (USPS) in order to make it more difficult to deliver mail-in ballots. Trump’s desire to not expand on voting by mail further sent society into a chaotic state amidst a pandemic.” Actually the NYT said “President Trump stirred new questions on Thursday about whether he would seek to hold up new money to the Postal Service to impede mail-in voting this fall in the middle of the pandemic.” Kinda the same thing but one is Russkie propaganda and the other is the New York Times.

It is very unclear whether any of this is illegal. Foreign organizations hire American writers all the time. And the line between “taking an editorial stance” and “influencing an election” lies closer to how paranoid you are than anything in the law. That did not stop the FBI from telling social media to act against PeaceData based on Graphika tattling. The action Facebook (and Twitter, who called PeaceData “Russian state actors” and blocked them) took against PeaceData was based entirely on so-called violations of Terms of Service. It allows the social media giants to show off how they are doing something to whatever, save democracy. If the Founders were alive today they would be editing Terms of Service instead of creating a Bill of Rights. Facebook was not asked to return the $480 in advertising money Peacedata spent on the site.

PeaceData doesn’t matter by itself. The real value in this fluffy jihad against a no-name site is to allow the MSM and Democrats to announce again Trump is being helped by a foreign power, that our electoral process is corrupt if Trump wins, and to revive whatever distant wet memories the faithful had in Russiagate ending the Trump presidency. A fantasy, a little day dreaming maybe the old tricks will work this time where they have failed ever before.

No big deal, just a glimpse behind the scenes where under the cover of blaming foreign collusion, corporate America, the intel community, and the media hide their own collusion, here, in the Twilight Zone of democracy.

September 21, 2020 Posted by | Deception, Russophobia | , , , , | Leave a comment

US-based ‘creator of Novichok’ apologizes to Navalny, but Russian scientists say he wasn’t even involved in poison’s development

By Jonny Tickle | RT | September 21, 2020

US-based chemist and independence campaigner for Tatarstan Vil Mirzayanov has ‘apologized’ to Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny, saying he considers himself indirectly responsible for his high-profile alleged poisoning.

Mirzayanov, who left Russia in the mid-1990s, has frequently claimed that he was one of the developers of Novichok. This has been rejected by other scientists known to have been on the team which created the lethal substance. In 1992, Mirzayanov leaked the structure of the poison, which resulted in Russian authorities charging him with treason, in a case that later collapsed.

Speaking to TV Rain, Mirzayanov said that he was part of the group behind the military-grade poison, which Germany claims has been found in the activist’s body. He also asserted that Navalny’s symptoms are typical of those experienced by people who have experienced exposure to Novichok.

“All the symptoms are similar,” Mirzayanov said. “Navalny will have to be patient. But in the end, he should recover.”

As none of Navalny’s associates were infected, the former scientist believes that the poison must have entered his body through his digestive tract.

However, according to Leonid Rink, a man commonly referred to in Russian media as the creator of Novichok, Mirzayanov was not involved in the development of the poison and is not an expert on its symptoms.

“He has nothing to do with biochemistry, nothing. He is an ordinary chromatographer,” Rink told Moscow news agency RIA Novosti. “He’s had nothing to do with the creation of Novichok.”

According to Rink, Navalny would not be alive if he was genuinely poisoned by Novichok.

Rink was backed up by Vladimir Uglev, another scientist known to have been on the poison’s development team, who claimed that Mirzayanov “never took part in field tests.”

Navalny, a well-known opposition figure and investigative journalist, fell ill on August 20, on a flight from Tomsk to Moscow. Following an emergency landing, he was immediately hospitalized in the Siberian city of Omsk. Two days later, after a request from his family and associates, Navalny was flown to Germany for treatment at Berlin’s Charité clinic. Over a week later, Berlin announced that the opposition figure was poisoned with a nerve agent from the ‘Novichok’ group. Contrary to German experts’ diagnoses, medical professionals in Omsk deny that any poison was found in his body.

On Saturday, a post on Navalny’s Instagram account explained that he is slowly recovering and is expected to get back to normal.

Mirzayanov has long been a vocal Kremlin opponent and Tatar activist. A member of the Presidium of the Milli Mejlis of the Tartar People in exile, he has prominently advocated for Tatarstan, a majority Muslim republic, to separate from Moscow. Back in 2008, he was declared “Prime Minister” of the region’s “government in exile”

September 21, 2020 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | Leave a comment

New European migration policy could repeat the 2015 crisis

By Lucas Leiroz | September 21, 2020

Five years ago, German Chancellor Angela Merkel unilaterally allowed hundreds of thousands of immigrants from the Middle East and Africa to enter European territory, causing the EU to enter one of the biggest crises in its history. The lack of a previous agreement with the other European governments has created great political instability on the continent that has never been overcome. However, when Berlin considered the number of foreigners in its territory “sufficient”, it simply closed its borders, keeping thousands of immigrants captive in other European countries waiting for a new destination. As a result, many European states were overcrowded with immigrants, while Germany rejoiced in cheap labor for its companies.

Now, history seems to repeat itself. Recently, the EU announced a new immigration and asylum policy, supposedly based on “solidarity” and humanitarian values, but which, once again, failed to reach a consensus within the organization’s countries. Interestingly, the new EU migration policy comes precisely from Germany, but this time the author of the project is Ursula von der Leyen, current President of the European Commission and a member of the Christian Democratic coalition that supports Angela Merkel.

Von der Leyen presented to the European Parliament a proposal to abolish the “Dublin-3”, a regulation according to which immigrants arriving in Europe are forced to register immediately in the country in which they are located. This norm had been causing a serious imbalance in the immigrant population in countries like Greece, Malta, Italy and Spain, but the big problem is that until now Von der Leyen and her supporters have not announced which mechanism will replace the current regulation, just stating that it will be a policy based on “governance and solidarity”, keeping obscurity until the final version of the project is presented.

The total disagreement between the members of the Union is leading to different solutions presented unilaterally by the members. The intention is simple: to survive, in the face of an uncertain future. Italy is working to establish strategies together with Libya to curb migratory flows. Greece is asking for EU support to rebuild the Lesbos camp. On the other hand, Budapest and Warsaw demonstrate total antipathy to humanitarianism as a basic principle of migratory policies. Hungary and Poland have already expressed officially that are not interested in receiving Muslim immigrants. Being culturally and ethnically homogeneous nations, these countries see with fear and terror the multiculturalism that increasingly penetrates Western Europe as a result of intense migratory flows.

