Beet L. Jooz

Please don’t misunderstand me: I can appreciate a a good porn-star-payoff sex scandal featuring secret recordings as much as the next guy. It’s just that I was hoping our new political melodrama would feature some fresh faces. While it’s going to be fascinating to watch a shyster like Michael Cohen be transformed into a hero of The Resistance, America—even with all our transgressions—simply doesn’t deserve Lanny Davis. None of us do.

For those of you who didn’t experience the rollicking ’90s, Davis can be properly described as a personification of the cliché, “everything that’s wrong with Washington.” Cringingly slavish to those in power, a consigliere, fundraiser, surrogate, and cheerful liar, Davis was a perpetual presence on cable TV during the Clinton scandals. Few men in history have ever been able to summon his kind of loyalty in the pursuit of shameless, transparent deceit and corruption.

But we must have angered the gods, because here is Davis back in the news, preaching—without even a trace of irony—the value of integrity and honesty.

Davis is now the lawyer for Cohen, the former Trump fixer who has a recording of the president discussing a possible payoff tied to allegations of an affair with a former Playboy model, Karen McDougal. Davis contends that Cohen “has turned a corner in his life, and he’s now dedicated to telling the truth to everyone.”

Now, I certainly believe in the power of redemption, but I also tend to believe that the threat of criminal indictment, rather than an abrupt enlightenment, is more likely to induce a 51-year-old lawyer to turn over the secret tapes of his one and only client. Call me a cynic, if you must.

In any event, this morning, Davis told another former Clinton aide, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, that more secret tapes of the president were forthcoming. Some skeptical sorts might view Davis’s presence as a sign that all of this is driven by partisanship.

Perhaps these recordings will reveal campaign finance violations or some other criminality. Perhaps they won’t. Either way, the political price is likely to be minimal. At this point, any person who is honest with himself will not be surprised that our billionaire president might have paid a former Playboy model to sign a non-disclosure agreement. It would be more surprising if he hadn’t.

In some ways, though, you can thank Davis, who played a part in corrupting the value of personal responsibility, civility, and morality in our political culture. His unwavering defense of Bill Clinton’s corruption and extramarital dalliances (and possibly worse) is a valuable reminder of how we got to this place.

For years, Davis told America that what they were seeing and reading was not what was happening. After tapes emerged of the Clintons illegally soliciting donations from big-money donors at the White House in 1997, for example, Davis sprang into action, not only contending that there was “no suggestion that there was any solicitation for money” — despite the fact that the tapes suggested exactly that — but that many of the big contributions of those who had attended the event and only days later donated to the Clintons were merely an “incidental” occurrence.

This is what he did. Every day. It’s also worth remembering that this is the guy who titled his memoir of the Clinton years, “Truth to Tell: Tell It Early, Tell It All, Tell It Yourself.”

Davis’ loyalty has never wavered. When not busy representing the odd dictator or military junta, he still keeps in touch. We were reminded of this a few years ago when a 2010 email emerged from Davis. I mention it because it’s possible that Davis authored the most obsequious letter in the long history of human correspondence. In an email to Hillary Clinton, littered with “pleases” and cringe-worthy sycophancy, he begs for a favor.

Put it this way: If Davis had sent a similar request to the Lord Almighty, he almost surely would have told Davis to “take it down a notch.”

Anyway, there was Davis last night, imploring CNN’s audience to be scandalized by the tapes of a president and his lawyer discussing how to hide an alleged affair. Davis was likely familiar with the ins and outs of these kinds of uncomfortable interactions, considering he was once tasked with dealing with “bimbo eruptions” and smearing women he surely suspected were telling the truth about President Clinton’s habitual womanizing.

It was also he who surely knew that the president’s Oval Office affair with an intern could have led to real-life komporat. It was he who probably understood that the story of alleged rape victim Juanita Broaddrick sounded credible.

Yet when Davis was asked about Broaddrick, a story that surfaced in 1999—after Clinton’s impeachment trial and after tremendous pressure was exerted by the White House—Davis said the FBI itself had found her claims unreliable. This, you won’t be surprised to learn, was a lie (unless someone at the FBI had given Davis these mystery files, which would have been illegal).

Then again, Lanny Davis possess a preternatural chutzpah that puts most contemporary partisan hacks to shame. We’re all worse off having him back.

Do children living with same-sex adults do just as well as kids raised by their mother and father in all the important measures of healthy child well-being? Because it involves children, it’s a terribly important question. The answer is an unquestioned “Absolutely! No difference whatsoever” if you listen to the LGBT movement’s media partisans. But it is not that simple.

You will not find any articles by mainstream journalists taking the slightest critical look at the research they say establishes the “just as good as” fact. Your chances of finding a breezy sit-down interview with a Sasquatch are greater. Last week the Los Angeles Times reported that “Researchers find no difference between kids raised by two moms and kids raised by mom and dad.” The story cited a new article published in the esteemed New England Journal of Medicine.

But the real story, if actually examined by any journalist doing reporting beyond press releases, is that no such reliable conclusion can be reached based on this research itself. An honest inquisitor will easily find that 99.8 percent of the research the press fawns over on this topic is embarrassingly poor in its basic methodology.

These problems would be obvious to sophomore research methodology students, which makes one wonder what’s up with these journalists. Let’s examine the damning problems under the hood in this study that the LA Times reported on.

This inquiry is the National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study (NLLFS), which began in 1986 following 84 children of lesbian families (77 children currently) that were created via donor insemination. The study seeks to determine how these children fare in a number of developmental measures. Let’s examine the most blatant problems with this long-term project that are obvious under the slightest bit of due diligence.

This Is Clearly an Activist Study

This study is not a dispassionate, purely academic investigation, but an orchestrated persuasion tool conducted and funded by gay-rights activists. The front page of the study’s website even features a photograph of a cute infant lounging in a crib, sporting a onesie that proclaims, “I was hatched by a couple of chicks.”

The NLLFS primary investigators are not scholars in the general, larger field of child development and family formation. Their professional research has been solely in the field of lesbian research. Throughout the project’s many published articles, they offer their readers no survey of the vast literature on how various family forms, such as fatherlessness, affect child development and well-being. They nearly exclusively consult published studies that examine gay or lesbian issues. Such a limited view is profoundly limited and problematic.

The NLLFS is also funded primarily by well-known and powerful pro-gay organizations such as The Gill Foundation, the world’s largest and most influential funder of LGBT political and social causes; the Lesbian Health Fund of the Gay Lesbian Medical Association; and the Williams Institute, where its main investigator, Nanette Gartrell, is a visiting scholar. Gartrell has a long and award-winning history in lesbian-research activism. In 2001, she published “Everyday Mutinies: Funding Lesbian Activism,” a handbook showing how to grow and finance lesbian causes.

Gartrell is also a self-proclaimed polyamorist, coming out decades ago in an article published in the Journal of Lesbian Studies provocatively entitled, “If This Is Tuesday, It Must Be Dee… Confessions of a Closet Polyamorist.”  Dee is her partner of 40 years. She admits, “[A]s surprising as it may seem, I do not consider honesty, integrity, and commitment the guiding principle of my intimate life.” Rather, her commitment is to “making each block of time I spend with each lover as glorious as it can be.”

She assures her reader that loving multiple adults should raise no concern. After all, she “would never think to challenge a parent’s capacity to love … multiple children at the same time.”  Interesting reasoning to be sure. She concludes her article by hoping that through polys “outing” themselves, “polyamorism will become just as passé’ … as lesbianism is today.” Gartrell is clearly beyond the LGBT mainstream.

But the facts that NLLFS is initiated, conducted, and funded by staunch gay activists and that the principal investigator is beyond the mainstream of the lesbian community do not necessarily mean the study is not a reputable academic investigation. It only lets us know who’s behind it and their possible motivations.

It does raise concerns that a good journalist would inform her reader of as an important part of the story. Suppose this were a study reporting the strong effectiveness of a new drug, conducted and financed by folks with a deep interest and personal stake in the outcome. Would not mentioning that be journalistic malpractice? However, the real problem is found in the structure and execution of the study, which has its own devastating problems.

This Study Has Serious Sample Problems

The serious problems with the study’s sample are clear to even the casual reader. First, the data for the NLLFS was collected on a relatively small group of children being raised in lesbian homes: initially 84 children, now 77. The retention rate in this study is impressively high, which raises a question we will address in a moment.

The authors explain the scatter-shot manner in which they gathered their subjects. Lesbian couples, all in process of getting or already pregnant through donor insemination, were collected in 1986 through “informal networking and word of mouth referrals” and “solicited via announcements at lesbian events, in women’s bookstores, and at lesbian newspapers.” (The study was closed to new participants in January 1992.) The couples were recruited exclusively from three cities: Boston, Washington DC, and San Francisco.

These women were nearly all white (94 percent), middle- and upper-class (82 percent), and mostly college-educated (67 percent). Eighty-two percent were employed in professional or managerial positions. The majority were in their mid-thirties, and thus more mature and well-established in life, at the beginning of the study. They were also reported to be in extraordinarily good health.

These are not typical lesbians, much less average-population couples, but highly privileged and socially unique. Of course outcome findings would be elevated given this kind of a non-representative sample. Given challenge from some quarters, the authors of this study now admit in this latest article that, given the weaknesses of their sample, the study’s effect sizes and statistical power are both low and thus, “[t]he results should be interpreted with caution.” The Los Angeles Times story and all others in the mainstream press failed to employ such caution nor include this not-so-insignificant warning, however.

Highly Motivated Participants

Perhaps even more problematic, the study’s participants were no doubt highly motivated to participate in this study and likely very desirous of positive findings. As the authors confess, “Participants were strongly lesbian-identified, 89% had come out to families of origin, 55% were open about their lesbian identity at work, 38% were active in a lesbian/gay organization at work, and 80% said they would choose to be a lesbian, if it were a matter of a choice” (emphasis in original).

So these participants are actively participating in ideological lesbian thought and political culture and deeply committed to being lesbian. The study further explains, “Prospective participants [solicited through known lesbian networks as explained above] were asked to contact the researchers by telephone. The study was discussed with each caller, and all interested callers became participants” (emphasis added).

So these are highly motivated lesbian mothers, gathered through what researchers call snowball or convenience samples via the political lesbian culture. Each were told the nature of the study, allowing each respondent to easily ascertain the social, political, academic, and historical significance of the effort, and all callers joined the study. No caller chose not to participate.  It begs considering whether these realities have any impact on the fact that the study has maintained a remarkable 93 percent retention rate over its history.

Given these facts, and even more concerning, the mothers were asked to self-report their children’s well-being and development. This can lead to a “social desirability bias” where respondents are inclined to give answers that align with their convictions, rather than their actual objective experiences or outcomes.

Who can suggest this is not happening here? This most likely explains how the study arrived at some very curious findings at odds with the larger body of data about family formation and child well-being.

These Curious Findings Contradict Most Studies

It is the extremely rare study in the larger body of general research (those not looking exclusively at kids from same-sex homes) that finds kids raised apart from their own biological mother or father do as well as children who grow up in their natural families. Nearly all of this mountain of research shows the opposite, and powerfully so.

This includes children raised in heterosexual fatherless, divorced, cohabiting, widowed, adoptive, and step-family homes. None of the kids raised in any of these homes mirror kids living with their married, biological parents. But NLLFS finds that lesbian-headed families are the first divergent family form that produces all the same benefits that natural mother/father families do.

If true, this is major news. In fact, to make all this even more stunning, the NLLFS has reported that kids in lesbian-headed homes actually do better than kids in heterosexual-parented homes. The NLLFS explains their “adolescents demonstrated higher levels of social, school/academic, and total competence than gender-matched normative samples of American teenagers.”

