Month: June 2018

US Ambassador To Serbia: If You Want Peace, Give Kosovo Islamists Their Own State

Authored by Aleksandar Pavic via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

On May 29th, a group of Serbs displaced from the Kosovo village of Petrich by Albanian violence attempted to visit the remains of the demolished village church and the village cemetery to mark Holy Trinity holiday (according to the Julian calendar). However, as is usual in most of NATO-occupied Kosovo, they were met by a violent Albanian mob who blocked the road leading to the church and hurled stones at them, injuring three, one seriously. In addition, another Serb participating in a holiday ritual was arrested inside the church yard by Kosovo Albanian police on dubious charges, only to be released a few hours later.

Marko Djurich, Director of the Serbian Government Office for Kosovo and Metohija, condemned this latest act of violence, referring to it as “anti-civilizational,” charging that displaced Kosovo Serbs have been “systematically prevented from marking Christian holidays in their villages” for years and that Albanian extremists “want to completely eradicate and suppress every memory related to the Serb existence” in that part of Serbia’s breakaway province.

Dalibor Jevtich, one of the Serbs still living in Kosovo who has tried to work with the majority Albanian authorities, but who recently resigned as Kosovo Minister for Communities and Return, reacted similarly:

“This is not just preventing the displaced from visiting the church and to preach their faith, this is a blockade of everything we are trying to do in terms of the return and survival of Serbs in Kosovo,” said Jevtich Just a day before, a clinic in the Serbian village of Suvi Do was stoned as well, with several windows being broken. Director of the Kosovska Mitrovica medical center, Dr. Milan Ivanovich, said that this was not the first time that the clinic had been attacked.

“The surgery in the village of Suvi Do was stoned twice in 24 hours and before that scores of times,” he said, adding that the purpose of the stoning was to demonstrate that Albanians “do not want to co-exist with Serbs,” and that Kosovo government institutions “have shown no will to prevent similar attacks or find the perpetrators.”

Earlier in May, the 14th century Serbian Orthodox Dechani Monastery, the endowment of Serbian King Stefan Urosh III (1322-1331), was imperiled by an illegal road being built by the so-called Kosovo government. According to a communique of the Diocese of Rashka and Prizren of the Serbian Orthodox Church, the government initiated illegal construction works on the transit road within the Special protected zone around the Monastery, which is “severely prohibited by the Law on Special protected zones which was adopted by Kosovo Parliament.” However, as the Monastery is on the UNESCO List of World Heritage in Danger, enough dust was raised to force the government to back down and “suspend” the roadworks. Still, that seems like nothing more than a temporary reprieve, as majority Muslim Albanian pressure on the remaining Orthodox Christian population and its holy sites shows no prospects of abating. Fr. Sava Janjich, Abbot of the Dechani Monastery, has concluded as much, posting a photo of the monastery’s walls topped by barbed wire on his Twitter page, “which says more than many words.” Indeed, practically all Christian holy sites in NATO and EU supervised Kosovo still need protection from attack, after almost 20 years of presence and billions spent by these two Western military and political blocs.

In fact, since tens of thousands of NATO troops arrived in Serbia’s southern Kosovo province in June 1999, following NATO’s illegal bombing of Serbia and Montenegro (at that time known as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia), on the basis of UN Security Council Resolution 1244, the lot of the local Christians – and all non-Albanians for that matter – has grown progressively worse. More than 250.000 of them have been expelled and almost none allowed to return, and over 150 churches, monasteries and holy sites, many of them irreplaceable medieval treasures, have been severely damaged or destroyed. More than 1,000 Serbs have been murdered in this period, but the crimes have gone unpunished.

This, of course, did not deter the U.S. and other “liberal democracy” flag-waivers from recognizing so-called Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence of February 2008, and from pressuring other countries, including Serbia itself, to follow suit. It is no wonder that the culture of impunity has taken such firm hold among Kosovo Albanian politicians and, especially, the Islamists among them. According to a 2016 Deutsche Welle report, 50,000 Kosovo Albanians (out of a population of about 1 million) are now members of “conservative Islamic groups,” with the former relatively liberal form of Islam that had been practiced there for centuries increasingly being replaced by strict forms of the Saudi Wahhabism, and Kosovo Albanian society increasingly shifting to a “religious-ethnic society.” In addition, Kosovo has become the largest per capita supplier of ISIS fighters in Europe. All on NATO’s and the EU’s watch. Democracy at its finest on display.

However, all is not lost: this horrible reality could, apparently, quite easily end, if Serbia were to heed the advice of the U.S. Ambassador to Serbia, one Kyle Scott. This was Scott’s reaction to the stoning of the displaced Serbs mentioned at the beginning of this article:

“Yesterday’s incident in Petric further emphasizes the need for working on an agreement on a comprehensive normalization of relations between Kosovo and Serbia, which must ensure the Serbian population the freedom to participate in the political, social and religious life of Kosovo without fear for their own security,” Scott wrote in his Twitteraccount after the brutal attack on Christian churchgoers.

There it is. No condemnation, no call for mobilization, international action or arrest, and certainly no call for any sort of “humanitarian bombing,” the pathetic, false excuse used by Bill Clinton to attack a sovereign country for 78 days in order to snatch away 15% of its territory and its holiest Christian sites. Instead, according to the U.S. ambassador, Kosovo’s former (?) terrorist leadership and associated Islamist thugs should to be rewarded yet again, through a “comprehensive normalization of relations between Kosovo and Serbia,” which is State Department newspeak for Serbia acquiescing to so-called Kosovo’s formal independence through diplomatic recognition and consent for Kosovo’s being granted a seat in the UN.

