Gideon Levy published a column in Haaretz yesterday that goes to the furthest extent I have seen in Israeli mainstream media in challenging Zionism. He calls it a movement that "contradicts human rights, and is thus indeed an ultranationalist, colonialist and perhaps even racist movement, as proponents of justice worldwide maintain".

His piece, titled "Minster of Truth", was a typically sarcastic one, set against the background of Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, who had said earlier in the week that:

"Zionism should not - and I'm saying here that it will not - continue to bow its head to a system of individual rights interpreted in a universal manner".

The Bildeberg group comically describe themselves as "a diverse group of political leaders and experts." We are led to believe they are the world's most secretive organisation. They spend hundreds of thousands of dollars keeping the press away from their sacred agenda and discussions. It has spent decades lying and obfuscating about itself. And yet, the activities of the Bilderberg group genuinely sit in the shade to an even more secretive and dangerous geo-political influencer called - Le Cercle.

Le Cercle originally set up as a Franco-German alliance, is a deep state milieu - an environment where powerful figures can secretly meet. They are careful to commit as little as possible to paper or p.c. - making them hard to hack, leak or track - and for good reason. It is smaller and considerably more secretive than Bilderberg.

Its purpose is to subvert the democratic principles and processes of individual countries and are by nature ideologically 'hawkish' - distributing propaganda, stoking fear of communist plots from Russia, vote rigging and hacking the accounts of politicians and prominent global figures. Promoting the 'war on terror' has been a major factor in their activities of recent years and in so doing broker weapons deals and setting up false flag operations the world over to suit its own agenda. It is reported that 'Gladio' style attacks, much like the clandestine NATO "stay-behind" sabotage, guerrilla warfare and assassination operations in Europe have been conducted along with illegal business operations, financial fraud and arms dealing - all attributed to this group.

Catalonia's interior minister has denied reports that the CIA alerted Spanish authorities of possible terrorist attacks in Barcelona as early as May, almost three months before an attack in the city left 14 people dead and 130 others injured.

Responding to the report published by Spain's El Periodico newspaper, Catalan's Regional Interior Chief Joaquim Forn acknowledged that a warning was indeed received, but that it was not from the CIA and had low credibility.

"As we've done from the very beginning, we deny that the Catalan police force speaks directly to the CIA. The warning that a possible terror attack came from other sources, and was dealt with in the same way as the dozens of other warnings we receive," he said Thursday.

"We always verify them and rate their value, and in this particular case, the warning we received had low credibility."

The US Department of Defense wants to identify and neutralize cyber viruses by deploying software bugs on computers worldwide, according to a proposal for potential contractors put out by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

The goal of DARPA's new program is to identify and neutralize botnets and other large-scale malware through generating and installing "autonomous software agents" that would go after an adversary's viruses, the agency posted on the Federal Business Opportunities website.

DARPA, which is part of the Pentagon, wants proposers to be able to look at 80% of the global IP-address space in order to "fingerprint" networks and detect botnets.

The software agents they develop should be able to use known vulnerabilities in worldwide computer networks to establish "presence in each botnet-conscripted network without affecting legitimate system functionality," the document says.

"DARPA will facilitate access to relevant data sources by leveraging both commercial and USG relationships and data exchange agreements," the proposal reads, without elaborating on what kind of commercial relationships DARPA is prepared to leverage.

The Russian trade mission in Washington has been closed and its staff barred access, Russia's US embassy spokesman said, adding the US State Department is formally leading the searches in the building.

Staff has been blocked from accessing the building of the trade mission in Washington starting from 14:00 local time (18:00 GMT), Russian embassy's spokesman, Nikolay Lakhonin, told media.

Lakhonin also said the searches at Russia's diplomatic facilities would start immediately after being closed to personnel. The operation would be carried out under the auspices of the US State Department, he added.

The head of the Russian trade mission in the US, Aleksandr Stadnik, told journalists that he considers the searches at the two compounds as a takeover in violation of international law. He confirmed that the US authorities lifted diplomatic immunity from the trade mission compound in Washington, DC, as at 14:00 (local time) (18:00 GMT).

You might not know them by name, but assuming you have ever seen a talking head on MSCNNBCFOXMSMBS fearmongering about the ever-present danger of "hate" groups that (GASP!) don't worship the government as the holiest institution on the planet then you know their work.

I'm referring to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a "nonprofit legal advocacy organization" that is "dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of our society" according to their self-congratulatory PR material. Founded in 1971 by a pair of civil rights lawyers, the SPLC prides itself on its "Hatewatch" and "Hate Map" projects, monitoring the rise of hate groups as they spread hate and hate across America.

