U.S. Congress “Quietly” Blocked All Arms Sales To Turkey: Defense News Report

The U.S. Congress has “quietly” blocked all arms sales to Turkey for a period of approximately 2 years, in an attempt to further pressure Ankara to abandon its Russian S-400 missile defense system, Defense News reported, citing unnamed sources.

According to the report, four key members of Congress, collectively or individually have frozen the sales.

This mostly relates to two deals:

A follow-on contract for F-16 structural upgrades;

Export licenses for U.S.-made engines that Turkey needs to complete a $1.5 billion sale of attack helicopters to Pakistan.

If true, this is significant since the US is Turkey’s largest weapons seller.

Defense News learned of the situation from a half dozen sources in Congress, the administration, and the defense industry, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivities involved.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Jim Risch, and House Foreign Affairs ranking member Rep. Mike McCaul, acknowledged they are part of the freeze after they were contacted by Defense News.

The two other lawmakers who can sign off on foreign military sales ― House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel, and Senate Foreign Relations Committee ranking member Sen. Bob Menendez, are also part of the situation, according to the unnamed sources.

“There is serious concern over [Turkey’s purchase of the S-400] in both parties and in both chambers on the Hill, and until the issues surrounding this purchase are resolved I cannot and will not support weapon sales to Turkey,” Risch said.

“Turkey is a longtime strategic ally of the United States. That relationship has deteriorated dramatically in recent years and is quickly deteriorating further,” Risch said. “President Erdogan’s purchase of the Russian S-400 significantly changed the nature of our relationship. This purchase benefits our adversary Putin and threatens the integrity of the NATO Alliance.”

Engel has refused to sign off on military sales to Turkey since mid 2018, while Risch has maintained his own hold since Turkey officially took possession of the S-400 in July 2019, according to multiple congressional sources.

“Nobody has signed off on anything, roughly, for the last year,” said one congressional source. “Nothing moves in this process until all four of the offices have said, ‘yea.’”

A second congressional source described Turkey taking possession of the S-400 as “kind of, pardon my language, an oh shit moment.”

“Not only was it intentionally provocative, but it happened the day after Erdogan was in the Oval Office,” the source said.

Currently the US Congress appears dead set on sanctioning Turkey for the purchase and it might even be in such a way that US President Donald Trump can’t veto the decision.

“Right now, the mood [in Congress] toward Turkey is enormous,” the source said. “Unless Turkey wants to change the narrative and do a mea culpa, the president could very easily lose a veto override vote.”

https://southfront.org/u-s-congress-quietly-blocked-all-arms-sales-to-turkey-defense-news-report/

The Trilateral Commission’s Faux Attempt at Democratising

It was during the summer of 2019 that the Trilateral Commission published an eight page brochure called, ‘Democracies Under Stress: Recreating the Trilateral Commission to Revitalize Our Democracies to Uphold the Rules-Based International Order‘. As I mentioned in an article published back in February, the brochure spoke about how the institution was now dedicated to ‘rediscovering‘ its roots, ‘sharpening‘ its mission and ‘rejuvenating‘ its membership.

This apparent attempt at modernising came in the wake of the deaths of the Trilateral Commission’s two founding members – David Rockefeller and Zbigniew Brzezinski – and also that of former European Chairman of the Commission Peter Sutherland.

On reading the literature, it was plain to see that the group were working to ensure its long term survival by seeking the next generation of corporate, political and academic members, all in a bid to maintain the goals of it’s founding fathers, which include the implementation of a ‘New International Economic Order‘.

Ever since its inception in 1973, the policy of the Commission has been that membership is by invitation only. Third party applications have never been welcomed. That is until now.

In a July 2020 press release titled, ‘Trilateral Commission Invites Applications for New American Members‘, the institution confirms that for the first time ever they are ‘issuing a public call for applicants for membership‘. An extract from the press release reads:

Traditionally, the Trilateral Commission has only solicited nominations for membership from existing members. As part of the Commission’s recent efforts to refocus its critical mission and rejuvenate its extraordinary activities, it is now issuing a public call for applications to its United States group.

