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Bomb

Best of the Web: 'Possibility of external interference': Lebanon's president expands blast probe, Hezbollah denies presence of weapons depot


Ahram Online
Fri, 07 Aug 2020 20:20 UTC
Aoun
© AFPLebanon's President Michel Aoun (C) wears a protective face mask as he visits the site of a massive explosion the previous day in the heart of the Lebanese Beirut on August 5, 2020.
Lebanon's president said on Friday an investigation into the biggest blast in Beirut's history would examine whether "external interference" had a role, as residents tried to rebuild their shattered lives and homes after the explosion.

The search for those missing intensified, as rescuers sifted rubble in a race to find anyone still alive after Tuesday's explosion that killed 154, smashed up a swathe of the city and sent shockwaves around the region.

"The cause has not been determined yet. There is a possibility of external interference through a rocket or bomb or other act," President Michel Aoun said in comments carried by local media and confirmed by his office.

He said it would also consider whether it was a result of negligence or an accident. He previously blamed negligence in the storage of highly explosive material for years at the port.

The United States has previously said it has not ruled out an attack. Israel, which has fought several wars with Lebanon, has also previously denied it had any role.

Comment: Hezbollah leader Nasrallah has denied accusations that the port was being used to store Hezbollah arms:
"I absolutely deny that we have any weapons warehouse [at the port]," he said, adding that broader claims that Hezbollah runs Beirut's ports "are lies."

"We have nothing in the port: not an arms depot, nor a missile depot nor missiles nor rifles nor bombs nor bullets nor ammonium nitrate," he said, adding that any investigation will confirm this.

Nasrallah pointed out that Hezbollah members were among those killed and injured in the blast, and stressed that only an impartial investigation will reveal the truth about what happened. He emphasized that the investigation must be transparent and thorough, that "nobody should be protected," and that those responsible must be held to account.

Nasrallah suggested that the military, as an institution trusted by all sectors of society, should be allowed to conduct the investigation into the blast if the country's political forces agree. Alternatively, he said, a mixed committee including the army and other forces can be formed.
Another video of the explosions has come to our attention. It shows both the fire, then the first explosion, followed about 20 seconds later by the major blast. Curiously, you hear the sound of what seem to be jet engines just before the first explosion.


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2 + 2 = 4

Sally Yates: DOJ watchdog findings would have stopped me from signing Carter Page FISA warrants

Jerry Dunleavy
Washington Examiner
Wed, 05 Aug 2020 19:45 UTC
James Clapper and Sally Yates
© AP Photo/ Pablo Martinez Monsivais
A former top Justice Department official admitted she would not have signed off on two Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act applications targeting Trump campaign associate Carter Page if she knew then what she knows now.

Sally Yates, the deputy attorney general under President Barack Obama who briefly served as acting attorney general during the first 10 days of Trump's presidency, appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee via video link on Wednesday as part of its investigation into the origins of the FBI's counterintelligence inquiry into the Trump campaign's ties to Russia.

Yates said that DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz unearthed a host of glaring problems with the process of obtaining warrants to wiretap Page and said that she would not have approved the first application in October 2016 or the first renewal in January 2017 if these issues had been disclosed at the time.

"I wouldn't sign anything that I knew to contain errors or omissions," she told Chairman Lindsey Graham during his line of questioning.

Comment: With Russiagate all but blown wide open as the hoax it really was, there's nothing left but to plead ignorance - all just a big mistake, you see!

Yates also slammed Comey, saying the interview with General Flynn was conducted without her authorization - she conceded that he had indeed "gone rogue". She was also allegedly angry that the FBI agents hadn't informed Flynn that they were in possession of his conversations with then-Ambassador Kislyak.

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No Entry

Trump gives TikTok, WeChat 45 days to sell, or leave United States

Paulina Enck
The Federalist
Fri, 07 Aug 2020 19:01 UTC
tiktok logo
TikTok has 45 days from Thursday to find a buyer for its U.S. operations or the popular social media site will be banned, according to an executive order signed by President Trump on Thursday evening. He signed another order later that evening enacting a similar ban on WeChat, a social network, messaging platform, and forum for online payments.

National security concerns have circled these platforms for months, due to both companies being owned by Chinese entities. TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese tech company, which has joint ventures with state-run entities. WeChat is owned by Chinese tech company Tencent, which faces accusations of censoring private conversations. Both face accusations of censoring content that is politically undesirable for the Chinese Communist Party and sharing user data with the Chinese government.

Comment: The order vaguely bans Americans from any dealings with the parent companies ByteDance and Tencent (which has many gamers worried, as the company is heavily invested in numerous gaming companies and platforms). TikTok is naturally "shocked" by the news, and has threatened legal action:
"We are shocked by the recent Executive Order, which was issued without any due process," the social media platform wrote on its website. "For nearly a year, we have sought to engage with the US government in good faith to provide a constructive solution to the concerns that have been expressed."

