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Skripal Suspects: Russian Agent Identity Confirmed? Not Even Close

Craig Murray
craigmurray.org.uk
Thu, 27 Sep 2018 19:27 UTC
skripal suspects
© MET Police
Their best sides -"Ruslan Boshirov" and "Alexander Petrov" make sure to be caught on CCTV at Salisbury Station on March 3, 2018 in an image handed out by the Metropolitan Police in London, Britain September 5, 2018
UPDATE: The Kommersant Evidence

Kommersant publishes interviews with people from Chepiga's home village. The article makes clear he has not been seen there for many years. It states that opinions differ on whether Chepiga is Boshirov. One woman says she recognised Boshirov as Chepiga when he appeared on TV, especially the dark eyes, though she had not seen him since school. Another woman states it is not Chepiga as when she last saw him ten years ago he was already pretty bald, and he has a more open face, although the eyes are similarly brown.

Naturally mainstream media journalists are tweeting and publishing the man's evidence and leaving out the woman's evidence.

But the Kommersant article gives them a bigger challenge. Kommersant is owned by close Putin political ally, Putin's former student flatmate, Chariman of Gazprominvestholdings and the UK's richest resident, Alisher Usmanov. That Russia's most authoritative paper, with ownership very close to Putin, is printing such open and honest reporting rather belies the "Russia is a dictatorship" narrative. And unlike the Guardian and BBC websites, on Kommersant website ordinary Russians can post freely their views on the case, and are.

One thing this does stand up is that Chepiga definitely exists.

Comment: See also: On Twitter, Elena Evdokimova has made a compelling case that most of bellingcat's documents are forgeries. See the threads below:



According to Peskov, there is no record of Chepiga receiving the award bellingcat alleges he received:
"Yes, I have checked. I have no information that a person with this name was awarded," Peskov told reporters.

The day before, Peskov said he would verify reports that Putin had allegedly decorated Col. Anatoliy Chepiga and then would provide that information to reporters.


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Eye 1

DHS wants to implement invasive face scanning technology for your next flight

Sam Biddle
The Intercept
Thu, 27 Sep 2018 19:47 UTC
biometric facial recognition
© Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Station Manager Chad Shane, right, of SAS airlines, ushers a boarding passenger through the process as Dulles airport officials unveil new biometric facial recognition scanners on Sept. 6, 2018.
Omnipresent facial recognition has become a golden goose for law enforcement agencies around the world. In the United States, few are as eager as the Department of Homeland Security. American airports are currently being used as laboratories for a new tool that would automatically scan your face - and confirm your identity with U.S. Customs and Border Protection - as you prepare to board a flight, despite the near-unanimous objections from privacy advocates and civil libertarians, who call such scans invasive and pointless.

According to a new report on the Biometric Entry-Exit Program by DHS itself, we can add another objection: Your flight could be late.

Comment: Eh, the biggest issue The Intercept can find here is that DHS doesn't care if these invasive biometric measures may make flights late?

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Propaganda

Billionaire media mogul says spread of 'fake news' on social media is 'cancer of our time'

Berkleley Lovelace Jr.
CNBC
Thu, 27 Sep 2018 19:32 UTC
Patrick Soon-Shiong

Patrick Soon-Shiong
Billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong on Wednesday advocated for a change in how people consume news on social media, calling misinformation and how it's spread the "cancer of our time."

"The short attention span we're creating in this millennium is actually very dangerous," said Soon-Shiong, the new owner of the Los Angeles Times. "It's the unintended consequences of social media."

Soon-Shiong, also chairman and CEO of biotech firm NantKwest, was responding to a question about the state of media and its relationship to social networks.

Comment: If he's referring to people sharing CNN, the NYT, WaPo, etc., then yeah, he's right. But that's probably not the case. The internet opened a platform for people to share unfiltered information between one another. More likely than not, this is what Soon-Shiong sees as a 'cancer'.