In fact, the whole of Europe sees Van der Leyen’s plans with suspicion, simply because they see her as a representative of the interests of Angela Merkel, who is responsible for the 2015 migration crisis. Apparently, the abolition of Dublin-3 will mean nothing more than a mechanism to facilitate the distribution of immigrants across European territory, which will be imposed as a Union policy, disregarding the national interests of member states. Van der Leyen is simply continuing, five years later, what Merkel started in 2015: a policy of distributing cheap labor on European soil disguised by humanitarian principles.

As previously mentioned, Germany closed its borders when deemed necessary. But the “more migrations” speech remains the main agenda for Merkel and her representative in Brussels. So, what remains to be seen is whether Germany will also participate in the “solidarity distribution” of the immigrants currently located in southern European camps due to Dublin-3 or will it again restrict the entry of foreigners because it considers that there is “a sufficient amount” of them.

Apparently, Berlin created a major state of crisis and instability in Europe but managed to keep itself reasonably out of the worst consequences, because, unlike other countries, it closed its borders when it considered it necessary. Now, the Germans are trying to disperse a huge surplus of immigrants and refugees on European soil under a humanitarian flag and their dogma is supported unconditionally by NGOs, political parties and the business sector interested in precarious and low-cost foreign labor.

Apparently, there will be a scenario of uncontrolled migration, completely out of alignment with the national interests of any European state. This will generate a new movement of dissatisfaction in the bloc and could lead to new divisions and to the resurgence of radical nationalist tendencies that are already being born in several countries. For now, we can foresee new “exits” appearing in the coming years, or, worst case scenario, real waves of cultural and social conflicts – as it is already happening in France – in a large number of European countries.

Lucas Leiroz is a research fellow in international law at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

September 21, 2020 Posted by | Deception, Economics, Progressive Hypocrite | | Leave a comment

The Criminal Prosecution of Boeing Executives Should Begin

Mish Talk | September 18, 2020

Damning details of purposeful malfeasance by Boeing executives emerged in a Congressional investigation.

FAA, Boeing Blasted Over 737 MAX Failures

On Wednesday, the Transportation Committee Blasted FAA, Boeing Over 737 MAX Failures

The 238-page document, written by the majority staff of the House Transportation Committee, calls into question whether the plane maker or the Federal Aviation Administration has fully incorporated essential safety lessons, despite a global grounding of the MAX fleet since March 2019.

After an 18-month investigation, the report, released Wednesday, concludes that Boeing’s travails stemmed partly from a reluctance to admit mistakes and “point to a company culture that is in serious need of a safety reset.”

The report provides more specifics, in sometimes-blistering language, backing up preliminary findings the panel’s Democrats released six months ago, which laid out a pattern of mistakes and missed opportunities to correct them.

In one section, the Democrats’ report faults Boeing for what it calls “inconceivable and inexcusable” actions to withhold crucial information from airlines about one cockpit-warning system, related to but not part of MCAS, that didn’t operate as required on 80% of MAX jets. Other portions highlight instances when Boeing officials, acting in their capacity as designated FAA representatives, part of a widely used system of delegating oversight authority to company employees, failed to alert agency managers about various safety matters.

Boeing Purposely Hid Design Flaws

The Financial Times has an even more damning take in its report Boeing Hid Design Flaws in Max Jets from Pilots and Regulators.

Boeing concealed from regulators internal test data showing that if a pilot took longer than 10 seconds to recognise that the system had kicked in erroneously, the consequences would be “catastrophic”.

The report also detailed how an alert, which would have warned pilots of a potential problem with one of their anti-stall sensors, was not working on the vast majority of the Max fleet. It found that the company deliberately concealed this fact from both pilots and regulators as it continued to roll out the new aircraft around the world.

In Bed With the Regulators

Boeing’s defense is the FAA signed off on the reviews.

Lovely. Boeing coerced or bribed the FAA to sign off on the reviews now tries to hide behind the FAA.

 Only One Way to Stop This

There is only one way to stop executive criminals like those at Boeing.

Charge them with manslaughter, convict them, send them to prison for life, then take all of their stock and options and hand the money out for restitution.

September 20, 2020 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , , | Leave a comment

BLM’s War on the Deplorables

By Mike Whitney • Unz Review • September 19, 2020

Let’s assume that Black Lives Matter is not a “social justice” movement, but a corporate-sponsored public relations vehicle that’s being used to advance the agenda of elites? Is that too much of a stretch?

And let’s say that the massive protests that erupted across the country were not random or spontaneous events as some people seem to think, but part of a broader strategy to control the headlines by shifting the dominant “narrative” to race. The death of George Floyd fits perfectly with this “broader strategy”, as the incident took place 6 months before the general election, which (conveniently) gave the Democrats enough time to mount an effective attack on Donald Trump using an issue on which they feel he is particularly vulnerable. (Race)

Was it all a coincidence?

Maybe or maybe not. But it’s certainly worth investigating, after all, we’ve just endured 3 and a half years of relentless fabrications connected to the Russiagate scam, so the idea that this latest headline-grabbing fiasco might be, well, fake, is certainly within the realm of possibility.

So, let’s see if we can figure out “why” wealthy elites and their giant charitable foundations would choose to dump millions of dollars into an organization that claims to be Marxist. Could be that….

  1. They are genuinely committed to social justice for black people?
  2. They think “racist” cops are the Number 1 problem facing black people today?
  3. They think the massive protests are raising consciousness which will have a transformative effect on the country?
  4. They need a flashy social justice organization (BLM) to divert attention from widening inequality, spiraling unemployment, ballooning poverty, shrinking growth, and the savage restructuring of the economy that is creating a permanent underclass forced to scrape by at food banks, homeless shelters and tent cities that are sprouting up across the country but which are religiously ignored by our prostitute media?

If you chose Number 4, you guessed right. The protests, demonstrations and riots are all part of a spectacular “Product Launch”, the most impressive Madison Avenue-type extravaganza of all-time. BLM has exploded onto the scene just months before the election eliminating all of the 10 Top issues listed by Gallup that voters really care about, and skillfully shifting the public’s attention to race, race relations, social justice and cops. What an astonishing turnaround! In the old days we would have called this the “old switcheroo”, an art-form that has been perfected by BLM (and their Democrat handlers) who have turned the election on its head by burning down half the country, then claiming they are the victims. How’s that for twisted logic?

