US: new political committee plans to unseat Palestinian American politician

MEMO | June 13, 2022
A new political action committee (PAC) plans to unseat Palestinian American Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib over her clear support for the people of occupied Palestine, the Intercept revealed on Friday. The committee claims that it is “dedicated to empowering urban communities to narrow the wealth gap between Black and White Americans.”
More than 40 Black business and civic leaders launched the Urban Empowerment Action PAC in October. According to the Intercept, the committee “has picked its most prominent and first incumbent target this cycle: Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich.”
It has labelled the challenge against Tlaib as its “premier race” and plans to spend at least $1 million to unseat her, arguing that Detroit, a city with a majority Black electorate, should be represented by a Black person in Congress. The PAC is backing candidate Janice Winfrey, Detroit’s city clerk, who slammed Tlaib’s vote against last year’s bipartisan infrastructure package and her criticism of US military funding to Israel, which Winfrey supports.
This particular PAC is primarily funded by billionaire hedge fund investor and philanthropist Daniel Loeb. Its founder remains unknown.
Tlaib is facing her second primary as an incumbent in August. She has secured $15 million for local community projects in this year’s House budget bill, made efforts to extend the child tax credit and secured the fifth-largest amount of Covid-19 aid allocated for America’s major cities.
“Her public scrutiny of unchecked US funding for Israeli occupation forces has made her a target of pro-Israel groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee [of which Loeb is also a donor]… and Pro-Israel America, which endorsed Winfrey in March,” the news organisation pointed out. “If they manage to unseat Tlaib, conservative Democrats would score a monumental win.”
Damascus Airport Runways Out of Service After Israeli Strikes: Syrian Transport Ministry
Samizdat – 10.06.2022
The runways at Damascus airport are out of service as a result of airstrikes conducted by the Israeli air force, the Syrian Ministry of Transport said.
On Thursday, the Syrian Defense Ministry said that Israel had fired missiles at a number of targets south of Damascus. Syria said that Israeli warplanes aimed to hit the airport.
“As a result of the Israeli aggression, which hit the infrastructure of the international airport of Damascus, the runways are significantly damaged in several places along with the navigation lighting,” the ministry said, as quoted by the Shams FM broadcaster.
The attack also damaged the second terminal of the airport.
“At the moment, our specialists are working to eliminate the consequences of the airstrikes and repair what was damaged as a result of the attack. The airport’s operations will be resumed immediately after repair and safety checks,” the ministry added.
Syria’s Cham Wings Airlines said earlier that all of its flights were diverted from Damascus airport to Aleppo in the north of the country.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry Strongly Condemns Israeli Airstrike at Damascus Airport
Also on Friday, Maria Zakharova, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman, said that Moscow strongly condemns the Israeli airstrikes at the airport and calls on the Israeli side to halt such activities.
“In this regard, we are forced to emphasize again that the ongoing Israeli shelling of Syria territory … is absolutely unacceptable. We strongly condemn Israel’s provocative attack on critical Syrian civilian infrastructure,” the spokeswoman said in a statement published by the ministry.
Zakharova also said that such strikes create risks “for international air traffic.”
“We demand from the Israeli side to halt such activities,” Zakharova added.
How the West helped Israel take the IAEA hostage
By Syed Zafar Mehdi | Press TV | June 11, 2022
Israel, the world’s eighth-largest nuclear power, initiated its nuclear program in 1952 with technological support from France and the US, the two countries most vocal about Iran’s peaceful nuclear program.
The first nuclear weapons were developed by Tel Aviv somewhere around 1967-1968, according to military think tanks. After that, the production accelerated rapidly, with zero international outcry.
Today, the regime possesses over 90 nuclear warheads with enough plutonium to produce at least 200 nuclear weapons. Around 5 kg of weapons-grade plutonium is required for one nuclear bomb.
Despite its nuclear program being an open secret – thanks to technician Mordechai Vanunu who blew the lid off Pandora’s Box back in 1986 – the regime has obdurately refused to confirm or deny it.
Vanunu, who worked at the Dimona nuclear facility, was in 1988 convicted of treason and sentenced to 18 years in prison. The same year he was also nominated for the Nobel peace prize.
Vanunu isn’t the only one to blow the whistle. In December 2013, former Israeli Knesset member Avraham Burg in a rare admission said the regime possessed both nuclear and chemical weapons, dubbing the official policy of nuclear ambiguity as “outdated and childish”. He was soon reprimanded.
What has emboldened Tel Aviv to accelerate its nuclear activities while wrapping a cloak of secrecy around them is Western sponsorship made possible by Zionist lobbying groups in the US and Europe.
The two countries most critical of Iran’s nuclear program are Israel’s staunchest allies, who helped the regime become a nuclear power. Israel’s weapons-grade fissile material stocks originated in France in the 1960s and the US in the late 1960s.
The US support, in particular, has allowed Israel to escape accountability for its diabolic activities. In a classic case of double standards, successive regimes in Washington have made a conscious effort not to talk about Israel’s nuclear arsenal despite making hullabaloo for non-proliferation in the region.
It began back in 1968 when then-CIA director Richard Helms informed President Lyndon Johnson that Israel had built nuclear weapons and that its air force had conducted aerial maneuvers to drop them.
Johnson’s response, on expected lines, was muted. A year later, at a meeting between just-elected President Richard Nixon and then Israeli premier Golda Meir, it was agreed that Washington will not force Israel to sign the NPT, which had opened for signature months before, in July 1968.
The US policy of silence continued, which helped the illegitimate regime in Tel Aviv escape the scrutiny of the UN nuclear agency. This silence amounted to both cowardice and complicity.
