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SOTT Focus: Journalist Millie Weaver Arrested, Charged With 'Burglary', Just as She Releases ShadowGate Documentary Exposing Deep State Activities - UPDATE

millie weaver shadowgate
Investigative reporter Millie Weaver and her husband have reportedly been arrested at the same time her documentary on the US "shadow government" was being screened on YouTube, sending Conservative Twitter into theory overdrive.

Weaver's "arrest" at the couple's home - which has yet to be confirmed by authorities - was initially reported by Infowars on Friday, shortly after the YouTube premiere of her documentary film ShadowGate. The film purports to expose the secrets of the massive 'Deep State' intelligence apparatus manipulating politics within the US and beyond its borders, based on the reports of two private intelligence whistleblowers.

Video of the couple's apparent arrest, shot by Weaver herself, was posted to Twitter by her Infowars colleague Adan Salazar, opening on Weaver asking in disbelief if "a grand jury indicted [her]."


Comment: While we're wondering if this is possibly some kind of stunt to generate publicity for Ms. Weaver's documentary, we've watched the documentary and find that the two 'intelligence sources' she interviews seem to be legitimate. Here it is:


For those with limited time, here's the opening tweet of a Twitter thread that is a handy guide/analysis of its contents with timestamps for skipping to the relevant parts:


In case Google/YouTube takes it down, here it is on BitChute, and on UGETube.

UPDATE 17/08/2020: #ShadowGate has apparently been shadowbanned:
YouTube has pulled a controversial investigation by Millie Weaver from its platform, days after the InfoWars correspondent was arrested as she tried to screen the video report. The video has also been censored on Twitter.

The ShadowGate film, uploaded by Weaver's associate following her arrest, has been scrubbed from YouTube for violating the site's "policy on hate speech." The documentary, based on the reports of two private intelligence whistleblowers, purports to expose a far-reaching 'Deep State' security apparatus involved in manipulating US politics.

Conservative commentator Mark Dice said that the link to the YouTube video had also been banned on Twitter, which warns of "harmful content" when a user tries to post it.
shadowgate film banned
© Mark Dice/Twitter
A search for the hashtag #ShadowGate does not seem to show any tweets in recent days, fueling speculation it could have been 'shadowbanned'.



Eye 1

Spy games: Moscow outraged after bug found in Russian military attache car in The Hague, summons Dutch Charge d'Affaires

Hague session
© Reuters/Yves HermanSpecial Session of the Hague, Netherlands
Moscow has ordered the Netherlands' acting ambassador to Russia to explain why a tracking device was apparently found in the car of a Russian diplomat in The Hague. The device was found in the car of the assistant to the Russian military attache, according to an embassy statement.

The Netherlands, Russia said, had been told to take comprehensive measures to prevent such incidents happening in the future. 'Unfriendly actions complicate the already difficult bilateral relations between the two countries,' the statement said.

It is unclear from the statement if Moscow thinks the Dutch placed the device in the car, or if the ambassador was summoned because the incident took place in the Netherlands.

Prime minister Mark Rutte declined to comment on the claim and the foreign ministry said it is now investigating.

Comment: Some potentially relevant context:


Bullseye

Hitchens: My suspicion is that the wrecking of the UK's economy and the state-sponsored panic has killed more people than Covid ever did

Passengers are seen returning from France to St Pancras Station
Passengers are seen returning from France to St Pancras Station, London after quarantine restrictions were introduced. These figures of so-called ‘cases’ mean nothing except that the authorities have been looking harder for such cases, and finding them, even though the people involved are usually not ill
Actually, I have had enough. So should you have had enough. The time has come for real discontent, or there will be no end to our mistreatment and humiliation by this Government.

To call these people incompetent would be to pay them an over-generous compliment. We shall see in a minute what might be a better word.

This is not personal grievance. By great good fortune, I managed a swift holiday a few weeks ago, and was not caught by any sudden Government panic measure, though the holiday itself, in places I love, was a sad shadow of what it would once have been.

So my anger about the crazy quarantining of travellers to France is not self-interested.

This heartless smashing of the simple pleasures of thousands is a futile act of spite. Do you know how many people officially died of Covid-19 in France during the past week? Fewer than 80.

In April, official deaths in that country peaked at more than 1,400 in a single day.

These figures of so-called 'cases' mean nothing except that the authorities have been looking harder for such cases, and finding them, even though the people involved are usually not ill.

