Puppet Masters
Someone should tell the New York Times, CNN and other mainstream media outlets that soldiers don't actually like getting killed or maimed for no good reason. Nor do they like generals and presidents who spill their blood in vain.
Alas, ignorance of these obvious truths probably isn't the issue. This is likely just another case of the biggest names in news pretending to not get the point so they can take the rest of us along for a ride in their confidence game of alternative reality.
The latest example is the New York Times spinning President Donald Trump's critique this week of Pentagon leadership and the military industrial complex as disrespect for the military at large. "Trump has lost the right and authority to be commander in chief," the Times quoted retired US Marines General Anthony Zinni as saying. Zinni cited Trump's alleged "despicable comments" about the nation's war dead - reported last week by The Atlantic, citing anonymous sources - as one of the reasons Trump "must go." Never mind that Trump and all on-the-record administration sources denied The Atlantic's report.
Many devices were wiped or otherwise disabled before DOJ authorities were able to access and examine them or the records they contained, including that of disgraced former FBI lawyer Lisa Page.
According to email correspondence between the Special Counsel's Office and the DOJ Office of the Inspector General, Page's phone had been reset to factory settings, "and therefore all data was wiped from the device" before the OIG received it.
Destruction of data and communication pervaded the team, with more than 20 instances of Mueller team members wiping their devices, some in seemingly creative ways. While some data was "accidentally wiped," other inaccessible data was blamed on personnel incorrectly entering passwords too many times, resulting in information being nuked. Other devices were left in airplane mode with either incorrect or no passwords provided, rendering the data inaccessible.
After months of negotiations, a coronavirus stimulus package, which included funding for schools and Covid-19 testing, unemployment benefits, and the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), was voted down by every Democrat in the Senate on Thursday. The only Republican to join them was Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky).
Needing 60 votes to pass, the bill earned a 52-47 outcome and it's now unlikely a coronavirus stimulus package will pass before November's presidential election.
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) tweeted:
"Every Senate Democrat just voted against hundreds of billions of dollars of COVID-19 relief. They blocked money for schools, testing, vaccines, unemployment insurance, and the Paycheck Protection Program. Their goal is clear: No help for American families before the election."
Comment: Dysfunctional and self-destructive, Congressional infighting does not further either party's commitments to the public, nor do themselves any favor. Congress' role is a 'functionary for the people', the prime mandate most regularly kicked to the curb.

Alexey Navalny • Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons
"Russia is deeply concerned by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons becoming an instrument in the geopolitical struggle," Nebenzya said Thursday at the United Nations Security Council session on the use of chemical weapons in Syria.
He outlined how the OPCW had been used by Western governments to blame Damascus for alleged chemical attacks in Syria while outright ignoring evidence of actual chemical weapons use by terrorist groups.
After ambassadors of the US, UK, Belgium, Germany and Estonia called on Russia to conduct a "full and transparent" investigation into Navalny's alleged poisoning, Nebenzya said that it had "nothing to do with the topic of today's discussion."
Comment: The OPCW has proven itself to be a puppet expert to a particular group of overlords.
- UK admits OPCW didn't confirm source of Novichok while OPCW denies presence of BZ in Skripal samples
- Russia's 13 questions to OPCW over Skripal case
- Russia's envoy to OPCW exposes 'eight London lies' in Skripal case
- 'We didn't forget how to negotiate': US, Russia agree on adding Novichok & NATO-made chemicals to OPCW blacklists
- Newly leaked evidence OPCW suppressed, altered findings on Douma 'chem attack'
- Wikileaks provides further evidence of OPCW Douma cover up
- New OPCW whistleblower defends Douma investigators who challenged chemical weapons cover-up; claims other staffers 'frightened into silence'
Taliban spokesman Dr. Muhammad Naeem said in a statement that the group "would like to declare its readiness to partake in the inauguration ceremony of Intra-Afghan negotiations" between Sept. 12 and Sept. 22. He added that the talks are to be held in Qatar where the Taliban maintain a political office.
Senior members of the current Afghan government will also attend the negotiations in Doha at the behest of President Ashraf Ghani, the government said in a statement.
Welcoming the talks, President Donald Trump told a news conference Thursday, that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would attend the negotiations. Pompeo said in statement that they marked
"a historic opportunity for Afghanistan to bring an end to four decades of war and bloodshed. This opportunity must not be squandered. Immense sacrifice and investment by the United States, our partners, and the people of Afghanistan have made this moment of hope possible. I urge the negotiators to demonstrate the pragmatism, restraint, and flexibility this process will require to succeed."