Importantly, and quite scandalously, Israel is not the signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT). It has repeatedly rejected calls to join the keystone accord of the international arms control regime and refused to give UN nuclear agency inspectors access to its nuclear sites.
Despite the regime’s dismissive approach, the International Atomic Energy Agency has adopted a remarkably soft approach to the point that many see collusion between the two.
IAEA chief Rafael Grossi’s whirlwind trip to Tel Aviv ahead of the UN nuclear agency’s board of governors meeting in Vienna earlier this week lent credence to the plausible Israel-IAEA collusion theory.
Grossi dashed off to Israel to discuss the anti-Iran resolution drafted by the US and the European troika with Israeli officials, aimed at mounting pressure on Iran to give up its legitimate demands.
Does it make sense that the IAEA chief meets the head of an illegitimate regime, which has secretly built a nuclear arsenal and refused to cooperate with the UN agency, to discuss the nuclear program of a country that has signed the NPT, cooperated fully with the agency and fulfilled all its obligations? It smells of something deeply sinister, extremely despicable.
The resolution against Iran at the IAEA board of governors meeting, which has already seen a “firm and proportionate response” from Tehran, blamed Iran for lack of cooperation with the UN agency.
For those unnerved by Iran’s decision to ramp up its nuclear enrichment capacity, it is essential to understand that the Islamic Republic claims its rights under Article IV of the NPT to pursue a peaceful nuclear program for energy purposes, unlike rogue regimes like Israel.
It’s also imperative to understand that the decision to scale up uranium enrichment from 3.65 percent stipulated in the 2015 nuclear deal came a year after former US President Donald Trump in a unilateral and illegal move pulled his country out of the landmark agreement, followed by reinstatement of sanctions.
The negotiations between Iran and the world powers to salvage the deal have been paused not because of Iran’s excessive demands or non-compliance but due to the West’s obstructionism. Iran did everything to save the deal but the other parties continue to make all-out efforts to kill the same deal.
The latest move to remove cameras operating beyond the NPT safeguards agreement at some Iranian nuclear sites and feed gas into machines including IR-6 is a milder reaction to the hostile move at the IAEA board of governors meeting.
As Iran’s nuclear body chief Mohammad Eslami stated, it’s preposterous that the IAEA has been taken hostage by the illegitimate regime, which raises questions over its credibility and independence.
Unless the agency comes out of the ominous Israeli shadow and makes a concerted effort to focus on its professional and technical mandate, beyond politics, Iran reserves the right to take remedial measures.
And as President Ebrahim Raeisi asserted unambiguously, the Islamic Republic will not back down even an inch. The writing is on the wall.
Syed Zafar Mehdi is a Tehran-based journalist, editor and blogger. He has reported extensively from Kashmir, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran for leading publications worldwide.
Leslie Wexner’s Inner Demon
This short excerpt from Whitney Webb’s upcoming book “One Nation Under Blackmail” examines an obscure media profile of Leslie Wexner, Jeffrey Epstein’s mentor, from the 1980s that contains disconcerting revelations about Wexner’s personality and his inner world.
BY WHITNEY WEBB |
UNLIMITED HANGOUT| JUNE 10, 2022

1985 was the year that Leslie Wexner became a billionaire. It was also that year that the chairman of The Limited (now L Brands) began to build up his public persona. This effort to “re-brand” himself began with a series of fawning media profiles. The main outlets that participated in Wexner’s first main, personal PR campaign were written by prominent New York City-based outlets, like New York magazine and the New York Times.
The New York magazine profile, which was the cover story for its August 5, 1985 issue, was entitled “The Bachelor Billionaire: On Pins and Needles with Leslie Wexner.” Though filled with photos of a middle-aged Wexner grinning and embracing friends as well as lavish praise for his business dealings and his “tender” and “gentle” personality, one of the main themes of the article revolves around what is apparently a spiritual affliction or mental illness of Wexner’s, depending on the reader’s own spiritual persuasion.
The New York magazine article opens as follows:
“On the morning Leslie Wexner became a billionaire, he woke up worried, but this was not unusual. He always wakes up worried because of his dybbuk, which pokes and prods and gives him the itchiness of the soul that he calls shpilkes [“pins” in Yiddish]. Sometimes he runs away from it on the roads of Columbus, or drives away from it in one of his Porsches, or flies from it in one of his planes, but then it is back, with his first coffee, his first meeting, nudging at him.”
One may interpret this use of shpilkes, literally “pins” or “spikes” in Yiddish and often used to describe nervous energy, impatience or anxiety, as Wexner merely personifying his anxiety. However, his decision to use the word dybbuk, which he does throughout the article, is quite significant. Also notable is how Wexner goes on to describe this apparent entity throughout the article and his intimate relationship with it.

First page of New York magazine’s 1985 profile of Wexner
As defined by Encyclopedia Britannica, a dybbuk is a Jewish folklore term for “a disembodied human spirit that, because of former sins, wanders restlessly until it finds a haven in the body of a living person.” Unlike spirits that have yet to move on but possess positive qualities, such as the maggid or ibbur, the dybbuk is almost always considered to be malicious, which leads it to be translated in English as “demon”. This was also the case in this New York magazine profile on Wexner.
The author of that article, Julie Baumgold, describes Leslie Wexner’s dybbuk as “the demon that always wakes up in the morning with Wexner and tweaks and pulls at him.” Wexner could have easily chosen to frame the entity as a righteous spirit (maggid) or as his righteous ancestors (ibbur) guiding his life and business decisions, especially for the purpose of an interview that would be read widely throughout the country. Instead, Wexner chose this particular term, which says a lot for a man who has since used his billions to shape both mainstream Jewish identity and leadership in both the US and Israel for decades.
