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Hammer

The real goal of US sanctions on ex-Lebanese ministers is to weaken Hezbollah and combat Iranian influence, not corruption

Bradley Blankenship
RT
Thu, 10 Sep 2020 05:06 UTC
Beirut tribute
© Reuters/Mohamed Azakir
Observing a minute of silence to mark one month since the massive explosion at Beirut's port area, September 4, 2020.
US sanctions against ex-Lebanese ministers are an attempt to weaken Hezbollah, cast out "Iranian influence" and keep protests lukewarm in terms of their anger toward America which helped construct the corrupt Lebanese government.

On September 8, the US Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) imposed sanctions on two former Lebanese government ministers, Yusuf Finyanus and Ali Hassan Khalil, who the office claims have ties to Hezbollah. Washington said the sanctions are an effort to assist the Lebanese people in restructuring their government to fit the demands of protests that have raged across the country since October of 2019.

Comment: There is more to the false assignment of blame for the explosion than meets the eye. Thus heavy sanctions and 'corrections' will let the trail go cold as distraction infiltrates local efforts of recovery. The US, led by the nose to bolster Israel's ring of deflection and absolution, is thereby complicit.

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Dollar

US needs $3T in fiscal stimulus to support coronavirus-hit economy, says economist William Lee

Yen Nee Lee
CNBC
Wed, 09 Sep 2020 11:20 UTC
store closing scene
© Noam galai/Getty Images
The U.S. needs around $3 trillion in fiscal stimulus to support its pandemic-hit economy, an economist said Thursday as Congress and the White House remain in a stalemate over what to include in the next relief package.

William Lee, chief economist at Milken Institute, said the $3 trillion should be spent on programs such as incentivizing businesses to increase remote working capabilities and helping the unemployed find jobs in companies with viable business models. He told CNBC's Squawk Box Asia:
"I think the one thing that everyone ... agrees with is we have to get in there and get in big. The issue is how do you get big without a permanent increase in fiscal deficit. That's why the programs that are put in place have to be targeted and designed in a way so that they disappear once the economy comes back online again."
But disagreements between Democrats and Republicans on what programs to fund have contributed to the impasse over passing another stimulus bill in the U.S.


Comment: Americans won't get financial stimulus until the US government gets brain stimulus. What are the chances of that?!!!

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Briefcase

Julian Assange extradition hearing: Why justice must not only be done, but be 'seen' to be done - literally

Neil Clark
RT
Mon, 07 Sep 2020 17:57 UTC
Assange supporters
© Reuters/Peter Nicholls
Supporters of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange hold placards outside the Old Bailey, the Central Criminal Court London, Britain September 7, 2020.
The denial of remote access to the newly resumed Assange extradition hearing of 40 civil society and political monitors has been strongly criticized given the importance of the case, and it's easy to see why people are concerned.

"It is not merely of some importance, but is of fundamental importance that Justice should not only be done, but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done," Lord Chief Justice Hewart's famous dictum goes.

Sadly that's not the case - literally - with the extradition hearing of Julian Assange which resumed today in London. Amnesty International and Reporters Sans Frontieres were just two of the 40 civil society and political monitoring groups who have had their remote access to the hearings denied, having, it is claimed, been invited to apply for such access only last week.
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Question

French pundit queries Western narrative on Navalny 'poisoning' with 'CIA' comments, gets bashed by establishment


RT
Thu, 10 Sep 2020 14:58 UTC
Zemmour/Navalny
© AFP/Philippe Wojazer/Reuters/Kevin Lamarque/Evgenia Novozhenina
Eric Zemmour (L) and Alexey Navalny (R)
A French pundit has questioned the Western narrative that Moscow played a role in the alleged poisoning of Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny. Yet, the 'deviation' did not go down well with some of the French establishment.

German military scientists claim that Navalny, a prominent activist in Russia, was poisoned by a potent military-grade nerve agent last month. Berlin said that it had "a lot of evidence" that the Russian state was involved but has so far failed to provide this evidence to Moscow. Nevertheless, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has threatened Russia with sanctions over the alleged attack, while his G7 colleagues have condemned the "confirmed poisoning" in the "strongest terms."