The North American Chair of the Commission, Meghan O’Sullivan, had this to say:

We are excited to further strengthen and diversify the Commission’s ranks. Our members include people with remarkable experience in the public and private sectors, extraordinary intellectual acumen, and energy and passion for the world. While we welcome those who have reached the pinnacle of their careers, we are also intensely interested in people who still have another chapter – or more – to come.

We are also informed by the Commission that spanning their 47 year existence, they have secured members who share the group’s ‘common values and a commitment to the rule of law, open economies and societies, and democratic principles‘.

https://stevenguinness2.wordpress.com/2020/08/13/the-trilateral-commissions-faux-attempt-at-democratising/

Supposed Drug Plane Crashed During Failed Attempt To Escape From Venezuelan Fighter Jets

On Monday Venezuela’s Aerospace Defence Command (CODAI) detected an illegal aircraft crossing over the national territory without a flight plan and violating its sovereignty. The aircraft lost control and crashed while being pursued by military aircraft sent to intercept it.

The Bolivarian National Armed Force’s Strategic Operational Command (Ceofanb) stated that the illegal aircraft, a privately-owned Hawker 800, was detected flying west of the Paraguana Peninsula in Falcon state.

The plane, which was detected by the radars of the Comprehensive Aerospace Defence Command, was intercepted by aircraft of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces in compliance with the provisions of the Law for Comprehensive Airspace Defence, approved in 2012.

It reportedly ignored the identification orders issued by the Venezuelan authorities and tried to land “on a clandestine runway used for illicit drug trafficking operations on the border with Colombia “.

The Aerospace Command announced the operation on Monday on its Twitter account.

https://southfront.org/supposed-drug-plane-crashed-during-failed-attempt-to-escape-from-venezuelan-fighter-jets-videos-photos/

In Video: Bashar al-Assad Almost Passed Out While Delivering Speech To Parliament Members

Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad nearly passed out while delivering a speech to newly-elected members of the country’s parliament in a meeting on August 12.

The meeting was set to be held under the dome of Syria’s People’s Assembly as usual. Nevertheless, the meeting was exceptionally held at the People’s Palace due to safety measures to confront the coronavirus.

According to the Syrian Arab News Agency, al-Assad suffered a slight, sudden drop in blood pressure that interrupted his speech for a few minutes.

In the speech footage al-Assad appeared to be disoriented before apologizing and getting off the stage to take a seat. The edited footage showed al-Assad returning a few minutes later in a seemingly good shape.

“Doctors are the worst patients, the truth is, I did not had any food since yesterday’s afternoon … I eat sugar and salt,” al-Assad, an eye doctor, told his MPs after returning.

In his speech, al-Assad touched on several issues, including sanctions on Syria, the coronavirus pandemic, the war on corruption as well as the need of economic and political reforms in the war-torn country.

Al-Assad said the economical war on Syria started when the U.S. had failed to subdue the country through other political and military means.

“whenever terrorists fail in their missions, there are an escalation, one time they go to the Security Council, another time they escalating in the chemical issue or they bomb our forces, and after the liberation of the west of Aleppo and the south of Idlib, the title was economic aggression to weaken the achievements of our forces’ victories, making them pale and without meaning for the Syrian people,” al-Assad said.

The Syrian President also accused the U.S. and Israel of supporting ISIS remnants in central Syria militarily and even financially.

“The US needs terrorists in the region, on top, Daesh, and it wanted from Caesar Act to express its support to the terrorists,” the President said, adding: “Israeli aggression on Deir Ezzor came to facilitate the movement of Daesh terrorists.”

Al-Assad concluded his speech by vowing, once again, to liberate all Syrian lands, including the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The Syrian President also threatened Turkish forces that occupy parts of northern and northeastern Syria, saying there is no difference between a “local or imported terrorist, a Zionist soldier, Turkish or American one, all of them are enemies on our territory.”

After his speech, al-Assad’s health quickly became the go-for subject for Syrian opposition outlets, which attempted to capitalize on the issue.