As the article continues, it states that Wexner has been with the dybbuk since he was a boy and that his father had recognized it and referred to it as the “churning”. Per Wexner, the dybbuk causes him to feel “molten” and constantly pricked by “spiritual pins and needles”. It apparently left him at some point as a young man, only to return in 1977 when he was 40, half-frozen during an ill-fated trip up a mountain near his vacation home in Vail, Colorado. This specific trip is when Wexner says he both rejoined with his childhood dybbuk and decided to “change his life.”
He told New York magazine that his dybbuk makes him “wander from house to house”, “wanting more and more” and “swallowing companies larger than his own.” In other words, it compels him to accumulate more money and more power with no end in sight. Wexner later describes the dybbuk as an integral “part of his genius.”
Wexner further describes his dybbuk as keeping “him out of balance, emotionally stunted, a part of him — the precious, treasured boy-son part — lagging behind [the dybbuk].” This is consistent with other definitions of the term in Jewish media, including a feature piece published in the Jewish Chronicle. That article first defines the term as “a demon [that] clings to [a person’s] soul” and then states that: “The Hebrew verb from which the word dybbuk is derived is also used to describe the cleaving of a pious soul to God. The two states are mirror images of each other.” Per Wexner’s word choice and his characterization of what he perceives as an entity dwelling within him, the entity — the dybbuk — is dominant while his actual self and soul “lags behind” and is stunted, causing him to identify more with the entity than with himself.
This is also reflected in the concluding paragraph of the New York magazine article:
“Les Wexner picks up his heavy black case and flies off in his Challenger, with his dybbuk sitting next to him, taunting and poking him with impatience, that little demon he really loves. The dybbuk turns his face. What does he look like? ‘Me,’ says Leslie Wexner.”
Outside of the spiritual aspect of this discussion, it can also be surmised from the above that there is a strong possibility that Wexner suffers from some sort of mental disorder that causes him to exhibit two distinct personalities which continuously battle within him. What is astounding is that he describes this apparent affliction to a prominent media outlet with pride and the author of the piece weaves Wexner’s “demon” throughout a piece that seeks to praise his business acumen above all else.
Yet, perhaps the most troubling aspect of Wexner’s experience with his “dybbuk”, whether real or imagined, is the fact that Wexner, in the years before and after this article was published, has had a massive impact on Jewish communities in the US and beyond through his “philanthropy.” Some of those philanthropic efforts, like the Wexner Foundation, saw Wexner mold generations of Jewish leaders through Wexner Foundation programs while others, such as the Mega Group, see the organized crime-linked Leslie Wexner joined by several other like-minded billionaires, many of which also boast considerable organized crime connections, in an effort to shape the relationship of the American Jewish community, as well as the US government, with the state of Israel.
For a man of such influence in the Jewish community, why have there been essentially no questions raised as to Wexner’s role in directing the affairs of that ethno-religious community given that he has openly claimed to be guided by a “dybbuk”? This is particularly odd when one considers that Wexner has come under increased scrutiny in recent years after his protege and closest associate for decades, Jeffrey E. Epstein, was outed as both a pedophile and serial sex trafficker. Did Wexner’s dybbuk draw him to Epstein and prompt him to financially support his horrific crimes against minors?
Note: The above is an adapted excerpt from Whitney Webb’s upcoming book “One Nation Under Blackmail: the sordid union between Intelligence and Organized Crime that gave rise to Jeffrey Epstein”. Those interested may pre-order the book directly from the publisher’s website or from Amazon.
US ‘Acknowledged’ Tehran is Not Looking to Build a Nuclear Bomb: Iranian Foreign Minister
By Dhairya Maheshwari – Samizdat – 09.06.2022
Iran has rejected a resolution adopted by the IAEA’s Board of Governors (BoG) censuring it for not disclosing the site of three uranium enrichment facilities. Tehran claims that the IAEA’s findings are based on inputs from Israel, as the agency’s director general Rafael Grossi met the Israeli PM in Tel Aviv this month.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has claimed that the US and its Western allies have “acknowledged” that Tehran isn’t looking to build a nuclear bomb.
“The United States and the West know that the atomic bomb has no place in Iran’s Islamic beliefs,” Abdollahian remarked during an address to Indian Islamic scholars in New Delhi, as per a video released by Iran’s Foreign Ministry on Thursday. The visiting Iranian FM was speaking through a Hindi translator.
The foreign minister kickstarted his maiden three-day visit to India on Wednesday, meeting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval on the opening day.
“The West once acknowledged in the nuclear talks that they could ignore all their problems with Iran’s nuclear programme as long as Iran stopped supporting Palestine and recognised Israel,” Abdollahian remarked at the gathering.
“With such incorrect excuses, the West sought the recognition of Israel by the Islamic Republic of Iran in order to achieve their goals, which, of course, failed,” the top Iranian diplomat added.
Abdollahian declared that in spite of the Western countries’ appeals, Iran remained steadfast in supporting “the cause of Palestine”.
“Iran considers it its religious and moral duty to support the liberation of Holy Quds (Jerusalem) and is fully committed to it,” added the dignitary.
Abdollahian told his audience that he wanted to give them a sense of ongoing negotiations between Tehran and Western powers, seeking to bring the US back into the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or the Iran Nuclear Deal.
Former US President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled Washington from the pact in 2018, but his successor Joe Biden has indicated his willingness to reverse the controversial decision.