However, prominent French essayist Eric Zemmour sees things differently. Though Western media are coalescing around the idea that Navalny was poisoned by the Russian state, Zemmour departed from that narrative in dramatic style. He told France's Cnews channel on Wednesday night:
"I'm trying to understand, and there are things that confuse me. If Putin gave the order to poison this political opponent, then why did Russian doctors save his life and transport him to Germany for treatment by the Germans, at the risk of exposing the crime? This is strange."
Zemmour even hinted that the US Central Intelligence Agency may have had a hand in the case. "Some people fantasize about the KGB, which has become the FSB, I fantasize about the CIA, which is still the CIA."

Comment: Handing over Navalny's test results to OPCW will further false suspicions rather than qualify accuracy and source.

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Dollar

UN's Guterres calls for $35 BILLION more for WHO COVID-19 program

John Miller
Reuters
Thu, 10 Sep 2020 19:02 UTC
World Health Organization
© Reuters / Denis Balibouse
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres called for $35 billion more, including $15 billion in the next three months, for the World Health Organization's "ACT-Accelerator" programme to support vaccines, treatments and diagnostics against COVID-19.

Some $3 billion has been contributed by countries so far, Guterres told an online event on Thursday, calling it "seed funding".

"But we now need $35 billion more to go from 'start up' to 'scale up and impact'," he said. "There is real urgency in these numbers. Without an infusion of $15 billion over the next three months, beginning immediately, we will lose the window of opportunity."
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Yoda

President Trump wants US troops out of the Middle East

Corey Dickstein
Stars & Stripes
Wed, 09 Sep 2020 18:25 UTC
US soldiers Iraq
© Desmond Cassell/U.S. Army
U.S. soldiers from 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, Task Force-Iraq, take up defensive positions at Forward Operating Base Union III, Baghdad, Iraq, Dec. 31, 2019.
US to cut thousands of troops from Iraq, Afghanistan in coming months

The United States will withdraw almost half of its troops from Iraq this month and make a similar cut to its force in Afghanistan by November, the top U.S. general overseeing operations in the Middle East announced Wednesday.

The decisions were announced by Marine Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, commander for U.S. Central Command, during a visit to Baghdad almost exactly six years after the United States first launched military operations against the Islamic State along the Iraq-Syria border. They also come as President Donald Trump has continued to denounce U.S. involvement in long-running wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan, from which he vowed to disentangle U.S. troops since his 2016 election campaign.

"In recognition of the great progress the Iraqi forces have made and in consultation and coordination with the government of Iraq and our coalition partners, the United States has decided to reduce our troop presence in Iraq from about 5,200 to 3,000 troops during the month of September," McKenzie said during a U.S. military ceremony in Baghdad. "This reduced footprint allows us to continue advising and assisting our Iraqi partners in rooting out the final remnants of ISIS in Iraq and ensuring its enduring defeat."

Comment: Tucker summarizes and gives context:



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Bad Guys

Julian Assange hearing paused over Covid fears: Lawyer to get test

Ben Quinn
The Guardian
Thu, 10 Sep 2020 18:01 UTC
Assange

Julian Assange
Julian Assange's extradition case has been paused until Monday so that a member of one of the legal teams can be tested for Covid-19 after potential exposure.

The judge Vanessa Baraitser granted an adjournment at the request of lawyers for the WikiLeaks co-founder and the US government.

"We should not really be here today. Covid would be in the courtroom," said Edward Fitzgerald QC, who is representing Assange in his struggle to resist extradition to the US, where he could face a prison sentence of up to 175 years if convicted on all charges.

His request for an adjournment was backed by James Lewis QC, acting for the US government, who addressed the Old Bailey via video link.

Comment:

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Bad Guys

Moscow furious with Berlin over lack of cooperation on Navalny: 'Fraught with consequences for Russian-German relations'


RT
Thu, 10 Sep 2020 15:59 UTC
Russia foreign ministry building
© Sputnik / Valery Melnikov
Russian Foreign Ministry's building.
Russia's Foreign Ministry has issued a statement warning Germany and its allies within NATO and the EU will be held responsible for Berlin's actions in relation to the alleged poisoning of Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny.

