OF THE
TIMES
"The Boeing 767 has made dozens of flights between Miami International Airport and destinations in Colombia and Venezuela since Jan. 11, a flight tracking service shows, often returning to Miami for only a few hours before flying again to South America." The Boeing 767 has a payload capacity of 42 tons. The discovery of weapons occurred Tuesday, two days after the flight landed briefly in Valencia, Venezuela's third-largest city. Venezuelan authorities found 19 assault weapons, 118 ammunition cartridges, and 90 military-grade radio antennas, among other items.McClatchy concludes with how this is a common tactic of the United States and one that was used when Elliott Abrams was previously in government, writing:
An Ottawa-based analyst reported on the unusual ship and plane movements, Steffan Watkins, drew attention to the frequent flights of the 21 Air cargo plane in a series of tweets Thursday. The airline had been flying all around the United States but in January it began flying to destinations in Colombia and Venezuela on a daily basis, and sometimes multiple times a day making close to 40 round-trip flights from Miami International Airport to Caracas and Valencia in Venezuela, and Bogota and Medellin in Colombia since Jan. 11.
The CIA operated a dummy airline, known as Air America, from the early 1950s until the mid 1970s for air operations in Southeast Asia, including air-dropping weapons to friendly forces.
More than a decade later, Sandinista soldiers shot down a cargo plane taking weapons to the U.S.-backed contra rebels fighting the Nicaraguan government. A U.S. Marine veteran, Eugene Hasenfus, survived the 1986 crash, and later told reporters that he was working for the CIA, paving the way for his release and return to the United States.
Curiously, one of the figures in the Reagan administration instrumental in delivering support to the contras, former assistant secretary of state Elliott Abrams, was named by President Donald Trump late last month as his special envoy overseeing policy toward Venezuela.
KZ
Disclosure: Kevin Gosztola co-hosts the Unauthorized Disclosure podcast with Rania Khalek, who is a contributor for Maffick Media's Soapbox. Unauthorized Disclosure is entirely listener-funded. Shadowproof is member-supported and funded by reader donations.CNN went in search for a story about a Russian-funded digital media project that produces viral videos aimed at undermining American democracy. When CNN journalists could not find what they were looking for, they effectively manufactured the news by giving Facebook a pretext for removing the project's pages used to share videos. Now, the cable news network had their story.
"Closing a Facebook account or any internet link of a media, without prior warning, can be considered as an act of censorship opposed by the IFJ," the group's chief Philippe Leruth told RIA Novosti.Maffick Media CEO, host slam Facebook's unprovoked 'censorship' after CNN runs hit piece: 'end of free speech'
His remarks came after Facebook suddenly removed several news and viral video-themed pages with millions of subscribers, managed by Maffick Media, on Friday. It happened immediately after CNN ran a report accusing the agency of being part of a Russian "influence campaign." The reason given was that Maffick is partially owned by Ruptly video agency, a subsidiary of RT which is funded by Russia. Facebook gave no notice or warning before taking down the pages. The company later said that it is launching an update for popular pages and will request them to disclose their ownership.
"Closing brutally any link doesn't respect this normal way of doing [things]," Leruth said explaining that even if a media organization is accused of "spreading fake news," it should be asked for the "rectification" of the information presented, and if it refuses - other steps can be taken, including legal action.
Maffick's team heavily pushed back against Facebook, pointing out that its pages didn't violate any of the social network's rules. News agencies weren't required to display information on their funding and ownership on Facebook, and the social network never came after other state-funded media, like the BBC, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty or Qatari-owned Al Jazeera, they argued.
Four days after taking down the pages Facebook got back to Maffick saying that more information is needed in About section.
RFE/RL updated its page later on Tuesday.
Good for Naouai! If Maffick Media is to be held to such a high standard, then apply it across the board.
Co-founder of the Intercept, journalist Glenn Greenwald also criticized Facebook's actions as "highly disturbing." The company, along with CNN and the US-funded German Marshall Fund, whose opinion was prominently featured in CNN's story, are "working together to selectively censor," he wrote on Twitter.
Speaking to RT, journalist and political commentator Martin Summers said that Facebook's action against Maffick Media brings up a broader question on whether the social media giant "should have the power to decide what people see here."
"When you do internet searches... you're supposed to find the thing that the most people are looking at. But, of course, now they've started talking about changing the algorithms."
"It's quite clear that the 'Russiagate' is out of control," RT's deputy director for creativity and innovation, Ivor Crotty noted. "The narrative, paranoia and conspiracy theories around it are starting to disintegrate."
Maffick Media said that it appealed the removal of its pages immediately after it happened, but has still received no reply from Facebook.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, meanwhile, suggested that Russia shouldn't retaliate in 'an-eye-for-an-eye' fashion but rather focus on maintaining a "comfortable" environment for foreign reporters.
Comment: One dark possibility is that Hassani was selected afterwards to fit with a script.
But the show is presumably as its creators claim: a send-up of Israelis' obsession with terror.
Which leaves this a freakishly hilarious coincidence.
When Zionisms collide!
This show has it all: terror, entertainment, LGBT-ness, Muslim migrants... and the Israeli security services, of course, saving the day.