Tehran Slams US, EU Allies for ‘Political Resolution’
The Iranian Foreign Minister’s remarks came hours after the 35-member Board of Governors (BoG) of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) overwhelmingly approved a resolution calling upon Tehran to take “urgent steps” to comply with the IAEA’s nuclear safeguards.
The resolution was co-sponsored by the US and the E3 allies—Germany, the United Kingdom and France. Russia and China were the only countries which opposed the resolution, while three nations, including India, abstained from the IAEA vote.
The resolution was floated after a report this month from IAEA’s Director General Rafael Grossi claimed the “presence of uranium particles of anthropogenic origin at Turquzabad, Varamin and Marivan”.
Grossi has said that the three sites weren’t previously disclosed under ‘Safeguards Agreement and Additional Protocol’ negotiated between Tehran and IAEA in March.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry has rejected the resolution as “political, incorrect and unconstructive action”.
“The adoption of the resolution, which is based on the hasty and unbalanced report of the Director General of the IAEA and based on the Zionist regime’s false and fabricated information, will only weaken the process of Iran’s cooperation with the IAEA,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Tehran has claimed that the locations cited by the IAEA DG had been cleared by the agency “once and for all” in December 2015 and weren’t supposed to be covered under the March 2022 pact.
Enjoying Your Membership in the Mass Shooting of the Day Club?
Made-to-order censorship from the people who brought you 9/11
Helen of desTroy | June 9, 2022
When Nina “Mary Sloppins” Jankowicz predictably crashed and burned as the standard-bearer for the Biden administration’s Ministry of Truth, most people with two brain cells to rub together rejoiced. This was a logical response to aesthetic terrorism, as the gratingly-voiced compulsive liar being shoved in our face was a clear example of the narrative managers adding insult to injury. But anyone who thought we had heard the last of Washington’s Disinformation Governance Board was sadly mistaken. The creature which has replaced Jankowicz is significantly more horrifying, a nightmarish Nosferatu whose mommy was in the Mossad, who’s played a starring role in some of the most heinous crimes against humanity of the last two decades.
sleep tight
I’m talking, of course, about Michael Chertoff.
While there’s no direct smoking-gun proof that the current Mass Shooting Of The Week Club is connected to the Disinformation Governance Board, Chertoff has something of a history of weaponizing extremely dodgy incidents of “terrorism” to advance his agenda, whether that’s getting the Patriot Act passed after 9/11 or having the full nude body scanners manufactured by his company the Chertoff Group’s client Rapiscan (yes, the horrifically invasive body scanner company actually had the word “rape” in the name) installed in airports across the US after the “underwear bomber” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab supposedly tried and failed to detonate a bomb in his big-boy panties aboard an airplane.
The Chertoff Group’s client list is positively bursting with the sort of company that would benefit from a rash of mass shootings, and Chertoff himself sits on the board of the Jeffrey Epstein-backed Carbyne911, a firm perhaps most notable for its many links to Israeli intelligence, the cartoonish way in which Tel Aviv has sold it as precisely the solution to America’s mass shooting ‘problem,’ and the ease with which it can be turned into a Trojan horse for the Unit 8200 alumni who founded it, allowing Israeli spies to slurp up a wealth of sensitive information without even having to deceive their targets. Carbyne911 turns the user’s phone into an audio/video transmitter in much the same way as infamous Israeli spyware firm NSO Group’s Pegasus malware did, except Carbyne911 is installed deliberately by the user, ostensibly to keep them “safe” – and activating one device activates all other devices in the area that have Carbyne911 installed, potentially giving the company access to an entire building’s worth of sensitive audio-visual data. The company also sells its services for non-emergency purposes, allowing it to keep its foot in the door for those slow times between mass shootings, and in addition to the US, Israel and Mexico, it has offices in Ukraine, which is surely just a coincidence…
Chertoff, one of the architects of the Bush administration’s post-9/11 torture policy, is also well-known for his utter lack of humanity – something that would have been inculcated in him from a young age if his mother Livia Eisen was, as many qualified investigators believe, an early Mossad member. One would have to look far indeed for anyone more likely to inaugurate a “mass shooting of the day” campaign in order to strip Americans of their Second Amendment rights once and for all, or have certain political views declared illegal and elevated to the level of domestic terrorism – all while making a buck for his Chertoff Group security industry clients. Guilford County, North Carolina reportedly plans in the wake of this sudden outpouring of senseless FBI-adjacent violence to begin installing body scanners at its 19 high schools and 23 middle schools, and with the bidding process open you can bet that Rapiscan or its parent company OSI Systems will be taking a big bite out of the taxpayer’s wallets in that state – if not, in reality, out of crime.
Setting up one mass shooting after another is quite clever, from the point of view of pure evil. Researchers digging through the exhaustive amount of evidence indicating at least one “retired” FBI agent had explicit advance knowledge of where, when, how, and with what weapons Payton Gendron was going to shoot up a supermarket in Buffalo will have their work cut out for them simultaneously researching the constantly-shifting stories fed the public by Uvalde, Texas authorities following the shooting at Robb Elementary School, where a kid supposedly so poor his peers mocked him mercilessly for it was suddenly able to afford over $5000 worth of high-end guns and ammo (we know the prices because he supposedly sent the receipt to one of his online “friends” – who couldn’t possibly have been another agent who wanted to make sure his donations to his little buddy in Uvalde were being well-spent! surely there’s an innocent reason CNN deleted that claim from their current version of the story!) while also keeping an eye out for any possible anomalies at the New Orleans graduation shooting and the Tulsa hospital shooting and the Pittston, PA Wal-Mart shooting and the Los Angeles high school shooting—which all took place in a 48-hour span. By the time the identity of Gendron’s FBI pal is confirmed, will anyone even remember who he is?