In other words, following the American ambassador’s logic (sic!), the anti-Serbian and anti-Christian violence in Kosovo is perfectly understandable and expected, and the only cure is to reward the perpetrators – with formal recognition of statehood. That would, naturally, be followed by the formation of a real army, something that Western governments, (naturally) led by the U.S., have been quietly aiding and abetting for years, thus violating UN SC Resolution 1244, which, among other things, provides for “demilitarizing the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and other armed Kosovo Albanian groups.” If armed former terrorists and present future Islamists don’t bring peace to the Balkans – nothing will! Since the Syrian recipe has worked so well, let’s apply it to the Balkans. Or is it that the Balkan recipe was (un)successfully applied in Syria… Either way, the master chef sits in Washington.

Memo to Mike Pompeo, the “very devout Christian” now in charge of the U.S. Department of State, with several questions:

1. Is it your State Department’s policy to continue to reward violent Islamist violence against Christian peoples and holy sites?

2. Is this a new interpretation of Christianity, unknown to the rest of fallen humanity?

3. How is your Kosovo and general Balkans policy different from that of the Clintons, who spearheaded the destabilization and Islamization of the region during the 1990s?

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DARPA Rushes To Develop “Constellation Of Low-Earth Orbit Spy Satellites” Before Next Space Wars

The Pentagon’s research arm, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), will start assessing bids this week from space industry vendors as it wants to disrupt the military space business.

DARPA last week published a broad agency announcement (HR001118S0032) for the Blackjack program to develop and demonstrate a low earth orbit (LEO) constellation of spy satellites that provides persistent global coverage.

DARPA recently launched the unclassified program known as Blackjack with the intent of developing low-cost space payloads and commoditized satellite buses with low size, weight, power, and cost.

These new low-cost LEO satellites are expected to have much better capabilities compared with current spy satellites that operate at geosynchronous orbit (GEO).

“We have pretty capable small satellites,” DARPA Director Steven Walker told reporters earlier this year. “We have been saying this for 10 years: We want to see a shift to LEO [and] get capabilities in larger constellations.”

According to Military & Aerospace Electronics, the Blackjack program has three primary objectives:

  • “Develop payload and mission-level autonomy software with on-orbit distributed decision processors that can operate autonomously with on-orbit data processing, and perform shared tasks on-orbit;

  • Use advanced commercial manufacturing for military payloads and the spacecraft bus, including high-rate manufacturing, using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS)-like parts, reduced screening and acceptance testing for individual spacecraft, and reduced expectations for spacecraft life; and

  •  Demonstrating satellite payloads in LEO that operate on par with current GEO systems with the spacecraft at costs of less than $6 million per satellite.”

SpaceNews said DARPA is attempting to make a smooth transition “from huge satellites in GEO to constellations of smaller and less expensive platforms in LEO.” The goal of this transition is to prepare for the coming space wars, as China and Russia have developed capabilities through direct energy weapons and missiles to destroy U.S. spy satellites.

DARPA wants to develop military space capabilities in low-Earth orbit. (Source: SpaceNews) 

DARPA explains how global surveillance and communications would be the primary mission for Blackjack-funded prototype constellations. The initial development and engineering work will shortly start after the winning bid is selected. In about three years time, DARPA could turn over prototype systems to the U.S. Air Force for further examination.

The program aims to attach secret military sensors and unspecified payloads to the low-cost LEO satellite buses. Over the next three phases, DARPA plans to dish out $117.5 million in contracts to eight bus or payload suppliers.

A DARPA spokesman told SpaceNews the agency at this stage of the program could not provide details on Blackjack.

According to DARPA’s solicitation, space industry vendors can offer satellite buses from existing or in-development production lines as long as they can “accommodate a wide range of military payload types without redesign or retooling of the production line for each payload.”

LEO constellation of spy satellites. (Source: SpaceNews)  

Military & Aerospace Electronics said the goal of Blackjack is to develop a constellation of “60-to-200-satellite constellation operating at altitudes of between 310.7 miles and 807.8 miles above the Earth’s surface.”

“One operations center will cover all government satellites and payloads, and the constellation will be able to operate without the operations center for 30 days. Blackjack payload data processing will be performed on-orbit without the assistance of ground data processing.

The program has three phases: defining bus and payload requirements; developing bus and payloads for a two satellite on-orbit demonstration; and demonstrating a two-plane system in low-Earth orbit for six months. A future Blackjack demonstration constellation will involve 20 spacecraft in two planes with one or more payloads on each satellite.”

At the helm of the Blackjack program is Fred Kennedy, director of DARPA’s Tactical Technology Office. Kennedy has been somewhat outspoken about the military space business and its lack of innovation. He has recently been vocal at defense conferences — criticizing the Pentagon “for embracing a culture of high performance and low risk that is now working against the military because it has given enemies ample time to develop counter-space weapons that could be used to disable or destroy U.S. satellites,” said SpaceNews.

A space war is coming – watch President Trump has he recently pushes the idea of adding ‘Space Force’ to U.S. military. 

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Joining Some Dots On The Skripal Case: Part 2 – Four “Invisible” Clues

Authored by Rob Slane via TheBlogMire.com,

Having stated in Part 1 why I believe the official story does not hold water, I want in this piece to take a look at four important aspects of the case. However, what is particularly remarkable about them is not so much the aspects themselves, but rather the fact that they seem to have been either:

  1. Ignored altogether or

  2. Quietly forgotten

Yet in each instance they are clearly significant aspects, and so the fact that they are being ignored or forgotten, together with the official story being implausible, only goes to arouse suspicions that they may be crucial pointers to what really happened on 4th March.

Below are four of what I would consider the most important aspects that fit into this category:

The Invisible Mr Miller

Three days after the Salisbury incident, the Daily Telegraph published an article which included the following details:

“A security consultant who has worked for the company that compiled the controversial dossier on Donald Trump was close to the Russian double agent poisoned last weekend, it has been claimed. The consultant, who The Telegraph is declining to identify, lived close to Col Skripal and is understood to have known him for some time. Col Skripal, who is in intensive care and fighting for his life after an assassination attempt on Sunday, was recruited by MI6 when he worked for the British embassy in Estonia, according to the FSB, the Russian intelligence agency.”