So, what can we say definitively about BLM? What does the group really believe and what is it trying to achieve? Having spent a fair amount of time on their website, I’m still puzzled. The website contains a number of emotive videos with pulsing background music and lively narration. But–like everything else with this shadowy group– there doesn’t seem to be much substance. The emphasis seems to be on appearances rather than policy, slogans rather than remedies, and catchy monikers (Black Lives Matter) rather than thoughtful recommendations for real change. So, where’s the beef? Who is Black Lives Matter and what do they want?

Are they a civil rights group in the tradition of Martin Luther King?

No.

Are they a black power group in the tradition of Malcolm X and the Black Panthers?

Nope.

Are they “Marxists” like they say?

Of course not. Have you ever heard them talk about “historical materialism”, “social relations”, “capitalist accumulation”, or any of the other concepts that are central to Marxist ideology? No. Heck, they don’t even talk about the glorious “revolution” that’s supposed to topple the capitalist system and pave the way to “socialist utopia”.

Why would anyone call themselves a Marxist when they never talk about revolution, wage-labor or class struggle? Why?

Because it’s a silly affectation that appeals to leftists, that’s why. It’s like wearing a beret to an art exhibit, it’s a meaningless display of ideological conformity. The Marxist label is a glitzy designation that is intended to mislead the public about who runs the group, how it is organized, what its leaders believe and what their true intentions are. The idea that a “trained Marxist” –who wholeheartedly believes that society is broken into “classes whose interests stand in irreconcilable opposition”– would create a group whose views are entirely shaped by race and race relations is patently absurd. It is a contradiction in terms. These are not Marxist leaders and this is not a “social justice” movement. So, what are they?

They’re an NGO, a non-governmental organization which provides services to its members and its patrons. Like many NGOs, they have won the public’s trust, which makes them a useful proxy for stakeholders who remain largely in the shadows. In short, BLM is corporate-funded, agenda-driven franchise performing the tasks that best promote the interests of its deep-pocket contributors. The grassroots social justice stuff is mostly baloney.

And who are the contributors? Check out this excerpt from an article at The Unz Review:

“In the wake of the racial unrest which followed Freddie Gray’s death in Baltimore in 2015, George Soros’s Open Society Institute donated $650,000 to Black Lives Matter… According to one watchdog group, “In 2016 organizations in the Black Lives Matter movement received $33 million in grants from the Open Society Foundations, founded by Hungarian hedge fund manager George Soros in 1993, and the Center for American Progress, founded by former White House chief of staff and Hillary Clinton campaign chair John Podesta in 2003.” According to the Washington Times, access to Soros money insured another $100 million from “a series of wealthy liberal foundations including The Ford Foundation, in addition to $33 million in grants from the Open Society Foundations, with additional grant-making from the Center for American Progress.” (“The Invisible Man at the Race Riots”, E Michael Jones, The Unz Review )

Is it safe to assume that the money flowing into BLM from these uber-Capitalists is not being provided to support a “Marxist” revolution?

Yes, that’s a fair assumption. Big donors don’t hand out millions of dollars to groups that want to overthrow capitalism and redistribute their wealth to the struggling proles. That’s NOT why they’re funding BLM. They’re funding BLM because it is an effective vehicle for achieving their political ambitions while hiding behind the fig leaf of “social justice”. That’s what’s really going on. BLM is just a mask behind which the elites operate.

And what do these donors get for their money?

They get a logistically-sophisticated, well-trained, fully-mobilized domestic insurgency which is capable of inflicting massive damage on cities or towns across the country at a moment’s notice. They also get an activist militia that uses military-type tactics while taking advantage of a highly-developed social media infrastructure which is second to none. Finally, they get an experienced band of street-smart hooligans capable of prosecuting a hybrid war on the state, the objective of which is to undermine confidence in government institutions, roll back critical civil liberties protections, plunge the country into a protracted, fratricidal war, replace the existing Constitutional Republic with a new authoritarian order and spread social unrest and mayhem from sea to shining sea. If you are a foreign oligarch who wants to transform America into an impoverished Third World Shithole, BLM is not a bad place to put your money.

Of course, according to Wikipedia, there are no “Financial transparency issues”. Take a look:

“Some observers have stated that the Black Lives Matter nonprofit does not adequately disclose what their financial contributions are spent on. Executives from Black Lives Matter have denied that it uses ActBlue to donate to the Democratic National Committee. In an AskReddit thread, Black Lives Matter indicated that their expenditures include “… civic engagement, expansion of chapters, Arts & Culture, organizing and digital advocacy resources and tools.” (Wikipedia)”

“Civic engagement”?!?

Is that like ‘burning down a furniture store in Kenosha’ or beating a 70 year-old Asian woman to death with a 2×4? The group needs to clarify.

The funding issue is not going to go away nor should it. The American people need to know who is providing the resources for the massive rampage that took place in over 700 cities across the country. As yet, not one US corporation has withheld donations pending an investigation of whether BLM was responsible for the damage or not. Why is that, do you think?

Is it because these foundations and plutocrats are getting exactly what they paid for?

Uh huh. What we know for certain, is that the riots were the worst in the nation’s history and that the insurance payouts already exceed $2 billion. Check it out from RT:

“The tidal wave of arson, vandalism, and other property crimes that swept across the nation in the aftermath of the Floyd killing left between $1 billion and $2 billion in damages, as measured by insurance claims paid out by the industry….

While that figure represents only the damage done between May 26 and June 8 – meaning the real figure taking into account the destruction in cities like Portland and Kenosha is likely much higher – it still represents the worst riot damage in insurance industry history, according to the report. Previously, only natural disasters like hurricanes and floods had resulted in over $1 billion in damage claims.” (“George Floyd riots cost insurance companies as much as $2 BILLION – more than any in HISTORY, industry claims“, RT)

We also know that BLM was at the center of the action despite the pathetic coverup by the Democrat-owned media. Here’s more background from an article at The Federalist:

“Contrary to corporate media narratives, up to 95 percent of this summer’s riots are linked to Black Lives Matter activism, according to data collected by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED). The data also show that nearly 6 percent — or more than 1 in 20 — of U.S. protests between May 26 and Sept. 5 involved rioting, looting, and similar violence, including 47 fatalities….