They won’t, of course, certainly not in the US’ goldfish-memory news cycle. But the ideas slipped into Gendron’s word salad of a manifesto will be added to the list of unacceptable views the holding of which makes an individual a terrorist in the eyes of the government. Unreadable mashups of copypaste, memes, and gearhead masturbation like his magnum opus make it clear that these incidents are being deployed as de facto shopping lists for ideas the narrative managers want removed from circulation. Gendron (or rather, the intelligence agents who programmed him to open fire inside a Buffalo supermarket last month) is not only obsessed with so-called assault rifles and military-grade body armor, “he” also appears to be capable of basic levels of pattern recognition regarding the activities of international financial cartels with a tendency to hide behind a certain ethnic group who use the religion to which they supposedly belong and its members as human shields for all manner of atrocities, then accuse anyone who notices of “antisemitism” for having eyes, ears and a functional brain. This phenomenon has been observed and described by scholars for centuries, and its perpetrators are sick of ordinary people noticing, hence their decision to shoehorn it in between an array of juvenile “white supremacist” cliches in the hope of having any mention of this reality declared “hate speech.”
This sort of thing is hardly new. The intelligence agents who crafted Gendron’s “manifesto” followed a long tradition of guilt-by-association when they larded it with credibility grenades largely consisting of the kind of dull-edged racism one generally sees in the kind of person who, in the absence of any real accomplishments of his own in which he can take pride, falls back on his ancestry, which he embraces with an overblown “pride” as if an accident of birth is an adequate substitute for achievement. No one with a functioning critical capacity actually believes these types are a threat before the FBI puts a gun in their hands and points them at the nearest pressure point. But throwing a bunch of bodies on the pile has ginned up a new round of well-funded outrage, perhaps best exemplified by New York Governor Kathy Hochul, who leveraged the death toll to pass a law against the contents of the manifesto so incomprehensible and unpopular even the media establishment can’t find anything nice to say about it.
Now anyone who expresses any of the ideas espoused by someone who later goes on a shooting rampage – whether he’s gently guided by an FBI agent (or a rumored yet frustratingly citation-deficient online cheerleading section) or merely motivated by revenge on an ex-girlfriend or a doctor who may have made a mess of his back surgery – becomes that much easier to tar and feather with the all-purpose “hate speech” brush.
For the parasitic elites and the intelligence agencies, who generally work hand in hand anyway, expressing such “white-supremacy-adjacent” ideas will be seen as a precursor to embarking on yet another mass shooting rampage, deemed “pre-crime” under the Domestic Terrorism bill recently passed in the House and only a few more mass shootings away from being rammed through the Senate. Anyone expressing such ideas can be imprisoned for their own “safety,” in the same way as was laid out in the Trump administration’s proposed HARPA and DEEP programs. HARPA proposed monitoring an individual’s electronic devices for signs of mental illness, which could be acted upon to neutralize the individual without evidence they would so much as hurt the proverbial fly; DEEP would similarly intervene against individuals deemed to be “mobilizing toward violence,” deploying “court ordered mental health treatment,” electronic monitoring, and every other tool in the I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-prison toolbox against individuals who’ve done nothing except set off what has become an absurdly sensitive set of pre-crime “red flags.” Given that the mass shooting of Columbine was believed by those closest to the perpetrators to be triggered by their use of antidepressant drugs, the idea of funneling would-be shooter types into psychiatric care instead of as far away from it as possible is ironic at best, a sick joke at worst.
And given the ever-yawning definition of Domestic Terrorism in 21st century America, the only way to escape the tightening net of absurdly punitive speech laws will soon be to curl up in the fetal position at the feet of BlackRock CEO Larry Fink as he lies sleeping, like a loyal pet, in order to prove oneself clean of ideological sins.
Thus, while the seemingly endless stream of mass shootings unfolding over the last two weeks is clearly designed to encourage Americans to beg their government to take their guns away, anything, anything to make it stop, for the children, et cetera, it’s also designed to encourage Americans to shut up those mean people online, because if they can’t convince the half of the population that owns guns to chuck them over an increasingly absurd series of “mass shootings,” taking away their right to complain is a sufficient consolation prize.
Playing chicken with dead kids is the sort of sick game only a Michael Chertoff could win, and given the absolute cowardice that sets in when anything about a mass shooting – even really obvious things like retired FBI agents befriending the shooters and being publicly told where and when they would commit their acts in time to prevent them – is questioned, he is likely to come out on top if we allow this insanity to continue without asking the obvious questions – not just about who benefits (that much is clear) but about who is setting these events up one after another to go off in a carefully timed string like fireworks on the 4th of July (and we can expect a biiiiiiig mass shooting that day, just to hammer their point home).
Iran Shuts Off IAEA Cameras with Access beyond Safeguards Agreement
Al-Manar | June 8, 2022
The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) announced on Wednesday that the International Atomic Energy Agency’s surveillance cameras recording data beyond the Safeguards Agreement in the country have been deactivated.
In a statement on Wednesday, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran said while Tehran has extensively cooperated with the UN nuclear agency, the IAEA has unfortunately ignored the fact that such cooperation signifies Iran’s goodwill, has been ungrateful for the cooperation, and has considered it as a duty of Iran.
As a result, Iran decided to shut off the ultra-Safeguards Agreement cameras monitoring enrichment levels (OLEM or Online Enrichment Monitor) and flowmeters of the IAEA as of Wednesday, June 8, it added.
However, the statement noted, more than 80 percent of the IAEA’s cameras in Iran have access to data within the framework of the Safeguards Agreement which will continue to operate as before.
The OLEM is obviously used to monitor the enrichment of uranium gas through piping at the enrichment facilities.