The security consultant, whom the Daily Telegraph declined to identify, was not only the man who recruited Mr Skripal for MI6 in 1995, but was also his “handler” in Salisbury (which was presumably the reason that Mr Skripal was settled there).

We also know a number of other interesting facts: That the two men met regularly in a restaurant in the City; that Mr Skripal was still working for British Intelligence; and that the company that the handler was working for was Orbis Business Intelligence, the private firm owned by the ex-MI6 officer, Christopher Steele, who is said to have “authored” the so-called “Trump Dossier”.

This is obviously all highly relevant to the case. And yet just a day after that piece appeared in The Daily Telegraph (and perhaps because of it), the British Government slapped a D-notice on all reporting in the British media of the handler and his connection to Mr Skripal. This included not naming him, but of course D-Notices only apply to domestic media, and in any case by that time CNN had in fact named him as Pablo Miller.

All of the information above is out there in public. And yet the British Government has banned the media from discussing it further. That is indeed very odd, not least of which because the media could, if they so wished, easily use the connections between Mr Skripal, Mr Miller and Mr Steele as a reason to bolster the official narrative (I’m not saying that it would be credible, but it doesn’t take too much of a leap of the imagination to see the headlines appearing in the compliant media: “Did Putin want Skripal dead because he knew too much about the Trump/Russia collusion?”).

Yet, the fact that there is radio silence on these connections is bound to raise questions as to their significance, and whether they point to another motive entirely behind this case.

The Invisible People From the Market Walk

In the first few days after the poisoning, much was made of two people who were seen walking through the Market Walk, in the direction of the bench where Sergei and Yulia Skripal were poisoned. According to the CCTV camera, this was at 15:47 on 4th March, which was approximately 16 minutes before one witness said she saw them collapsed on the park bench.

Many reports at first claimed that this pair, seen on the image at the top of this piece, were the Skripals. Yet although the image and the brief footage is not particularly clear, what is clear is that this most certainly was not Sergei and Yulia Skripal. I am not 100% sure whether the person nearest the camera is a male or female. He/she looks very clearly female to me, but I know some people who have disagreed with this and are convinced by the way that he/she walks and his/her build, that it is a man. Yet one thing is for sure: whoever this person is, it is not Yulia Skripal.

Of course, these two may not be important to the case at all. Yet given the next point below, I’d say that at the very least they are “persons of interest”. And yet, so far as I know, there was no ongoing call for information about who they might be, and certainly no national manhunt. If they have been found and eliminated from enquiries, the media, which had published pictures of them, had a duty to inform the public of this in a satisfactory way. Yet to my knowledge, they did not do so, but instead went very quiet about them. Indeed, if you type in some combination of CCTV, Skripals, Market Walk into a search engine, you are unlikely to find any references to them in the media after about 10th March. One might be tempted to think that their very existence has been quietly “forgotten”.

The Invisible Red Bag

In the CCTV footage mentioned above, the person nearest the camera, who is not Yulia Skripal, is seen carrying a red bag. This is very interesting for a couple of reasons:

Firstly, one of the witnesses had this to say about the female she saw on the bench:

“She was slumped over on the man’s shoulder. To be honest, I thought they might be homeless but they were perhaps better dressed. I just thought this is weird, especially as she was clearly quite a bit younger than him. She had a red bag at her feet.”

Secondly, that witness testimony is confirmed by a rather long-range photograph which appeared in a number of places. In the Evening Standard, it is accompanied by the following caption:

“Police put a red bag inside a police evidence bag immediately after the nerve agent attack on a Russian spy. Officers previously issued CCTV of a woman clutching a red bag.”

The red bag is therefore a very significant piece of evidence. It was taken away by police, and the media have not mentioned it since. What was in it? Have we been told? Or has it been quietly incinerated?

The Invisible Mr Bailey

Another person who is a key part of the case, Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey, seems also to have disappeared. He was released from hospital on 22nd March, and a statement put out in his name included the following request:

“I do understand and appreciate the attention on this incident, but I would ask people to put themselves in my shoes. I want to respectfully ask the media for privacy for me and my family at this time and for no intrusion into my private life, so that my family and I can try to come to terms with what has happened.”

That seems entirely reasonable. Had I been in the same situation, I wouldn’t have wanted the media intruding.

However, this was well over two months ago, and since then we have heard nothing from Mr Bailey. We’ve heard from Yulia Skripal, whose condition was clearly much worse than his, and who also requested that her privacy be respected in the statement released on her behalf. But we’ve heard nothing from Mr Bailey.

Part of the reason that this is so curious is that there is one vital piece of the case that has never been properly explained. Where was he actually poisoned?

All initial reports claimed that he was poisoned at the park bench in The Maltings. Then in a radio interview on 9th March, the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Lord Ian Blair, stated that he was actually poisoned at Mr Skripal’s house. That might have been the end of the matter, were it not for the fact that subsequent reports then swung backwards and forwards between the bench and the house as the place of poisoning.

Why couldn’t they get the story straight? I mean, it must be one of the easiest parts of the whole case to establish. I’m sure that GPS tracking could throw up an answer. Or alternatively, couldn’t we just hear from Mr Bailey himself? How difficult would that be? Yet the that we haven’t heard, and that the issue has not been settled, is surely very odd indeed.

Personally, I find it strange that he would have been called to the incident at The Maltings. He is a member of Wiltshire Police Criminal Investigation Department (CID), and for the first 24 hours there was no suspicion of a crime having taken place, it being thought that the pair on the bench had overdosed on Fentanyl. Then again, I find Lord Blair’s claim, that he was poisoned at the house, equally unconvincing. Again, why would a member of CID have gone to the house of someone who was suspected of having overdosed on a park bench on Fentanyl? A third scenario, that he was at both places, is of course even more unlikely.

So how does one process this? Given that Detective Sergeant Bailey has not been interviewed by the media to confirm where, when and how he was poisoned; given the fact that the authorities and the media appear unable or unwilling to confirm this most straightforward of facts; and given that neither The Maltings or Mr Skripal’s house seem to be wholly plausible, both for the reason given above, but also because this raises the question of why others were not poisoned at those locations, I would submit that the most reasonable view to take – until evidence confirms otherwise – is that Detective Sergeant Bailey was poisoned neither at the bench nor the house, but somewhere else altogether.

These are all important aspects of the case. Yet I am convinced that there is another even bigger aspect, which begins to join the dots together. I hope to discuss this in Part 3.

*  *  *

Some of my previous pieces on the Skripal Case:

♦  30 Questions That Journalists Should be Asking About the Skripal Case
♦  20 More Questions That Journalists Should be Asking About the Skripal Case
♦  The Skripal Case: 20 New Questions That Journalists Might Like to Start Asking
♦  The Lady and the Curiously Absent Suspect — Yet Another 20 Questions on the Skripal Case
♦  The Slowly Building Anger in the UK at the Government’s Handling of the Skripal Case
♦  The Three Most Important Aspects of the Skripal Case so Far … and Where They Might be Pointing
♦  A Bucketful of Novichok
♦  What Would Sherlock Holmes Have Made of the Government’s Explanation of the Case of Sergei and Yulia Skripal?

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Whoever Controls The Narrative, Controls The World

Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Steemit.com,

MSNBC host Joy Reid still has a job. Despite blatantly lying about time-traveling hackers bearing responsibility for bigoted posts a decade ago in her then-barely-known blog, despite her reportedly sparking an FBI investigation on false pretenses, despite her colleagues at MSNBC being completely fed up with how the network is handling the controversy surrounding her, her career just keeps trundling forward like a bullet-riddled zombie.

To be clear, I do not particularly care that Joy Reid has done any of these things. I write about war, nuclear escalations and the sociopathy of US government agencies which kill millions of people; I don’t care that Joy Reid is or was a homophobe, and I don’t care that she lied to cover it up. The war agendas that MSNBC itself promotes on a daily basis are infinitely worse than either of these things, and if that isn’t obvious to you it’s because military propaganda has caused you to compartmentalizeyourself out of an intellectually honest understanding of what war is.

What is interesting to me, however, is the fact that Reid’s bosses are protecting her career so adamantly. Both by refusing to fire her, and by steering the conversation into being about her controversial blog posts rather than the fact that she told a spectacular lie in an attempt to cover them up, Reid is being propped up despite this story constantly re-emerging and making new headlines with new embarrassing details, and despite her lack of any discernible talent or redeeming personal characteristics. This tells us something important about what is going on in the world.

It is not difficult to find someone to read from a teleprompter for large amounts of money. What absolutely is difficult is finding someone who is willing to deceive and manipulate to advance the agendas of the privileged few day after day. Who else would be willing to spend all day on Twitter smearing everyone to the left of Hillary Clinton while still claiming to stand on the political left? Who else would advance the point-blank lieabout “17 intelligence agencies” having declared Russia guilty in US election meddling months after that claim had been famously and virally debunked? Who else would publicly claim that Edward Snowden’s NSA leaks did not benefit anyone besides Russia? Who else could oligarchs like Comcast CEO Brian L Roberts, whose company controls MSNBC, count on to consistently advance his agendas?

While it’s easy to find someone you can count on to advance one particular lie at one particular time, it is difficult to find someone you can be absolutely certain will lie for you day after day, year after year, through election cycles and administration changes and new war agendas and changing political climates. A lot of the people who used to advance perspectives which ran against the grain of the political orthodoxy at MSNBC like Phil Donahue, Ed Schultz and Dylan Ratigan have vanished from the airwaves never to return, while reporters who consistently keep their heads down and toe the line for the Democratic establishment like Chris Hayes, Rachel Maddow and Joy Reid are richly rewarded and encouraged to remain.

The disempowered want change; those in power want predictability and consistency. The more you can guarantee predictability and consistency to those in power, the more those in power will reward you.

Those who report the news and shape public narratives are of particular interest to US oligarchs, who bought up the old media long ago and are doing everything in their power to secure influence over the new media as well. Pundits like Joy Reid are some of their most valuable assets, and they protect those assets accordingly. Because whoever controls the narrative controls the world.

The Council on Foreign Relations is a massively influential think tank with members in the leadership of pretty much every significant media outlet in America. In late April it held a conference titled Political Disruptions: Combating Disinformation and Fake News in which a man named Richard Stengel told the audience that it is necessary for the US government to propagandize its citizens. Stengel is the former managing editor of Time Magazine, a position he vacated to go and work for the US State Department. Yes, really.

“Basically, every country creates their own narrative story and, you know, my old job at the State Department was what people used to joke as the ‘chief propagandist’ job,” Stengel told the CFR audience.

“We haven’t talked about propaganda… I’m not against propaganda. Every country does it, and they have to do it to their own population, and I don’t necessarily think it’s that awful.”

You can cringe all you like, but he’s right. Not about propaganda being a legitimate weapon for an ostensibly free democracy to inflict upon its citizens of course; manipulating the way your citizenry thinks is manipulating the way they vote and organize and what they consent to, and is plainly sociopathic. But he is right that all the shrieking the US does about Russian propaganda applies fully to its own behavior.

As we’ve discussed previously, the only real power in this world is the power to control the public narrative about what is going on. The only reason governments operate the way they operate, the only reason money works the way it works, the only reason power exists where it exists, is that we’ve all agreed to play along with some made-up mental stories about those things and pretend that they are true and real. The only thing stopping the populace from collectively deciding to change the way money works, from deciding that the assholes on Capitol Hill aren’t in charge anymore, or from deciding that every billionaire in America should be butchered like a hog and turned into Slim Jims is the fact that those ideas have not become the dominant narrative. If you can control the stories that the masses tell themselves about what is in their best interests, you control everything.

This is why the alliance between Silicon Valley and US intelligence agencies is becoming more and more brazen. This is why Facebook and the NATO propaganda firm Atlantic Council announced that they’ve formed a partnership weeks after the Atlantic Council published an article explaining why westerners need to be propagandized for their own good. This is why social media corporations are being instructed on the Senate floor that they need to take action to silence sources of rebellion. This is why Julian Assange is being aggressively silenced by the western empire. And it is why Joy Reid still has a job.

The good news about all this is that we know exactly where our shackles are. Our shackles are made of narrative, and the oligarchs’ ability to control it. A populist movement to disrupt establishment narratives and wake people up to what’s going on is all it will take to break our rulers’ ability to control the way the citizens of the world think and vote. From there we can make our own narratives and create a world which benefits us all and not just a few ruling elites. Right now there is a mad rush by those same elites to scale back our ability to network and share information via new media, so one of the most revolutionary things we can do at this time is prevent them from doing so and outpace them in that race.

It isn’t the west versus Russia. It isn’t left versus right. At this time the real conflict in our society is a few ruling elites and their cronies versus humanity’s natural impulse to act in a way that is beneficial to humanity. All we need to do is help that impulse flourish, get out of our oligarchy-imposed brain boxes, and build a new world.

*  *  *

Internet censorship is getting pretty bad, so best way to keep seeing my daily articles is to get on the mailing list for my website, so you’ll get an email notification for everything I publish. My articles and podcasts are entirely reader and listener-funded, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, checking out my podcast, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, or buying my book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers.

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FBI Agent In Charge Of “Russiagate” Operation And Clinton Email “Matter” To Testify Tuesday

FBI Counterintelligence chief, Bill Priestap, will sit down for a closed-door session with lawmakers on Tuesday, according to John Solomon of The Hill.

Priestap will be answering questions about the Hillary Clinton email case as well as the counterintelligence operation on the Trump campaign – both of which he oversaw. Priestap was the direct supervisor of Peter Strzok – the FBI agent whose anti-Trump / pro-Clinton bias was revealed after 50,000 text messages to his FBI-attorney mistress, Lisa Page, were discovered by the DOJ’s Inspector General, Michael Horowitz. 

All accounts say that Priestap is a cooperating witness. In other words, if there’s one person who can confirm that the FBI counterintelligence operation on the Trump campaign was politically motivated – or that malfeasance occurred during the process, it’s Bill Priestap.

Note how excited Solomon looks breaking the news of Priestap’s testimony…

Solomon: “I think tomorrow is going to be a pivotal day. I think Congress is going to learn a lot of new information tomorrow during these interviews.” 

Dobbs: He is going to be speaking candidly about his employer, the FBI, and those who were running the agency during that period.

Solomon: He was very high up. Had a bird’s-eye view of everything that went on in both of these investigations. 

While the session will be closed-door, we imagine leaks will be forthcoming as seems to be standard operating procedure these days. 

Just who is Bill Priestap really? The Conservative Treehouse presented an in-depth analysis in February. We recommend reading this before deciding on what size popcorn to buy: 

***

The game is over. The jig is up. Victory is certain… the trench was ignited… the enemy funneled themselves into the valley… all bait was taken… everything from here on out is simply mopping up the details.  All suspicions confirmed.

Why has Devin Nunes been so confident?  Why did all GOP HPSCI members happily allow the Democrats to create a 10-page narrative?  All questions are answered.

Fughettaboudit.

House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence member Chris Stewart appeared on Fox News with Judge Jeanine Pirro, and didn’t want to “make news” or spill the beans, but the unstated, between-the-lines, discussion was as subtle as a brick through a window.  Judge Jeannie has been on the cusp of this for a few weeks.

Listen carefully around 2:30, Judge Jeanine hits the bulls-eye; and listen to how Chris Stewart talks about not wanting to make news and is unsure what he can say on this…

…Bill Priestap is cooperating.

When you understand how central E.W. “Bill” Priestap was to the entire 2016/2017 ‘Russian Conspiracy Operation‘, the absence of his name, amid all others, created a curiosity.  I wrote a twitter thread about him last year and wrote about him extensively, because it seemed unfathomable his name has not been a part of any of the recent story-lines.

E.W. “Bill” Priestap is the head of the FBI Counterintelligence operation.  He was FBI Agent Peter Strozk’s direct boss.  If anyone in congress really wanted to know if the FBI paid for the Christopher Steele Dossier, Bill Priestap is the guy who would know everything about everything.

FBI Asst. Director in charge of Counterintelligence Bill Priestap was the immediate supervisor of FBI Counterintelligence Deputy Peter Strzok.

Bill Priestap is #1. Before getting demoted Peter Strzok was #2.

The investigation into candidate Donald Trump was a counterintelligence operation. That operation began in July 2016. Bill Priestap would have been in charge of that, along with all other, FBI counterintelligence operations.

FBI Deputy Peter Strzok was specifically in charge of the Trump counterintel op. However, Strzok would be reporting to Bill Priestap on every detail and couldn’t (according to structure anyway) make a move without Priestap approval.

On March 20th 2017 congressional testimony, James Comey was asked why the FBI Director did not inform congressional oversight about the counterintelligence operation that began in July 2016.

FBI Director Comey said he did not tell congressional oversight he was investigating presidential candidate Donald Trump because the Director of Counterintelligence suggested he not do so. *Very important detail.*

I cannot emphasize this enough. *VERY* important detail. Again, notice how Comey doesn’t use Priestap’s actual name, but refers to his position and title. Again, watch [Prompted]

FBI Director James Comey was caught entirely off guard by that first three minutes of that questioning. He simply didn’t anticipate it.

Oversight protocol requires the FBI Director to tell the congressional intelligence “Gang of Eight” of any counterintelligence operations. The Go8 has oversight into these ops at the highest level of classification.  In July 2016 the time the operation began, oversight was the responsibility of this group, the Gang of Eight:

Obviously, based on what we have learned since March 2017, and what has surfaced recently, we can all see why the FBI would want to keep it hidden that they were running a counterintelligence operation against a presidential candidate.   After all, as FBI Agent Peter Strzok said it in his text messages, it was an “insurance policy”.

REMINDER – FBI Agent Strzok to FBI Attorney Page:

“I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office that there’s no way he gets elected – but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.”

So there we have FBI Director James Comey telling congress on March 20th, 2017, that the reason he didn’t inform the statutory oversight “Gang of Eight” was because Bill Priestap (Director of Counterintelligence) recommended he didn’t do it.

Apparently, according to Comey, Bill Priestap carries a great deal of influence if he could get his boss to NOT perform a statutory obligation simply by recommending he doesn’t do it.

Then again, Comey’s blame-casting there is really called creating a “fall guy”.  FBI Director James Comey was ducking responsibility in March 2017 by blaming FBI Director of Counterintelligence Bill Priestap for not informing congress of the operation that began in July 2016. (9 months prior).

At that moment, that very specific moment during that March 20th hearing, anyone who watches these hearings closely could see FBI Director James Comey was attempting to create his own exit from being ensnared in the consequences from the wiretapping and surveillance operation of candidate Trump, President-elect Trump, and eventually President Donald Trump.

In essence, Bill Priestap was James Comey’s fall guy.  We knew it at the time that Bill Priestap would likely see this the same way.  The guy would have too much to lose by allowing James Comey to set him up.

Immediately there was motive for Bill Priestap to flip and become the primary source to reveal the hidden machinations.  Why should he take the fall for the operation when there were multiple people around the upper-levels of leadership who carried out the operation.

Our suspicions were continually confirmed because there was NO MENTION of Bill Priestap in any future revelations of the scheme team, despite his centrality to all of it.

Bill Priestap would have needed to authorize Peter Strzok to engage with Christopher Steele over the “Russian Dosssier”; Bill Priestap would have needed to approve of the underlying investigative process used for both FISA applications (June 2016, and Oct 21st 2016). Bill Priestap would be the person to approve of arranging, paying, or reimbursing, Christopher Steele for the Russian Dossier used in their counterintelligence operation and subsequent FISA application.

Without Bill Priestap involved, approvals, etc. the entire Russian/Trump Counterintelligence operation just doesn’t happen. Heck, James Comey’s own March 20th testimony in that regard is concrete evidence of Priestap’s importance.

Everyone around Bill Priestap, above and below, were caught inside the investigative net.

Above him: James Comey, Andrew McCabe and James Baker. 

Below him: Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Jim Rybicki, Trisha Beth Anderson and Mike Kortan. 

Parallel to Priestap in main justice his peer John P Carlin resigned, Sally Yates fired, Mary McCord quit, Bruce Ohr was busted twice, and most recently Dave Laufman resigned.  All of them caught in the investigative net…. Only Bill Priestap remained, quietly invisible – still in position.

The reason was obvious.

Likely Bill Priestap made the decision after James Comey’s testimony on March 20th, 2017, when he realized what was coming.  Priestap is well-off financially; he has too much to lose.  He and his wife, Sabina Menschel, live a comfortable life in a $3.8 million DC home; she comes from a family of money.

While ideologically Bill and Sabina are aligned with Clinton support, and their circle of family and friends likely lean toward more liberal friends; no-one in his position would willingly allow themselves to be the scape-goat for the unlawful action that was happening around them.

Bill Priestap had too much to lose… and for what?

With all of that in mind, there is essentially no-way the participating members inside the small group can escape their accountability with Mr. Bill Priestap cooperating with the investigative authorities.

Now it all makes sense.  Devin Nunes interviewed Bill Priestap and Jim Rybicki prior to putting the memo process into place.  Rybicki quit, Priestap went back to work.

Bill Priestap remains the Asst. FBI Director in charge of counterintelligence operations.

It’s over.

I don’t want to see this guy, or his family, compromised.  This is probably the last I am ever going to write about him unless it’s in the media bloodstream. I can’t fathom the gauntlet of hatred and threats he is likely to face from the media and his former political social network if they recognize what’s going on.  BP is Deep-Throat x infinity… nuf said.

The rest of this entire enterprise is just joyfully dragging out the timing of the investigative releases in order to inflict maximum political pain upon the party of those who will attempt to excuse the inexcusable.

Then comes the OIG Horowitz report.

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Dramatic Drone Footage Shows Massive Kilauea Crater Collapse, Miles Of Lava Devastation

The number of homes destroyed in Hawaii’s Kilauea eruption has jumped to 117 from 87, according to Monday figures released by the Hawaii County Civil Defense. An estimated 20-40 homes were destroyed in Kapoho, while around a dozen people were trapped on the eastern tip of the island after fast-moving lava cut off all access to the rural community, according to spokeswoman Janet Snyder.

Kapoho was destroyed in 1960 by a similar Kilauea eruption.

The trapped residents ignored several days of warnings from authorities, but many have refused to abandon their homes. So far, 18 people have been arrested for trying to sneak past off-limits areas to catch a look at the oozing lava (or loot homes). 

The Hawaii Volcano Observatory reported that Fissure 8 is continuing to feed “a large channelized flow” along Highway 132. Fissure 8 continues to be the most active, with fountains of lava shooting as high as 220 feet.

Officials said Monday that volcanic gas emissions near Kilauea’s summit still remain high.

Janet Babb, geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey told Fox News: “I don’t think any of us are thinking this is winding down.” -Fox News

Sunday marks the one-month anniversary of Kilauea’s recent eruption, as ash shot 8,000 feet in the air.  USGS geophysicist Brian Shiro said that 500 earthquakes had struck near the summit over a 24-hour period. 