"What we encountered instead was that the Administration paid no attention to facts, dictated terms of an agreement without going through standard legal processes, and tried to insert itself into negotiations between private businesses."
China hypocritically calls it a "blatant hegemonic act" - with no mention of their longstanding bans on countless American apps - and urges the U.S. to stop "politicizing" relations:
"These companies carry out business activities in the United States in accordance with market principles and international rules, and abide by US law and regulations. The US uses national security as an excuse to frequently abuse national power and unreasonably suppress non-American companies. This is a blatant hegemonic act."

Wang urged the US to stop "politicizing economic issues" and create a "fair and non-discriminatory environment" for foreign companies.
It may not be right, but it's certainly fair, given China's heavy-handed methods on their own soil. As with most governments, it's fair when we do it, unfair when anyone else does. In that regard, governments are the original SJW victim-mentality crybabies.

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MIB

Arrest of 33 'Russian mercenaries' in Belarus may have been orchestrated by Ukrainian intelligence - newspaper investigation


RT
Fri, 07 Aug 2020 18:52 UTC
wagner belarus
The paper trail behind 33 Russian citizens who were arrested in Belarus last week, and labelled mercenaries hired to destabilize the country, has been traced to Ukraine and could be a provocation by its intelligence services.

That's according to investigative journalist Aleksandr Kots of Moscow newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, who is known to have good sources in the Russian military.

Last week, Belarus detained the Russians, described as a group of hired guns sent to orchestrate turmoil and torpedo the upcoming presidential election. The Russian citizens were named as members of Wagner, a Russian private military company (PMC) accused in the West of supplying fighters throughout the world in alignment with Moscow's foreign policy goals.

The arrests may have been the result of a clandestine operation by Ukrainian intelligence, Kots revealed. The men involved have backgrounds as security contractors. The reporter says the recruitment was done under false pretenses and involved a Ukrainian tour operator.

According to Kots, the suspected frame-up started with a man who claimed to be seeking guards for protecting oil industry sites in Syria. He used a phone number that appeared to be located in the Middle Eastern nation, but was actually untraceable. The recruiter introduced himself as Sergey, had intimate knowledge of the PMC industry, and was interested in as many as 90 fighters.

In May, another man posing as a security official of Russian oil giant Rosneft joined the scheme and suggested boosting the number of recruits to 180. Next month, the fake Rosneft boss told the hires that 'Sergey' had been killed in action and that the company wanted to send them to Venezuela to work as guards there.

Comment: See also:

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Syringe

US Gov & Yale hold clinical trials to test "Persuasive Messages For COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake"

Joe Martino
Collective Evolution
Mon, 03 Aug 2020 00:00 UTC
covid vaccine
What Happened

The US Federal government in collaboration with Yale University held clinical trials to determine what the best messaging would be to persuade Americans to take the COVID-19 vaccine when it is ready. The news of this study does show an interest in finding the best way to persuade people into an ideal decision for the Federal government, and likely vaccine makers, and it also shows that a mandatory vaccine campaign may still be the plan B down the road, as opposed to plan A.

The official title of the trial is, "Persuasive Messages for COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake: a Randomized Controlled Trial, Part 1."

According to the brief summary for trial:
This study tests different messages about vaccinating against COVID-19 once the vaccine becomes available. Participants are randomized to 1 of 12 arms, with one control arm and one baseline arm. We will compare the reported willingness to get a COVID-19 vaccine at 3 and 6 months of it becoming available between the 10 intervention arms to the 2 control arms.

Study participants are recruited online by Lucid, which matches census based sampling in online recruitment.
The study essentially looks at the best possible messaging that can be used on Americans, ranging from expressing vaccine benefits, to using messaging about economic impact, making someone feel guilty or embarrassed for not taking the vaccine, and so on.

Comment: Perhaps the vaccine pushers have come to realize that the following messaging doesn't work (for a whole host of reasons). The following is from 2010 - when the Swine Flu pandemic scare was getting propagated. And we now know is that Swine flu was a big dud...



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Target

Masks are a psychological preparation for mandatory vaccinations

Bill Willers
Dissident Voice
Sat, 01 Aug 2020 00:00 UTC
Fauci in mask
This respirator does not protect against the risk of contracting disease or infection. — Warning with a box of N-95 respirators.
You have no right not to be vaccinated. You have no right not to wear a mask. You have no right to open up your business .... If you refuse to be vaccinated, the state has the power to literally take you to a doctor's office and plunge a needle into your arm. — Alan Dershowitz
The lockdown, along with the fear campaign with its daily doses of death statistics and warnings of impending spikes, is a full assault being advanced stepwise toward a dystopia of globalist design. The masks that now dominate on faces everywhere place wearers and non wearers into one or the other of two sharply defined categories, each category carrying a list of traits in the minds of those in the opposite category. What a perfect, visible way to split The People into competing teams. Wearers are sheep!; the maskless are public hazards!

Corporate media is pushing the division with all of its corporate gusto, and if one is looking for a stark example of MSM divisiveness, it would be hard to beat this from Politico: "Wearing a mask is for smug liberals. Refusing to is for reckless Republicans". Simple, no? In such an either-or world, fine distinctions within complex issues are not to be entertained, with the result that life-long leftists, if contending against the mask, are assumed to be solidly in the hardcore, rightwing Trump camp, fit for a MAGA hat.