This could very well be true, but not because of lesbian families themselves. It’s due to the extremely favorable characteristics of the lesbian homes participating in this study, and the fact these moms are self-reporting how well their kids are doing for a study they know is laying the foundation for cultural, policy, and legal acceptance of their families. Yes, it really is that embarrassingly problematic.

On top of this, the NLLFS’s data tells us nothing about what the average lesbian-headed home raising children from birth are likely to produce. Nothing. No mainstream news source, including the Los Angeles Times last week, has ever noted this critical fact.

Given this “just-as-good-as” and the “better-than” conclusion, one would have to conclude fathers are simply superfluous as players in healthy child development. In fact, we are handicapping children by giving them a father, if this research is to be believed.

Of course, this is ridiculous, as it flies in the face of more than five decades and hundreds of published studies indicating that fathers play an irreplaceable role in fostering healthy child-development in ways that mothers do not. It has been demonstrated consistently that children who grow up apart from their fathers face serious difficulties and short-comings compared to children who do not. This data has been persuasive enough to compel the Clinton, Bush and Obama presidential administrations all to institute federal programs to encourage strong fatherhood involvement in the lives of children.

The Study Reports No Harm When Lesbians Break Up

Additionally, the NLLFS found that the “rate of parental relationship dissolution was significantly higher in lesbian families than the average mom/dad family,” a distinction of 56 percent versus 36 percent. Amazingly, the study did not find this was a negative in terms of child well-being, contrary to all other research on broken families. The investigators explain,

Although the offspring of divorced heterosexual parents have been shown to score lower on measures of emotional, academic, social, and behavioral adjustment, no differences in psychological adjustment were found when the 17-year-old NLLFS adolescents whose mothers had separated were compared with those whose mothers were still together. (emphasis added)

The NLLFS reports the same thing in another article published in Pediatrics: “adolescents whose mothers had separated since [the study’s beginning] fared as well in psychological adjustment as those whose mothers were still together.”  If the NLLFS findings are to be believed, they indicate that lesbian-headed families are the new super-families. They show better results than mother/father-headed homes. The second mom is more positively consequential than a father, and when these couples do break up, there is no harm to the children.

Again, this huge news, absolutely turning everything we know about family formation and child well-being totally upside down. It’s an absolute Copernican-like revolution.

Or might reason call us to question the NLLFS study altogether? To summarize, the particular lesbian mothers participating in the NLLFS study were a small sample drafted very selectively through their deep commitment to lesbian culture and political causes; very privileged socio-economically; knowing they are participating in a very politically important study, and deeply eager to do so; and allowed to self-report their child’s well-being.

What reasonable person cannot conclude these facts are not deadly to the integrity of this study and the public conclusions reported about it? This study  has received unquestioned praise from the mainstream press, pro-LGBT politicians, and judges, and become a foundation for changing policy and law. It’s time these people be forced to answer for their deceptive work.

Infamous studies like this are opening up a future for more children to be raised in experimental homes, and for no other reason that certain adults desire them. No ethical standard allows for children to be guinea pigs in any experiment, however, regardless of the positive and emotional rhetoric used to justify it.

When you continue to read the bold and uncritical fawning over studies by the mainstream press offering “the kids are alright” claims—and you will—the honest reader with any level of discernment will have to take such reporting with great skepticism. It’s unfortunate our major newspapers and magazine journalists do not, given what’s at stake.

Elon Musk has joined the ranks of infamous CEOs who have pursued, or at least threatened, legal action against prominent critics (in addition to threatening shorts in his stock with "untold carnage"). That is the latest revelation in  a statement  by well-known Tesla bear Montana Skeptic.

Montana Skeptic took to Seeking Alpha today to release what he said would be his final statement. He confirmed our report yesterday - claiming that Elon Musk did in fact call his boss yesterday – without making an attempt to first contact him directly – and that he told a colleague of his he would "engage counsel and sue" if he did not stop writing about Tesla.

The text of the letter, as posted on Seeking Alpha, states the following:

Yesterday, July 23, I decided to cease writing about Tesla (TSLA) here at Seeking Alpha web site. I also deactivated my Twitter account, where I was @MontanaSkeptic1. Here is what prompted those decisions.

Yesterday afternoon, the principal of the family office in which I am employed received a communication from someone purporting to be Elon Musk. Doubtful that Elon Musk could actually be attempting to contact him, my employer asked one of my colleagues to investigate and respond.

My colleague then spoke by phone with Elon Musk (it was indeed him). Mr. Musk complained to my colleague about my writing at Seeking Alpha and on Twitter. Mr. Musk said if I continued to write, he would engage counsel and sue me.

My colleague then spoke with me about the phone call. We both agreed that Mr. Musk’s phone call and threatened lawsuit were actions that would tend to involve our employer in matters in which he has had no part. To avoid such a consequence, I offered to immediately cease writing at Seeking Alpha and to deactivate my Twitter account.

How did Mr. Musk learn my identity, and that of my employer? It appears to me his information came thanks to the doxing efforts of some of his followers on Twitter.

Neither Mr. Musk nor Tesla has ever attempted, at any time, to contact me. Instead, Mr. Musk determined to go directly to my employer.

I do not know what Mr. Musk’s precise complaints are about me. I do not believe he has any valid legal claim, and I would have no trepidation in defending myself vigorously were he to bring such a claim. My response to his threats were simply to protect my employer and preserve my employment.

And so, you might say, Elon Musk has won this round. He has silenced a critic. But he has many, many critics, and he cannot silence them all, and the truth will out.

I am proud of everything I wrote at Seeking Alpha, and have immensely appreciated the extraordinary support of so many SA members and contributors.

As a reminder, yesterday we first reported the story that Musk had reportedly called the employer of this well-known critic in order to complain about his negative takes and analyses on Telsa. Montana Skeptic has been one of the most vocal critics of Tesla and Elon Musk for the better part of the last couple of years. So when he disappeared from Twitter yesterday without explanation, it set off red flags to many Tesla skeptics.

That was until this Twitter post from Quoth the Raven, who has hosted Montana Skeptic several times on his podcast. He tweeted:

Guys - I'm beside myself & before you ask, this is NOT a joke - I just got off the phone with Montana Skeptic. He told me that he voluntarily deleted his Twitter account after Elon Musk personally called his boss to complain. I asked for Montana's permission to Tweet this. $TSLA

— Quoth the Raven (@QTRResearch) July 23, 2018

The "skeptic" recently appeared on the Quoth the Raven Podcast to voice his skepticism of the company in a debate with HyperChange TV's Galileo Russell, a well known Tesla bull and investor in the company:

Skeptic has also written a multitude of articles on Seeking Alpha covering the story from a bearish standpoint. Naturally, he has disclosed numerous times that he is short Tesla by owning long-term puts in the name.

As we stated yesterday, this behavior brings fresh attention to Musk's emotional state and (in)ability to handle criticism.  His conduct is totally unbecoming that of a CEO of a $50 billion company and in light of recent grumblings by TSLA shareholders, this move - more appropriate of a Chinese fly-by-night fraudcap CEO - may lead to more harm than good.

The Denver Post published an letter from a Lakewood, Colorado resident calling President Trump a traitor, and that "Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were executed" based on less evidence than what she claims the Trump administration has done," reports the Free Beacon. 

The letter from Suzanne Gagnon was in response to an editorial in the Post last week criticizing Senator Cory Gardner (R-CO) following Trump's summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland. 

"Sen. Cory Gardner is insipid, at best," Gagnon wrote in her letter to the editor published Saturday. "His words are always carefully chosen and, if challenged, their intent open to ‘spinning' to his own advantage. No surprise here he didn't call President Donald Trump out by name.

"The legislation he has proposed is weak, not tough; it's simply more wordsmithing," she said. "Gardner is certainly not the only politician I take issue with, but I don't see the Denver Post championing anyone else like you champion Gardner." -Free Beacon

Gagnon then comapres Trump to the Rosenbergs, who were tried and executed for espionage in 1953. 

If it walks like a traitor, and talks like a traitor, and acts like a traitor … it is a traitor. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were executed on a basis of far less evidence than is had on Trump and many in his administration. Besides being in agreement with the actions recommended in the editorial of July 19, I believe there are many more actions that can and should be taken against Trump to keep him from destroying the U.S.

If our leader doesn’t support any swift, significant pushback against Russian meddling, our votes aren’t worth much. -Suzanne Gagnon, Lakewood

Conservative nonprofit organization Compass Colorado says the editorial fits a pattern of "increasingly violent tone" coming from the left. 

"The mere fact the Denver Post would publish a letter to the editor with this type of language speaks to both the increasingly violent tone of liberals in Colorado politics and the desperation of the Post for readership," said Compass Colorado executive director, Kelly Maher.

"This trend of violent language in Colorado is deeply concerning," Maher said, adding "Just a few months ago the Boulder Daily Camera published a letter to the editor asking if citizens have a moral responsibility to take arms against oil and gas well workers, and the liberal group ProgressNow Colorado tweeted out a picture of Senator Cory Gardner with blood on his hands after a shooting, and now this Denver Post letter."

"This violent and divisive rhetoric will do nothing to change hearts or minds, it's designed to entrench and inflame," Maher added.

The Denver Post sees no problem with the editorial, pushing back on the suggestion that it was extreme in a letter to the Beacon. 

"We would never run a letter suggesting that the president of the United States be executed," said Megan Schrader, editor of the editorial pages. "Upon reviewing this letter, I don't think that was the letter writer's intent."

"She wrote to be critical of an editorial I wrote lauding Sen. Cory Gardner's efforts to impose sanctions on Russia and supportive of another editorial we had run that suggested actions Congress could take to respond to the Helsinki press conference," Schrader added.

In what is sure to provoke the next firestorm of protests against Donald Trump, the White House has stopped the practice of publishing public summaries, also known as readouts, of President Trump's phone calls with world leaders, CNN reported citing "two sources with knowledge of the situation", bringing an end to a common exercise used for many years by the White House. It's unclear if the suspension is temporary or permanent, CNN added.

Traditionally, official descriptions of the President's calls with foreign leaders , which tends to be rather brief usually just a few lines and rarely divulge the details of what was said, offer administrations the chance to characterize in their own terms how diplomacy is being conducted at the highest levels.

While news is rarely contained in the rote, often dry descriptions, readouts have a different purpose according to CNN's Sam Vinograd:

1. they are an important mechanism for the White House to officially share its readout/ position/ reaction.
2. failing to publish these readouts means other countries control the narrative
3. failing to publish these readouts also means that bits and pieces of readouts will leak out

According to CNN, Trump has had at least two calls with other leaders in the last two weeks, including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The White House confirmed that the calls took place after they were reported by foreign media, but declined to elaborate on what was said and there has so far been no readout.

In May, French President Emmanuel Macron tried to convince Trump to remain in the Iran nuclear deal during a phone call with Trump. The White House issued a terse, two-sentence readout after the call highlighting Trump and Macron's "shared commitment to peace and stability in the Middle East," while declining to offer any details.

The White House has not published a readout of a call between Trump and a world leader since mid-June when he called to congratulate the Hungarian prime minister on his re-election victory.

"The two leaders further pledged to keep United States-Hungary relations strong," the readout at the time noted.

Michael Allen, who was a member of the National Security Council during the George W. Bush administration, said that by halting the practice of issuing readouts, the White House loses "the action forcing event of an announced phone call."

"I think they lose the public diplomacy aspect of a presidential phone call," Allen added.

At the start of his presidency, Trump incited a media furore when the transcripts of several of his calls - which differed significantly from the readout - were leaked to the press.

Trump was incensed last August when The Washington Post published transcripts of his tense phone calls with the leaders of Australia and Mexico. He railed about the leak to aides for weeks, insisting that fewer people be in the room during the calls going forward.

He was similarly infuriated after it quickly leaked this spring that he had been directly instructed by his national security advisers in briefing materials not to congratulate Putin on his recent election victory during their call. As reported by the Post, he did.

The leak reinforced Trump's long-held belief there are individuals inside his administration -- especially in the national security realm -- who are working to undermine him, sources close to the President told CNN at the time.

In a less dramatic development, after speaking with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in April 2017, the two sides offered vastly different accounts of what was discussed.

"President Donald J. Trump and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke today. The two leaders discussed the dairy trade in Wisconsin, New York State, and various other places. It was a very amicable call," the White House's version read.

Here's an example of a White House readout of a phone call between Trump and Trudeau from 2017. Not exactly bursting with detail. https://t.co/muxa2hF7Qy

— Tom Harrington (@cbctom) July 24, 2018

Meanwhile, Canada's readout was more descriptive: "The prime minister and the President reaffirmed the importance of the mutually beneficial Canada-US trade relationship," Canada's readout said. "On the issue of softwood lumber, the prime minister refuted the baseless allegations by the US Department of Commerce and the decision to impose unfair duties."
Trump has also been known to make calls to foreign leaders from the residence of the White House during what has been dubbed by aides as "executive time."

Before he was fired this spring, former national security adviser H.R. McMaster often joined Trump in residence for his calls. His successor John Bolton is regularly present during his calls with leaders, a White House official tells CNN.

But the reason why Trump is about to feel a full court press by the media is that the decision to halt the readouts comes amid questions about what was said during Trump's one-on-one with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki.

If confirmed, this will be seen as yet another example of Trump seeking to bypass traditional media channels at the expense of transparency and openness, unless of course Trump decides to provide the readouts using his Twitter account, employing his own unique narrative.

Predictably, the hot takes have already started flooding in:

If this White House is giving up on readouts permanently (which I sorta doubt), it would be unilateral disarmament in the fight with a foreign government to shape the news coverage of a presidential call (at least until a leak or a Trump tweet). Example follows.

— Olivier Knox (@OKnox) July 24, 2018

Keep in mind, other governments will continue to release readouts and be able to control the narrative. https://t.co/eGlAzP01JV

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) July 24, 2018

Weird. Still most other leaders (except, importantly, Xi, Putin, Kim) would likely issue public readout of call with US president. https://t.co/jur9MHCRgf

— David Akin 🇨🇦 (@davidakin) July 24, 2018

The summaries were already very brief and generally uninformative.

But this means American journalists will need to rely on foreign readouts, rather than information from the U.S. government, and even more so on the anonymous sources that the president loathes. https://t.co/Fjm6hw1wSC

— Katie Watson (@kathrynw5) July 24, 2018

It’s cool. I’ll just get the readout from....whatever dictator w a comms team hits “send” first. 🤢 https://t.co/eyOFCTDHQM

— Patrick Tucker (@DefTechPat) July 24, 2018

Now the only info on these calls that the press and public will have to draw from will be readouts from foreign governments, complete with their spin and biases. So dumb. https://t.co/PIk0ua9kpx

— Lachlan Markay (@lachlan) July 24, 2018

Authored by Duane Norman via Free Market Shooter blog,

Last Thursday, Eugene Robinson – MSNBC analyst and writer for the Washington Post – published a column criticizing President Trump for failing to side with the U.S. intelligence community over their conclusion on Russian meddling in the 2016 election during a diplomatic summit with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland.

Remember when the “deep state” was written off as a conspiracy theory? How times have changed.

Robinson writes:

With a supine Congress unwilling to play the role it is assigned by the Constitution, the deep state stands between us and the abyss.

Throughout his article, Robinson defends the integrity and reputation of U.S. intelligence agencies – the same organizations that concluded Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and launched us into a decade-long quagmire in the Middle East.

That isn’t to say the entirety of the United States intelligence communities are dishonorable and lack integrity. However, if the top brass in the agencies is anything to go by – the intentions and aims of our intelligence organizations could certainly be called into question.

Look for no further evidence of that notion than…

Former CIA Director, John Brennan

Brennan is no stranger to the spotlight; from appearances on major cable news networks to his dismal outbursts on Twitter, the former CIA Director steadily attempts to control and shape the narrative.

Last week, Tucker Carlson blasted Brennan, labeling him as an “out of the closet extremist” and “cable news shouter” – deriding the fact Brennan still has a top secret security clearance. Tucker detailed that Brennan is “a passionate ideologue with a documented history of dishonesty” and “as CIA director… lied about spying on senate staffers and killing civilians with drone strikes… and about the Steele dossier…”

Furthermore, Kimberly Strassel of the Wall Street Journal penned a great exposéon Brennan’s role in the virtually ignored 2016 spying scandal of Trump and his transition team. Strassel calls Brennan out as “partisan” and notes his close history with Obama. 

Former DNI Director, James Clapper

Clapper is cut from the same cloth as Brennan regarding former intelligence officials turned cable news commentators. In August of 2017, Clapper was hired at CNN as an analyst – after he allegedly leaked the Steele dossier to the network.

Even after giving a bogus dossier to CNN in a bid to undermine an incoming President, the ethics and principles of Clapper sadly remained unchallenged.

Of the infamous dossier, Clapper took the same route as Brennan in defending it:

But at the same time, some of the substantive content, not all of it, but some of the substantive content of the dossier, we were able to corroborate in our intelligence community assessment which from other sources in which we had very high confidence to it. I think with respect to the dossier itself, the key thing is doesn’t matter who paid for it.

To note, the dossier remains uncorroborated and unverified despite Clapper’s erroneous claim.

For all you need to know about Clapper, this short clip from 2013 speaks volumes on his character:

Wyden: “Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions… of Americans?”

Clapper: “No, sir.”

Of his comments under oath, Clapper said he responded in “what [he] thought was the most truthful, or least untruthful, manner.” Clapper remained DNI director through Obama’s last term despite calls for criminal charges of perjury to be brought against him, suffering no consequences for lying to Congress.

James Comey, Robert Mueller, and Peter Strzok; Top FBI Brass

The FBI’s integrity and impartiality has been shredded to tatters and blown into the wind thanks to these three men.

The nature of these top officials at the agency has been well documented. For instance, FMShooter reported in September 2017 that then-FBI Director, James Comey wrote his public statement exonerating Hillary Clinton from her federal investigation months before she was even interviewed by the FBI.

Recently, it was revealed that none other than Peter Strzok changed the language in the FBI’s public statement, lessening Clinton’s charges of using a personal e-mail server from “grossly negligent” to “extremely careless”.

Let’s not forget the fact that the FBI – with Robert Mueller as Director – uncovered a Russian bribery plot in 2009 that benefited Barack Obama and the Clintons:

According to government documents and interviews, before approving the controversial Uranium One deal with Russia, the Obama administration participated in bribery, kickbacks, extortion, and money laundering with Russian officials – all with the aim to expand Vladimir Putin’s atomic energy business inside the U.S.

This, and more, comes from a bombshell report from The Hill that details the corruption via eyewitness accounts and internal documents. E-mails showed that Moscow compromised an American uranium trucking firm with bribes and kickbacks – which is in direct violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices act.

Mueller, the one investigating Trump’s supposed Russian ties, ignored and allowed bribery and a lucrative Uranium deal with Russia when it involved the Clintons and then-President Obama. Instead of admitting they were at fault, top Democrats pushed Russia as a scapegoat when they are the only ones guilty of any actual collusion. 

Just a month before the 2016 election, Obama directly told Trump to “stop whining” about election rigging and that “there is no serious person out there that would suggest… you could even rig America’s elections”…

Yet after Trump’s win in November, the narrative shifted. Russia, without a doubt, hacked our democracy and installed an illegitimate President into the White House, according to U.S. intelligence agencies and the political Establishment.

However, pundits like WaPo’s Eugene Robinson are ignoring the elephant in the room. Though not every facet of U.S. intelligence agencies is hackless and partisan, the top officials across three of our main organizations certainly are.

With officials like Brennan, Clapper, Comey, and Mueller having run these agencies – is it any wonder Trump wasn’t quick to side with their findings? After all, he’s been the focus of an overdrawn, completely partisan investigation by Mueller for the better part of two years now, with no evidence of collusion with Russia found and the actual collusion ignored.

As usual, the Fake News mainstream media has spun and de-contextualized Trump’s actual comments to use them against him – another case of manufactured hysteria that far too many Americans have fallen victim to.

The attorney for President Trump's former longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen has given CNN a copy of a secretly recorded conversation between Trump and Cohen, in which they discuss purchasing the rights to a Playboy model's claim that she and Trump had an affair. The discussion took place in September 2016, in the lead-up to the presidential election.

The model, Karen McDougal, claims to have had a nearly yearlong affair with Trump in 2006, right before Melania Trump gave birth to their son Barron. McDougal sold her story to the National Enquirer for $150,000 as the 2016 presidential campaign was in its final months, however the tabloid sat on the story which kept it from becoming public in a practice known as "catch and kill."

Cohen, who secretly recorded the conversation, can be heard telling Trump that he needs “to open up a company for the transfer of all of that info regarding our friend David," likely referring to American Media Inc. head David Pecker.

CNN airs audio from the Michael Cohen/Trump tape where they discuss paying off Karen McDougal pic.twitter.com/gRZXUE2cMF

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) July 25, 2018

"I need to open up a company for the transfer of all of that info regarding our friend David," Cohen said in the recording, likely a reference to American Media head David Pecker.

Trump interrupts Cohen asking, "What financing?" according to the recording. When Cohen tells Trump, "We'll have to pay." Trump is heard saying "pay with cash" but the audio is muddled and it's unclear whether he suggests paying with cash or not paying. Cohen says, "no, no, no" but it is not clear what is said next.

* * *

While Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani previously insisted Cohen suggested using cash to buy the story, Davis pointed to the audio as proof that it was Trump's suggestion all along. Davis is a columnist for The Hill.

Giuliani contested Davis's interpretation and released the Trump team's version of the transcript, which contradicts Davis. While Davis said Trump was suggesting the two pay cash, Giuliani's version of the transcript says Trump is saying, "Don't pay with cash...check."

Davis smiled when CNN anchor Chris Cuomo read him Giuliani's version of the transcript.

"Everybody heard just now Donald trump say the word 'cash,'" Davis said. "After Michael Cohen mentioned financing. When Mr. Giuliani ... accused my client, Mr. Cohen, of saying the word 'cash,' I said, 'Wait for the tapes.'"

"The tape contradicts Giuliani," Davis continued. "The only people who use cash are drug dealers and mobsters," he added.

* * *

Alan Futerfas, a lawyer for the Trump Organization, denied that the audio proved that Trump was offering to pay in cash.

"Whoever is telling Davis that cash in that conversation refers to green currency is lying to him," Futerfas told CNN.

"There's no transaction done in green currency. It doesn't happen. The whole deal never happened. If it was going to happen, it would be a payment to a large company that would obviously be accompanied by an agreement of sale. Those documents would be prepared by lawyers on both sides."

Throughout the interview, Davis painted Cohen as a victim of attacks by Trump, Giuliani and their allies.

He said Cohen is ready to "turn a new corner" and tell the truth about what transpired between himself and the president.

* * *

The Enquirer's chairman, David J. Pecker, is a personal friend of Trump's, and McDougal has accused Cohen of taking part in the deal. Cohen was Trump's longtime personal lawyer and fixer; however, he has sought to distance himself from the president in recent weeks, fueling speculation that Cohen could flip on Trump.

By burying Ms. McDougal’s story during the campaign in a practice known in the tabloid industry as “catch and kill,” A.M.I. protected Mr. Trump from negative publicity that could have harmed his election chances, spending money to do so.

The authorities believe that the company was not always operating in what campaign finance law calls a “legitimate press function,” according to the people briefed on the investigation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. That may explain why prosecutors did not follow typical Justice Department protocol to avoid subpoenaing news organizations when possible, and to give journalists advance warning when demanding documents or other information. -New York Times

While Trump never paid for the rights, Lanny Davis says that the recording, made in 2016, shows Trump knew about the payment. 

On Saturday, President Trump broke his silence over the recording, tweeting: "Inconceivable that the government would break into a lawyer’s office (early in the morning) - almost unheard of. Even more inconceivable that a lawyer would tape a client - totally unheard of & perhaps illegal. The good news is that your favorite President did nothing wrong!" Trump tweeted.

Inconceivable that the government would break into a lawyer’s office (early in the morning) - almost unheard of. Even more inconceivable that a lawyer would tape a client - totally unheard of & perhaps illegal. The good news is that your favorite President did nothing wrong!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 21, 2018

The release of the tape has sparked a widespread debate about the sanctity of attorney-client privilege, and its use in "one-party" consent states.

Gonna be HELLA interesting legal argument related to matter involving attorney Michael Cohen’s secretly taping conversations w/client Donald Trump.

Here’s where attorney-client privilege collides violently with NYS being one-party consent state, related to taping communications.

— James A. Gagliano (@JamesAGagliano) July 20, 2018

Meanwhile, Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani confirmed with the New York Times last week that Trump and Cohen had discussed payments - and that "there was no indication on the tape that Mr. Trump knew before the conversation about the payment from the Enquirer’s parent company, American Media Inc., to Ms. McDougal."

"Nothing in that conversation suggests that he had any knowledge of it in advance," said Giuliani, adding that Trump had previously told Cohen that if he were to make a payment related to the woman, to write a check instead of sending cash so that the transaction could be properly documented. “In the big scheme of things, it’s powerful exculpatory evidence,” Giuliani added.

Cohen made a similar payment of $130,000 to porn star and stripper Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford. Cohen said at the time "In a private transaction in 2016, I used my own personal funds to facilitate a payment of $130,000 to Ms. Stephanie Clifford."

Clifford - whose husband just filed for divorce, is suing Trump over a nondisclosure agreement so that she can "tell her story" (in the form of a book, we imagine), while she is also suing both Trump and Cohen for libel after Trump called her statements "fraud" over Twitter, while claiming that Clifford fabricated a story that she was threatened by a man after she went to journalists with the story of her affair.

Shortly before the 2016 election, former Trump campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks said that McDougal's allegations were "totally untrue."

It finally happened, even after Defense Secretary Jim Mattis urged Congress not to bar Turkey from purchasing the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II stealth fighter, arguing in a letter sent to lawmakers as they deliberated the move that such a drastic action would trigger an international "supply chain disruption" that would push costs for the already exorbitant $100 million aircraft higher.

On Tuesday Congress inserted a ban on planned F-35 Joint Strike Fighter deliveries to Turkey's military into the final draft of the Pentagon’s budget blueprint for the upcoming fiscal year.

Over the past year there's been increased wrangling and noise over the program to equip Turkey with the advanced fighter jet as US-Turkey relations have steadily deteriorated and as Turkish President President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appears to have come into Russia's geopolitical orbit.

The key stumbling block to Turkey obtaining the F-35s that it has already paid for is Ankara's moving forward on acquisition of Russian S-400 air defense systems.

The House and Senate adopted the legislation after months of State Department warnings to Turkey that "there will be consequences" should its S-400 contract with Russia, said to be worth $2.5 billion, continue moving forward into acquisition phase.

State Department officials have gone so far as to warn of sanctions in recent months, rare to the point of being unheard of when it comes to NATO allies, specifically over fears that Russia would get access to the extremely advanced Joint Strike Fighter stealth aircraft, enabling Moscow to detect and exploit its vulnerabilities. Thus Russia would ultimately learn how the S-400 could take out an F-35. 

However, the ban is only temporary, until such time as the Pentagon delivers "an assessment of a significant change in Turkish participation in the F-35 program, including the potential elimination of such participation," according to the language in the legislation.

Turkey for its part, has previously warned that should the bill become law "it will absolutely retaliate" in the words of Foreign Minister Prime Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, who explained it was wrong to impose such a restriction on a military ally, alluding to the fact that Turkey has graciously allowed the US to use its Encirlik air base to launch its air strikes against ISIS (as well as against Turkey's enemy the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad).

In retrospect, Turkey's veiled threats fell on deaf ears, reflecting not only US unwillingness to cooperate with any counterparty that does concurrent deals with Russia, but also increasing tension with a NATO ally, in a move that blocked the sale of 100 warplanes worth close to $10bn.

In addition to the broader geopolitical tensions resulting from the Russian S-400 issue, Congressional Defense lawmakers also demanded the immediate release of U.S. Pastor Andrew Brunson, and as the bill's language reads, any other "U.S. citizens wrongfully or unlawfully detained in Turkey" and improved human rights under an increasingly authoritarian Turkish state. 

Pastor Brunson, who was detained in 2016, faces charges including espionage and aiding terrorist groups after being accused of cooperating with "Kurdish terrorists" and colluding with the Gulenist Islamic movement; he faces up to 35 years in prison if found guilty.

American diplomats have previously warned the arrest is part of the Turkish government’s policy of "hostage diplomacy" and further said the issue could trigger unprecedented sanctions. President Trump has also personally called for Brunson's release in public statements. 

The defense spending bill will next head to the White House for Trump’s signature.

In late June, Lockheed Martin and US officials held an ostentatious "roll out" ceremony in Fort Worth to mark the symbolic handover of the first F-35 jet to Turkey; however, clearly the advanced stealth multi-role fighter isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Authored by Ray McGovern via ConsortiumNews.com,

The meaning of a crucial text message between two FBI officials appears to have been finally explained, and it’s not good news for the Russia-gate faithful...

Former FBI attorney Lisa Page has reportedly told a joint committee of the House of Representatives that when FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok texted her on May 19, 2017 saying there was “no big there there,” he meant there was no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

It was clearly a bad-luck day for Strzok, when on Friday the 13th this month Page gave her explanation of the text to the House Judiciary and Oversight/Government Reform Committees and in effect threw her lover, Strzok, under the bus.

Strzok’s apparent admission to Page about there being “no big there there” was reported on Friday by John Solomon in the Opinion section of The Hill based on multiple sources who he said were present during Page’s closed door interview.

Strzok’s text did not come out of the blue. For the previous ten months he and his FBI subordinates had been trying every-which-way to ferret out some “there” — preferably a big “there” — but had failed miserably. If Solomon’s sources are accurate, it is appearing more and more likely that there was nothing left for them to do but to make it up out of whole cloth, with the baton then passed to special counsel Robert Mueller.

The “no there there” text came just two days after former FBI Director James Comey succeeded in getting his friend Mueller appointed to investigate the alleged collusion that Strzok was all but certain wasn’t there. 

Strzok during his public testimony earlier this month.

Robert Parry, the late founder and editor of Consortium News whom Solomon described to me last year as his model for journalistic courage and professionalism, was already able to discern as early as March 2017 the outlines of what is now Deep State-gate, and, typically, was the first to dare report on its implications. 

Parry’s article, written two and a half months before Strzok texted the self-incriminating comment to Page on there being “no big there there,” is a case study in professional journalism. His very first sentence entirely anticipated Strzok’s text: “The hysteria over ‘Russia-gate’ continues to grow … but at its core there may be no there there.”(Emphasis added.) 

As for “witch-hunts,” Bob and others at Consortiumnews.com, who didn’t succumb to the virulent HWHW (Hillary Would Have Won) virus, and refused to slurp the Kool-Aid offered at the deep Deep State trough, have come close to being burned at the stake — virtually. Typically, Bob stuck to his guns: he ran an organ (now vestigial in most Establishment publications) that sifted through and digested actual evidence and expelled drivel out the other end.

Those of us following the example set by Bob Parry are still taking a lot of incoming fire — including from folks on formerly serious — even progressive — websites. Nor do we expect a cease-fire now, even with Page’s statement (about which, ten days after her interview, the Establishment media keep a timorous silence). Far too much is at stake.

As Mark Twain put it, “It is easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.” And, as we have seen over the past couple of years, that goes in spades for “Russia-gate.” For many of us who have looked into it objectively and written about it dispassionately, we are aware, that on this issue, we are looked upon as being in sync with President Donald Trump.

Blind hatred for the man seems to thwart any acknowledgment that he could ever be right about something—anything. This brings considerable awkwardness. Chalk it up to the price of pursuing the truth, no matter what bedfellows you end up with.

Courage at The Hill 

Page: Coughs up the meaning of ‘there.’

Solomon’s article merits a careful read, in toto. Here are the most germane paragraphs:

“It turns out that what Strzok and Lisa Page were really doing that day [May 19, 2017] was debating whether they should stay with the FBI and try to rise through the ranks to the level of an assistant director (AD) or join Mueller’s special counsel team. [Page has since left the FBI.] 

“‘Who gives a f*ck, one more AD [Assistant Director] like [redacted] or whoever?’” Strzok wrote, weighing the merits of promotion, before apparently suggesting what would be a more attractive role: ‘An investigation leading to impeachment?’ …

“A few minutes later Strzok texted his own handicap of the Russia evidence: ‘You and I both know the odds are nothing. If I thought it was likely, I’d be there no question. I hesitate in part because of my gut sense and concern there’s no big there there.’

“So the FBI agents who helped drive the Russia collusion narrative — as well as Rosenstein’s decision to appoint Mueller — apparently knew all along that the evidence was going to lead to ‘nothing’ and, yet, they proceeded because they thought there was still a possibility of impeachment.”

Solomon adds: “How concerned you are by this conduct is almost certainly affected by your love or hatred for Trump. But put yourself for a second in the hot seat of an investigation by the same FBI cast of characters: You are under investigation for a crime the agents don’t think occurred, but the investigation still advances because the desired outcome is to get you fired from your job. Is that an FBI you can live with?”

The Timing

As noted, Strzok’s text was written two days after Mueller was appointed on May 17, 2017. The day before, on May 16,The New York Times published a story that Comey leaked to it through an intermediary that was expressly designed (as Comey admitted in Congressional testimony three weeks later) to lead to the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Hmmmmm.

Had Strzok forgotten to tell his boss that after ten months of his best investigative efforts — legal and other—he could find no “there there”?

Comey’s leak, by the way, was about alleged pressure from Trump on Comey to go easy on Gen. Michael Flynn for lying at an impromptu interrogation led by — you guessed it — the ubiquitous, indispensable Peter Strzok.

In any event, the operation worked like a charm — at least at first. And — absent revelation of the Strzok-Page texts — it might well have continued to succeed. After Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein named Mueller, one of Comey’s best buddies, to be special counsel, Mueller, in turn, picked Strzok to lead the Russia-gate team, until the summer, when the Department of Justice Inspector General was given the Strzok-Page texts and refused to sit on them.

A Timeline

Here’s a timeline, which might be helpful:

2017

May 16: Comey leak to NY Times to get a special counsel appointed

May 17: Special counsel appointed — namely, Robert Mueller.

May 19: Strzok confides to girlfriend Page, “No big there there.”

July: Mueller appoints Strzok lead FBI Agent on collusion investigation.

August: Mueller removes Strzok after learning of his anti-Trump texts to Page.

Dec. 12: DOJ IG releases some, but by no means all, relevant Strzok-Page texts to Congress and the media, which firstreports on Strzok’s removal in August.

2018

June 14: DOJ IG Report Published.

June 15; Strzok escorted out of FBI Headquarters.

June 21: Attorney General Jeff Sessions announces Strzok has lost his security clearances.

July 12: Strzok testifies to House committees. Solomon reports he refused to answer question about the “there there” text.

July 13: Lisa Page interviewed by same committees. Answers the question.

Earlier: Bob Parry in Action

Journalist Robert Parry

On December 12, 2017, as soon as first news broke of the Strzok-Page texts, Bob Parry and I compared notes by phone. We agreed that this was quite big and that, clearly, Russia-gate had begun to morph into something like FBI-gate. It was rare for Bob to call me before he wrote; in retrospect, it seemed to have been merely a sanity check.

The piece Bob posted early the following morning was typical Bob. Many of those who click on the link will be surprised that, last December, he already had pieced together most of the story. Sadly, it turned out to be Bob’s last substantive piece before he fell seriously ill. Earlier last year he had successfully shot downother Russia-gate-related canards on which he found Establishment media sorely lacking — “Facebook-gate,” for example.

Remarkably, it has taken another half-year for Congress and the media to address — haltingly — the significance of Deep State-gate — however easy it has become to dissect the plot, and identify the main plotters. With Bob having prepared the way with his Dec.13 article, I followed up a few weeks later with “The FBI Hand Behind Russia-gate,” in the process winning no friends among those still suffering from the highly resistant HWHW virus.

VIPS

Parry also deserves credit for his recognition and appreciation of the unique expertise and analytical integrity among Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) and giving us a secure, well respected home at Consortium News.

It is almost exactly a year since Bob took a whole lot of flak for publishing what quickly became VIPS’ most controversial, and at the same time perhaps most important, Memorandum For the President; namely, “Intelligence Veterans Challenge ‘Russia Hack’ Evidence.”

Critics have landed no serious blows on the key judgments of that Memorandum, which rely largely on the type of forensic evidence that Comey failed to ensure was done by his FBI because the Bureau never seized the DNC server. Still more forensic evidence has become available over recent months soon to be revealed on Consortium News, confirming our conclusions.

A shocking video has gone viral of an alleged member of The Proud Boys being beaten by a mob of angry protesters at an Oakland vigil, following the Sunday night stabbing of 18-year-old Nia Wilson at a BART station. The Proud Boys, a conservative activist group, had previously scheduled a gathering for Monday according to Indybay.  

An alleged member of the Proud Boys, an alt-right group, was beaten during yesterdays Nia Wilson protest in Oakland.pic.twitter.com/UtTIOJkjp5

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) July 24, 2018

Bystanders can be heard shouting “f–k that n–ga, f–k his a– up” while somebody tapes the confrontation. Police sirens are heard blaring in the background as the crowd continues to viciously pummel the alt right member. -Heavy

The group was then chased down the street before police intervened.

Several men ID’d as Proud Boys are chased. Cops intervene.
Nia Wilson #SayHerName march in Oakland. pic.twitter.com/mcQSpUwjUt

— Darwin BondGraham (@DarwinBondGraha) July 24, 2018

Hundreds of protesters gathered at the MacArthur BART station for Wilson's vigil. The suspect, 27-year-old John Cowell, was arrested on Monday evening and booked into Alameda County's Santa Rita Jail shortly before midnight.

Nia's sister Latifah was also stabbed, however she survived what protesters believe was a racially motivated hate crime. 

The protesters began their vigil with chants of: “No Justice! No Peace!” and “Justice for Nia!” Meanwhile, speakers called on the protesters to take action, defend and protect Black women, and support the grieving family of the Wilson sisters, according to Indybay.

Authored by Dmitry Orlov via Club Orlov blog,

In today’s United States, the term “espionage” doesn’t get too much use outside of some specific contexts. There is still sporadic talk of industrial espionage, but with regard to Americans’ own efforts to understand the world beyond their borders, they prefer the term “intelligence.” This may be an intelligent choice, or not, depending on how you look at things.

First of all, US “intelligence” is only vaguely related to the game of espionage as it has been traditionally played, and as it is still being played by countries such as Russia and China. Espionage involves collecting and validating strategically vital information and conveying it to just the pertinent decision-makers on your side while keeping the fact that you are collecting and validating it hidden from everyone else.

In eras past, a spy, if discovered, would try to bite down on a cyanide capsule; these days torture is considered ungentlemanly, and spies that get caught patiently wait to be exchanged in a spy swap. An unwritten, commonsense rule about spy swaps is that they are done quietly and that those released are never interfered with again because doing so would complicate negotiating future spy swaps. In recent years, the US intelligence agencies have decided that torturing prisoners is a good idea, but they have mostly been torturing innocent bystanders, not professional spies, sometimes forcing them to invent things, such as “Al Qaeda.” There was no such thing before US intelligence popularized it as a brand among Islamic terrorists.

Most recently, British “special services,” which are a sort of Mini-Me to the to the Dr. Evil that is the US intelligence apparatus, saw it fit to interfere with one of their own spies, Sergei Skripal, a double agent whom they sprung from a Russian jail in a spy swap. They poisoned him using an exotic chemical and then tried to pin the blame on Russia based on no evidence. There are unlikely to be any more British spy swaps with Russia, and British spies working in Russia should probably be issued good old-fashioned cyanide capsules (since that supposedly super-powerful Novichok stuff the British keep at their “secret” lab in Porton Down doesn’t work right and is only fatal 20% of the time).

There is another unwritten, commonsense rule about spying in general: whatever happens, it needs to be kept out of the courts, because the discovery process of any trial would force the prosecution to divulge sources and methods, making them part of the public record. An alternative is to hold secret tribunals, but since these cannot be independently verified to be following due process and rules of evidence, they don’t add much value.

A different standard applies to traitors; here, sending them through the courts is acceptable and serves a high moral purpose, since here the source is the person on trial and the method—treason—can be divulged without harm. But this logic does not apply to proper, professional spies who are simply doing their jobs, even if they turn out to be double agents. In fact, when counterintelligence discovers a spy, the professional thing to do is to try to recruit him as a double agent or, failing that, to try to use the spy as a channel for injecting disinformation.

Americans have been doing their best to break this rule. Recently, special counsel Robert Mueller indicted a dozen Russian operatives working in Russia for hacking into the DNC mail server and sending the emails to Wikileaks. Meanwhile, said server is nowhere to be found (it’s been misplaced) while the time stamps on the files that were published on Wikileaks show that they were obtained by copying to a thumb drive rather than sending them over the internet. Thus, this was a leak, not a hack, and couldn’t have been done by anyone working remotely from Russia.

Furthermore, it is an exercise in futility for a US official to indict Russian citizens in Russia. They will never stand trial in a US court because of the following clause in the Russian Constitution: “61.1 A citizen of the Russian Federation may not be deported out of Russia or extradited to another state.” Mueller may summon a panel of constitutional scholars to interpret this sentence, or he can just read it and weep. Yes, the Americans are doing their best to break the unwritten rule against dragging spies through the courts, but their best is nowhere near good enough.

That said, there is no reason to believe that the Russian spies couldn’t have hacked into the DNC mail server. It was probably running Microsoft Windows, and that operating system has more holes in it than a building in downtown Raqqa, Syria after the Americans got done bombing that city to rubble, lots of civilians included. When questioned about this alleged hacking by Fox News, Putin (who had worked as a spy in his previous career) had trouble keeping a straight face and clearly enjoyed the moment. He pointed out that the hacked/leaked emails showed a clear pattern of wrongdoing: DNC officials conspired to steal the electoral victory in the Democratic Primary from Bernie Sanders, and after this information had been leaked they were forced to resign. If the Russian hack did happen, then it was the Russians working to save American democracy from itself. So, where’s the gratitude? Where’s the love? Oh, and why are the DNC perps not in jail?

Since there exists an agreement between the US and Russia to cooperate on criminal investigations, Putin offered to question the spies indicted by Mueller. He even offered to have Mueller sit in on the proceedings. But in return he wanted to question US officials who may have aided and abetted a convicted felon by the name of William Browder, who is due to begin serving a nine-year sentence in Russia any time now and who, by the way, donated copious amounts of his ill-gotten money to the Hillary Clinton election campaign. In response, the US Senate passed a resolution to forbid Russians from questioning US officials. And instead of issuing a valid request to have the twelve Russian spies interviewed, at least one US official made the startlingly inane request to have them come to the US instead. Again, which part of 61.1 don’t they understand?

The logic of US officials may be hard to follow, but only if we adhere to the traditional definitions of espionage and counterespionage—“intelligence” in US parlance—which is to provide validated information for the purpose of making informed decisions on best ways of defending the country. But it all makes perfect sense if we disabuse ourselves of such quaint notions and accept the reality of what we can actually observe: the purpose of US “intelligence” is not to come up with or to work with facts but to simply “make shit up.”

The “intelligence” the US intelligence agencies provide can be anything but; in fact, the stupider it is the better, because its purpose is allow unintelligent people to make unintelligent decisions. In fact, they consider facts harmful—be they about Syrian chemical weapons, or conspiring to steal the primary from Bernie Sanders, or Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, or the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden—because facts require accuracy and rigor while they prefer to dwell in the realm of pure fantasy and whimsy. In this, their actual objective is easily discernible.

Their objective of US intelligence is to suck all remaining wealth out of the US and its allies and pocket as much of it as possible while pretending to defend it from phantom aggressors by squandering nonexistent (borrowed) financial resources on ineffective and overpriced military operations and weapons systems. Where the aggressors are not phantom, they are specially organized for the purpose of having someone to fight: “moderate” terrorists and so on. One major advancement in their state of the art has been in moving from real false flag operations, à la 9/11, to fake false flag operations, à la fake East Gouta chemical attack in Syria (since fully discredited). The Russian election meddling story is perhaps the final step in this evolution: no New York skyscrapers or Syrian children were harmed in the process of concocting this fake narrative, and it can be kept alive seemingly forever purely through the furious effort of numerous flapping lips. It is now a pure confidence scam. If you are less then impressed with their invented narratives, then you are a conspiracy theorist or, in the latest revision, a traitor.

Trump was recently questioned as to whether he trusted US intelligence. He waffled.

A light-hearted answer would have been:

“What sort of idiot are you to ask me such a stupid question? Of course they are lying! They were caught lying more than once, and therefore they can never be trusted again. In order to claim that they are not currently lying, you have to determine when it was that they stopped lying, and that they haven’t lied since. And that, based on the information that is available, is an impossible task.”

A more serious, matter-of-fact answer would have been:

“The US intelligence agencies made an outrageous claim: that I colluded with Russia to rig the outcome of the 2017 presidential election. The burden of proof is on them. They are yet to prove their case in a court of law, which is the only place where the matter can legitimately be settled, if it can be settled at all. Until that happens, we must treat their claim as conspiracy theory, not as fact.”

And a hardcore, deadpan answer would have been:

“The US intelligence services swore an oath to uphold the US Constitution, according to which I am their Commander in Chief. They report to me, not I to them. They must be loyal to me, not I to them. If they are disloyal to me, then that is sufficient reason for their dismissal.”

But no such reality-based, down-to-earth dialogue seems possible. All that we hear are fake answers to fake questions, and the outcome is a series of faulty decisions. Based on fake intelligence, the US has spent almost all of this century embroiled in very expensive and ultimately futile conflicts. Thanks to their efforts, Iran, Iraq and Syria have now formed a continuous crescent of religiously and geopolitically aligned states friendly toward Russia while in Afghanistan the Taliban is resurgent and battling ISIS—an organization that came together thanks to American efforts in Iraq and Syria.

The total cost of wars so far this century for the US is reported to be $4,575,610,429,593. Divided by the 138,313,155 Americans who file tax returns (whether they actually pay any tax is too subtle a question), it works out to just over $33,000 per taxpayer. If you pay taxes in the US, that’s your bill so far for the various US intelligence “oopsies.”

The 16 US intelligence agencies have a combined budget of $66.8 billion, and that seems like a lot until you realize how supremely efficient they are: their “mistakes” have cost the country close to 70 times their budget. At a staffing level of over 200,000 employees, each of them has cost the US taxpayer close to $23 million, on average. That number is totally out of the ballpark! The energy sector has the highest earnings per employee, at around $1.8 million per. Valero Energy stands out at $7.6 million per. At $23 million per, the US intelligence community has been doing three times better than Valero. Hats off! This makes the US intelligence community by far the best, most efficient collapse driver imaginable.

There are two possible hypotheses for why this is so.

First, we might venture to guess that these 200,000 people are grossly incompetent and that the fiascos they precipitate are accidental. But it is hard to imagine a situation where grossly incompetent people nevertheless manage to funnel $23 million apiece, on average, toward an assortment of futile undertakings of their choosing. It is even harder to imagine that such incompetents would be allowed to blunder along decade after decade without being called out for their mistakes.

Another hypothesis, and a far more plausible one, is that the US intelligence community has been doing a wonderful job of bankrupting the country and driving it toward financial, economic and political collapse by forcing it to engage in an endless series of expensive and futile conflicts—the largest single continuous act of grand larceny the world has ever known.

How that can possibly be an intelligent thing to do to your own country, for any conceivable definition of “intelligence,” I will leave for you to work out for yourself. While you are at it, you might also want to come up with an improved definition of “treason”: something better than “a skeptical attitude toward preposterous, unproven claims made by those known to be perpetual liars.”

The United States Army is preparing for decades of hybrid wars across multiple domains - space, cyberspace, air, land, and, maritime. Back in October, we examined the Army’s latest Training and Doctrine Command report, which highlights how the next round of hybrid wars could begin somewhere around 2025 and last through 2040.

Currently, the Army is in a transitional period [quiet period] before the next round of wars start. President Trump has infused the Pentagon with more than $700 billion this fiscal year, in the attempt to plug significant gaps and expand emerging technologies. For instance, the Army has made it clear that it will replace its three decades old M249 light machine gun and the Colt M4 Modular Weapon System Carbine, with a lightweight and higher chamber pressure assault rifle.

Back in March, we documented how the Army selected the Textron/AAI Corp. LSAT (Lightweight Small Arms Technologies) Cased Telescoped Machine Gun, a new high-tech assault rifle that can release a high rate of specialty designed bullets with as much chamber pressure as an M1A2 Abrams tank to pierce through the world’s most advanced body armor, into the Next Generation Squad Automatic Rifle (NGSAR) program.

AAI Corp. and Textron have been developing some of the world’s most advanced assault rifles for a dozen or more years, in hopes to be the defense contractor that replaces the Army’s M249.

Now it seems Textron is not alone. According to the Prototype Opportunity Notice (PON) for NGSAR, the U.S. Army Contracting Command-New Jersey (ACC-NJ), on behalf of Project Manager Soldier Weapons, awarded six (6) separate Fixed Priced, Full and Open Competition (F&OC), Prototype OTA’s to:

• AAI Corporation Textron Systems – Hunt Valley, MD; OTA W15QKN-18-9-1017

• FN America LLC. – Columbia, SC; OTA’s W15QKN-18-9-1018 & W15QKN-18-9-1019

• General Dynamics-OTS Inc. – Williston, VT; OTA W15QKN-18-9-1020

• PCP Tactical, LLC – Vero Beach, FL; OTA W15QKN-18-9-1021

• Sig Sauer Inc. – Newington, NH; OTA W15QKN-18-9-1022

“These Prototype OTA’s will be for the manufacture and development of a Next Generation Squad Automatic Rifle (NGSAR) system demonstrator representative of a Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 6 and Manufacturing Readiness Level (MRL) 6. The expected Prototype OTA duration is twelve months after award. The Prototype OTA’s were awarded on 25 June 2018,” stated the PON. Following each manufactures submission of their prototype weapons, there will be an open competition, where each gun manufacture hopes their weapon outperforms the rest and ultimately replaces the M249.

In a Textron press release, the company states the prototype will be based on their cased-telescoped weapons and ammunition portfolio.

Wayne Prender, vice president of Applied Technologies & Advanced Programs at Textron Systems, spoke with Military.comabout his firm’s prototype weapon and the NGSAR program.

“We are leveraging and building upon our lineage of lightweight squad weapon technologies that we have been working on over the last 14 years,” he said.

Prender said his firm was notified in late June of the contract award to deliver “one prototype weapon, one fire control system and 2,000 rounds of ammunition within 12 months.”

The NGSAR program also wants gun manufacturers to decrease the weight of the ammunition by at least 20 percent. According to Military.com, Textron has invested large sums of money into its case-telescoped ammunition technology.

“The futuristic cartridges - featuring a plastic case rather than a brass one to hold the propellant and the projectile, like a conventional shotgun shell - offer significant weight reductions compared to conventional ammo,” said Military.com.

Despite Textron’s vast experience in defense, Prender reveals it could be quite challenging to deliver what the Army wants.

“They have some pretty aggressive goals with respect to lethality and weight and size and some other performance characteristics,” he said. “All of those things individually may be relatively easy but, when you start stacking them all together, that is really where it becomes complex and you need a new design.”

Pender was not at liberty to discuss the specifics about the prototype Textron is submitting but said: “we are taking lessons from all of our case-telescoped projects to include the 5.56mm, 7.62mm, and the intermediate caliber — all that information is informing this new design.”

“There is not an easy button here. Certainly, we think our case-telescoped solution is an ideal one to meet these requirements … but there is development that is necessary over and above what we have done to date,” he added.

In case you are wondering what the next high-tech assault rifle could look like, well, watch this video: 

Greece is on fire...

Greece is on fire fam pic.twitter.com/gpxBV5yCqt

— Zo (@g0rilla_zo) July 24, 2018

As of the latest press briefing, the Greek Fire Service reported the number of dead from the devastating Athens wildfires has surged to at least 76.

The number of injured is 164 adults and 23 children. Ten of the adults were in intensive care units in Athens hospitals.

However,  as KeepTalkingGreece.com reports, there is total confusion about the number of missing - unconfirmed information speak of 50 people, other claims of 100 missing.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras declares period of national mourning for dozens of people killed by wildfires.

"But we mustn't let mourning overwhelm us, because these hours are hours of battle, unity, courage and above all solidarity," he said. https://t.co/NxNzzocROA pic.twitter.com/v8qZvN2fZn

— ABC News (@ABC) July 25, 2018

The fire broke out in the forest area by Daou on Penteli mountain at 5 o’ clock Monday afternoon.

By a wind blowing with average intensity of  9 Beaufort and occasionally of up to 11 Beaufort, the fire inferno moved quickly from the mountain Penteli eastwards.

Survivors of the wildfires have described how they were forced into the sea by a blaze that "struck like a flamethrower".

"The flames were chasing us all the way to the water," said one victim.

A Very Sad Day For #Greece 🇬🇷 And Humanity
Many Have Died Due To The Devastating Wildfires🔥, Smoke And More Have Drown To Flee Into The Ocean So Not To Get Burned #PrayForGreece pic.twitter.com/OVWjF7BSqo

— S.C (@cns6720) July 24, 2018

Meanwhile, the bodies of 26 adults and children who apparently died hugging each other were found close to the sea.

Rescue teams continue search in settlements and villages on the coast of North-East Athens.

They go door to door or to what left from houses that have been burned down searching for people, hoping to find somebody alive.

But reality is harsh.

The blaze left behind nothing but ashes...

Incredibly high temperatures were developed in the inferno on Monday.

Walked next to cars that got caught last night into the wildfire in Mati, East Attica, Greece. The heat was so intense that the aluminum around the wheels melted. I have never seen anything like it... https://t.co/OwTHFZAQ30 pic.twitter.com/Ob6QTPO3bo

— Stratos Safioleas (@stratosathens) July 24, 2018

Reports speak of 1000s of houses and 100s of cars that were burned down.

30 cars in a row torched by fire at Mati, east of Athens #Greece #Πυρκαγια pic.twitter.com/PUGiVlnWQa

— Derek Gatopoulos (@dgatopoulos) July 24, 2018

The Greek Air Force released video footage from the wildfires in North-East Athens (East Attica) and Kineta (West Attica. Flames and smog at land.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras declared a 3-day National Mourning for the victims.

Authored by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,

One thing that’s not receiving enough attention in the respective Assange and Russia coverage is to what extent both protagonists are needed in each other’s narratives to keep each of these alive. Without explicitly linking Assange to Russia, allegations against him lose a lot, if not most, of their credibility. Likewise, if Assange is not put straight in the middle of the Russia story, it too loses much. Linking them is the gift that keeps on giving for the US intelligence community and the Democratic party.

In that light, as the shameful/shameless treatment of Julian Assange continues and is on the verge of even worse developments, I was wondering about some dates and timelines in the whole sordid affair. And about how crucial it is for those wanting to ‘capture’ him, to tie him to Russia in any form and shape they can come up with and make halfway credible.

10 days ago in The True Meaning of ‘Collusion’ I mentioned how Robert Mueller in his indictment of 12 Russians -but not Assange-, released on the eve of the Trump-Putin summit, strongly insinuated that WikiLeaks had actively sought information from Russians posing as Guccifer 2.0, that would be damaging to Hillary Clinton. I also said that Assange was an easy target because, being closed off from all communication, he cannot defend himself. From the indictment:

a. On or about June 22, 2016, Organization 1 sent a private message to Guccifer 2.0 to “[s]end any new material [stolen from the DNC] here for us to review and it will have a much higher impact than what you are doing.” On or about July 6, 2016, Organization 1 added, “if you have anything hillary related we want it in the next tweo [sic] days prefable [sic] because the DNC [Democratic National Convention] is approaching and she will solidify bernie supporters behind her after.” The Conspirators responded, “ok . . . i see.” Organization 1 explained, “we think trump has only a 25% chance of winning against hillary . . . so conflict between bernie and hillary is interesting.”

Now, the indictment itself has been blown to shreds by Adam Carter, while the narrative that the Russians hacked DNC servers and provided what they stole to WikiLeaks, has always categorically been denied by Assange, while the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) and others have concluded that the speed at which the info was downloaded from the servers means it couldn’t have been a hack.

Oh, and Carter left little standing of Mueller et al’s portrait of Guccifer 2.0 as being of Russian origin. Plus, as several voices have pointed out, Assange had said on British TV on June 12 2016, ten days before the date the indictment indicates, that WikiLeaks was sitting on a batch of material pertaining to Hillary Clinton. An indictment full of allegations, not evidence, that in the end reads like Swiss cheese.

But it does serve to keep alive, and blow new fire into, the “The Russians Did It” narrative. And obviously, it also rekindles the allegation that Assange was working with the Russians to make Trump win and Hillary lose. Allegations, not evidence, against which neither Assange nor “the Russians” are in a position to defend themselves. Very convenient.

In his June 25 article How Comey Intervened To Kill Wikileaks’ Immunity Deal, The Hill’s John Solomon details how negotiations in early 2017 between legal representatives for Julian Assange and the US Justice Department were suddenly halted when James Comey, then FBI director, and Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) suddenly and entirely unexpectedly told Adam Waldman, Assange’s attorney, and David Laufman, then head of Justice’s counterintelligence and export controls section, who had been picked to lead the talks, to stand down.

This happened when Waldman reached out to Warner, who informed Comey, among other things, about Assange’s offer to provide evidence that he did not get the DNC files from the Russians. That would have dealt a huge blow to the Russia-Did-It allegation, and it would also have destroyed the narrative of Assange working with Russia. And lest we forget: it would have made Mueller’s indictment worth less than the paper it’s written on.