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Bad Guys

Kremlin says Skripal poisoning suspects Petrov and Boshirov are civilians


RT
Thu, 27 Sep 2018 19:16 UTC
petrov borishov
© RT
Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov – just two guys in the wrong place at the wrong time
President Vladimir Putin has information that two Russia suspects in the Skripal poisoning case were civilians, a Kremlin spokesman said when asked about an investigation that claimed they were Russian intelligence agents.

Putin earlier vouched for Ruslan Boshirov and Aleksandr Petrov, saying they were civilians and had nothing to do with the crime. A report by Bellingcat, a UK-based investigative group, said this week that Boshirov is actually a decorated Russian commando colonel named Anatoly Chepiga.

Comment: Bellingcat is an Atlanticist propaganda outlet that has been exposed several times. No self-respecting journalist (few as they are) takes Elliot Higgins seriously.

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Attention

Trump calls out China instead of Russia for election meddling - Twitter goes nuts


RT
Wed, 26 Sep 2018 18:29 UTC
TrumpUN
© VOA News
US President Donald Trump at the United Nations
In a speech to the United Nations Security Council, President Trump blamed China for meddling in US elections. On Twitter, the #resistance is furious he didn't name the old boogeyman: Russia.
"Regrettably, we found that China has been attempting to interfere in our upcoming 2018 election," Trump told a meeting of the Security Council in New York on Wednesday. "They do not want me or us to win," he continued, "because I am the first president ever to challenge China on trade, and we are winning on trade."
Trump's comments on China echoed his comments one day before, when he accused China of product dumping, intellectual property theft, and currency manipulation.

Trump blamed China's accession into the World Trade Organization in 2001 for the loss of thousands of American jobs, and said his administration will "not allow our workers to be victimized, our companies to be cheated, and our wealth to be plundered and transferred."

Comment: A four-page targeted disquisition in a prominent newspaper is hard to miss.

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Question

Trump: I'd 'certainly prefer not' to fire Rosenstein, may delay the meeting

Eric Tucker
AP
Wed, 26 Sep 2018 00:00 UTC
TrumpRosenstein
© EA WorldView
President Donald Trump • Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein
President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he would "certainly prefer not" to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and that he may delay a highly anticipated meeting with the Justice Department's No. 2 official.

Trump said Rosenstein denied making remarks first attributed to him in a New York Times report, including that he had discussed possibly secretly recording the president and using the Constitution's 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office.
"I would much prefer keeping Rod Rosenstein," Trump said at a news conference in New York. "He said he did not say it. He said he does not believe that. He said he has a lot of respect for me, and he was very nice and we'll see." Trump added, "My preference would be to keep him and to let him finish up."
Rosenstein is overseeing special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and his dismissal would put that probe in jeopardy and create a political storm.

In suggesting that he might postpone Thursday's meeting, Trump said he was focused on the extraordinary Senate Judiciary Committee hearing set for the same day with Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and a woman who has accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault when they were teenagers.
"I may call Rod tonight or tomorrow and ask for a little bit of a delay to the meeting, because I don't want to do anything that gets in the way of this very important Supreme Court pick," Trump said.
The Justice Department referred questions about the scheduling of the meeting to the White House.

Comment: More from RFE/RL:
Both Republicans and Democrats in Congress have warned Trump against firing Rosenstein, and White House aides have been quoted anonymously as saying that they advised Trump against taking any "extreme actions" on the Russian investigation ahead of congressional elections in November that will determine whether his Republican Party retains control of Congress.
See also:

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Snakes in Suits

House Republicans to subpoena for McCabe memos

Kyle Cheney
Politico
Tue, 25 Sep 2018 08:34 UTC
McCabe
© static.politico
Andrew McCabe
House Republicans have initiated the process to issue a subpoena to the Justice Department for memos drafted by former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, according to a Judiciary Committee source.

The memos have become the centerpiece of recent news reports suggesting that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein last year sought to secretly record President Donald Trump, following his decision to fire FBI Director James Comey.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) has faced pressure from conservatives in the House to call Rosenstein in to testify. Just moments after he revealed his intent to issue the subpoena, the Trump-aligned House Freedom Caucus issued a formal call to demand Rosenstein's testimony this week - or else demand his resignation.