The spokesperson for the AEOI visited a nuclear site on Wednesday to observe the process of deactivating the two cameras of the IAEA.
The Iranian authorities had already warned the parties seeking to submit an anti-Iran resolution at the IAEA Board of Governors meeting that they will have to take responsibility for the consequences.
The US and the EU troika –the UK, Germany and France- submitted the draft to the 35-nation board on Tuesday, accusing Iran of failing to offer transparent responses to the IAEA’s questions over nuclear activities at three sites.
Israeli regime openly calls on IAEA to censure Iran
Press TV – June 7, 2022
The Israeli regime is openly putting pressure on the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog to censure Iran’s peaceful nuclear energy program.
“We expect the IAEA (the International Atomic Energy Agency’s) Board of Governors to place a clear warning light in front of the regime in Tehran, and make it clear that if it continues in its defiant nuclear policy, it will pay a heavy price,” the regime’s Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Tuesday, addressing the Knesset (Israeli parliament), The Times of Israel reported.
The comments came a day after the board started a five-day meeting in Vienna.
The event is set to adopt an anti-Iran resolution, drafted by Britain, France, Germany, and the United States to accuse the Islamic Republic of withholding cooperation with the agency.
Various media reports and official sources have warned about the existence of the Israeli regime’s footprints across the process that has led to the emergence of the draft resolution.
Raising even more suspicion was a Friday flying visit to the occupied territories by the IAEA’s Secretary-General Rafael Grossi, and his meeting there with Bennett, with some reports even sounding the alarm about the watchdog and Tel Aviv’s “collusion” against Iran.
“He (Grossi) arrived for a snap visit in Israel, and I made Israel’s stance clear — that we are operating and will continue to maintain our freedom of action to act against Iran’s nuclear program as long as necessary… nothing ties our hands,” Bennet said.
The Israeli regime has, over years, conducted several sabotage operations against Iran’s nuclear facilities and assassinated at least seven Iranian nuclear scientists.
The regime’s vicious anti-Iran campaign comes while Tel Aviv, itself, continues to be the sole possessor of nuclear arms in the Middle East region, with a stockpile of hundreds of atomic warheads. Due to the cover provided by the US and Europeans, however, the regime has refused to open up its nuclear sites to the IAEA’s inspectors and join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
“When it comes to nuclear weapons, we live in a world of double standards,” Frank N. von Hippel, an American physicist, who is a professor and co-director of the Program on Science and Global Security at Princeton University, told Press TV.
“This unequal situation cannot persist indefinitely: Either we get rid of nuclear weapons or nuclear weapons will get rid of us,” he added.
Iran and IAEA relations on tenterhooks
Press TV – June 7, 2022
The Vienna based International Atomic Energy Agency, the IAEA, is supposed to monitor compliance with the 1968 nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty, NPT, which has been described as the centerpiece of global efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and to achieve the ultimate goal of global nuclear disarmament.
The IAEA is supposed to engage upon technical, unbiased and professional cooperation with NPT signatories and to be free of politics or political considerations.
The IAEA has had a high profile role regarding Iran’s nuclear energy programme. In 2015, when Iran and the P 5+ 1 struck a deal known as a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. The IAEA was subsequently tasked with monitoring Iran’s compliance with the terms of the agreement.
In many of its reports over the years, the agency has said that it has found no evidence of any diversion in Iran’s nuclear programme.
As the fate of the faltering 2015 deal remains increasingly unclear, the technical role and supposed independence of the atomic watchdog are being tested.
In a recent report, the IAEA said Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium had grown to more than 80 times the limit allowed in the 2015 agreement.
The agency also said Iran has failed to answer its remaining questions.
Tehran described the latest IAEA statements as one sided pointing out that it fails to reflect Iran’s extensive cooperation with the agency.
“The International Atomic Energy Agency seems to be succumbing to the same sort of takeover that the United States and the Anglo Zionist Empire has been doing to so many other international organizations such as, for example, in athletics, for example, in economics with the World Economic Forum, for example, all these organizations; they seem to want to control them.” – Tony Gosling, Investigative Journalist
Meanwhile, reports say Western countries lobbied by Israel are planning to push the International Atomic Energy Agency to criticize Iran at its upcoming meeting of the Board of Governors.
In March Rafael Mariano Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, visited Iran. The IAEA and Iran announced at the end of the visit that they had agreed on an approach for resolving remaining bilateral issues.
The visit came as representatives from Iran and the P 4+1 were trying to find a way to move forward in their negotiations which were aimed at reviving the 2015 deal. The talks are currently stalled with Iran saying the United States is failing to make necessary political decisions.
At this point, any stance by the IAEA could have an important effect on the stalled talks. This week Iran’s top diplomat said the agreement between Tehran and the agency in March was mutually satisfactory. He warned that political interference in the technical affairs of the agency is totally unconstructive.
The comments by Amir-Abdollahian came ahead of a meeting of the IAEA Board of Governors scheduled for June the sixth. With days left to the meeting the IAEA chief has arrived in Israel as Tel Aviv released documents alleging Iran spied on the IAEA.
Iran says Israel, which has refused to join the NPT and is believed to possess hundreds of nuclear warheads, hates the JCPOA and wants to derail the effort to revive it.
The problem with much of what the International Atomic Energy Agency has been doing is that it is trying to find excuses to, I suppose, make out that the Iranian nuclear programme is a military programme.
One of the problems with the IAEA is they’re not looking anywhere near as closely at the Israelis, who do have nuclear weapons.