Did I mention hate? Because that's what the SPLC specializes in. Hate, I mean. Or monitoring hate. It's hard to tell the difference sometimes.

Anyway, if you're a dedicated listener to The Corbett Report you'll remember I did a podcast seven years ago exploding the myth of the SPLC as a crusading bunch of civil rights defenders volunteering their services across the South in their thankless pursuit of justice for the poor and downtrodden. In that episode I talked about Mark Potok (the "editor-in-chief of the SPLC's award-winning, quarterly journal, the Intelligence Report and its investigative reports"), his relentless smearing of anyone and everyone who dares criticize the government (or, more specifically, the Democratic party), and his hatred of those vile conspiracy theorists who actively try to educate (GASP!) the people about the government's misdeeds. I discussed the fact that the SPLC provides instructors and "training materials" to the Department of Homeland Security's Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers (presumably so they can better identify and strip the rights from aforementioned conspiracy theorists). And I even discussed the SPLC's role in planting federal informants in "Elohim City," the militia enclave that housed the government spook at the center of the OKC conspiracy.

But if you have listened to that episode (or if you do so now), you'll find that the single most intriguing thing about the SPLC is their annual revenue and net asset holdings. Citing the most recent data available at that time (2010), I noted that the Center's 2007 revenue was $44.7 million (on $20.8 million in program expenses) and their 2008 net assets totaled an unimaginable $170 million.

Yes, you read that correctly: $170 million. Not bad for a "nonprofit" legal advocacy group, hey?

But if you think that's outrageous, just wait till you hear what that number is now. And wait till you hear what they're doing with it.

A terrorist convoy fleeing Lebanon remains stranded in the Syrian desert after US-led forces prevented it from traveling to Daesh-held territory, according to the Combined Joint Task Force - Operation Inherent Resolve.

"After turning around and heading back west from the Abul Kamal area, the convoy of 17 buses containing hundreds of armed Daesh [banned in Russia] fighters and their families remains in the Syrian desert between Humayma and As Sukhnah," the coalition said in a statement on Friday.

The coalition reiterated that it did not strike the convoy itself, but said it hit Daesh fighters and vehicles, including a tank, armed technical vehicles and transport vehicles seeking to facilitate the movement of the fighters to an area near the Iraqi border.

The US-led coalition previously said it had only struck the road ahead of the convoy as it tried to pass from territory held by the Syrian government into an area controlled by Daesh.

Some of the details of the letter President Trump drafted in May meant to explain why he fired FBI Director James Comey have now been revealed, according to a report Friday evening.

The letter, the existence of which was revealed earlier in the day and is now in the hands of special council Robert Mueller's team, made it clear that he wanted Comey gone because of the for top law enforcement official's refusal to publicly clear his name in the Russia investigation.

"You've told me three times I'm not under investigation but you won't tell the world, and it's hampering the country," an administration official said in paraphrasing what Trump wrote in the letter, the Wall Street Journal reported. Comey later testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee that during his time at the FBI, Trump was not under investigation in connection to the Russia probe.

"Trump should be concerned" anti-Trump prosecutor tells mainstream media

Another day, another series of revelations relating to deep state operative Robert Mueller's sham investigation into supposed Russian hacking of the 2016 election, this time with news that he is teaming up with the conservative targeting IRS to further dig for something he can then use to turn a member of Trump's inner circle.

According to the Daily Beast, the special counsel's office has "teamed up" with the IRS's elite Criminal Investigation Unit which will help to ensure that investigators (see deep state operatives specifically looking to take out the elected president) apply the "maximum possible scrutiny" to the finances of Trump associates, despite the fact that Mueller's entire investigation is supposed to be about Russian election hacking.

As Zerohedge noted, "Of course, the public has long been aware, thanks to Mueller's collaborators in the media, that his team has no solid evidence to support a charge of election fraud against Trump or members of his circle."

As Jan Egeland, the UN humanitarian adviser on Syria, has stated, if there's a worse place to be in the world at the moment than the Syrian city of Raqqa, then it's hard to imagine.

This week, the UN estimated that the battle to capture the de facto ISIS capital is costing the lives of 27 civilians a day.

It's not just the almost non-stop aerial bombardment and shelling from the mainly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces that the 25,000 or so citizens in ISIS-held parts of the city have to endure. "Access to safe drinking water, food and other basic services is at an all-time low with many residents relying on food they had stored up earlier to survive," says UN public information officer David Swanson.

Both ISIS snipers and the US-led coalition have been targeting people trying to flee from the Middle Eastern hellhole. The UN notes that coalition forces have even been attacking boats on the Euphrates River, described as "one of the remaining escape routes for civilians."