The extraordinary intervention arrived after Germany's ambassador to Moscow was summoned to lodge a protest over what the Ministry called Berlin's attempts to discredit Russia on the world stage following the alleged poisoning of the Russian opposition figure.

The comments came on a tumultuous Wednesday, in which Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also blasted the Germans for snubbing Russian inquiries about the condition of the anti-corruption activist.

Comment: George Galloway said it best:
Wearisome though it may be to point out the bleeding obvious, I must do so.

If the Russian state had attempted to assassinate Navalny, they would never have allowed his stricken comatose body to be flown out of the country to Germany in the first place. He would have died on the operating table in Russia, where nobody could "detect traces of Novichok" in a NATO capital.

If the Russian state was responsible for trying to kill Navalny, surely the LAST weapon in the whole world it would have chosen with which to do so would be Novichok?

A butter knife, a gun, a speeding car, a car crash - any one of a hundred methods would surely have been preferable in the post-Skripal era. And more reliable, it would appear: Navalny, for now mercifully, is the THIRD Russian in a row to be attacked by a DEADLY "military-grade nerve agent" and mysteriously fail to die.

But just like with the Skripals, we come up against the question asked in every murder mystery: Cui Bono? Who benefits?

What conceivable gain would the Kremlin stand to make in the killing by Novichok of Alexey Navalny?


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Nuke

New Woodward book claims Trump said the U.S. has an 'incredible' new secret nuclear weapons system

Varun Hukeri
The Daily Caller
Wed, 09 Sep 2020 15:42 UTC
trump press conference
© Doug Mills-Pool/Getty Images
President Trump
President Donald Trump reportedly revealed the existence of and bragged about a supposedly secret nuclear weapons system during an interview with Bob Woodward, according to an excerpt published Wednesday from his new book "Rage."

Trump was speaking to Woodward about how close the U.S. had come to war with North Korea in 2017 when he brought up the nuclear weapons system, according to an excerpt published in The Washington Post.

"I have built a nuclear — a weapons system that nobody's ever had in this country before," Trump reportedly told Woodward, according to The Washington Post. "We have stuff that you haven't even seen or heard about."

Comment: The WaPo just couldn't resist getting in a dig at Trump over covid, could it. Sad.

More from The Hill:
The Trump administration called for the low-yield warhead as part of its 2018 Nuclear Posture Review.

In February, the Pentagon disclosed the warhead had been deployed for the first time after reports that it deployed on a submarine at the end of 2019. But the exact timing and location of its deployment are classified.

It's unclear from the excerpts when Trump made his comments on the weapons system to Woodward. Trump conducted 18 on-the-record interviews with Woodward from December to July.
[...]
Reports later said Trump was referring to the U.S. military's hypersonic glide body and that the speed Trump disclosed referenced how much faster than the speed of sound the missile flew in a March test.

The Pentagon had announced the hypersonic missile test in March but did not disclose the speed.


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Bug

Zuckerberg declares Trump will NOT be recognized President-Elect on election night - vows to censor election information

Joaquin Flores
Fort Russ News
Wed, 09 Sep 2020 00:00 UTC
Zuckerberg


Zuckerberg is very much tied for the title of 'Public Enemy Number 1', with Bill Gates and George Soros.

In a disturbing round of interviews that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg conducted with two media outlets, he delivered an extraordinarily bizarre and outrageous message to the American public.

Zuckerberg came out in a dystopian Farenheit 451 uniform, with a brutalist white utilitarian background, projecting as much corporatist power as his low-T neurosis-stricken self could possibly muster.

Facebook, he says, has the authority to censor an announcement by the President-Elect that he has won the election on election night. He cites that this is because it may take 'days or even weeks' for the millions of unsolicited mailed-out ballots to be properly harvested and sent in by the post office, even as there has not yet been a determination that mailed-out ballots will be deemed admissible.

Zuckerberg Bribes the Post Office and Holds the Public Ransom to His Desired Election Result

To make sure the US Post Office knows which ballots to throw away and which ones to doubly-stuff, he has sent the USPS some $300 million while at the same time supporting an investigation into the Post Master General's potential corruption, to make sure the Post Master gets in trouble if he doesn't understand what that $300 million is supposed to purchase.
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