Of the 633 incidents coded as riots, 88 percent are recorded as involving Black Lives Matter activists…. BLM activists were involved in 95 percent of the riots for which there is information about the perpetrators’ affiliation…

… the data shows just how widespread the summer BLM-linked rioting has been. It has not been limited merely to anarchist strongholds such as Portland, Oregon… but has stretched across both major and minor U.S. cities and included dozens of locales with no violent police incidents this summer. (“Study: Up To 95 Percent Of 2020 U.S. Riots Are Linked To Black Lives Matter“, The Federalist)

See what I mean? So, don’t be confused by the media’s obfuscation. These riots have BLM fingerprints all over them.

Fortunately, 50 House Republicans have asked Attorney General Barr to investigate this summer’s riots and determine where these groups are getting their money. In their letter to Barr they said:

“It is clear that these individuals are well-funded and supported by a national network of left-wing activists committed to perpetrating violence and furthering anarchy in our streets… As such, we urge you to immediately open an investigation to identify and prosecute all individuals and groups responsible for funding and organizing these terroristic acts that are wreaking havoc on our nation.” (“House Republicans Demand DOJ Investigate Organized Riots”, The Federalist)

It’s clear, that the Republican congressmen are referring to Antifa and other Black Bloc groups, but it probably won’t matter. Once the investigation begins, BLM’s finances will come under greater scrutiny and we’ll finally see the source of their funding and how it filters through the organization. I’m not at all convinced that BLM is the leaderless “non-hierarchical” organization they pretend to be. That’s another “leftist” fable. Large piles of money are not handed off to clerks in the back of the plant. They are given to trusted leaders who distribute the loot in a way that meets the requirements of the donors. BLM is not a charity, it’s a franchise, which means it’s probably run like every other top-down business.

The most damning critique of BLM appeared in an April, 2017 article at the World Socialist Web Site titled “Black Lives Matter cashes in on Black Capitalism”. The article is an excellent investigative piece that provides essential information for understanding how BLM is set-up, who provides the funding, how the group has aligned itself with elite organizations, and how it is being used to splinter the working class consistent with the Democrats “divide and conquer” political strategy. Here’s an extended excerpt from the piece which is “must read” material:

“Last summer, the Ford Foundation, one of the most powerful private foundations in the world, announced that it was organizing to channel $100 million to the Black Lives Movement over the next six years… In a statement of support, Ford called for the group to grow and prosper. “We want to nurture bold experiments and help the movement build the solid foundation that will enable it to flourish.”…

From the beginning, the “mothers of the movement” Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi… specifically opposed uniting blacks, whites and immigrants against the brutal class-war policies of the capitalist state. Instead, the group did its best to confine anti-police violence protests within the framework of the capitalist system and push a racialist and pro-capitalist agenda.

Even prior to 2013, however, all three of t he co-founders had developed close ties to corporations, foundations, academia and/or government-sponsored agencies. Tometi, in particular, was a well-known quantity in these circles. She had spoken at the UN … had been to the White House and met with Obama liaison Heather Foster, and addressed the Aspen Institute, a high-level think tank associated with the US military and intelligence community…

The real substance of the group’s policies is the unremitting injection of racial divisions and animosity into the movement of opposition to police violence. It aims to update the age-old tactic of divide and conquer, seeking to prevent the unity of the working class—black, white and immigrant—from challenging the capitalist system, the source of the deepening social and political oppression.

… The Ford Foundation—with its long history stretching from its CIA fronts in the 1940s and the promotion of black capitalism in Detroit in the aftermath of the 1967 riots—provided a financial anchor for BLM’s expansion.

The Ford Foundation enlisted other such “philanthro-capitalists”: the Hill-Snowden Foundation, Solidaire (Ford Foundation and Leah Hunt-Hendrix, granddaughter of the oil and gas tycoon H.L. Hunt), the NoVo Foundation (started by Warren Buffett’s son Peter and daughter-in-law Jennifer Buffett in 2006), the Association of Black Foundation Executives (Kellogg Foundation and JPMorgan Chase and its Black Organization for Leadership Development [BOLD]), the Neighborhood Funders Group–Funders for Justice (also funded by Ford), among others.

The media and the state

While spontaneous protests began to adopt the #BLM hashtag as opposition to police violence developed, it was the promotion by the bourgeois media that brought #BLM into national prominence…. As data accumulated by killedbypolice.net and other news media sources underscored the fact that police killings were directed against poor and working-class whites as well as inner-city blacks, the issues of social inequality, poverty and class began to take center stage. The more universal slogan “All Lives Matter” came into wide use.

BLM denounced the specter of growing class unity and decried “All Lives Matter” as illegitimate and even racist. …

BLM personnel meanwhile were being groomed for top-level official positions. Leading Black Lives Matter spokespersons made repeated trips to the White House in 2015 and 2016 to hold meetings with President Obama and his representatives. The Democratic Party was conferring official authority upon the group. …
Later in July, at a separate meeting with Obama, Mckesson and Packnett agreed that Packnett would serve as an official representative on Obama’s Task Force for 21st Century Policing…

These remarkable meetings of top Black Lives Matter associates with the US president and his top police agencies demonstrated that the group had no objection to being incorporated into the state apparatus. Indeed, a “seat at the table” was their aim… BLM’s hostility to the working class and reactionary rhetoric play an ever more dangerous role in the current political climate, dovetailing with the extreme right wing and legitimizing racialism.

Their assessment of the election of Donald Trump demonized the white working class, a view also promoted by Hillary Clinton, the New York Times and other pro-Democratic Party media. Utterly hostile to the unification of the working class against the class-war policies of the new government, BLM sees the possibility of “opportunities” under the Trump administration. Vowing to train 300 black leaders to take positions on “school boards, city councils, neighborhood councils, and every branch of government,” the group looks to a further political future within the Democratic Party.”

(“Black Lives Matter cashes in on black capitalism”, World Socialist Web Site)

Does it sound like BLM is a cog in a much bigger corporate-political-elitist machine?

Yes, it does.

Does it sound like they are being used to fragment and suppress the emerging populist movement that supports Trump’s nationalism over the Democrat’s globalism?

Yes, again.

Then, what can we glean from this article in the WSWS ?

We can assume that BLM is largely an invention of ruling class elites to divert attention from the collapsing economy and the unprecedented human catastrophe that will follow shortly after the election. The plan involves shifting public attention to divisive racial issues that put working people at each other’s throats while concealing the vicious class war that is being prosecuted behind the shield of a fake social justice movement.

Bottom line: BLM is not the friend of working people, in fact, it is funded by their sworn enemies. They are the footsoldiers in the War on the Deplorables.