Goodlatte is required under committee rules to provide Democrats with at least two days notice for issuing any subpoenas - notice that he provided late Tuesday. His office confirmed late Tuesday that he intends to issue the subpoena after the waiting period elapses.

It's unclear, though, whether the demand for the McCabe memos will satisfy House conservatives, who have been putting pressure on Rosenstein for months. "The McCabe memos have been asked for and asked about for months, and I am not optimistic that this subpoena will produce any new results," House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) told POLITICO.

Comment: See the following:

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Dollar

Spokesman confirms Soros indirectly funded Fusion GPS

Chuck Ross
The Daily Caller
Wed, 26 Sep 2018 10:06 UTC
Soros
© Jewish Business News
George Soros, billionaire financier
George Soros has indirectly funded Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm behind the infamous Steele dossier, a spokesman for the billionaire financier has acknowledged.

Michael Vachon, the Soros aide, told Washington Post columnist David Ignatius that Soros provided a grant to a nonprofit group called the Democracy Integrity Project.

That organization, which was formed in 2017 by Daniel Jones, a former Senate Intelligence Committee staffer for Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, paid Fusion GPS as a contractor to continue an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

The Post column confirms what a Washington, D.C., lawyer named Adam Waldman told The Daily Caller News Foundation about a conversation he had with Jones in March 2017.

Waldman was an attorney for Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. He also worked in some capacity for Christopher Steele, according to text messages he exchanged with Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence panel. In what the Post's Ignatius noted was an "incestuous" relationship, Steele, a former MI6 officer, has done work for the Kremlin-linked Deripaska in the past.

Comment: As they say: 'Follow the money'.

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Arrow Up

Maduro: Ready 'to shake hands' with Trump


RT
Thu, 27 Sep 2018 04:11 UTC
Nicolas Maduro
© Eduardo Munoz/Reuters
President of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro
Venezuela's President, Nicholas Maduro [sic Nicolas], has said that he is willing to reach out to his US counterpart and discuss mutual grievances. Maduro has been one of Donald Trump's arch-nemeses during Trump's time in office.

Maduro made the offer to the US President while speaking at the UN General Assembly on Wednesday. The Venezuelan socialist said that he was ready to cast aside "dramatic differences" and give a dialog a shot.

He suggested that, if agreed to, the meeting should cover a range of topics "which the United States government wants to talk about".

Maduro has called for a face-to-face conversation in the past. Before he left for the UNGA in New York, he said he hoped the 'miracle' meeting would happen. "I'm even willing to talk to President Trump, I think if President Trump and I speak, we could understand each other," he said in Caracas.

Trump, under whose administration Venezuela has been hit with rounds of debilitating economic sanctions, did not rule out the meeting, but said it is not something that he's been giving any thought to.

"We're going to take care of Venezuela, if he's here and he wants to meet, it was not on my mind, it was not on my plate, but if I can help people that's what I'm here for," Trump stated on Wednesday.

Comment: The referred to NYT article contained misleading implications and innuendo regarding the Trump administration. See below:

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Star of David

Trump says 'two-state solution to work best for Mideast conflict'


RFE/RL
Wed, 26 Sep 2018 15:38 UTC
NetiTrump
© Unknown
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu • US President Donald Trump
U.S. President Donald Trump says he will outline a two-state peace plan for the Middle East in the coming months -- in the clearest indication so far of his administration's support for such an outcome. Trump, speaking at a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in New York, said that it was a "dream" of his to bring about a peaceful solution to the conflict.

Netanyahu's position is that any future Palestinian state should be demilitarized and recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people.

"I would say over the next two to three to four months," Trump said, referring to the prospective time frame for presenting the peace plan.

The Trump administration has in the past said it would support a two-state solution if both sides agreed to it. "I like a two-state solution. That's what I think works best.... That's my feeling," Trump said.

But a senior Palestinian official rejected Trump's comments, saying his White House's policies were ruining hopes of peace. "Their words go against their actions and their action is absolutely clear [and] is destroying the possibility of the two-state solution," said Husam Zomlot, head of the recently closed Palestinian mission in Washington.

Comment: And the Palestinians - what do they want?

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