The official Syrian acknowledgment of al-Assad’s health issue indicates show that Damascus is not following the same high-level of secrecy as other regimes in the Middle East. In 2018, Damascus announced that al-Assad’s wife, Asma, is being treated for early stage breast cancer. She has fully recovered since then.

https://southfront.org/in-video-bashar-al-assad-almost-passed-out-while-delivering-speech-to-parliament-members/

Trump Admin Designates Confucius Institute As Communist China Foreign Mission

The United States announced Thursday it is requiring the center that manages the Communist China funded Confucius Institute in the United States to register as a foreign mission. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the institute is “an entity advancing Beijing’s global propaganda and malign influence campaign on U.S. campuses and K-12 classrooms.”

Workers with the Institute in America will not be kicked out but top U.S. diplomat for East Asia David Stilwell said universities should take a “hard look at the activities they are engaging in on campuses,” as reported by WKZO.

“Today, the Department of State designated the Confucius Institute U.S. Center as a foreign mission of the PRC, recognizing the CIUS for what it is: an entity advancing Beijing’s global propaganda and malign influence campaign on U.S. campuses and K-12 classrooms,” read the release.

Pompeo’s agency details the issues being the curriculum and influence the Institute is having in the education system across the nation.

This follows previous measures taken by the State Department to label media outlets funded by the Communist China Party as foreign missions.

https://saraacarter.com/trump-admin-designates-confucius-institute-as-communist-china-foreign-mission/

Bombshell Report: Fed Is Aware that Big Banks Are Rigging their Stress Tests and Letting Them Get Away with It

On January 31 of this year, researchers for the Federal Reserve released a study that showed that the largest banks operating in the U.S. have been gaming their stress test results by intentionally dropping their exposure to over-the-counter derivatives in the fourth quarter. The fourth quarter data is the information used by the Federal Reserve to determine surcharges on capital for Global Systemically Important Banks, or G-SIBs.

The report, “How Do U.S. Global Systemically Important Banks Lower Their Capital Surcharges?,” was written by Jared Berry, Akber Khan, and Marcelo Rezende.

We decided to evaluate this claim for ourselves, using the quarterly derivative reports provided by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the regulator of national banks. The data was appalling. The largest Wall Street banks not only dropped their level of derivatives by trillions of dollars in the fourth quarter, but they restored those derivatives by the end of the following first quarter. (See first OCC chart below which shows the largest of the top 25 banks by derivative exposure.)

In the case of JPMorgan Chase, it dropped its total derivatives from $55 trillion notional (face amount) in the third quarter to $46.9 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2019, a decline of $8 trillion in one quarter or 15 percent. But by the end of the first quarter of 2020, JPMorgan had pushed those derivatives back up to $59.6 trillion.

The Federal Reserve seems to be accepting this behavior from JPMorgan Chase as a legitimate means of reducing its capital requirements. Yesterday, the Federal Reserve announced the new capital requirements for the largest, Global Systemically Important Banks, or G-SIBs. We fully expected JPMorgan Chase to be slapped with the highest capital requirement since its Systemic Risk Report last year showed it to be the riskiest bank in the U.S. and, clearly, based on the above research that appears on the Fed’s own website, it’s aware of JPMorgan’s “window dressing,” the term used by its own researchers.

But instead of JPMorgan Chase getting slapped with the highest Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) capital requirement of all 34 banks that underwent the stress test, it was given a relatively tame 11.3 percent CET1. The banks hit with the highest CET1 capital requirements were Goldman Sachs at 13.7 percent and Morgan Stanley at 13.4 percent. (See the Fed’s full chart of capital requirements here.)

Morgan Stanley does not show up on the first OCC chart below because it holds its huge derivatives book at its bank holding company, rather than at its federally-insured commercial banks. The second OCC chart below suggests that Morgan Stanley was also window-dressing its derivatives book, dropping it from $36.2 trillion in the third quarter of 2019 to $32.5 trillion in the fourth quarter; then back to $35.6 trillion in the first quarter of 2020.

https://wallstreetonparade.com/2020/08/bombshell-report-fed-is-aware-that-big-banks-are-rigging-their-stress-tests-and-letting-them-get-away-with-it/

The Birth of a Global Nation: What Makes a Modern Rhodes Scholar?

In my previous article, I discussed the role of the Brookings Institute’s founder Strobe Talbott as an integrated part of the puzzle behind Russia Gate and also his indoctrination as a Rhodes Scholar in Oxford alongside his room mate Bill Clinton in 1966.

I addressed the rise of the Rhodes Trust in 1902 as think tank designed explicitly to sabotage the spread of a multipolar model of sovereign republics applying “American system practices” of protectionism, national banking and internal improvements in the post Civil War era.

In this follow up article, I would like to pursue the deeper philosophical structure of the Rhodes Scholar world view as it expressed itself in Strobe Talbott’s 1992 Time Magazine manifesto “The Birth of a Global Nation” which he wrote in preparation for the new phase of his career swarming into the White House with dozens of other Rhodes Scholars who sought to define the conditions of the new unipolar age.

All Talbott quotes in this text are taken from this 1992 manifesto.

The Birth of a Global Nation

Standing on the cusp of the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the rise of a unipolar era in 1992, Talbott couldn’t help but celebrate the dissolution of sovereign nations and the creation of a world government stating that within the next century “nationhood as we know it will be obsolete; all states will recognize a single, global authority…”

Ignoring the fact that sovereign nation states were created as instruments to protect citizens from empires, Talbott falsely defines nationalism in the following terms: “All countries are basically social arrangements, accommodations to changing circumstances. No matter how permanent and even sacred they may seem at any one time, in fact they are all artificial and temporary. Through the ages, there has been an overall trend toward larger units claiming sovereignty and paradoxically, a gradual diminution of how much true sovereignty any one country actually has.”

This false definition of nationalism (which has become hegemonic amongst academia in recent generations) then sets up a series of false problems which he proceeds to “solve”.

In the Hobbesian system of zero sum thinking that Talbott imposes onto world history, nation states are assumed to be the natural outgrowth of selfishness, exploitation of the weak and war. Here Talbott entirely ignores all evidence that history’s wars have been artificially manipulated by a transnational financial elite and instead characterizes war as mankind’s natural state of being- thus requiring some sort of resolution of a leviathan or global force of enlightened elites from above:

“The big absorbed the small, the strong the weak. National might made international right. Such a world was in a more or less constant state of war… perhaps national sovereignty wasn’t such a great idea after all.”

Then describing the hoped-for era of world government which he believes to be a utopian future age, Talbott lists the creation of the wonderful 20th century innovations of the League of Nations, NATO, the IMF and Globalization.

Talbott describes NATO as “history’s most ambitious, enduring and successful exercise in collective security” and then celebrates the International Monetary Fund. Talbott said “the free world formed multilateral financial institutions that depend on member states’ willingness to give up a degree of national sovereignty. The International Monetary Fund can virtually dictate fiscal policies, even including how much tax a government should levy on its citizens.”

Forecasting the Blair-Cheney R2P protocol which would soon justify the humanitarian bombings of Kosovo, Iraq, Libya and Syria, Talbott championed the destruction of national sovereignty made possible by the invasion of Kuwait in 1991 saying “the internal affairs of a nation used to be off limits to the world community. But the principle of ‘humanitarian intervention is gaining acceptance.”

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/08/13/birth-global-nation-what-makes-modern-rhodes-scholar/

Second Source: Mitt Romney Blocking Sen. Ron Johnson From Subpoenaing Comey, Brennan… To Protect Paul Singer

On Wednesday, a Senior Republican Senate source told Gateway Pundit that Senator Mitt Romney is leading an effort to block Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Ron Johnson from subpoenaing James Comey and John Brennan.

“Romney was for impeachment. He has been against Trump every step of the way. Now he is obstructing going after the leakers and liars who went after Trump,” the initial senior senate source said on Wednesday.