September 19, 2020 Posted by | Deception | , , , | Leave a comment

Democrats not serious to stop US weapons sales to the Saudis: Former US diplomat

Press TV – September 18, 2020

The Democrats are not serious to put down the US sales of weapons to the Saudis and to Israel and other countries, says J. Michael Springmann, a former US diplomat in Saudi Arabia.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s top aides have been questioned by Congress over President Donald Trump’s dismissal of a top administration official while he was investigating billions of dollars of arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

Top aides to Pompeo went before a congressional panel on Wednesday to defend Trump’s decision to fire former Department of State Inspector General Steve Linick.

Springmann said, “There are two points to keep in mind when considering the House of Representatives’ investigation of the firing of Steve Linick, the former State Department Inspector General, back in May of this year.”

“The first, of course, is that Linick was probing the sale of huge amounts of weapons to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen, and other issues. Apparently, it was alleged that Secretary of State Pompeo and his wife used government officials to do personal things for them. I’m not sure what that is and there are no specifics. Linick claimed he had been bullied when he was asking questions, and wanted answers and not getting them. And I think there’s something to that,” he told Press TV in an interview on Friday.

“The other issue, of course, is that this is an election year. In a bit more than a month and a half, we have general elections for president and a third of the Senate and all of the House of Representatives. So Elliot Engel, the Democrat, who’s been doing most of the questioning of Pompeo, was also one of the Democrats who led the impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives against Donald Trump. Eliot Engel of course has lost his seat in Congress. He lost in a primary, and he will be on his way out. And in the primary, the people running against him charged him with taking more money from defense contractors than 144 Republicans in the House of Representatives. So, I think that Engel is playing politics. He’s a strong supporter of Israel and he is trying to do his very best to get Donald Trump out of office,” said Springmann who is based in Washington.

“So I think it’s a nasty combination of events, with Trump trying to sell more weapons to the Saudis than they need, and also Engel playing politics for all he’s worth. The real issue is that the Democrats all have defense contractors in their districts, or most of them I guess, or they get money from defense contractors so that when push comes to shove, the Democrats don’t really fight against this. Yes, they passed a resolution in the House of Representatives and tried to get the same resolution through the Republican-controlled Senate, but they didn’t have the votes to overcome Donald Trump’s veto,” he added.

“So if the Democrats were really serious, they would reject the money from the defense contractors and unite to put down the sales of weapons to the Saudis and to Israel and other countries that don’t need them but use them to harm their neighbors. Unfortunately, the Democrats are not united enough because they’re too busy playing politics and too busy taking the money from defense contractors to produce results,” he stated.

“In sum, we need to look at all sides of the matter and not just listen to Elliot Engel,” he concluded.

In May, Trump abruptly fired Linick from his position as the State watchdog, while he was probing the administration’s last year’s decision to allow $8 billion in military sales to Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Jordan despite congressional opposition.

Congress had objected to the transactions, warning that providing the Saudis with more weapons could contribute to the human catastrophe in war-torn Yemen, where the Kingdom has been waging a devastating war for more than five years.

An estimated 100,000 people have lost their lives in the Saudi war.

Congress had also expressed concern that the military transaction would possibly leave US officials vulnerable to war crimes charges.

“The news of Inspector General Linick’s firing did come as a surprise… Any time one is terminated, it naturally will raise some questions,” said Representative Michael McCaul, the committee’s top Republican.

Linick, who was responsible for preventing government waste, fraud and abuse, was also investigating allegations that Pompeo and his wife misused government resources by having department staff handle personal matters.

Representative Eliot Engel, the Democratic chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee asked if Linick was fired “because he was getting closer and closer to matters that were embarrassing for Mr Pompeo and his family.”

September 18, 2020 Posted by | Deception, Progressive Hypocrite, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

South Africa says ‘surprised’ by ‘bizarre’ report of Iran plot to kill US envoy

Press TV – September 18, 2020

South African Minister of International Relations Naledi Pandor says her country is “as surprised as its Iranian friends” after learning about the American news website Politico’s report of a “plot” by Tehran to assassinate the US envoy to the African nation.

“It’s been a very strange public statement and of course our friends in Iran are as surprised as we were,” Pandor said in an interview with SABC News, the full version of which will be broadcasted on Friday.

“I find it surprising, why would Iran being a very good friend of South Africa come and commit a horrendous act in a country which has been a good friend to Iran, and of such a nature?” she added.

“I can only describe it as bizarre and let me stop there.”

Her comments came after Politico news website claimed Iran had sought to assassinate US Ambassador to South Africa Lana Marks in retaliation for the January assassination of top Iranian anti-terror commander, General Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the IRGC Quds Force who was martyred in a US drone attack near the Baghdad International Airport along with his comrades.

The article claimed to be based on US intelligence reports, allegedly seen by a US government official and another official familiar with the documents, stating that Marks had likely been chosen due to her closeness to US President Donald Trump.

Iran vehemently dismissed the “biased and agenda-driven” report, and advised American officials to stop resorting to hackneyed and outworn methods to create Iranophobic atmosphere on the international arena.

In a Monday statement, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeid Khatibzadeh said, “The Islamic Republic of Iran, as a responsible member of the international community, has demonstrated its continued adherence to the principles and customs of international diplomacy.”

The spokesman said baseless allegations such as the one published in Politico are “part of the Trump administration’s counter-intelligence campaign against Iran.”

“The US regime’s resort to anti-Iranian accusations and lies in the run-up to the US presidential election, and at the same time its pressure to abuse UN Security Council mechanisms to increase pressure on the Iranian people, was predictable.”

“Nevertheless, such moves and news fabrications, probably to continue in the future, will certainly remain futile, adding to Washington’s long list of ongoing failures against the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Khatibzadeh added.

September 18, 2020 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | Leave a comment

FBI director says Russia is engaged in ‘very active efforts’ to sink Biden & rehashes 2016 claims… but provides no evidence

RT | September 17, 2020

Russia is reprising its still-unproven 2016 election meddling efforts, this time targeting Democratic challenger Joe Biden, according to FBI Director Christopher Wray, who gave no evidence to support his crowd-pleasing claims.

Wray told the House of Representatives that Russia is taking a “very active” role in the 2020 US election, claiming Moscow “continues to try to influence our elections, primarily through what we call malign foreign influence” during a Thursday hearing on national security threats.

According to the FBI director, the Russians’ primary goal seems to be not only to “sow divisiveness and discord,” but to trash Democratic nominee Joe Biden – along with “what the Russians see as a kind of anti-Russian establishment” – through social media, “use of proxies,” state-run media, and “online journals.”