Comment: See also: As well as:

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Briefcase

NY prosecutors subpoena Trump's bank as part of criminal inquiry

Rebecca Klar
The Hill
Wed, 05 Aug 2020 06:58 UTC
Trump DB
© Unknown
New York prosecutors have subpoenaed President Trump's longtime lender, Deutsche Bank, as part of the criminal investigation into the president's business practices, The New York Times reported Wednesday.

The Manhattan district attorney's office issued the subpoena last year seeking financial records Trump and his company provided to the bank, the newspaper reported, citing unnamed sources.

The Times report follows a court filing prosecutors wrote earlier this week hinting that its subpoena for Trump's tax returns is part of a larger investigation into the Trump Organization, including potential fraud allegations detailed in media reports in recent years.

The subpoena from the office of the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance Jr., appears to be the first instance of a criminal inquiry involving Trump and his dealings with Deutsche Bank, which has lent him and his company more than $2 billion over the past two decades, the Times reported.

A person briefed on the matter told the Times that the inquiry is still at an early stage.

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Briefcase

John Durham set to interview John Brennan

Jerry Dunleavy
Washington Examiner
Wed, 05 Aug 2020 10:20 UTC
JohnBrennan
© Viral News NowFormer CIA Director John Brennan
U.S. Attorney John Durham will soon interview former CIA Director John Brennan, another sign that the investigation of the Trump-Russia investigators is ready to wrap up by the end of the summer.

Durham, the federal prosecutor from Connecticut appointed by Attorney General William Barr to investigate the origins of the Crossfire Hurricane inquiry and to scrutinize the conduct of the law enforcement leaders and intelligence officials involved in it, has asked to interview Brennan, according to "people familiar with the request" cited by NBC News, and the former top spy and vociferous Trump critic has reportedly agreed to the sit-down. The same report cites sources who suggest Durham's inquiry may be nearing the finish line.

Brennan has acknowledged that he is in the "crosshairs" of the criminal inquiry into the Russia investigation led by Durham. He recently claimed, and the White House acknowledged, that he asked the CIA for his official records, including his personal notes and any classified CIA documents that he had signed to help him write his upcoming memoir, but the agency denied his request.

Last year, the New York Times reported that Durham asked for Brennan's electronic communications, phone records, and other documents from the CIA, something NBC News confirmed on Wednesday.
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Document

US State Department 'Russian disinformation' report aims to stop normalization of relations, discredit alt media


RT
Sat, 08 Aug 2020 09:26 UTC
State Dept Flag
© AFP/Brendan SmialowskiUS Department of State flag, Washington DC
Donald Trump speaks of "the swamp," and now Russia's embassy in Washington believes apparatchiks at the State Department have put together a hysterical report on "Russian propaganda" to prevent politicians improving relations.

The Russian diplomats say the dispatch on the "Pillars of Russia's Disinformation and Propaganda Ecosystem." is an attempt to obstruct Moscow's proposals to resume cooperation in key areas. They also claim the communique is obviously geared to discredit alternatives to the mainstream press, which generally toes the US establishment line. It's also notable that the publication coincides with a request for $138 million in 2021 to spend on "countering" Russian media. The embassy wrote on its Facebook account:
"(The) report is an attempt to silence Russian official proposals to resume cooperation in key areas on which the security of the entire world depends. The US State Department is not very fond of the existence of alternative sources of information. Serious resources are employed to discredit them. Any voice that contradicts Washington is dubbed 'disinformation' in the service of the 'Kremlin' and Russian intelligence."
Parts of the document are absurd, the Russian diplomats noted. For example, the authors classified far-right opposition LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky and the private radio station Govorit Moskva as "Official Government Communications." The officials also cite Russian media with state funding, with headlines from Sputnik, RIA Novosti, RT and others presented as examples of 'disinformation.'

Comment: See also:

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Hammer

Failing upward? After botching Venezuelan regime-change, Elliot Abrams is now Special Representative for Iran


RT
Thu, 06 Aug 2020 18:15 UTC
ElliotAbrams
© ReutersSpecial Representative for Iran and Venezuela Elliot Abrams
The US is putting Iran on regime-change notice, appointing Iran-Contra convict Elliott Abrams as Special Representative for Iran in addition to his duties as Special Representative for Venezuela, a State Department release shows.

Abrams, who oversaw a series of failed coups in Venezuela both in the past year and during the botched 2002 coup against then-President Hugo Chavez, will take over from Brian Hook, who has "decided to step down," according to a press release from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Pompeo lauded Hook's efforts in the statement, declaring he had "achieved historic results countering the Iranian regime." The outgoing official oversaw the Trump administration's "maximum pressure" campaign against Tehran, leveling sanction upon sanction against the Islamic Republic after withdrawing the US from the JCPOA nuclear deal in 2018. Hook praised his own record to the New York Times on Thursday, declaring that "by almost every metric, the regime and its terrorist proxies are weaker than three and a half years ago. We have been very successful."

Comment: Feedback from Twitter: No high fives...not even ones!


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