A supporter protests outside the Old Bailey in London ahead of a hearing to decide whether Julian Assange should be extradited to the United States.
Judge Jose de la Mata of Spain's High Court is conducting an ongoing investigation into UC Global. The firm was previously in charge of security at the Ecuadorian embassy in London and now stands accused of spying on WikiLeaks founder Assange and passing sensitive information to US intelligence.
Testimony from witnesses, including former staff at UC Global, alleges that the company's former owner, David Morales, furnished the CIA with recordings and reports of Assange's daily activities and conversations while residing in the embassy.
Comment:
- A massive scandal: How Assange, his doctors, lawyers and visitors were all spied on for the US
- UC Global director at center of Assange spying accusations claims ambassador ordered espionage
- Julian Assange's lawyers were placed under surveillance. But that's not the whole story
- 'The American friends': New court files expose Sheldon Adelson's security team involved in US spy operation against Julian Assange
"We'll either close up TikTok in this country for security reasons, or it will be sold," Trump told reporters Thursday before boarding the presidential aircraft for a campaign trip to Michigan. "There will be no extension of the TikTok deadline."
Administration officials had been considering whether to give more time to TikTok's Chinese owner to arrange a sale of the app's U.S. operations to an American buyer, though a decision hadn't yet been presented to Trump, according to people familiar with the matter.
Comment:
- Trump says he will ban TikTok in the US by September 15... 'unless the Chinese sell it to Microsoft'
- US Army follows Navy in banning soldiers from using TikTok over security concerns
- Trump threatens to ban TikTok in US, Pompeo confirms action will come this week - Microsoft may buy the Chinese company
- Mark Zuckerberg reportedly encouraged Trump to crack down on TikTok, and now it's planning to sue
It turns out that the heated discussion over the whistleblower, who was previously identified by Real Clear Investigations as the CIA's Eric Ciaramella, was a diversion from allowing the American people to understand who was the actual instigator of the failed effort to oust President Donald Trump from office.
Rather than being a witness who independently supported the claims of the whistleblower, the National Security Council's Lt. Col Alex Vindman was the driving force behind the entire operation, according to the book's interviews with key figures in the impeachment probe and other evidence. The whistleblower's information came directly from Vindman, investigators determined.
Comment: More from Fox News:
York reveals Vindman, who retired from the Army in July after being fired from the National Security Council in February, was the driving force for Democrats' impeachment in his new book, "Obsession: Inside the Washington Establishment's Never-Ending War on Trump."
"It didn't take a real rocket scientist that the source of this, the original source of this, was Lt. Col. Vindman," York told "The Ingraham Angle" Wednesday night, laying out the facts of the case.
"If you remember early on in the Ukraine matter, the Democrats said they wanted the whistleblower to testify, and then they changed their mind and they didn't want the whistleblower to testify and they began to shut off any Republican attempts to find out who the whistleblower was," he said.
The Washington Examiner chief political correspondent asked, "So the question is if the whistleblower wasn't in the White House, how did he learn what was going on?"
He points out Vindman was one of several people who listened to Trump's call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, "but [Vindman] was the only one who was disturbed by what took place. He was the only one who thought there was a problem there."
[...]
Trump reacted to an excerpt on Vindman in York's book Thursday.
"No, Vindman knew the call itself to the Ukrainian President was 'perfect', but also knew the whistleblower report described the call incorrectly, way off. Why didn't Vindman say so? That's why Shifty didn't want the whistleblower to testify. A big scam!" Trump tweeted.
York also claimed former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team, formed in May of 2017, knew early on there wasn't evidence for Trump-Russia collusion but continued to investigate.
"[Mueller] looked into everything, but what was happening was Trump lawyers could see that Mueller wasn't getting anywhere and by the fall and certainly by the end of the year, they knew that collusion was a dry hole for Mueller," York said. "He had not come up with what he was supposed to find."
- Political hack Alex Vindman: Living proof that the Deep State exists, and is corrupt
- Deep State's National Security Council: Col. Vindman, the 'expert' with an agenda
- Medal of Honor recipient says Vindman's own peers at Ranger School tried to get rid of him
"If we win the election, Iran will come and sign an agreement with us very rapidly. I would say within a week, but let's give ourselves a month," he claimed during a September 10 news conference at the White House.
Trump notably withdrew the US from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement, or Iran nuclear deal, on May 8, 2018, citing Tehran's continued "pursuit of nuclear weapons and the means of delivering them."
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently made the same argument to the United Nations Security Council after the US set forth a resolution to extend the international arms embargo against Tehran - set to expire October 18.
"We will never allow the Islamic Republic of Iran to have a nuclear weapon," the Washington official vowed.
Comment: Fair enough - they currently don't and most likely never will. How about we now deal with the actual rogue nuclear state: Israel?
However, US allies France, Germany and the United Kingdom openly declared that Washington's push to invoke the "snapback" mechanism was actually in violation of the JCPOA, which is still being upheld by its remaining signatories.
Comment: In other U.S.-Iran news, Iran says the U.S. withdrew its drones from an area closed off for military drills after given a warning by Iranian military.
According to the officer, Iranian forces detected a concentration of US drones trying to gather information in the exercise areas. "These activities were detected by the army's signal detection systems, and the drones were warned by the air defences," he said.
"Since then, we have been witnessing a noticeable change in the activities of American drones," Irani added. "They were forced to leave the area after seeing the level of readiness of the surveillance, identification and defence systems of the Iranian military," the senior naval officer said.

Protesters in Vilnius in front of Belarus Embassy express their support to Svetlana Tikhanovskaya
In the resolution, titled "On the Illegitimate Union Imposed by Russia on Belarus" and adopted on Thursday, the Lithuanian parliament threw its weight behind the presidential election's official runner-up, deeming her and the Belarusian opposition's Coordination Council "the only legitimate representatives of the Belarusian people."
The resolution refers to Tikhanovskaya as the "elected leader" of the country, while Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko is called "an illegitimate leader."
Comment: Slight logic problem: if the election results were rigged, how do they know the actual results? Lukashenko officially got 80% of the vote. Do they know for a fact he didn't get 60% of the vote? They don't, because they can't.
The document takes aim at relations between Minsk and Moscow in particular, preemptively labeling all future integration agreements between the two neighbors as "null and void" and a "de facto annexation" so long as Lukashenko signs them.
The MPs also proposed slapping sanctions on Russian officials and Lukashenko if they attempt to ink such agreements, which the deputies argued "are made to limit the sovereignty of the country by illegal means against the will of the Belarusian people."












Comment: Who knew phone wiping was so contagious? The 'mask of justice' has just been ripped off this case and those phonies may require cellular distancing. UPDATE: Trump tweets:
The Republican chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee is calling for an investigation: