Puppet Masters
"Imagine what would have happened if, God forbid, Barack Obama had been assassinated after becoming the de facto nominee?" Biden asked a town hall in Hanover, New Hampshire on Friday that was supposed to be focused on healthcare. "What would have happened in America?"
Butina is the Russian pro-gun activist who after months of solitary confinement confessed to being an "unregistered foreign agent" in 2016. To federal prosecutors and the media, her involvement with the US gun lobby and Republican circles during the early days of the Trump campaign seemed like evidence that Moscow was sending agents to "meddle" in the US.
Prosecutors even falsely accused Butina of using "sex in exchange for a position within a special interest organization," and the media lapped it up, regurgitating every Cold War spy fiction trope they could in sensationalist headlines.
"Sex and schmoozing are common Russian spy tactics. Publicity makes Maria Butina different," read a USA Today banner last year. ABC News described her as a "Real life 'Red Sparrow'," a reference to a graphic 'Soviet sexpionage' novel adapted into a gruesome movie.
To hear Byrne tell it, however, Butina may have been the prey and not the hunter.
Major General Hossein Salami disclosed the tests to a group of clerics on Saturday:
"Our country is always the arena for testing a variety of defense and strategic systems and these are non-stop movements towards the growth of our deterrent power. Yesterday was one of the successful days for this nation."According to the semi-official Tasnim News Agency, he did not provide details about the missile's range or capabilities.
Earlier this week, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani officially unveiled the country's new air-defense missile system, the Bavar-373.
Ex-Iraqi PM issues a warning of 'strong response' if Israel is proven to be behind recent airstrikes
In statements issued by his office on Friday, he also said that if Israel continues to target Iraq, the country "will transform into a battle arena that drags in multiple countries, including Iran."
Al-Maliki, who was Iraqi prime minister for eight years and now heads a Shiite bloc in parliament, made his comments hours after US officials told the New York Times that Israel was responsible for the bombing on July 19 strike on a military base north of Baghdad. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter with the media.
One of the officials said Israeli strike was launched from inside Iraq, though he did not provide further details. He said it destroyed a cache of guided missiles with a range of 200 kilometres (125 miles). The attacked base was affiliated with Iran's Revolutionary Guards, according to the official.
No no no, not the video from this past May where he promoted his top bodyguard to be his new queen in a ceremony that involved her lying completely prostrate at the monarch's feet, gratefully accepting royal baubles and trinkets from her master like an obedient dog. That's an entirely different video!
But either way, I think we can all agree that King Rama X is a super cool dude and that it's a great thing that he and his fourth wife and his official mistress are the rulers of Thailand. Long live the King!
Oh, and by the way, apropos of nothing in particular — just as an aside, really — did you know that it's illegal to insult the King of Thailand? I mean, it's not just frowned upon, but actually literally illegal? Well, it is!
That's right, according to Section 112 of the Thai Criminal Code, "Whoever, defames, insults or threatens the King, the Queen, the Heir-apparent or the Regent, shall be punished with imprisonment of three to fifteen years."

Michael Flynn and his lawyer Sidney Powell leave the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse in Washington on June 24, 2019.
This person alleged to several media reporters that he suspected Flynn had been successfully compromised by the Putin government.
Svetlana Lokhova, a lecturer and author at Cambridge who specializes in Soviet intelligence studies, ended up being dragged against her will into one of the biggest political scandals of all time.
The person responsible for dragging Lokhova into the middle of this scandal is professor Stefan Halper, once a fellow academic at Cambridge, now retired.
Comment: What better signature of being an intelligence asset than being unperturbed at destroying an innocent bystander's life in pursuit of one's own goals?
- Russian historian says she was manipulated into helping FBI, Stephan Halper to entrap General Flynn
- Collateral damage: Cambridge academic on being set up by 'Spygate' figure Stephen Halper
- Reagan aides describe Stefan Halper's operation to spy on Jimmy Carter
- Russiagate twist: Professor Stefan Halper, who spied for the CIA in the 80s, was sent by FBI to spy on Trump campaign
- FBI spy-op exposed: Trump campaign infiltrated by longtime CIA and MI6 asset
- Obama DoD paid FBI informant Halper over $250k just before 2016 election
Never a fan of Moscow, Tusk criticized Trump's support for reinstating Russia into the club - he'd pragmatically said that having Russia in would be useful - since the greatest number of items discussed at G7 meetings actually involve Russia.
"One year ago, in Canada, President Trump suggested reinviting Russia to G7, stating openly that Crimea's annexation by Russia was partially justified. And that we should accept this fact. Under no condition can we agree with this logic," snapped Tusk. Instead, he promised to convince his partners to invite Ukraine as a guest to the next G7 meeting, stressing that would be a "better" option. Tusk guaranteed that that country's new President, Volodymyr Zelensky, would be "very interested" in such an invitation.
Comment: Trump was right. Plain and simple.
Tusk's logic was based on the fact that Russia does not 'deserve' politically to be readmitted to the Group of Seven, also because of the incident in the Azov Sea, when three Ukrainian Navy ships violated Russian territorial waters and provoked an hours-long standoff.
Comment: Tusk could use a little reflection time. Maybe this will help:
How this made Kiev more suitable to be invited to the club of leading economies, even as a guest, Tusk did not explain. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in 2018 Ukraine was ranked as Europe's poorest country and took 162nd position among 227 world nations in terms of GDP per capita.

