US Defense Secretary Mark Esper seemingly mistook the word 'peace' for 'war' when he made a gaffe in the middle of a speech on the relocation of American troops in Europe. Esper was delivering important news to reporters: the Pentagon has laid out a plan to withdraw nearly 12,000 American soldiers from its NATO ally Germany.

The blunder occurred just when Esper was arguing that Germany, as the "wealthiest country in Europe," can and should boost its defense spending.

"I've said that very publicly, I've said that very privately to my counterparts as well - about the importance of NATO, any alliance, sharing the burden so we can all deter Russia and... avoid peace in Europe."

The awkward phrase spurred jokes on Twitter, with some users calling the slip "a momentary lapse of honesty" and "the NATO slogan 2020."


The Pentagon is planning to pull out a third of its forces stationed in Germany and relocate a part of them across other NATO countries, including Belgium, Italy and Poland.

Google's "anti-misinformation" rules outright ban free debate and expression on Covid19. YouTube's censorship of alternative Covid19 narratives has become increasingly overt. Back on May 20th it released its still current 'policy' which unashamedly tells potential creators:

Don't post content on YouTube if it includes any of the following:

The list of unacceptable topics and views is fairly extensive

• Denial that COVID-19 exists
• Claims that people have not died from COVID-19
• Claims that there's a guaranteed vaccine for COVID-19
• Claims that a specific treatment or medicine is a guaranteed cure for COVID-19
• Claims that certain people have immunity to COVID-19 due to their race or nationality
• Encouraging taking home remedies instead of getting medical treatment when sick
• Discouraging people from consulting a medical professional if they're sick
• Content that claims that holding your breath can be used as a diagnostic test for COVID-19
• Videos alleging that if you avoid Asian food, you won't get the coronavirus
• Videos alleging that setting off fireworks can clean the air of the virus
• Claims that COVID-19 is caused by radiation from 5G networks
• Videos alleging that the COVID-19 test is the cause of the virus
• Claims that countries with hot climates will not experience the spread of the virus
• Videos alleging that social distancing and self-isolation are not effective in reducing the spread of the virus

Now we may all agree some of these banned opinions sound odd, even ridiculous. But that's not the point. Free speech includes the freedom to be odd, ridiculous and plain wrong. Once that right is gone - free speech no longer exists.

US President Donald Trump has defended his decision to pull out almost 12,000 troops from Germany by invoking its gas imports from Russia. Washington has recently ramped up its efforts to block the deliveries.

"Germany pays Russia billions of dollars a year for Energy, and we are supposed to protect Germany from Russia. What's that all about?" Trump tweeted, shortly after Defense Secretary Mark Esper said the US would move out some 11,900 US soldiers from Germany, as opposed to the initial plan to withdraw some 9,500 personnel.

Trump has also cited the long-running row over NATO contributions, accusing Germany of failing to fork out its fair share of the costs for the military alliance.

While a much-awaited antitrust hearing was billed as an Inquisition for Big Tech kingpins, the CEOs were largely able to skirt questions and talk circles around lawmakers looking to bring web platforms under partisan control.

Wednesday's House antitrust subcommittee hearing saw representatives face down the billionaire heads of four tech giants - Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Apple's Tim Cook, Amazon's Jeff Bezos and Alphabet's Sundar Pichai - who fielded questions in nearly six hours of virtual testimony. Though countless empty slogans and assurances were offered in that time, little was actually said, however, as the reps tried and failed to press the CEOs on concerns of "anti-competitive" business practices and political bias on social media.

'Many a true word is spoken in jest'

Zuckerberg faced a flurry of questions on Facebook's penchant for buying up competitors. Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colorado) grilled Zuckerberg on the company's acquisition of platforms like Instagram and WhatsApp, arguing Facebook had become a social media monopoly.

In fact, as [subcommittee chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler] noted, you did tell one of Facebook's senior engineers in 2012 that you can, quote, 'likely buy, just buy any competitive startup, but it'll be a while before we can buy Google.' Do you recall writing that email?

Zuckerberg brushed off the claim, saying that while he did not remember the email, "it sounds like a joke." The congressmen, however, noted that it was sent "in regards to having just closed the Instagram sale" in April 2012.

Less than a day after Oregon's governor claimed federal agents would leave Portland and let local officials handle Black Lives Matter protesters, President Donald Trump said they are going nowhere until things are under control.