Sound warning

Drone footage captured at the mouth of the volcano reveals the extent of the damage caused by recent explosive eruptions: 

Satellite data acquired by the Landsat 8 Operation Land Imager (OLI) captured the flow from the night of May 23 for this false-color image.

Updates from Sunday:

 

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John McAfee Announces 2020 Presidential Bid “To Serve Crypto Community”

Authored by Molly Jan Zuckerman via CoinTelegraph.com,

John McAfee, founder of McAfee Antivirus Software and now prominent crypto enthusiast, announced his bid yesterday, June 3, to run for US president in 2020 as a way to serve the crypto community, according to his Twitter account:

This will be McAfee’s second run for president, after he lost his first bid in 2016 to former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson to be the candidate for the Libertarian Party.

McAfee mentioned his past failed bid by noting yesterday that if he “been more connected with the community in 2016,” he would have been better able to publicize the idea of “currency independence,” which he notes is already on “every Anericans’ lips (sic).”

image courtesy of CoinTelegraph

McAfee’s tweet about his 2020 run has now garnered over 600 comments, with McAfee responding to most of them with either a “thank you” or a “:).” One token platform has apparently already donated the equivalent of $390.85 to the campaign:

The future potential presidential candidate tweeted again today about the run, noting that although he doesn’t actually think he has a “chance of winning,” the bid will give him a platform to tell the “truth:”

McAfee had already made headlines last week by announcing the creation of his own crypto-backed fiat currency that is redeemable for up to 100 minutes of facetime with him, as well as in February for revealing he made $105,000 per tweet promoting crypto projects.

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Ayatollah Calls Israel A “Cancerous Tumor”; Will Strike Back 10 Times Harder If Attacked

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameni slammed Israel over Twitter on Sunday, referring to the Jewish state as a “cancerous tumor” in the West Asian region which must be “removed and eradicated.”

“It is possible and it will happen” –Khameni

Khamenei also said that the Palestinian cause is not “tactical” or “political” – rather it is “an issue of the heart… and faith.”

On Saturday, the supreme leader warned “traitorous countries” refusing to confront Israel in order to appease the United States, and that “resistance is the only way to save #Palestine from oppression.”

His tweets over the weekend came amid a tense few days along the Gaza border that saw multiple exchanges of mortar and rocket fire and violence along the security fence.

On Friday, a 21-year-old volunteer Gazan paramedic was shot dead as she tried to help evacuate wounded protesters near Israel’s perimeter fence. UN officials condemned Razan Najjar’s killing, and thousands of Palestinians attended her funeral on Saturday. The IDF said it was investigating the incident.-Times of Israel

Later Saturday night and early Sunday morning, Palestinian terrorist groups in Gaza resumed firing rockets over the border, shattering an official ceasefire agreement. In response, the IDF said Israeli jets carried out two rounds of airstrikes in the Gaza Strip. –Times of Israel

Then, on Monday, Khamenei said that it would “attack 10 times more if attacked by enemies,” and that Western demands to limit its ballistic missile program are a “dream that will never come true.”

“Tehran will attack 10 times more if attacked by enemies… The enemies don’t want an independent Iran in the region… We will continue our support for oppressed nations” -Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei 

“Young Arabs, you should take action and the initiative to control your own future … Some regional countries act like their own people’s enemies,” said Khamenei, alluding to US-allied Gulf Arab states who support the rebels trying to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a close ally of Tehran.

Tensions are once again flaring up between Iran and the West since President Trump pulled out of the “deeply flawed” 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran. European signatories – along with Obama Secretary of State John Kerry, have been scrambling to save the accord which mandated that the Islamic Republic curb its disputed nuclear energy program in exchange for the lifting of harsh sanctions.

One of Trump’s primary complaints about the deal was that Iran was not required to rein in its ballistic missile program, which Khamenei has repeatedly said is non-negotiable.

“Some Europeans are talking about limiting our defensive missile program. I am telling the Europeans, ‘Limiting our missile work is a dream that will never come true.'”

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4 Reasons Why The Market Is Completely Ignoring Escalating Trade Wars

Back in March, JPM’s head quant Marko Kolanovic laid out the simplest case why despite all his bluster, angry tweets and constant puffing, Trump will not dare to engage in a full-blown global trade war which would impair the global economy and cripple capital markets. The reason: a plunge in the S&P would adversely affect the mid-term elections, potentially resulting in a big loss for the GOP and raising the threat of impeachment for Trump, should Republicans lose control of Congress. In Kolanovic’s own words:

A significant trade war started by this administration would destabilize global equity markets. Should this happen ahead of the November election, it would impair the administration’s ‘market scorecard’ and likely lead to an election loss. Lost elections open a path to impeachment, and other complications. The game is also non-zero sum, as one can both use tough rhetoric and at the same time do little disruptive action (e.g., players as we defined them can ‘have their cake and eat it’). Setting up a diagram (similar to the well-known ‘prisoners’ dilemma’) points clearly that there will be strong rhetoric, but weak or no action that would destabilize equities.

Then, over the weekend, Goldman took the opposite approach, inverting cause with effect, and stating that if Trump wants to win a trade war, the market has to tumble. By implication, if Trump is not willing to take said trade war to its bitter, market-adverse end, any Trumping threat will remain merely a negotiating tactic, one which America’s trade war adversaries will take increasingly less seriously, which is precisely why there is a risk that Trump may crash the market, just to prove to US trade partners that he is serious.

The question is will Trump dare to go that far.

The answer, according to DataTrek’s Nick Colas and increasingly, the market – is no… and is also one of the main reasons why US stocks remain resilient in the face of escalating trade tensions.

In his latest note to clients, Colas lays out 4 specific explanations why equities remain resilient in the face of escalating trade tensions, and at the very top, just as Kolanovic said, is that the market believes there is an implicit “Trade policy put” given the president’s well-known affinity for rising equity prices.