Iskander missile launchers on the move and during military drills
No longer bound by the milestone Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) - which the US unilaterally scrapped - Washington recently tested a ground-launched version of its Tomahawk cruise missile.
On Friday, Russian president Vladimir Putin said he is not up for an all-out arms race, but ordered the military to evaluate and find reciprocal answers. So, what is Russia likely to have in store to counter the emerging threat?
Viktor Murakhovsky, a military analyst and retired army officer, reminds us that there was an array of weapons whose capabilities were deliberately curtailed to meet the requirements of the INF treaty, which banned missiles with ranges of 500-1,000km (short to medium-range) and 1,000-5,500km (intermediate range).
"[Russia's] existing Iskander system, which has been in use with the rocket brigades of our Ground Troops, had a range limitation [under the treaty]," he told RT. Its range "was artificially reduced to under 500km - to 480km, to be precise - and now, when the shackles are gone, nothing prevents our weapons designers from reviving their technological groundwork."
"Kim Jong Un has been pretty straight with me, I think, and we're going to see what's going on, we're going to see what's happening," Trump said to reporters in Washington, D.C., before boarding Air Force One for the G-7 summit in France Friday night.
"He likes testing missiles, but we never restricted short-range missiles. We'll see what happens," he added.
Trump's remarks came just hours after North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles off its east coast into the Sea of Japan, the seventh such missile testing since Trump and Kim met in the Demilitarized Zone last month for discussions about restarting negotiations between Pyongyang and Washington.
Kim had expressed frustration that the U.S. continued to conduct joint military exercises with South Korea, which North Korea described as a "rehearsal for war." The countries ended their military drills this week, but North Korea continued to fire ballistic missiles into the sea, which South Korean officials said caused "grave concern."
Comment: Trump doesn't get the credit he deserves for being pretty damn funny. "He likes testing missiles." How do you respond to that? And whereas super-hawks (and Trump when he's in pre-deal-making mode) would moan and cry about the supreme evil of Kim's giant missiles, Trump deflates the hysteria with four words. Now, if only he would do something about implementing the U.S.'s side of the deal he worked out with Kim...
The Russian Embassy in London announced the diplomat's departure on Saturday, and said Minister-Counsellor Ivan Volodin will act as chargé d'affaires in the meantime.
Yakovenko took his post in London in 2011, when relations between the Kremlin and Downing Street were relatively stable. Two years beforehand, Foreign Secretary David Miliband had visited Moscow and described the relationship as one of "respectful disagreement."
Comment: Alexander Yakovenko deserves sainthood for steering Russia-UK relations through all the nonsense the West has thrown at Moscow. Let's hope his next assignment is less taxing and more rewarding. He deserves it.















Comment: Interesting twist in the Butina case.
So what actually happened in all cases of Russian spies having been uncovered throughout the 'Russiagate period' is that US govt agents set up Russian (and US) civilians in sting-ops to make it look like Russian govt agents were setting up US civilians in sting-ops.
"We've found the meddlers and they is... US!"
Butina, by the way, is still serving out a prison sentence in the US on the basis of these lies. With justice like this, who needs 'commie totalitarianism'?
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