On Thursday, a second source, one close to the Mueller investigation, reached out to The Gateway Pundit to say that not only is Romney behind it, but he is doing it to protect Paul Singer.

“It’s pretty simple. Romney is covering for the role his billionaire supporter Paul Singer played in pushing the Fusion GPS dossier,” the source said.

Of course, before the dossier was ever written and got into the hands of the Clinton campaign, Fusion GPS research was financed by the neoconservative outlet the Washington Free Beacon, which is funded largely by Singer, as opposition material for the Republican primary. One of the sources mentioned that this could potentially be messy for certain members of the GOP.

A source with detailed knowledge of committee rules explained that while Senator Johnson may have consent to subpoena anyone he wants on paper, there was likely an agreement made prior to the committee approving the investigation. He explained that it is likely that Johnson agreed not to subpoena certain high profile individuals without unanimous consent.

He believes that Johnson accidentally said too much when he told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that he was being blocked.

“We had a number of my committee members that were highly concerned about how this looks politically,” Johnson told Hewitt, who pressed the Senator to name the Republicans blocking him.

“Hugh, I’m just not going to be naming names that way,” Johnson replied.

The Committee gave Ron Johnson unilateral subpoena power in June of this year.

“We have a committee process and I respect that,” Johnson told Martha MacAllum on Fox News, adding that he wants to respect the “legitimate concerns” some committee members have.

Johnson is now back peddling and claiming that he does have the subpoena power, but that he wants to get the documents naturally without having to subpoena them.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/08/second-source-mitt-romney-blocking-sen-ron-johnson-subpoenaing-comey-brennan-protect-paul-singer/

Military Situation In Syria On August 13, 2020 (Map Update)

A brief overview of the recent developments in Syria:

ISIS fighters targeted a Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) checkpoint with a hand grenade in the town of Theban in Deir Ezzor governorate;

ISIS ambushed a convoy of the al-Quds Brigade and the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) south of Deir Ezzor, allegedly killing two SAA soldiers;

According to Kurdish sources, Turkish artillery shelled Ain Issa refugee camp in Raqqah governorate;

A Turkish convoy of military equipment entered Syria through the Kafr-Lusin border crossing;

The HTS-SAA prisoner exchange took place in western Aleppo;

SAA artillery shelled Turkish-backed militants’ positions in the villages of Safuhin and Qastun in southern Idllib.

https://southfront.org/military-situation-in-syria-on-august-13-2020-map-update/

https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1293984487492247554

JOE BIDEN: "Every single American should be wearing a mask when they are outside for the next three months at a minimum."

"The estimates by the experts are it will save over 40,000 lives."

"It's not about your rights. It's about your responsibility."

CIA-Sponsored Propaganda Has Been Around for 75 Years

The release a report by the U.S. Department of State’s Global Engagement Center (GEC), billed as the Donald Trump administration’s “dedicated center for countering foreign disinformation and propaganda, cites the Strategic Culture Foundation in Russia, Canada’s Global Research Center, and other on-line publications as “proxy sites” for Russian intelligence and the Russian Foreign Ministry. The State Department’s report is titled, “Pillars of Russia’s Disinformation and Propaganda Ecosystem” and it is not much different than the series of reports issued by the State Department’s “International Information Program” in the mid-2000s that were used to debase U.S. journalists and authors critical of the George W. Bush-Dick Cheney neo-conservative wars of choice. Those diatribes, like the recent one masquerading as a “special report,” were written on the U.S. taxpayers’ dime and represent a squandering of money.

Diagrams in the recent State Department report depict various on-line publications and Internet sites as coronavirus microbes. The Mike Pompeo-led State Department, which has, along with the Trump White House, issued a daily dose of pabulum that can only be described as conspiracy theory-based rantings from congenital liars and reality-challenged fabulists and fanatical right-wingers, have no ethical or political grounds to proclaim virtuousness when it comes to spewing forth propaganda and outright lies.

