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The Saker: A quick update on Belarus


TheSaker.is
Wed, 12 Aug 2020 12:00 UTC
Belarus
© REUTERS/Vasily Fedosenko
Police vehicle rams barricades setup during a rally following the presidential election in Minsk, Belarus August 11, 2020.
A quick update on the events in Belarus:

To make a long story short, two major developments have happened:
  1. My guess is that by now Lukashenko has now figured (again) that the West wants him dead AND he has figured out that he has been conned by the Ukie SBU and, most likely, elements inside his own KGB.
  2. The Belarusian security forces (riot police and KGB) have ruthlessly cracked down on the opposition and right now they seem to be in control of the situation.
I base my first conclusion on the clear and sudden change of tone of Lukashenko who, yet again, praises Putin and Russia and who is now playing nice hoping that the Kremlin will forget what just happened (it won't)

Comment: See also: Lukashenko: Short-term victory, long-term defeat - Belarus protests overview

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Black Cat

Kamala Harris was always Biden's running mate, and here's why

Joe Cunningham
RedState
Wed, 12 Aug 2020 22:41 UTC
Kamala Harris
© AP Photo/John Bazemore
Former Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., speaks during a Democratic presidential primary debate, Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2019, in Atlanta.
Back on May 4th, I pointed out that one of the biggest tells in determining who a running mate could be is found in Wikipedia.

If you look at the history of Vice Presidential picks over the last several elections, you'll see that nominees' picks will have Wikipedia pages that are heavily edited in the days or even weeks leading up to the pick. Kamala Harris — or someone who believed she was a favorite to win — has been editing her page for months, making changes here and there to tidy up the page.

After all, when a running mate is picked, what's the first thing most people who aren't heavily tuned into politics do? They search Google, and in cases like this, Wikipedia is at the top of the search results. It's the very first place people go to learn about this political figure. So that page has to be as neat and clean as possible.

Comment: Someone seems to have given Wikipedia the early head's up. The Intercept reported July 2:
At least one highly dedicated Wikipedia user has been scrubbing controversial aspects of Harris's "tough-on-crime" record from her Wikipedia page, her decision not to prosecute Steve Mnuchin for mortgage fraud-related crimes, her strong support of prosecutors in Orange County who engaged in rampant misconduct, and other tidbits — such as her previous assertion that "it is not progressive to be soft on crime" — that could prove unflattering to Harris as the public gets to know her on the national stage. The edits, according to the page history, have elicited strong pushback from Wikipedia's volunteer editor brigade, and have drawn the page into controversy, though it's a fight the pro-Harris editor is currently winning.
with Breitbart following up:
Changes not mentioned include removals of the alleged role nepotism played in her early political career and significant favorable additions about Harris.

Other Wikipedia editors have begun working to undo the changes made to the Harris page, although many details remain missing. On Twitter, the Wikipedia editor responsible for most removals was identified as Bao Nguyen, a former volunteer organizer for the Harris campaign. Similarly, editors previously created pages for fellow Presidential candidates Pete Buttigieg and Andrew Yang without disclosing their connections to them.

Not mentioned were other removals of unflattering material by Nguyen. These included details about Harris benefiting in her early political career from a relationship with future San Francisco mayor Willie Brown, then the Speaker of the California Assembly, who she dated. Also excluded were the substantial salaries she earned at positions to which Brown appointed her and a quote from Brown's mayoral campaign manager about how the relationship benefited Harris. Another editor subsequently removed all mention of Brown, claiming "sexist" framing. Mention of Brown's appointments was later restored, though only noting them and briefly stating she and Brown were in a relationship at the time.

One other detail removed involved how Harris handled an investigation into the death of Mitrice Richardson, a black woman who, after being detained by the Malibu sheriff's department for not paying her bill at a diner, was released in the middle of the night without a car or phone and was later found dead in a canyon. Harris eventually closed an investigation she had opened into the death under pressure from the public, stating there was insufficient evidence for criminal charges. Mention of the Richardson case is still absent from the article.

Many edits Nguyen made to the article on Harris also added positive material.

Update — After the publication of this article, Bao Nguyen admitted his involvement with both the Harris and Biden campaigns. On a page for discussing concerns about editors with conflicts of interest, Nguyen admitted he was a volunteer on the Harris campaign. He also mentioned briefly volunteering for Biden's presidential campaign. In response to concerns, Nguyen committed to recusing indefinitely from further edits to the Harris page. Due to this disclosure, an administrator imposed a restriction on Nguyen prohibiting him from editing articles about Harris, Biden, and other political figures for whom he has volunteered.


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Attention

Proof Ukrainian SBU altered phone intercept - conversation had nothing to do with MH17

Christelle Néant
Donbass Insider
Wed, 12 Aug 2020 21:31 UTC
mh17

MH17 crash site in Ukraine
On 10 August 2020, the famous Ukrainian blogger Anatoly Shary, published a video containing the full phone tape of Igor Bezler, from which a part was provided by the SBU (Ukraine's secret service) as an evidence to the investigation team and the Dutch justice in the MH17 case. The whole recording proves that the SBU tried to deceive the Dutch justice and the investigation team by cutting elements of context, and lying on the date of the discussion.