Wray contrasted 2020’s alleged meddling with that of 2016, which he claimed involved “an effort to target election infrastructure,” presenting no evidence to back up either current or past claims – other than that the FBI or other intelligence agencies had made the same claims in the past. There is no actual evidence that Russia interfered with election infrastructure in 2016.

While four years of similarly flavored conspiracy theories blaming Russia for Donald Trump’s 2016 win have come up empty-handed, the paucity of real-world evidence for ‘Russian meddling’ has not stopped Wray and other US intel officials from hyping it up as a major threat to the integrity of the democratic process.

The National Counterintelligence and Security Center suggested last month that, while Russia would interfere in the election in favor of Trump, China and Iran would meddle on behalf of Biden – implying Americans couldn’t vote at all without doing the bidding of a foreign nation.

Former Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats even suggested Congress create another election integrity body to supervise the vote in November, apparently concerned the existing authorities – all 54 of them, one for each state plus four federal entities tasked with keeping meddlers, foreign and domestic, shut out – weren’t enough.

Wray insisted the FBI was not only working closely with its state and federal counterparts, but also interfacing on a daily basis with social media companies – though he did not go into detail regarding what information the tech giants were handing over to law enforcement (or vice versa).

During his testimony before Congress, Wray also broke with the Trump administration’s viewpoint on the subject of Antifa, insisting the often-violent leftist group was “more of an ideology than an organization.” However, he admitted “we have seen folks who subscribe or identify with the Antifa movement, who coalesce regionally into small groups or nodes, and they are certainly organized at that level.” Trump has called for Antifa to be declared a terrorist organization.

September 17, 2020 Posted by | Deception, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

West cannot hide crimes against Syria with humanitarian allegations: Syrian envoy to UN

Press TV – September 17, 2020

Syrian Ambassador to the United Nations Bashar al-Ja’afari says the West’s crimes, including economic terrorism, against Syria cannot be hidden by humanitarian claims and allegations.

Speaking at a UN Security Council session on the humanitarian situation in Syria via a video link, Ja’afari said the Western states, which have introduced coercive economic measures against the Arab country, would not be able to cover up the repercussions of their economic terrorism against Syrians.

He also stressed that the humanitarian allegations against Syria made by the West would not be able to hide its horrible crimes in exerting more pressure on the Arab nation and hampering the reconstruction process in the war-ravaged country and the return of the displaced Syrians.

Ja’afari noted that some Western countries, which have slapped Syria with persisting illegal sanctions, are telling outright lies in claiming that they are not targeting Syrians and that they are trying to provide humanitarian and medical exemptions to assist the Syrians.

The Syrian envoy also lambasted claims by the Western states that Damascus had deprived COVID-19 Syrian patients of due treatment, stressing that Syrian citizens are in fact suffering greatly from the disastrous effects of Western coercive measures.

“Since 1978, the US successive administrations have imposed coercive measures on the Syrian economy and its vital sectors, such as civil aviation, petroleum, energy, telecommunications, technology, banking, import and the export, including the import and manufacturing of food, medicines and basic medical equipment, to dissuade Syria from its stances in rejection of the hegemony and occupation policies,” Ja’afari added.

Elsewhere in his remarks, the Syrian envoy demanded the withdrawal of all Turkish troops and their allied militant groups from northern and northwestern parts of the Arab country.

He also stressed the need for ending the US occupation of the areas northeast of the Arab country and holding Washington and its allies and separatist militias and terrorist groups affiliated to it responsible for prolonging the suffering of the displaced in al-Hawl and al-Rukban camps.

In conclusion, Ja’afari referred to a recent report by the Guardian, which cited US research centers and academics as saying that the US, since 2001, has displaced 37 million persons in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Yemen and elsewhere under the slogan of the so-called “war on terrorism.”

September 17, 2020 Posted by | Deception, Illegal Occupation, Progressive Hypocrite | , | Leave a comment

Discrediting the Russian Vaccine: The Small Shady Deal of Big Politics

By Irina Alksnis – Sputnik – 17.09.2020

For the West, Russia’s leadership in the creation of a vaccine against the coronavirus has become not just an unpleasant surprise, but a shocking call-out, not only politically but financially as well.

On the one hand, ‘backward, deeply undemocratic Russia’ simply lacks the right to carry out such breakthroughs in complex scientific and technologically advanced fields. On the other, there is a jackpot at stake so astronomical in size that the mere idea that it might elude Western pharmaceutical giants is cause for heartburn. For example, think of what the news of an agreement between Moscow and Delhi on the supply of a hundred million doses of Sputnik-V to India alone is worth.

It’s not surprising that Russia has faced numerous attempts to discredit the results of the work of its scientists: big politics means big money.

However, next to the sharks one will always find sucker fish, who regularly get a snack from their masters’ dinner. That’s exactly what happened when the results of Sputnik-V testing were announced by The Lancet, one of the oldest and most prestigious medical journals in the world.

The article was torn apart by critics with lighting speed. The ‘loudest’ of these criticisms spread by world media was the open letter by Enrico Bucci, a biology professor at Temple University in Philadelphia, who expressed fears about the mistakes ‘possibly made by Russian researchers’. Bucci’s letter received the support of over two dozen other Western scientists.

The Lancet invited the developers of Sputnik-V to answer the questions they had, and this was done. The Gamaleya Center presented the publication with the full-length clinical protocol of its study of the Sputnik-V vaccine.

Kirill Dmitriev, the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, published a column in which he commented in detail on the main claims made by critics, while at the same time urging them to look out for the ‘plank in their own eyes’, and dispelling any doubts inside Russia itself about the ongoing developments.

Meanwhile, the problem in this case is not only a purely scientific one, on which the Russian researchers have focused.

The fact is that Dr. Bucci is himself a rather remarkable person. The BBC’s Russian service calls him a “famous fighter against pseudoscience”. However, it would be more appropriate to describe him as a “businessman representing science.”

In 2016, Bucci founded Resis Srl, a company specialising in the verification, fact-checking and validation of scientific papers. This is a trendy topic in modern science. Too often in recent years, researchers have been caught making mistakes, including major ones, in articles they’ve published. And it’s not necessarily a matter of abuses or fraud. Often it’s a matter of honest mistakes, which, when exposed, nevertheless affect the reputation of scientists and even entire scientific institutions.