“They tried to keep it secret, but Mordechai Vanunu blew the whistle in the Sunday Times here in Britain back in the 1980s and did a massive jail term for his, when he was kidnapped actually, for his trouble, that they do have many nuclear weapons, probably something like 200 …” – Tony Gosling, Investigative Journalist
Reports say the United States and its Western allies, pushed by Israel, plan to pile pressure on Iran at the upcoming IAEA meeting.
Tehran has warned that it would respond firmly and appropriately to any such move, because Iran has been cooperating based on the agreement reached in March.
The fate of months of negotiations between Iran and the P 4+1 seems to be at stake as a meeting of the IAEA Board of Governors draws close.
One wonders who would benefit from a possible collapse of the talks.
Biden Rocks the Middle East
Partitioning Syria may be on the way

BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • JUNE 7, 2022
That dwindling band of observers that continues to express concern over the catastrophe that constitutes United States foreign policy under President Joe Biden have come to realize how the Ukraine situation is being used as cover for interventions and other similar mischief in other parts of the world. Recent reporting, for example, reveals that the Biden Administration has decided “to reestablish a persistent US military presence in Somalia to enable a more effective fight against al-Shabaab” in spite of the fact that “there is absolutely no constitutional authority for President Biden to send troops into Somalia or drop bombs on Somalia.” Nor does al-Shabaab represent a threat to Americans or American interests.
To be sure, the emphasis on Ukraine has a certain cogency as it is particularly dangerous and could lead to nuclear devastation in a situation where intervention by the United States was not only unwarranted but also unresponsive to any actual national interest of threat. And escalate it will if the White House continues on its current path. Ukrainian government sources are now stating that the United States is preparing to destroy the Russian Black Sea fleet to end the blockade of Ukraine’s ports. The commander of US forces in Europe General Christopher Cavoli seems to be confirming that report when he refers to the preparation of “military options” to help export Ukrainian grain.
One might suggest that such a move could just be enough to start World War III and World War III would almost certainly turn nuclear very quickly. Some might consider that taking a deliberate step that would inevitably escalate into destruction of the entire planet as we know it just might be a foreign policy mistake on the part of the President Joe Biden Administration but I’m sure the chairborne warriors down at Foggy Bottom would disagree, pointing out that nothing would make old Vladimir Putin run and hide faster than a barrage of harpoon missiles imbibed with his breakfast tea.
And, of course, there’s more. There’s always more. The focus on Ukraine in the US and international media combined with a stream of befuddling malapropisms coming out of the White House has obscured what is going on in other corners in the world, where Washington is also flexing its biceps in full knowledge that a manageable war or two will surely help one’s favorability rating come elections in November.
And there is always Israel. The Israeli army and police have recently been shooting dead Palestinian teenagers on a nearly daily basis, and that comes on top of the killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh a month ago. Israel’s Defense Minister Benny Gantz was in Washington two weeks ago to meet and greet and one might suspect that he just might have been in town inter alia to express some apology for his army’s assassination of Abu Akleh, but that would be to misunderstand the bilateral relationship. In reality, when Israel shouts “jump” the Biden Administration responds “how high, sir?”
Also in the Middle East and also related to Israel, the US State Department has gone into a hissy fit over the May 26th Iraqi parliament’s unanimous vote to make illegal all “normalization” ties with Israel. State was quick to react, in contrast to its torpor dealing with most issues, but it was Israel involved, not just “most issues.” A statement was issued saying “The United States is deeply disturbed by the Iraqi Parliament’s passage of legislation that criminalizes normalization of relations with Israel [while also] jeopardizing freedom of expression and promoting an environment of antisemitism…” Ah yes, the old anti-semitism canard surfaces yet again!
There are also several interesting stories relating to Syria, which continues to be a hotspot because Israel wants to maintain its ability to freely bomb targets that it describes as “terroristic” or connected to arch enemy Iran. The bombing has continued regularly since the Ukraine situation started and has hardly ever been reported in the US media. And, yet again, there is more to the story in terms of US involvement. First of all, Russia reacted to the lukewarm Israeli support for its invasion of Ukraine. An Israeli attack on targets in Syria last week was met by a S-300 missile fired by Russian army manned air defenses. Up until now, Moscow has refrained from attempting to shoot down Israeli warplanes, but the missile was clearly a warning of what might be coming if Israel persists in its attacks.
Also relating to Syria, it is ironic that the US has accused Russia of war crimes over its intervention in Ukraine while at the same time continuing its own illegal occupation of Syria. And it has its own war crimes record. Last week the Pentagon announced that it had completed its investigation into an attack in Syria on March 18, 2019 that killed some presumed ISIS guerrillas as well as four civilians while wounding fifteen others. The Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said the Defense Department had determined that that the airstrike “did not violate the laws of warfare or the rules of engagement. Neither the ground forces commander nor anyone involved in carrying out the airstrike ‘acted inappropriately or acted with malicious intent’ or ‘deliberately wanted to and sought out to kill civilians.’” In an earlier investigation concluded last December, the Pentagon said “it would not hold anyone accountable for a drone strike also in Syria in late-August that killed 10 civilians, including seven children. A review of the strike concluded it was a ‘tragic mistake’ that was the result of ‘execution errors.’”