The SBU edited the Bezler phone tape to make people believe he was talking about MH17

The authenticity of the phone tapes provided by the SBU is put into question since a long time. Audio analyses done by an expert on two of these phone tapes published on YouTube have already shown that there is evidence they were tampered with.

And the phone tape concerning the involvement of Igor Bezler (nickname "Bes") in the MH17 was one of the most evidently falsified ones. It begins with the end of a sentence ("I understood, damn"), which shows that the recording was not the full one, but just a piece of it. The risk to have an extract put out of context was then very high. And that's exactly what happened.

Here is the discussion we can hear in this SBU extract:

"- ... I understood, damn.
- We just shot down a plane. The group of "Miner". It fell behind Enakievo. I went...
- Pilots? Where are the pilots?
- We went to look for and photograph the downed plane. It smokes...
- How many minutes ago?
- Well, about 30 minutes ago."

The SBU published this phone tape as a "proof" that Bezler admitted they shot down the MH17 (even if they never mention it was a Boeing, or a passenger plane, the "context" is given exclusively by the assertion of the security service of Ukraine, a country which is a potential culprit).
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Bad Guys

Governors abuse newly acquired power, use coronavirus for indefinite state of emergency

Molly McCann
The Federalist
Tue, 11 Aug 2020 20:40 UTC
Virginia Governor Ralph Northam

Virginia Governor Ralph Northam
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia often noted that the primary safeguard of our constitutional liberties is the structure of our government. Every banana republic has a bill of rights, he once said, but the strength of the American system is the separation of powers.

At the federal level, there are three separate, co-equal branches of government that must operate together for our representative republic to function properly, and this balance of power is mirrored at the state level. Unhappily, our system today is not functioning as designed.

Since March, the separation of powers has been off-kilter, shifted disproportionately to state executives, who are ruling outside the boundaries of their proper authority. In a moment of national panic, Americans permitted their state and local executives to take power — to declare states of emergency and to implement lockdowns — and now those executives won't give that power back.

Comment: Governors have no interest in 'reopening' because by doing so they would give up the many great powers being bestowed upon them. They have a vested interest in keeping lockdowns going, no matter the devastation it brings to the states they are elected to serve.

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Heart - Black

President Trump: 'Obstructionist' Nancy Pelosi 'wasn't interested' in helping people in need

Matthew Boyle
Breitbart
Mon, 10 Aug 2020 00:00 UTC
Trump
© Unknown
US President Donald Trump
President Donald Trump told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview on Monday afternoon in the Oval Office that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer are "obstructionists" who were not "interested" in helping people in need.

Asked, to open the nearly 30-minute interview, why he needed to continue coronavirus economic recovery aid via executive order instead of through legislation passed by Congress, Trump told Breitbart News that it is because
"we have obstructionists on the other side. Because Nancy Pelosi and Cryin' Chuck are absolutely obstructionists. All they wanted to do was to get money to bail out Democratic cities and states that have been run poorly. They want bailout money. The bailout money is about a trillion dollars and it's unacceptable. That's about 90 percent of what they wanted."
In addition to the bailout money for failed blue states and Democrat-run cities, Trump said that Pelosi and Schumer were adamant about appropriating money toward the creation of a mail-in-voting system that he said would result in a "rigged election."
"In addition, they wanted money so that the election would end up being rigged. It would be a rigged election. This would be a rigged election. This is going to be one of the great messes of all time if they're allowed to do it, if the courts don't stop it. So we'll see what happens."

Comment: Unlike Pelosi and crew, Trump's EOs are providing added financial assistance to both employers and workers...and he claims there is more to be done.

See also:

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Arrow Down

DOJ lawyers hint at explosive new evidence that led AG Barr to drop charges against Michael Flynn

Sara Carter
saraacarter.com
Tue, 11 Aug 2020 00:00 UTC
PowellFlynnSullivanWall
© Unknown
Atty. Sidney Powell • Gen. Michael Flynn • Judge Emmet Sullivan • Ret. Judge John Gleeson
Michael Flynn's case took center stage again Tuesday, as his attorney Sidney Powell argued to the D.C. Circuit Court that dismissing the case against her client is the judicial and appropriate legal action to take since Justice Department prosecutors had asked for the case to be dismissed.

Stunningly, it appears that there is more evidence that has not been made public in the case of Flynn that led the Department of Justice and Attorney General William Barr to request that the charges be dropped. For Powell and Flynn the news of new evidence supporting his innocence is significant.