It is precisely to avoid such problems that authors and research institutions often turn to firms like Bucci’s to carry out an independent audit of their texts before publication. For example, Bucci’s company was hired for this purpose by Germany’s Fritz Lipmann Institute, which was impacted by a major scandal some time back due to crude mistakes in its published materials. A detailed article on that scandal appeared in Nature in late 2019.

The subtle point worth noting here is that businesses like Bucci’s are obliged to follow certain ethical restrictions, something the professor knows perfectly well. In an article appearing in Nature in December 2019 which he coauthored, which is dedicated to integrity and conscientiousness in published work, it was honestly pointed out that people like Bucci have a conflict of interest. Simply put, when an owner of a commercial company speaks publicly about the activity in which he specialises, it essentially becomes an advertisement for his firm.

Of course, when it comes to ‘discrediting’ the Russian vaccine, such trifles are no longer important. Western countries used Bucci’s open (and by definition self-promoting) letter to ‘strike another blow against’ Russian scientists in the hopes of undermining or at least temporarily weakening their leading position. Meanwhile, the professor himself has received free PR of a scale and magnitude that he could not have even dreamed about under any other circumstances. This is called “riding the wave of hype”, and is a principle according to which hundreds of thousands of media personalities operate.

There’s no doubt that doing so will pay off for Bucci in the form of very attractive new commercial contracts. Catching hype in the troubled waters of big politics can be very profitable. But this has nothing to do with science generally, or medicine in particular, or the saving of hundreds of thousands of lives around the world.

September 17, 2020 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | Leave a comment

Why Bob Woodward’s ‘Rage’ is a lie built on a lie, and what Trump vs ‘Military Messiah Syndrome’ really is about

By Scott Ritter | RT | September 16, 2020

Bob Woodward’s new insider account of the Trump administration, ‘Rage’, details the multi-faceted controversies surrounding President Trump’s approach to governance – none more so than his relationship with the military.

Bob Woodward is a legendary reporter whose talent for getting insiders to speak about the most sensitive matters in government dates back to Watergate and the Nixon presidency. His most recent presidential expose, ‘Rage’, touches on a wide range of controversies, from the coronavirus pandemic to issues relating to war, and the promise of war.

It is Trump’s tortured relationship with the military that stands out the most, especially as told through the eyes of former Secretary of Defense Jim ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis, a retired marine general. It is clear that Bob Woodward spent hours speaking with Mattis – the insights, emotions and internal voice captured in the book show a level of intimacy that could only be reached through in-depth interviews, and Woodward has a well-earned reputation for getting people to speak to him.

The book makes it clear that Mattis viewed Trump as a threat to the US’ standing as the defender of a rules-based order – built on the back of decades-old alliances – that had been in place since the end of the Second World War.

It also makes it clear that Mattis and the military officers he oversaw placed defending this order above implementing the will of the American people, as expressed through the free and fair election that elevated Donald Trump to the position of commander-in-chief. In short, Mattis and his coterie of generals knew best, and when the president dared issue an order or instruction that conflicted with their vision of how the world should work, they would do their best to undermine this order, all the while confirming to the president that it was being followed.

The military is trapped in an inherited reality divorced from the present

This trend was on display in Woodward’s telling of Trump’s efforts to forge better relations with North Korea. At every turn, Mattis and his military commanders sought to isolate the president from the reality on the ground, briefing him only on what they thought he needed to know, and keeping him in the dark about what was really going on.

In a telling passage, Woodward takes us into the mind of Jim Mattis as he contemplates the horrors of a nuclear war with North Korea, and the responsibility he believed he shouldered when it came to making the hard decision as to whether nuclear weapons should be used or not. Constitutionally, the decision was the president’s alone to make, something Mattis begrudgingly acknowledges. But in Mattis’ world, he, as secretary of defense, would be the one who influenced that decision.

Mattis, along with the other general officers described by Woodward, is clearly gripped with what can only be described as the ‘Military Messiah Syndrome’.

What defines this ‘syndrome’ is perhaps best captured in the words of Emma Sky, the female peace activist-turned adviser to General Ray Odierno, the one-time commander of US forces in Iraq. In a frank give-and-take captured by Ms. Sky in her book ‘The Unravelling’, Odierno spoke of the value he placed on the military’s willingness to defend “freedom” anywhere in the world. “There is,” he said, “no one who understands more the importance of liberty and freedom in all its forms than those who travel the world to defend it.”

Ms. Sky responded in typically direct fashion: “One day, I will have you admit that the [Iraq] war was a bad idea, that the administration was led by a radical neocon program, that the US’s standing in the world has gone down greatly, and that we are far less safe than we were before 9/11.”

Odierno would have nothing of it. “It will never happen while I’m the commander of soldiers in Iraq.”

“To lead soldiers in battle,” Ms. Sky noted, “a commander had to believe in the cause.” Left unsaid was the obvious: even if the cause was morally and intellectually unsound.

This, more than anything, is the most dangerous thing about the ‘Military Messiah Syndrome’ as captured by Bob Woodward – the fact that the military is trapped in an inherited reality divorced from the present, driven by precepts which have nothing to with what is, but rather by what the military commanders believe should be. The unyielding notion that the US military is a force for good becomes little more than meaningless drivel when juxtaposed with the reality that the mission being executed is inherently wrong.

The ‘Military Messiah Syndrome’ lends itself to dishonesty and, worse, to self-delusion. It is one thing to lie; it is another altogether to believe the lie as truth.

No single general had the courage to tell Trump allegations against Syria were a hoax

The cruise missile attack on Syria in early April 2017 stands out as a case in point. The attack was ordered in response to allegations that Syria had dropped a bomb containing the sarin nerve agent on a town – Khan Shaykhun – that was controlled by Al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic militants.

Trump was led to believe that the 59 cruise missiles launched against Shayrat Airbase – where the Su-22 aircraft alleged to have dropped the bombs were based – destroyed Syria’s capability to carry out a similar attack in the future. When shown post-strike imagery in which the runways were clearly untouched, Trump was outraged, lashing out at Secretary of Defense Mattis in a conference call. “I can’t believe you didn’t destroy the runway!”, Woodward reports the president shouting.

“Mr. President,” Mattis responds in the text, “they would rebuild the runway in 24 hours, and it would have little effect on their ability to deploy weapons. We destroyed the capability to deploy weapons” for months, Mattis said.

“That was the mission the president had approved,” Woodward writes, clearly channeling Mattis, “and they had succeeded.”

