© Outside The Beltway
A few preliminary facts need to be stated before embarking on an analysis of the current maneuverings.
Puppet Masters
A few preliminary facts need to be stated before embarking on an analysis of the current maneuverings.
© creativeneko/hutterstock
After deep flaws in the V.A. study were exposed, Surgisphere came to the rescue in May with a "15,000 patient" megastudy allegedly compiled from hospitals all over the world. This strategy succeeded: following its publication in the Lancet and the NEJM, all outpatient use of HCQ was severely restricted in the U.S., Australia, and most of Europe.
When the Surgisphere scam was exposed, both articles were quietly retracted, and the editor-in-chief of the Lancet tried to wash his hands of this embarrassing incident by denouncing Surgisphere's "monumental fraud." However only a few days earlier, Lancet editors played a major role in persuading the WHO to suspend all trials for HCQ. Who put them up to it?
Comment: See also:
- NY Doctor says his hospital already using Chloroquine for coronavirus patients and have had ZERO deaths
- Results from a controlled trial of hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19
- Ohio withdraws ban on Hydroxychloroquine, Fauci accused of 'misinformation campaign'
- Los Angeles doctor reports remarkable success treating COVID-19 patients with hydroxychloroquine & zinc
- Interview with Professor Didier Raoult on the coronavirus
- France's most recognized virologist: 'The West is managing Covid-19 worse than poor countries'
© Screenshot/U.S. House Armed Services Committee
Anthony Schinella, the National Intelligence Officer for Military Issues, testifying at a House Armed Services Committee meeting on June 21, 2018.
Anthony Schinella, the National Intelligence Officer for Military Issues, testifying at a House Armed Services Committee meeting on June 21, 2018.
Anthony Schinella, 52, the national intelligence officer for military issues, shot himself on June 14 in the front yard of his Arlington home. A Virginia medical examiner's report lists Schinella's cause of death as suicide from a gunshot wound to the head. His wife, who had just married him weeks earlier, told The Intercept that she was in her car in the driveway, trying to get away from Schinella when she witnessed his suicide. At the time of his suicide, Schinella was weeks away from retirement.
Soon after his death, an FBI liaison to the CIA entered Schinella's house and removed his passports, his secure phone, and searched through his belongings, according to his wife, Sara Corcoran, a Washington journalist. A CIA spokesperson declined to comment for this story.
As NIO for military issues, Schinella was the highest-ranking military affairs analyst in the U.S. intelligence community, and was also a member of the powerful National Intelligence Council, which is responsible for producing the intelligence community's most important analytical reports that go to the president and other top policymakers.
© Nathan Howard/Getty Images
The President offered to send federal assistance to protect federal courthouses, according to a tweet from Aug. 22.
"We don't need your politics of division and demagoguery. Portlanders are onto you. We have already seen your reckless disregard for human life in your bumbling response to the COVID pandemic. And we know you've reached the conclusion that images of violence or vandalism are your only ticket to reelection," Wheeler's statement read.
"There is no place for looting, arson, or vandalism in our city. There is no room here for racist violence or those who wish to bring their ideology of hate into our community. Those who commit criminal acts will be apprehended and prosecuted under the law."
Comment: Trump's response, from Friday:
Wheeler's grandstanding hasn't stopped protesters from besieging and occupying his own apartment building:
UPDATE: Less than two days later, this: Trump supporter shot dead in Portland protest clash - after mayor Wheeler refuses support from Trump
© Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
This file picture shows Allouk water station near the border town of Ra’s al-Ayn in Syria’s northeastern province of Hasakah.
This file picture shows Allouk water station near the border town of Ra’s al-Ayn in Syria’s northeastern province of Hasakah.
"The sufferings of people in the Jazira Region are neither limited to the criminal practices of Daesh nor the crimes being committed by the illegal international coalition, which loots Syria's resources. Their ordeal is escalated by the crimes of US and Turkish troops and those of their associated separatist militants and members of terrorist groups," Jaafari said during a virtual UN Security Council session on the situation in Syria on Thursday.The Syrian diplomat noted that more than one million civilians in Hasakah and surrounding neighborhoods are thirsty, suffering from the lack of drinking water for more than 20 days.
© REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger
Former Austrian Vice-Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache
Former Austrian Vice-Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache
Austria's right-wing government imploded in spectacular fashion last summer, after two German newspapers, Der Spiegel and the Suddeutsche Zeitung, published excerpts from a videotape of Vice-Chancellor Strache negotiating a 'quid pro quo' deal with the supposed "niece of a Russian oligarch" in Ibiza.
The woman was later revealed to be a Bosnian student, posing as a Russian femme fatale, and the tapes turned out to be from 2017, but that didn't save Austria's ruling coalition.
Comment: See also:
- Deep state honeytrap victim, resigned Austrian Vice-Chancellor Strache reveals behind-the-scenes play to RT
- Austrian corruption scandal involving 'niece of Russian oligarch' outed as Bosnian student paid to set up honey trap
- NATO 'Deep State' and Israeli interests both served by the collapse of the Austrian government
- Mossad behind video leak that collapsed Austrian government - German ex-spy chief
Unfortunately, Rittenhouse was attacked by a crowd on the property he was protecting, and a man was shot in the head. The man who was killed appears to be Joseph Rosenbaum, "a registered sex offender for a crime involving a minor." Videos of the victim have popped up on Twitter but we have no way of verifying them at this time. What we know for certain is that Rittenhouse is responsible for the shooting deaths of two men and another who was wounded."People are getting injured and our job is to protect this business... If someone is hurt, I'm running into harms way. That's why I need my rifle to protect myself," Rittenhouse told a reporter from the Daily Caller.
© REUTERS/Carlos Barria
U.S. President Donald Trump delivers his acceptance speech as the 2020 Republican presidential nominee during the final event of the Republican National Convention on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, U.S., August 27, 2020.
U.S. President Donald Trump delivers his acceptance speech as the 2020 Republican presidential nominee during the final event of the Republican National Convention on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, U.S., August 27, 2020.
"I'm speaking to you from beautiful Jerusalem, looking out over the old city," said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, America's top diplomat and de facto government public relations chief, as he addressed the Republican National Convention from a foreign country. Imagine if the scene had been slightly different, and Pompeo had beamed into the Republicans' big election campaign showcase from Red Square: "Hi, I'm Mike Pompeo, your Secretary of State, looking out over the Kremlin."
One of these scenarios is not like the other in terms of how it's received by the US political establishment. Pompeo's Washington critics were far more interested in trying to pin a technical foul on him for mixing official government business with partisan political cheerleading than questioning his actual choice of location.
From Israel, Pompeo railed about the multilateral nuclear deal with Iran signed under President Barack Obama, from which Trump withdrew the US. He said that Trump "squeezed the Ayatollah, Hezbollah and Hamas," whatever that means.
"In the Middle East, when Iran threatened, the president approved a strike that killed the Iranian terrorist Qasem Soleimani," Pompeo said, ignoring the fact that the top Iranian general was an ally of the US against Al-Qaeda in the wake of the terrorist attacks on US soil on September 11, 2001, and played a critical role in the defeat of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS). Israel may have wanted him dead, but the US didn't have to oblige.
An asylum seeker takes a selfie with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in Berlin on September 10, 2015 at the beginning of Europe's migrant crisis
"I would make essentially the same decisions," Merkel said at her annual summer press conference in Berlin, in response to a question about whether she regretted her 2015 policy to keep the border open to an influx of asylum seekers.
"When people are standing at the German-Austrian border or the Hungarian-Austrian border, they have to be treated like human beings," she said.
Comment: Merkel will leave power and others will be left to deal with the chaos she helped create:
- Migrant crisis fail: Over 850k people hit by housing shortage in Germany - Homelessness up 150%
- Nearly 10,000 migrants 'stopped at Greek border', some have managed to slip through
- Let there be gas: Putin & Merkel gave Trump the finger
© Getty Images / Glow Images
And what that proves is the fingering-Russia game is a charade. So, can both the Republicans and the Democrats be simultaneously right and wrong?
President Donald Trump earlier this month claimed that the use of mail-in voting would be a disaster leading to "the most corrupt election in our nation's history." This was because, according to Trump, Russia would "grab batches" of ballots to defraud electorates.
Comment: Divide, subvert and conquer is the US' first instinct and calling card.