It has been a tumultuous battle over the past year against Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, who has been fighting against the DOJ's decision to drop the charges against the three-star general, who once served under President Obama as his director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Powell has been arguing all year that Sullivan's actions teeter on extreme bias against her client and she has also stated that his actions, which have prolonged the case against Flynn, are unjustified.

The Justice Department attorney Jeffery Wall, along with Powell argued and answered questions of the panel that was grilling them on all the details of the case. It was during the trial that Wall hinted at the new evidence in support of Flynn.
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Network

What we learned Sunday from Spygate insider, Steven Schrage

Margot Cleveland
The Federalist
Mon, 10 Aug 2020 00:00 UTC
Schrage
© Fox News
Spygate insider Steven Schrage
This weekend, Spygate insider Steven Schrage broke his silence.

In "The Spies Who Hijacked America" and a follow-up appearance on Maria Bartiromo's Sunday Morning Futures, Schrage detailed the origins of Stefan Halper's meeting with then-Trump advisor Carter Page. Halper would later serve as a confidential human source (CHS) for the Crossfire Hurricane probe, secretly recording multiple conversations with Page, as well as Trump advisor George Papadopoulos.

But it is what Schrage revealed about Halper's initial non-interest in Page then Halper's prediction on January 10, 2017, that Michael Flynn would not last long in the Trump administration that suggest significant revelations will be forthcoming from U.S. Attorney John Durham's investigation into the origins of Spygate.


Comment: Some late and interesting twists to the Flynn saga suggest the set-up was a larger and more complicated operation than presumed.

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Bullseye

AG Bill Barr calls Democrats 'cowards' and revolutionaries concerned only with reelection

Benjamin Fearnow
Newsweek
Mon, 10 Aug 2020 04:17 UTC
Barr
© Office of Public Affairs/Flickr
US AG Bill Barr
Attorney General Bill Barr blamed "the left" for America's hyperpartisan political environment, saying Democrats created a "secular religion" which views conservatives and the GOP solely as "the enemy."

Barr, who previously served as attorney general under President George H.W. Bush between 1991 and 1993, said American politics has fundamentally changed since the last time he was head of the Justice Department. Speaking with Fox News' Mark Levin Sunday, Barr accused Democrats of wanting to "tear down the system," instead of making changes within the country's framework. Barr said Republicans and Democrats used to mutually believe "there was some truth to arrive at," but that liberals have completely withdrawn from all discussion or compromise.

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Green Light

Primaries dropout Kamala Harris, who Tulsi Gabbard 'destroyed' in Democrat debates, might now end up president


RT
Tue, 11 Aug 2020 23:58 UTC
Gabbard Harris
© Reuters/Shannon Stapleton
Former presidential candidates Tulsi Gabbard and Kamala Harris
California Senator Kamala Harris crashed and burned early in the Democrat primary process, never recovering from the debate drubbing she took from Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard. She became Joe Biden's running mate anyway.

"Tulsi" was trending on social networks shortly after the announcement that Harris would be Biden's choice for vice president should Democrats win in November. That's not surprising, since their famous clash from July 2019 was one of the most memorable moments of Harris's short-lived presidential bid, widely credited with sinking her candidacy.

That day Gabbard calmly took Harris to task over her prosecutorial past, pointing out that she was responsible for getting thousands of African-Americans locked up on draconian drug sentences, even as Democrats clamored for criminal justice reform and racial justice.


Comment: The Dems have their work cut out for them to morph Harris, from a drop-out loser, into the commodity they need.

See also:

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Star of David

Three Israeli tanks cross border fence to enter Lebanese territory


Press TV
Tue, 11 Aug 2020 01:56 UTC
3 howitzers
© AFP
155 mm self-propelled howitzers are deployed in the Upper Galilee in northern Israel on the Lebanese border on July 27, 2020.
Three Israeli battle tanks have encroached upon a technical fence that separates Lebanon from the occupied territories amid tensions between the Tel Aviv regime and Hezbollah resistance movement, whose member was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Syria last month.

Two tanks crossed the so-called Blue Line - the UN-recognized boundary between the Israeli-occupied territories and Lebanon - near Meiss Ej Jabal village in the Marjeyoun district on Tuesday, and were deployed in an area of the southern Lebanese neighborhood of Kroum al-Sharqi, the Arabic-language An-Nahar daily newspaper reported.

The report added that the third tank crossed the border and was positioned on a road just opposite the area. A phosphorous bomb was later fired by one of the tanks. No injuries were reported.

Tensions have been running high between Israel and Hezbollah since July 20, when Tel Aviv killed Hezbollah member Ali Kamel Mohsen in an airstrike on Syria. The Israeli military has placed its forces near the Lebanese and Syrian borders on high alert after Hezbollah promised retaliation.

On Monday, Israeli deputy prime Minister and minister of military affairs, Benny Gantz, asserted that the regime is ready for a war with Lebanon. He also warned that Israel's next war against Hezbollah would be more difficult to fight given the tactics that the Lebanese resistance movement would employ in such a military confrontation.
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