That Comey’s order for Waldman and Laufman to stand down risked the lives and safety of CIA operatives receives surprisingly(?) little attention, but apparently it was worth it for Comey to keep the narrative(s) alive. What do the operatives themselves think about it, though?

It’s not fully clear from Solomon’s article when exactly the stand down order was given, and/or when the talks broke down entirely. Going through the dates, we know it’s sometime between March 28 2017, when we know talks were still ongoing, and April 7 2017, when Assange “released documents with the specifics of some of the CIA malware used for cyber attacks.” After that, then CIA director Mike Pompeo labeld WikiLeaks a “hostile intelligence service.”

Why is the date interesting?

For one thing because present Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno was elected to his job on April 2 2017 (he took office on May 24). And it’s Moreno who now holds Assange’s fate in his hands. It was Moreno, also, who cut off Assange completely from the outside world last March.

Moreno’s about-face since becoming president is something to behold. He had been vice-president, trustee and friend to his predecessor Rafael Correa from 2007 to 2013. Moreno, who’s wheelchair bound after being shot in a burglary in 1998, was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts for the disabled in Ecuador.

What made him turn? Or should we perhaps ask: when did the Americans get to him? And what do they have on him? Is it bribe or blackmail? There’s talk of new and generous IMF loans as we speak. What’s clear is that Moreno is in London this week, and it’s unlikely that Assange’s situation doesn’t come up in talks at all, even if that’s what Moreno’s people want to make us believe. It’s way more likely that discussions are happening about how to put Assange out on to the street and then in a British or even US jail.

But Assange’s case may not be as hopeless as we think. First, all the British have on him is a charge of jumping bail. That carries three months and a fine. It’s not labeled a serious charge, that goes for offences that carry three years and more. New UK Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt misspoke seriously when he said Assange faced serious charges. He doesn’t. And Britain still has a court system, and Assange still has lawyers.

More important, perhaps, is that Moreno will come under a lot of pressure, and probably already is, to not hand over Assange. The UN has been very clear about what it thinks about Assange’s treatment. It violates more international laws than we can count. But who cares about the UN anymore these days, right?

Even more outspoken has been the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. I know, I had never heard of them either. But they’re a serious body, most South American nations are members, and many Caribbean ones. Here’s what the court said on July 13:

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled on Friday the right to seek asylum in embassies and other diplomatic compounds. The ruling includes a mandatory safe process, and the obligation of states to provide safe passage to those granted asylum. Without naming Julian Assange, the ruling was deemed a huge victory for the WikiLeaks founder who has been held up in the Ecuadorean embassy in London since 2012.

The court released a public statement, which said that it had “interpreted the reach of the protection given under Article 22 (7) of the American Convention on Human Rights and Article XXVII of the American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man, which recognize the right to seek and receive asylum in a foreign territory.”

“In particular, the Court declared upon the relative issue of whether this human right protects both territorial asylum and diplomatic asylum. Similarly, the Court determined the human rights obligations of the Member States of the Organization of American States regarding the host country and, in this case, for third States, in virtue of the risk that persons seeking international protection could suffer, which was the reason for the principle of non-refoulement.

This court is not some hobby club. Wiki: “The Organization of American States established the Court in 1979 to enforce and interpret the provisions of the American Convention on Human Rights. Its two main functions are thus adjudicatory and advisory. Under the former, it hears and rules on the specific cases of human rights violations referred to it. Under the latter, it issues opinions on matters of legal interpretation brought to its attention by other OAS bodies or member states.”

The court is also very clear in its ruling. Note: “the obligation of states to provide safe passage to those granted asylum”. Moreno may want to think twice before he surrenders Assange and goes against the ruling. The consequences could be far-reaching. Nobody wants to start a fight with ALL of their neighbors all at the same time. Violating the ruling would make the court obsolete.

The ideal solution would be if Australia would offer Julian Assange safe passage back home. Another country could do the same. Assange has never been charged with anything, other than the UK’s bail-skipping charge, a minor offence.

Julian Assange is a journalist, and a damn good one at that. The silence in the Anglo -and international- media about his case is shameful and deafening. So is the smear campaign that’s been going on for over a decade. How many women have been turned against the man by the false Swedish rape charges? Condemning someone to isolation without access to daylight or medical care goes way beyond shameful.

It’s time to end this horror show, not prolong or deepen it. But the power of international intelligence services is at stake, and they’re going to go to great lengths to impose that power. The US has already even claimed that freedom of speech, i.e. its entire Constitution, does not apply to non-Americans.

That’s quite the claim when you think about it. That also tells us how much is at stake for ourselves. The mainstream media are already captives to the system, lock, stock and barrel. But if Assange can be silenced this way, what are Jim Kunstler, the Automatic Earth and Zero Hedge going to do? Are we all going to shut up?

We need to rage against the dying of the light more than ever. Because the light, indeed, is dying. We should not go gentle into that night without ever being heard from again. We owe that to ourselves, our children, and to Julian. It’s all the same thing. Not standing up for Assange means not standing up for your children. Are you sure you’re okay with that?

Via KrebsOnSecurity.com,

Here’s a clever new twist on an old email scam that could serve to make the con far more believable. The message purports to have been sent from a hacker who’s compromised your computer and used your webcam to record a video of you while you were watching porn.

The missive threatens to release the video to all your contacts unless you pay a Bitcoin ransom. The new twist? The email now references a real password previously tied to the recipient’s email address.

The basic elements of this sextortion scam email have been around for some time, and usually the only thing that changes with this particular message is the Bitcoin address that frightened targets can use to pay the amount demanded. But this one begins with an unusual opening salvo:

“I’m aware that is your password,” reads the salutation.

The rest is formulaic:

You don’t know me and you’re thinking why you received this e mail, right?

Well, I actually placed a malware on the porn website and guess what, you visited this web site to have fun (you know what I mean). While you were watching the video, your web browser acted as a RDP (Remote Desktop) and a keylogger which provided me access to your display screen and webcam. Right after that, my software gathered all your contacts from your Messenger, Facebook account, and email account.

What exactly did I do?

I made a split-screen video. First part recorded the video you were viewing (you’ve got a fine taste haha), and next part recorded your webcam (Yep! It’s you doing nasty things!).

What should you do?

Well, I believe, $1400 is a fair price for our little secret. You’ll make the payment via Bitcoin to the below address (if you don’t know this, search “how to buy bitcoin” in Google).

BTC Address: 1Dvd7Wb72JBTbAcfTrxSJCZZuf4tsT8V72
(It is cAsE sensitive, so copy and paste it)

Important:

You have 24 hours in order to make the payment. (I have an unique pixel within this email message, and right now I know that you have read this email). If I don’t get the payment, I will send your video to all of your contacts including relatives, coworkers, and so forth. Nonetheless, if I do get paid, I will erase the video immidiately. If you want evidence, reply with “Yes!” and I will send your video recording to your 5 friends. This is a non-negotiable offer, so don’t waste my time and yours by replying to this email.

KrebsOnSecurity heard from three different readers who received a similar email in the past 72 hours. In every case, the recipients said the password referenced in the email’s opening sentence was in fact a password they had previously used at an account online that was tied to their email address.

However, all three recipients said the password was close to ten years old, and that none of the passwords cited in the sextortion email they received had been used anytime on their current computers.

It is likely that this improved sextortion attempt is at least semi-automated: My guess is that the perpetrator has created some kind of script that draws directly from the usernames and passwords from a given data breach at a popular Web site that happened more than a decade ago, and that every victim who had their password compromised as part of that breach is getting this same email at the address used to sign up at that hacked Web site.

I suspect that as this scam gets refined even more, perpetrators will begin using more recent and relevant passwords — and perhaps other personal data that can be found online — to convince people that the hacking threat is real. That’s because there are a number of shady password lookup services online that index billions of usernames (i.e. email addresses) and passwords stolen in some of the biggest data breaches to date.

Alternatively, an industrious scammer could simply execute this scheme using a customer database from a freshly hacked Web site, emailing all users of that hacked site with a similar message and a current, working password. Tech support scammers also may begin latching onto this method as well.

Sextortion — even semi-automated scams like this one with no actual physical leverage to backstop the extortion demand — is a serious crime that can lead to devastating consequences for victims. Sextortion occurs when someone threatens to distribute your private and sensitive material if you don’t provide them with images of a sexual nature, sexual favors, or money.

According to the FBI, here are some things you can do to avoid becoming a victim:

-Never send compromising images of yourself to anyone, no matter who they are — or who they say they are.

-Don’t open attachments from people you don’t know, and in general be wary of opening attachments even from those you do know.

-Turn off [and/or cover] any web cameras when you are not using them.

The FBI says in many sextortion cases, the perpetrator is an adult pretending to be a teenager, and you are just one of the many victims being targeted by the same person. If you believe you’re a victim of sextortion, or know someone else who is, the FBI wants to hear from you: Contact your local FBI office (or toll-free at 1-800-CALL-FBI).

In the immediate aftermath of Monday's tragic shooting in Toronto which claimed three lives, including the shooter's, and injured over a dozen, the narrative that gunman Faisal Hussain, 29, had mental problems. The shooting came three months after the driver of a van plowed into pedestrians on a Toronto sidewalk, killing 10 people.

The Hussain family released a statement expressing their condolences to the families “who are now suffering on account of our son’s horrific actions.”

More importantly, the statement cast Feisal as a mentally unstable young man, and not a terrorist:

“We are utterly devastated by the incomprehensible news that our son was responsible for the senseless violence and loss of life that took place on the Danforth,” they said adding that Hussain had “severe mental health challenges” and was struggling with psychosis and depression his entire life.

“Medications and therapy were unable to treat him. While we did our best to seek help for him throughout his life of struggle and pain, we could never imagine that this would be his devastating and destructive end,” they said.

The local police, eager to avoid concerns about terrorism, were happy to use this narrative: "At this stage, based on the state of the investigation, which is led by the Toronto police service, there is no connection between that individual and national security," Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said.

But as CBS reports, a law enforcement source said that Faisal Hussain visited ISIS websites and may have expressed support for the terrorist group. They were looking into whether Hussain may have lived at one time in Afghanistan and possibly Pakistan, the source said.

Nonetheless, according to CBS "there is no indication that Hussain was directed by ISIS to carry out the attack."

Well, there is now, because according to AFP, the Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the shooting.

The shooting was committed by “one of the soldiers” of the group who followed the “calls to target nationals of the coalition countries,” according to a statement from the group’s propaganda agency Amaq, the French news agency said.

Meaghan Gray, a representative for Toronto Police, had no immediate comment on the Islamic State claim when contacted by Bloomberg. 

Meanwhile, Toronto mayor John Tory, instead of addressing the possibility that this was the latest terrorist attack, simply said that Toronto has a gun problem with weapons too readily available to too many people.

“Why does anyone in this city need to have a gun at all?” he asked in an address to city councilors on Monday morning.

Perhaps it is time for the local population to respond and ask the mayor what his plans are to prevent further ISIS-inspired terrorist attacks?

Yesterday, to much fanfare, Facebook announced that it has set up a subsidiary in China and plans to create an “innovation hub” to support local start-ups and developers in an effort to cozy up to Beijing an ramp up its presence in the world's most desired market where its website remain blocked.

The Chinese subsidiary was registered in Hangzhou, home of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, according to a filing approved on China’s National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System last week and seen by Reuters on Tuesday.

“We are interested in setting up an innovation hub in Zhejiang to support Chinese developers, innovators and start-ups,” a Facebook representative told Reuters via email, referring to the Chinese province where Hangzhou is located. Facebook has created similar hubs in France, Brazil, India and Korea to focus on training and workshops, the spokesperson said.

The news quickly sent FB stock soaring, hitting a new all time high.