Other possible causes: continued strength in Tech shares, lower interest rates, and the relative strength of the US economy (and therefore stocks) versus the Eurozone and export-driven Asian countries.

Below we represent an excerpt from Colas’ always informative and entertaining daily letter, giving 4 reasons why Trade Wars have so far been…. Meh, for the stock market.

* * *

The seemingly non-existent reaction of US stocks to mounting concerns of a global trade war remind me of an old Sherlock Holmes story, “The Adventure of the Silver Blaze”. That’s the one with the famous “Dog that did not bark” clue. A racehorse is stolen, his trainer murdered, all while a guard dog fails to raise an alarm. The reason: the dog knew the culprit (who was not the prime suspect) and therefore remained quiet.

Whether legions of equity investors have a collective IQ that exceeds your typical canine is an interesting question, but too large in scope for these pages. We will therefore focus our attention on some reasons why stocks seem impervious to the “Smoot Hawley, Part 2” narrative. Here are 4 potential explanations:

#1) President Trump is driving this process, and markets believe there is no way he consciously tanks the US equity market/economy ahead of midterm elections. Moreover, he is bucking both conventional economic wisdom and most of the Republican Party with his trade stance, leaving him fully exposed to any economic/market blowback.

Conclusion: almost like the concept of a “Fed put”, there is an implicit “trade policy put” on current rhetoric, no matter how harsh. If all the jawboning starts to hurt US business/consumer confidence or equity prices, markets expect President Trump to back away in the proverbial “New York minute”.

#2) Growth in US large cap Technology is powerful enough to swamp even trade fears. The S&P 500 is down 0.5% this year once you exclude the Technology sector (+11.2% YTD, and 25% of the S&P). This group moves to its own beat, and that tempo remains strong. All this comes even as Tech is the single most international group in the index in terms of offshore revenues (48%).

Conclusion: Large Cap Tech is in a bubble, but not necessarily in terms of valuation. Rather, it is an insulating force field driven by its power to create innovative disruption and growth. Those fundamentals are now at such critical mass that even governments cannot derail them for long.

#3) The uncertainty created by potential trade wars has been enough to halt the move to higher US interest rates, supporting equity valuations. Remember when the 10-year US Treasury seemed headed right to a 3.25% yield? That was all of 2 weeks ago. Now, problems in the Eurozone combined with trade policy concerns have pulled that yield solidly below 3%.

Conclusion: sometimes you get a Goldilocks outcome only after you’ve eaten way too much porridge and need to take a nap. Such is the case with the trade concerns we’re talking about here. The headlines that have dampened yields aren’t what anyone would call positive for global growth or stability. But they have had the effect of stopping the selloff in US bonds, and that supports equity prices.

#4) The economic effect of a global trade war may be worse on Europe, Japan and China than they are on the US, and global equity investors have to put their money somewhere. The recent troubles around the Italian election highlighted the still-fragile nature of the economic recovery in the Eurozone. Japanese Central Bank policy, easy as it is, has still failed to generate inflation. And China still needs US consumers to fund its expansion and continue to pull millions of its citizens out of poverty.

Conclusion: assume we do get a full out global trade war but your investment mandate still forces you to choose between US, Japanese, European or Asian equities. Where would you go? To the export driven markets? (No.) To the regional economy still struggling with the aftermath of the Financial Crisis? (Also No.) Or to the economy running close to capacity with 2 more quarters of tax-cut fueled growth? (Yes, if reluctantly so…)

* * *

Summing up: US equities are threading a very fine needle with their current resilience. There’s just enough positive news (lower rates, Tech sector strength) to offset the headwinds of trade war worries. Friday’s jobs report buys some time as well, as it reinforces market confidence in the domestic economy. In the end, however, we think the “trade policy put” argument is the best explanation for recent US equity price action.

That may be an unexpected conclusion, but to quote Sherlock Holmes, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbably, must be the truth.”

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Manafort Tried To Tamper With Witnesses After Indictment, May Have To Return To Jail

Paul Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign manager, has been accused of attempting to tamper with witnesses in his federal tax and lobbying case.

Court documents reveal that Manafort tried to contact several associates after his indictment last year via phone and encrypted messaging program to get their stories straight over lobbying practices, which prosecutors say violates the terms of his release.

They have asked a federal judge to “revoke or revise” the order governing the terms of his supervised release, which could send him to jail until his trial. Manafort is currently under 24-hour GPS monitored house arrest. 

FBI agent Brock W. Domin wrote in court documents that one witness reported Manafort’s contact, and that he appeared to be trying to coach him on their story about where they lobbied. 

The order reads:

The day after the Superseding Indictment was made public, Manafort also sent Person D1 a text message on an encrypted application, stating “This is paul.” 

Two days later, on February 26, 2018, Manafort used the same encrypted application to send Person D1 a news article describing the Superseding Indictment’s allegations concerning the Hapsburg group, which included the statement that “two European politicians were secretly paid around €2 million  by Manafort in order to ‘take positions favorable to Ukraine, including by lobbying in the United States.’” 

One minute after sending the news article, Manafort wrote: “We should talk. I have made clear that they worked in Europe.” Toll records for one of Manafort’s  phones indicate that Manafort had a short call with Person D1 on February 24, 2018, and that Manafort attempted to call Person D1 again on February 25 and 27, 2018

As noted in Special Agent Domin’s declaration, Person D1 has told the government that he understood Manafort’s outreach to be an effort to “suborn perjury,” because Person D1 knew that the Hapsburg group worked in the United States—not just Europe.

Approximately five hours later, Person A switched to another encrypted application and sent a similar series of messages to Person D2, including a message relaying Manafort’s “summary” that the Hapsburg group never lobbied in the United States

…

Person A’s message is thus a “false story” conveyed “as if the story were true,” and an attempt “to persuade a witness to give a false account that tracked the defendant’s position.” 

Read the entire filing below:

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