And there are also credible reports that the United States is preparing to de facto partition Syria, to create a separate state run by its Kurdish allies in the country’s northeast that would be under Washington’s protection and would include a garrison of American troops. Such a move would, of course, be completely illegal and is in fact eerily reminiscent of the alleged “war crimes” that the US is claiming regarding Russia for its attempted partition of Ukraine. Interestingly, the planning has not been reported in the mainstream media, yet another instance of the Ukraine crisis serving as cover to drown out all background noise and provide the US with opportunities to increase its meddling in places like the Middle East on behalf of feckless allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Ironically, when the United States initially intervened in Syria, it claimed to do so to fight the terrorist group Islamic State in Syria (ISIS). Subsequently, it cooperated with an al-Qaeda affiliate while close ally Israel had a similar arrangement with ISIS itself. The Kurds and both ISIS and al-Qaeda are all believed to be involved in the theft and sale of Syrian oil. Now the US, which also has been stealing the oil, is seeking something like a permanent presence to solidify its control over Syrian resources.
Interestingly, the planning by Washington to create a sub-state or autonomous region in the north east of Syria was revealed by no less than State Department number three Victoria Nuland at a recent conference held in Morocco. Nuland, who was the driving force behind regime change in Ukraine in 2014, described the Syria development as a “stabilization” activity. The new entity would include Syria’s major oil producing region, which is currently being exploited by Washington and its “allies,” as well as much of the country’s arable land.
Washington has already applied unprecedented punitive sanctions on the parts of Syria controlled by the Russians and President Bashar al-Assad, to include the so-called Caesar Syrian Civil Protection Act’s secondary sanctions that punish anyone trying to avoid the restrictions placed by Washington. Former US Ambassador to Syria James Jeffrey put it this way “And of course, we’ve ratcheted up the isolation and sanctions pressure on Assad, we’ve held the line on no reconstruction assistance, and the country’s desperate for it. You see what’s happened to the Syrian pound, you see what’s happened to the entire economy. So, it’s been a very effective strategy….” He also added “My job is to make it a quagmire for the Russians.”
To circumvent the existing sanctions, the new mini-state would therefore be granted economic viability by making it sanction free as an inducement for foreign investment and development of settlements largely inhabited by Kurds associated with the United States. A “general license” will be issued to facilitate investment and other economic activity. The US will commit $350 million to the project, which is being carried out with the cooperation of the Turkish authorities controlling their own militias along the border. By securing the north east of Syria, Washington would also be able to maintain and protect the illegal US Al-Tanf military base in the south-east of the country bordering Jordan. Al-Tanf blocks the creation of a contiguous “Resistance Axis” from Iran to Lebanon and ultimately to Palestine, thereby maintaining “Israeli security” in the region. As is all too frequently the case, Israeli interests always come first in the minds of Washington politicians.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
Iranian nuclear chief: IAEA’s Grossi lacks serious will to find Tehran’s ‘accurate’ answers convincing
Press TV | June 6, 2022
The head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) says Tehran has given accurate answers to questions posed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), but the Agency bases its reports on the information provided to it by the enemies of Iran.
In an interview with Al Jazeera network on Monday, Mohammad Eslami said the director general of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi, lacks serious will to describe Iran’s answers to the Agency’s queries as convincing.
“The International Atomic Energy Agency relies on the intelligence reports [provided by] our enemies, topped by Israel,” Iran’s nuclear chief said.
Eslami made the remarks after the IAEA chief, in his introductory statement to the Board of Governors’ meeting on Monday, once again repeated his anti-Iran rhetoric, alleging that since February 23, 2021, the Agency’s “activities have been seriously affected by Iran’s decision to stop the implementation of its nuclear-related commitments under the JCPOA, including the Additional Protocol.”
Grossi claimed, “Iran has not provided explanations that are technically credible in relation to the Agency’s findings at three undeclared locations in Iran.” Grossi’s allegation, however, came after his meeting with Eslami and the adoption of the two sides’ joint statement on March 5, 2022.
The AEOI and the IAEA agreed, in continuation of their cooperation as stated in the Joint Statement of August 26, 2020, to accelerate and strengthen their cooperation and dialogue aimed at the resolution of the issues, read part of the joint statement.
Grossi’s remarks came despite frequent warnings by Iran that in case the Agency drifts away from its technical nature and makes a politicized decision related to Iran’s peaceful nuclear program, the country will respond in kind.
Elsewhere in his interview, Eslami pointed to the possible adoption of an anti-Iran resolution during the ongoing meeting of IAEA’s Board of Governors and said even if adopted, such a resolution would not create a new situation.
Advising the UN nuclear watchdog to block political influence on its decisions and abide by its own regulations, the AEOI’s head said, “The IAEA has not condemned attacks on our [nuclear] facilities and this is a big question mark.”
Over the past years and amid lack of sensitivity and proper attention on the part of the IAEA towards performing a responsible role in the area of protection of various countries’ peaceful nuclear activities, some malign activities, for which the Zionist regime has implicitly accepted responsibility, have afflicted some damage to our country’s nuclear facilities.
Although these activities have never had a decisive effect on the progress of Iran’s peaceful nuclear program, given the sensitivity that is inherent to the nature of nuclear work, adoption of new strategies in the structural, hardware, and software aspects have found a place on the AEOI authorities’ agenda so the nuclear facilities’ security can be completely ensured.
Eslami also rejected allegations that Iran is planning to build nuclear weapons, saying, “Nuclear weapons have no place in our strategies” and that all such allegations are nothing but spiteful accusations.
Asked about the IAEA’s access to information recorded by monitoring cameras it has installed in Iran’s nuclear facilities, Eslami said this issue depends on the fate of the ongoing talks in the Austrian capital on the revival of the 2015 Iran deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
“If other parties commit to all articles of that agreement, we are ready for full compliance with the accord,” Iran’s nuclear chief said.
Under the JCPOA, Iran accepted certain caps on its nuclear program in exchange for the removal of international sanctions.
The US, however, unilaterally abandoned the deal in 2018 and re-imposed crippling sanctions despite Tehran’s full compliance with its share of obligations.