The problem with this passage is that it is a lie. There is no doubt that Bob Woodward has the audio tape of Jim Mattis saying these things. But none of it is true. Mattis knew it when he spoke to Woodward, and Woodward knew it when he wrote the book.

There was no confirmed use of chemical weapons by Syria at Khan Shaykhun. Indeed, the forensic evidence available about the attack points to the incident being a false flag effort – a successful one, it turns out – on the part of the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamists to provoke a US military strike against Syria. No targets related to either the production, storage or handling of chemical weapons were hit by the US cruise missiles, if for no other reason than no such targets could exist if Syria did not possess and/or use a chemical weapon against Khan Shaykhun.

Moreover, the US failed to produce a narrative of causality which provided some underlying logic to the targets that were struck at Khan Shaykhun – “Here is where the chemical weapons were stored, here is where the chemical weapons were filled, here is where the chemical weapons were loaded onto the aircraft.” Instead, 59 cruise missiles struck empty aircraft hangars, destroying derelict aircraft, and killing at least four Syrian soldiers and up to nine civilians.

The next morning, the same Su-22 aircraft that were alleged to have bombed Khan Shaykhun were once again taking off from Shayrat Air Base – less than 24 hours after the US cruise missiles struck that facility. President Trump had every reason to be outraged by the results.

But the President should have been outraged by the processes behind the attack, where military commanders, fully afflicted by ‘Military Messiah Syndrome’, offered up solutions that solved nothing for problems that did not exist. Not a single general (or admiral) had the courage to tell the president that the allegations against Syria were a hoax, and that a military response was not only not needed, but would be singularly counterproductive.

But that’s not how generals and admirals – or colonels and lieutenant colonels – are wired. That kind of introspective honesty cannot happen while they are in command.

Misleading the American public 

Bob Woodward knows this truth, but he chose not to give it a voice in his book, because to do so would disrupt the pre-scripted narrative that he had constructed, around which he bent and twisted the words of those he interviewed – including the president and Jim Mattis. As such, ‘Rage’ is, in effect, a lie built on a lie. It is one thing for politicians and those in power to manipulate the truth to their advantage. It’s something altogether different for journalists to report something as true that they know to be a lie.

On the back cover of ‘Rage’, the Pulitzer prize-winning historian Robert Caro is quoted from a speech he gave about Bob Woodward. “Bob Woodward,” Caro notes, “a great reporter. What is a great reporter? Someone who never stops trying to get as close to the truth as possible.”

After reading ‘Rage’, one cannot help but conclude the opposite – that Bob Woodward has written a volume which pointedly ignores the truth. Instead, he gives voice to a lie of his own construct, predicated on the flawed accounts of sources inflicted with ‘Military Messiah Syndrome’, whose words embrace a fantasy world populated by military members fulfilling missions far removed from the common good of their fellow citizens – and often at conflict with the stated intent and instruction of the civilian leadership they ostensibly serve. In doing so, Woodward is as complicit as the generals and former generals he quotes in misleading the American public about issues of fundamental importance.

Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of ‘SCORPION KING: America’s Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.’ He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector. Follow him on Twitter @RealScottRitter

September 16, 2020 Posted by | Book Review, Deception, Fake News, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | | Leave a comment

Gavin Newsom’s Exceedingly Ignorant Climate Claim

By Jim Steele | Watts Up With That? | September 14, 2020

Scientific evidence reveals there has been no climate effect regards California’s wildfires! None! The data below proves it beyond all doubt. There is no denying that warmer temperatures can cause drier fuels and promote larger fires. But that fact is being misapplied to all wildfires. About 70% of California’s 2020 burnt areas have been in grasslands and dead grass is so dry by the end of California’s annual summer drought that dead grasses are totally insensitive to any added warmth from climate change. Dead grasses only require a few hours of warm dry conditions to become highly flammable. It’s fire weather not climate change that is critical. Furthermore, the century trends in local temperatures where California’s biggest fires have occurred reveal no connection to climate change. In most cases the local maximum temperatures have been cooler now than during the 1930s. Those cooler temperatures should reduce the fire danger. Newsom is either ignoring or distorting the scientific evidence, is totally stupid, or is a dishonest demagogue.

Maximum temperatures are typically used by fire indexes to issue red flag warnings because it is the heat of midday that has the greatest drying effect. Minimum temperatures are often low enough to drop below the dewpoint at which time fuel moisture increases. So averaging minimum and maximum temperatures is inappropriate. In addition, referencing a higher global average temperature is meaningless. Only local maximum temperatures determine the dryness of surface fuels during every fire. As in Park and Abatzoglou 2019, the months of March through October are averaged to determine maximum temperatures during California’s dry season.

Here are some relevant facts (from the Western Regional Climate Center).  Trust the scientific evidence

1) The August 2013 Rim Fire centered around Yosemite National Park, was California’s 5th largest fire.

2) The November 2018 Camp Fire was California’s deadliest fire destroying the town of Paradise. It was also its 16th largest fire.

3) The 2018 Mendocino Complex Fire was California’s largest fire (since 1932 excluding 2020) .

4) In the October 2017 wine country fires, the Tubbs Fire was the 4th deadliest. It only burned 37,000 acres but high winds drove embers into the dwellings of the heavily populated outskirts of Santa Rosa.

Governor Newsom ignores the data to disgustingly hijacking the tragedy of California’s fires to push is climate change agenda. But he is not alone. There are climate scientists pushing catastrophes by ignoring the local maximum temperature trends. Bad analyses promote bad policies and obscure what needs to be done regards fuel management and creating defensible spaces in fire prone California. Newsom must focus on fuel management and fire suppression. As fire ecologist Thomas Swetnam echoed the experts’ growing consensus against fire suppression wrote, “The paradox of fire management in conifer forests is that, if in the short term we are effective at reducing fire occurrence below a certain level, then sooner or later catastrophically destructive wildfires will occur. Even the most efficient and technologically advanced firefighting efforts can only forestall this inevitable result.”

Further information about California’s wildfires are

Why Worse Wildfires – part 1

Why Worse Wildfires?  Part 2

Minimizing California Wildfires

Wildfires: Separating Demagoguery from the Science

How Bad Science & Horrific Journalism Misrepresent Wildfires and Climate

Jim Steele is Director emeritus of San Francisco State’s Sierra Nevada Field Campus and authored Landscapes and Cycles: An Environmentalist’s Journey to Climate Skepticism

September 15, 2020 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

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