The logic begin Zuckerberg's investment is simple: Facebook remains banned in China, which strictly censors foreign news outlets, search engines and social media, including Twitter and Google. And while Facebook claimed that setting up a company-owned enterprise in China does not mean Facebook is changing its approach in the country, many took that statement with a skeptical smile.

And apparently, so did China, because the NYT reports today, "for Facebook, success in China was brief. Very brief"

Because just a few hours after a Chinese government database showed that Facebook had gained approval to open a subsidiary in Zhejiang, the registration disappeared and references to the subsidiary were partially censored in Chinese media.

24 hours later, the approval has been withdrawn, according to a NYT source.

China's swift reversal to take pull the approval came after a disagreement between officials in Zhejiang and the national internet regulator, the Cyberspace Administration of China, which was angry that it had not been consulted more closely, the NYT adds.

And while the abrupt and unexpected about-face does not definitively end Facebook’s chances of establishing the company, "it makes success very unlikely" the person said.

Here there are three alternative interpretations of what just happened:

According to one, the strange incident underscores how much of a challenge it has become for the globe-spanning social network to get into China, even just to open an innovation center.

While Facebook had hoped to dip a toe in the market and work with Chinese developers, its very presence appears to have become a large, and incendiary, political question here.

The snafu also demonstrates how complicated China’s bureaucracy can be:

Foreign companies seeking to expand here must navigate a vast and decentralized government in which provinces, cities and ministries all vie for influence and power. While one part of the government may be happy to support a foreign company like Facebook, that could ruffle feathers elsewhere. Facebook seems to have fallen victim to such a scenario.

Finally, the third possible explanation is that China is increasingly responding to Trump's trade war using non-tariff means, such a blocking the QCOM/NXP merger - which could take place in just hours - or preventing some of the most popular US companies from establishing a presence (even though Elon Musk was recently successful, allegedly, in getting permission to build a new factory on the mainland).

As for Facebook's Chinese ambitions, they may have reached the end of the line: angering officials at China’s internet regulator could make progress particularly difficult, especially as new personnel have just taken over managing the relationship with the Chinese government.

At the end of last year, Facebook’s former head of government relations, Wang-Li Moser, left the company. Ms. Moser, who had been brought in from Intel to help Facebook court China’s leadership, had become a sign of the company’s ambitions, though she struggled to make headway.

Stepping in to replace her has been Zhang Jingmei, who created the company that ran the anonymous Colorful Balloons app, and William Shuai, who was once a low-level Chinese official. Both were listed on the board of the newly created, and quickly disappeared, subsidiary in Zhejiang, the NYT concludes.

We wonder if the Secret Service has been notified yet, or perhaps Trump's producers from The Apprentice?

Someone took a pickaxe to the president's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, reportedly at around 3:30 a.m. on Wednesday, leaving a pile of rubble and the instrument of destruction behind, perhaps as they thought it'd be more photogenic.

Though it's not the first time the pink stone star has been vandalized — it had previously undergone restoration after a 2016 incident — in this particular instance the vandal appears to have obliterated it. 

Local media reports say there are witnesses, now talking to police, who describe a male stopping at the star located along Hollywood Boulevard near Highland Avenue. He took out a pickaxe which had been concealed in a guitar case and quickly went to work. 

The star-smashing suspect has reportedly turned himself into police after notifying them of the incident, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.

One witness, David Palmer, told NBC4 news: "I'm like, 'Why are you hitting that star? What did Donald Trump do to you?'" Describing further, "Then he went around the corner and I think he left."

Though the perpetrator's identify was not immediately known, he'll likely soon emerge a social media star in his own right, as this appears another headline grabbing spectacle in the left's self-styled "heroic" war on Trump and all things representative.

The culprit's "fame" is predictably already being celebrated by the Left:

Nothing but respect for MY president, aka the guy who took a pick-axe out of a guitar case and smashed Donald Trump's Hollywood Walk of Fame star to bits before turning himself in https://t.co/yx4aYtXnmA pic.twitter.com/DdXRc9BeyG

— Siddhant Adlakha (@SidizenKane) July 25, 2018

It's but the latest in a series of symbolic incidents designed to attract attention and stir anti-Trump sentiment. 

Trump's "star" this morning on Hollywood's Walk of Fame. Everything associated with the name "Trump" will end up like this. As it should. pic.twitter.com/IHkGSJqS4U

— Bruno Amato (@BrunoAmato_1) July 25, 2018

One of the journalists to circulate a photo of the obliterated marble star, NBC Los Angeles' Jonathan Gonzalez, noted that though "it's been vandalized multiple times" it's "never [been] on this level". 

So this just happened again... somebody used a pick axe to destroy Donald Trump's star on the Walk of Fame. Still trying to learn more, but we know it's been vandalized multiple times, just never on this level. @NBCLA 📸: Victor Park/Loudlabs pic.twitter.com/lzq7YrsSRV

— Jonathan Gonzalez (@JonathanNBCLA) July 25, 2018

In 2016 James Lambert Otis was taped destroying the star in response to the infamous Billy Bush tape which caught Trump on a hot microphone in 2005 saying of women, "They let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy," and further, "when you’re a star, they let you do it."

Otis was charged with felony vandalism in the 2016 incident, for which he was sentenced to three years probation, 20 days of community service, and paid $4,400 for the damage.

In the immediate aftermath of the Wednesday early morning hours incident, police officers stood guard near chunks of the marker and dusty residue strewn along the pavement.

Early reports suggested that the star itself may have been chiseled out of the surrounding marble and concrete and stolen, but there appears enough debris to show it was just pulverized.

Reports are coming in that someone has stolen President Donald Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. pic.twitter.com/vgDVg9rRY4

— Greg Angel (@NewsGuyGreg) July 25, 2018

The terrazzo and brass star was first installed at 6801 Hollywood Blvd in 2007 to commemorate Trump’s lengthy stint hosting The Apprentice, among over 2,600 other stars.

#BREAKING UPDATE: A man claiming he destroyed Donald Trump's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame has turned himself in to Beverly Hills police, while the remains of the star has been tagged and covered with a chin-up bar. https://t.co/EqfIOH369u pic.twitter.com/E2uyy0FvON

— CBS Los Angeles (@CBSLA) July 25, 2018

No doubt Trump's is now the single star with the longest track record of being targeted for vandalism and destruction. 

A suspicious package labeled "Anne Thrax" was left at the South Los Angeles office of Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) on Tuesday, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department. 

Portions of her two-story office building were evacuated as a hazmat crew investigated, and employees were allowed back inside after the package was reported safe. The LAPD Major Crimes Division has launched an investigation, according to spokesman Mike Lopez. 

“There was no evidence of any dangerous substance at all,” he said. “They’re probably going to investigate to see where this item came from.”

Authorities were called to the Democratic congresswoman’s office at 10124 S. Broadway St. shortly after 2:30 p.m. There were no injuries reported. One person came into contact with the package but did not have any medical complaints, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department. -LATimes

1of2 #HazardousMaterials; INC#0993; 2:55PM; 10124 S Broadway St; https://t.co/wsNXSXdNh5; Broadway-Manchester; LAPD on scene and requested a hazardous materials response by LAFD for suspicious package (reportedly labeled "anthrax"). There are no reports of any patients requiring

— LAFD (@LAFD) July 24, 2018

Late last month Waters canceled events in Texas and Alabama after she claims a "very serious threat" was made against her. 

“There was one very serious death threat made against me on Monday from an individual in Texas which is why my planned speaking engagements in Texas and Alabama were canceled this weekend,” Waters said in the statement.

That said, Waters also told a Sunday congregation at the First AME Church in Los Angeles that God sent her to fight Donald Trump - so we assume that even if the Anthrax was real and she set foot in her own office, she would be protected by divine powers so she might continue her crusade against the sitting president. 

Authored by Adam Johnson via FAIR.org,

Why is the No. 1 outlet of alleged anti-Trump #resistance completely ignoring his most devastating war?

As FAIR has noted before (1/8/18, 3/20/18), to MSNBC, the carnage and destruction the US and its Gulf Monarchy allies are leveling against the poorest country in the Arab world is simply a non-issue.

On July 2, a year had passed since the cable network’s last segment mentioning US participation in the war on Yemen, which has killed in excess of 15,000 people and resulted in over a million cases of cholera. The US is backing a Saudi-led bombing campaign with intelligence, refueling, political cover, military hardware and, as of March, ground troops. None of this matters at all to what Adweek (4/3/18) calls “the network of the Resistance,” which has since its last mention of the US’s role in the destruction of Yemen found time to run over a dozen segments highlighting war crimes committed by the Syrian and Russian governments in Syria.

By way of contrast, as MSNBC was marking a year without mentioning the US role in Yemen, the PBS NewsHour was running a three-part series on the war, with the second part (7/3/18) headlined, “American-Made Bombs in Yemen Are Killing Civilians, Destroying Infrastructure and Fueling Anger at the US.” The NewsHour’s Jane Ferguson reported:

PBS NewsHour (7/3/18) examining the remains of US-made cluster bombs in Yemen.

“The aerial bombing campaign has not managed to dislodge the rebels, but has hit weddings, hospitals and homes. The US military supports the Saudi coalition with logistics and intelligence. The United States it also sells the Saudis and coalition partners many of the bombs they drop on Yemen.”

MSNBC chat show/Starbucks commercial Morning Joe did run one segment (4/25/18) that vaguely mentioned the war on Yemen, but failed to note the US’s role in it at all, much less that Washington is arming and backing the conflict’s primary aggressor. Instead, they did the perverse inversion––previously mastered by Washington Post’s Jackson Diehl (FAIR.org, 6/27/17)—of not only ignoring the US’s major role in killing thousands, but painting the US as a noble haven for refugees. The schlocky segment, an interview with writer Mohammed Al Samawi, was a shallow mixture of “interfaith” pablum, poverty porn and self-congratulations to the US for taking in refugees (without, of course, acknowledging that they’re seeking refuge from a crisis the US has created).

For a bit more context, in the time period of July 3, 2017, to July 3, 2018, MSNBC dedicated zero segments to the US’s war in Yemen, but 455 segments to Stormy Daniels. This isn’t to suggest the Stormy Daniels matter isn’t newsworthy—presidential corruption is per se important. But one has to wonder if this particular thread of venality is 455 stories more important than Trump aggressively supporting a war that’s killing hundreds of people a month, injuring thousands, and subjecting millions to famine and cholera. Did MSNBC editors, poring over the latest academic foreign policy literature, really come to the conclusion Trump’s war in Yemen isn’t important? Or is MSNBC simply fueled by partisan Russia dot-connecting and stories that allow them to say “porn star” as much as possible?

What seems most likely is MSNBC has found that attacking Russia form the right on matters of foreign policy is the most elegant way to preserve its “progressive” image while still serving traditional centers of power - namely, the Democratic Party establishment, corporate sponsors, and their own revolving door of ex-spook and military contractor-funded talking heads (3/26/18). After all, Obama backed the war on Yemen - though not nearly as aggressively as Trump has - and it’s difficult to make a coherent left-wing, anti-war criticism when the current Republican in office is simply carrying out your guy’s policy, but on steroids.

In any event, it’s not like any Yemenis are going to pull ads, turn down appearances, or phone Comcast higher-ups complaining. So, who cares? To be poor and brown—to say nothing of not serving the immediate partisan interests of the Democratic party—is evidently to not matter much in the eyes of MSNBC producers and on-air talent.

In a brief statement from Ambassador John Bolton, The White House has confirmed that the next meeting between Presidents Trump and Putin will take place after the completion of the Mueller Russia probe.

“The President believes that the next bilateral meeting with President Putin should take place after the Russia witch hunt is over, so we’ve agreed that it will be after the first of the year.”

2019 seems a bit optimistic for the end of that 'watch hunt'...although obviously that will be after the MidTerms.