Bulb

Lebanon should look East and abandon the West

Lebanese flag
Post-blast Lebanon has everything to gain from rejecting the West's neoliberal demands and embracing China's Belt and Road

As much as Covid-19 has been instrumentalized by the 0.001% to social-engineer a Great Reset, Beirut's massive port explosion is already being instrumentalized by the usual suspects to keep Lebanon enslaved.

Facing oh-so-timely color-revolution-style "protests," the current Lebanese government led by Prime Minister Hassan Diab has already resigned.

Even before the onshore portion of the port blew up, Beirut had requested a US$10 billion line of credit from the International Monetary Fund. It was denied, of course, so long as trademark neoliberal Washington consensus "reforms" such as a radical slashing of public expenses, mass layoffs and across-the-board privatization were not implemented.

Post-explosion, French President Emmanuel Macron, who's not even capable of establishing a dialogue with the Gilets Jaunes/Yellow Vests at home, has opportunistically jumped in full-neocolonial mode to pose as a savior of Lebanon - as long as the same "reforms," of course, are implemented.

Mr. Potato

Lazy rehash: Iran paid bounties for targeting US troops, intelligence reportedly suggests

US military
© Getty Images
U.S. intelligence reportedly indicates Iran's government offered bounties to Taliban fighters to target U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan.

A Pentagon briefing document said a foreign government paid the Haqqani network, led by a top Taliban leader, to attack Bagram Air Base last December, CNN reported. While the government in question is classified in the memo, two sources familiar with the intelligence told the network it was in reference to Iran.

Four U.S. personnel and more than 75 others were injured in the Bagram attack, which occurred less than a month before the U.S. killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the commander of Iran's Quds Force, in a drone strike in Baghdad. Both a current administration official and a former senior official told CNN that Iran-Taliban ties were cited as part of the justification for the strike against Soleimani.

In March 2020, the Defense Department reportedly made the decision not to take any specific action in response to the intelligence to avoid complicating peace talks with the Taliban. National Security Council officials recommended against a strike and also said the escalating coronavirus pandemic would likely limit the Afghan government's options for a diplomatic response, according to the network.

The briefing document stated that the Bagram attack likely qualified for compensation from the foreign government "based on the nature of the attack and agreed upon bounties." Although U.S. intelligence said the Haqqani network had reason to target the base without a financial motivator, CNN noted that the document states the alleged funding "probably incentivizes future high-profile attacks on US and Coalition forces."

Comment: It was a bald-faced lie when U.S. intelligence hacks tried to accuse the Russians of the same thing over a month ago.

See:


Cut

Biden's lead over Trump narrows in new national poll

Biden Trump
Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's lead over President Trump has narrowed since last month, according to a new national poll.

Biden leads Trump by just 4 points, with Biden at 50 percent and Trump at 46 percent, according to a CNN poll released Sunday. That marks a significant shift since the poll was last conducted in June, when the Democrat led Trump by 14 points, with Biden at 55 percent and Trump at 41.

The movement in the poll among voters is concentrated among men, who were split about evenly in June but who now back Trump over Biden 56 to 40 percent, and voters between the ages of 35 and 64, who tilt toward Trump now but were leaning toward Biden in June, according to CNN.

Among independents, Biden also held a 52 percent lead over Trump's 41 percent in June, but now independents are nearly evenly divided, with 46 percent backing Biden and 45 percent supporting Trump, according to CNN.

Comment: Given the US corporate media's strong tendency to "interpret" polling information in the ways that they prefer, even this minor lead over Trump may be more a case of wishful thinking than based on actual fact.

And don't think for a second that the Dems and other interests won't try to have things their way, despite how most of the country votes:


Eye 1

Best of the Web: Belarus in the firing line for a colour revolution

belarus protest
Belarus had their presidential election last Sunday, and the incumbent Alexandr Lukashenko apparently won. This was evidently not supposed to happen, or in some other way counter to the Western world's grand plan - because now we have a little colour revolution happening.

You can always tell an Eastern European colour revolution, because Shaun Walker emerges from his burrow, dragging with him 3000 words of total speculation, unsourced anecdotal evidence and some partisan quotes from Western-backed NGOs. You know, like this.

Another good indication is just how irate Simon Tisdall is, and judging by this column...he's pretty irate. Granted it's mostly about Erdogan and Turkey, but he has words for Lukashenko too, and they are not friendly. I wouldn't be surprised if he broke the keys on his laptop, so furious is his typing.

If you can't be bothered to read it, I don't blame you. To sum up: NATO needs to "do something", or "take action" or "intervene". He doesn't use the word "coup", because our side don't do those, but he definitely means coup.