One could easily issue a multi-volume report that deals with America’s propaganda factory both during the Cold War and in its aftermath. A major focus of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency from its very inception was the penetration of the news media, including the assignment of CIA agents to the newsrooms and editorial offices of America’s largest media operations, including The Washington Post, The New York Times, Hearst Newspaper, NBC News, ABC News, CBS News, and other major newspapers and broadcast networks. The CIA also thoroughly infiltrated America’s political polling companies, including Gallup, Harris, and Roper. Details concerning the CIA’s Operation MOCKINGBIRD and “The Mighty Wurlitzer” propaganda and news influencing operations can easily be found in the annals of America’s post-World War II history. These are activities that the U.S. corporate media, as well as the CIA and State Department would prefer to have global consumers of news ignore.

As far as the State Department’s “Propaganda Ecosystem” report and its earlier incarnation, the International Information Program (IIP), are concerned, they are remnants of U.S. Cold War-era disinformation shops. The IIP’s chief propagandist was a one-time colleague of disgraced Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff in formulating pro-apartheid propaganda for South Africa’s minority apartheid government in the 1980s – Project Babushka. In the 1980s, through a front organization in Washington established by South Africa’s military establishment – the International Freedom Foundation (IFF) – propaganda was regularly churned out to argue against sanctions imposed on the apartheid regime. Serving as chairman of the editorial advisory board for the IFF’s publication branch—a group that pumped out all sorts of propaganda claiming that the African National Congress and Nelson Mandela were Communists – was none other than the far-right Republican Senator from North Carolina, Jesse Helms. Today, Helms has been replaced by similar vile right-wing political creatures like Republican Senators Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who are always willing to carry the political tripe doled out by the Trump White House and Pompeo State Department.

Operating out of the State Department, the IIP launched vicious attacks on two American writers – this one included – as well as the Argentine newspaper Clarin, the Sunday Mirror (London), Quinto Dia (Venezuela), and other publications over their reports on the George W. Bush administration’s covert and war crime operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Southeast Asia, Iran, and Pakistan. The IIP even attacked The Los Angeles Times over its story on the kidnapping of poor children from poverty-ravished Latin American barrios for the purpose of organ harvesting. The IIP’s true masters in Israel were upset about the coverage because it involved Israeli human organ brokers.

https://youtu.be/_YvVziAkrP4

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/08/13/cia-sponsored-propaganda-has-been-around-for-75-years/

Taxpayers fund government nuclear research lab's 3-day mandatory 'reeducation camp' for white males to convince them of their racism: report

Say what?

The federal government reportedly hosted a celebrated nuclear research lab's three-day retreat specifically designed for white males to consider their innate notions of white supremacy and racism — and it was all allegedly on the taxpayer's dime.

Christopher Rufo, director at the Center on Wealth & Poverty at Discovery Institute, shared the concerning news via Twitter on Tuesday.

He wrote, "The federal government's premier nuclear research lab hosted a 3-day reeducation camp for 'white males,' with the goal of exposing their 'white privilege' and deconstructing 'white male culture.' Here are the leaked documents from the race-segregated, taxpayer-funded session."

Rufo went on to share screenshots of related retreat documents.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/taxpayers-apparently-fund-government-nuclear-research-labs-3-day-reeducation-camp-for-white-males-to-convince-them-of-their-racism

Joe Biden’s Handlers Swiftly Move in to Protect Biden, KICK OUT Reporters From Biden-Harris Coronavirus Briefing

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris held a Coronavirus roundtable briefing on Thursday.

It started off awkward.

Kamala Harris had to speak up for Joe because of his cognitive decline.

As soon as CNN began to ask questions, Biden’s handlers swiftly moved in to protect him and kicked out the reporters!

“Okay! Let’s go you guys! Come on! Let’s go!” Biden’s handler yelled at reporters as she kicked them out. “Come on, guys! Let’s go! Come on!”

Even CNN was bothered by Biden’s lack of transparency.

“We keep pressing the Biden campaign. There needs to be more questions from reporters.” CNN said.

Joe Biden rarely takes questions from reporters.

He only answers pre-approved questions from a handful of friendly, sycophantic reporters.

Biden and Harris on Wednesday didn’t take any questions from reporters after their first appearance together.