In a Thursday morning tweet, Trump said Governor Kate Brown "isn't doing her job" and insisted that protesters must be cleared out and "in some cases" arrested. "If she can't do it, the Federal Government will do it for her. We will not be leaving until there is safety!" he wrote.


The tweet was posted less than a day after Brown announced she had reached an agreement with the Trump administration that would see a phased withdrawal of federal agents — who were originally deployed after demonstrators attempted to burn down a courthouse — from Portland, which has seen ongoing Black Lives Matter protests turn to rioting and violence.

Unwilling to put Americans' needs above politics

The appearance of Attorney General William Barr before the House Judiciary Committee has put on display for the entire world the level of highly-charged, partisan political dysfunction that has paralyzed the US.

The hearing was never going to end well. But even the most jaundiced of American political observers could not have predicted the venality and animus that tainted every aspect of Attorney General William Barr's appearance before the Democratic-led House Judiciary Committee on July 28.

Barr, who had previously served as Attorney General under President George HW Bush, had never testified before the House Judiciary Committee. Anyone expecting a modicum of decorum befitting the inaugural appearance of the nation's premier law enforcement official before the legislative body, mandated to provide oversight of the American justice system, would have been greatly disappointed with the proceedings. The hearing was more than simply a travesty - it was a national embarrassment.

The European Union successfully flattened the curve of COVID-19 cases in the spring - but a second wave could be building in parts of the EU, according to both British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the head of Germany's disease agency.

"I'm afraid you are starting to see, in some places, the signs of a second wave of the pandemic" in Europe, Johnson said Tuesday.

"We don't know yet if this is the beginning of a second wave, but of course it could be," said Lothar Wieler, head of Germany's infectious disease agency, the Robert Koch Institute. His remarks were reported by Deutsche Welle.

The Dutch government on Wednesday said it will not advise the public to wear masks to slow the spread of coronavirus, asserting that their effectiveness has not been proven.

The decision was announced by Minister for Medical Care Tamara van Ark after a review by the country's National Institute for Health (RIVM). The government will instead seek better adherence to social distancing rules after a surge in coronavirus cases in the country this week, Van Ark said at a press conference in The Hague.

"Because from a medical perspective there is no proven effectiveness of masks, the Cabinet has decided that there will be no national obligation for wearing non-medical masks" Van Ark said.

Today's hearing hosted by the House Judiciary Committee was an absolute disgrace. For hours, Democrats refused to let Bill Barr answer the questions they were purportedly asking, with Jerry Nadler going so far as to try to deny the Attorney General a bathroom break. To call this partisan politics at its worst would be too kind.

As I wrote earlier today, Jim Jordan opened up by rebutting much of the Democrat narrative, showing video of the rioting and pointing out that the left-wing media are gaslighting the country about it.

Things only escalated throughout the day, with Barr continually one-upping Democrat representatives who appeared to be far out of their league. For some examples, see our previous coverage here and here.

Part I - Some Thinking Required

On July 23rd, 2020, the Schiller Institute, an international human rights organization, and Executive Intelligence Review, a magazine founded by Lyndon LaRouche in 1974, held a news conference featuring former NSA analyst William ("Bill") Binney. The conference started with this proposition:

If it were shown, using competent forensic evidence, that there is no actual proof of Russian interference in the 2016 [US presidential] elections, by means of a Russian computer hack [into the servers] of the Democratic National Committee; If it were shown that it has always been knowable to the intelligence agencies of the United States and of Great Britain that no such hack ever occurred, and if it were shown that, though there was a request by the President of the United States, to have the analysts that have successively refuted that Russian hack story be interviewed; that their evidence then be presented to the President, and that that evidence, if proven true, be presented to the American people for their evaluation; so that justice could be done, though the heavens fall: if that directive were not carried out, would that defiance of such a Presidential directive in the pursuit of the truth, constitute a crime against the United States, a crime against the nation of Russia, and against the pursuit of world peace and the avoidance of war?"

The moderator of the news conference went on to note how the British Intelligence agencies summarized in 2003 that Saddam Hussein had gotten hold of uranium from Africa, ostensibly to build nuclear weapons. This intelligence helped propel the US and other powers into war with Iraq, killing more than 500,000 people, but the intelligence was not true. The Russian interference narrative has been pressed on the american people and all over the Western world for three years now, resulting in sanction after sanction against Russia, the refusal to let the Russian leadership state its own case, and the forcing of what appear to be hostile relations growing as the Russian Federation is forced into "tit for tat" moves against the United States.