Comment: See also:


Chess

SOTT Focus: The Attempted Covid Coup of 2020

city street
What history will record as the great COVID coup of 2020 is based on lies and fear manufactured by America's ruling class — led by the Democratic Party and aided by the complaisance of most Republican politicians.

In March, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) presented the coronavirus to the Western world as a danger equivalent to the plague. But China's experience, which its government obfuscated, had already shown that COVID-19 was much less like the plague and more like the flu. All that has happened since followed from falsifying this basic truth.

Americans were led to believe that the virus was unusually contagious, and that it would kill up to one in 20 persons it infected — a 5 percent infection/fatality rate (IFR). Today, we still lack definitive, direct knowledge of COVID-19's true lethality. The absence of that knowledge allows bureaucrats to continue fearmongering.

By May, a host of studies in the U.S. and around the world showing that the vast majority of COVID cases cause mild symptoms or none, and showing the IFR to be equal to or lower than that for most flus, forced the CDC to conclude that the lethality rate, far from being 5 percent, was 0.26%--double that of a typical flu. Instead of amending their recommendations in the face of this reality, the CDC and the U.S. government tried to hide it by manipulating the definition and number of COVID "cases."

Heart - Black

'Unbelievably disgusting': #WrongTrump trends after Robert Trump, president's younger brother, dies

donald maryanne robert trump
© Global Look Press/Keystone PressDonald Trump, left, sister Maryanne Trump Barry, brother Robert Trump, right.
Shortly after US President Donald Trump announced the passing of his brother Robert, 3 years his younger, the hashtag #WrongTrump was launched on Twitter, quickly climbing to the top and drawing the ire of conservatives.

The president announced the passing of his brother Robert, also a real estate developer and business executive, on Saturday night.

"It is with heavy heart that I share that my wonderful brother, Robert, peacefully passed away tonight. He was not just my brother, he was my best friend," Trump said in a short statement.

Life Preserver

Trump poised to look into pardon for Edward Snowden

snowden
© Getty Images for WIRED25Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden
Donald Trump has said he will consider pardoning Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who faced criminal charges after leaking classified documents about vast government surveillance.

Mr Trump, during a news conference at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, said:
"There are many, many people - it seems to be a split decision - many people think that he should be somehow be treated differently and other people think he did very bad things. I'm going to take a very good look at it."
The remarks signal a shift for the president, who repeatedly denigrated Mr Snowden as a "traitor" and a "spy who should be executed" in the years before his election. The disclosures by Mr Snowden, who sought asylum in Russia in 2013, set off a broad debate about surveillance and privacy.

Comment: As if the political bickering needed more impetus, the Snowden speculation is adding fuel to the election fire. Weighing the optics: Trump will garner the positive aspects of constituency response leaving the Dems growling in threats and negative rhetoric.
People's attitude towards Snowden is not something that depends on party affiliation, Trump said, adding that he has seen "many people that are very conservative and very liberal that agree on the same issue, and they agree both ways."




Snowden's Russian lawyer claims Snowden isn't a criminal, needs not a pardon and claims Snowden's response would be good.
If the threat of prosecution no longer hangs over Snowden, "his reaction would be good, I know that," Anatoly Kucherena said. "Edward loves his country a lot and he certainly misses his homeland, family and friends."

Kucherena has represented Snowden since 2013, when he applied for political asylum in Russia after his American passport was revoked and he was stranded in the transit zone of a Moscow airport - apparently, on his way to Latin America. Speaking to the Interfax news agency on Sunday, the lawyer said pardoning his client would be a "humanitarian move", but not exactly what he deserves.

"Edward didn't commit any crime; he is not a felon. He acted in the interest of American citizens and humanity as a whole. In all the years of knowing him I have never doubted his honesty and genuine dedication to his cause."
Former National Security Advisor to Obama, Susan Rice reacted in horror:
The fact they are even considering a pardon for NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden shows how low the Republican party has sunk under Donald Trump.

Rice's position was angrily rebuked by many people - including journalist Glenn Greenwald, whose reporting on Snowden leaks won him a Pulitzer Prize - it is hardly surprising.



MSNBC contributor Jennifer Rubin joined Rice in her shaming of the GOP for not standing up to the potential move. The take offered by colleague Malcolm Nance is that both Trump and Snowden are traitors to the country.


Civil rights activist Shaun King took a potshot at never-Trumpers:


See also: Snowden speechless: NSA whistleblower overwhelmed by push for presidential pardon