What are they afraid of?

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/08/watch-joe-bidens-handlers-swiftly-move-protect-biden-kick-reporters-biden-harris-coronavirus-briefing/

The Tides Foundation and BLM

The 501(c)(3) tax exempt Thousand Currents and ActBlue Charities are supporting Black Lives Matter (BLM) Global Network, which is campaigning openly against President Trump on its website and also in other venues. BLM leader Patrisse Cullors said openly in a CNN interview, "Trump not only needs to not be in office in November but he should resign now. Trump needs to be out of office. He is not fit for office." "…we are going to push for is a move to get Trump out… Our goal is to get Trump out." 501(c)(3) resources cannot be used legally to influence an election.

A response to the tweet with the Cullors interview says, "Thanks, sending this tweet to the IRS so they can see BLM's 501(c)(3) status should be removed." (BLM itself is not tax exempt, but Thousand Currents and ActBlue Charities are.) Another person posted a screen shot of IRS rules, while another added, "So they want tax exempt status, but they are going to pull this?" People can act on this information via Form 13909. California, where Thousand Currents and the Tides Foundation are domiciled, uses Form CT9, "Complaint to The California Attorney General Regarding a Charity or Charitable Solicitation."

The very end (last ten seconds) of this Cullors video says, “We get Trump out of office by leading with bold and creative action.” There is more than ample evidence that BLM is therefore using tax-exempt resources from Thousand Currents, ActBlue Charities and, as of July, the Tides Foundation, to influence the election. While Form 13909 and CT9 complaints have doubtlessly been filed, there is no guarantee that regulatory agencies will be able to act on them prior to mid-October, when people will start to send in absentee ballots. We therefore need to take this controversy viral so voters can form their own opinions in the meantime.

The Tides Foundation Steps In

The Capital Research Center reported, "Tides Center Takes Control of Black Lives Matter Global Network." I am not familiar with the Capital Research Center but they also posted a letter from Thousand Currents to the California Attorney General.

"We represent Thousand Currents. By this letter, we hereby provide written notice to the California Attorney General in accordance with California Corporations Code §5913 of a proposed transfer (the "Transfer") by Thousand Currents, a California nonprofit public benefit corporation, of all of the assets associated with Thousand Currents' fiscal sponsorship of the Black Lives Matter Global Network project (the "Assets"), constituting substantial assets of Thousand Currents, to The Tides Center, a California nonprofit public benefit corporation ("Tides"), which will serve as the new fiscal sponsor of the Black Lives Matter Global Network project."

I have no way of knowing whether the Tides Foundation was aware of BLM's political activity when it accepted the fiscal sponsorship. That is between the Tides Foundation, Thousand Currents, and Black Lives Matter Global Network. My only concern, and that of the public, involves the use of taxpayer money to campaign against President Trump while engaging in a partisan, and I stress "partisan," get-out-the-vote effort that is emphatically not directed to people in MAGA hats or centrist blue collar Democrats in trade union hats.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/08/the_tides_foundation_and_blm.html

Multiple Rockets Strike Balad Air Base in Iraq - Reports

Reports emerged on Thursday evening that multiple rockets had landed inside Balad Air Base in Salah ad-Din Governorate, Iraq.

Citing the National Iraqi News Agency, Al-Arabiya reported that three Katyusha rockets had landed inside the air base without causing appreciable damage.

https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/202008131080158416-multiple-rockets-strike-balad-air-base-in-iraq—reports/

ASSAD: US Needs Terrorists, Uses Sanctions to Support Them

DAMASCUS – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad stated the US needs terrorists on the ground in the region and slammed its recent draconian sanctions against Syria as a means of throwing support behind them.

“The US needs terrorists in the region, on top [of them] Daesh (also known as ISIL or ISIS),” he said in an address at the People’s Palace in the capital Damascus on Wednesday, according to the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA).

The Takfiri terrorist group, the most violent of the type ever known to the world, invaded the country and neighboring Iraq in 2014. The group that was defeated by Damascus and its allies three years later, has been found in receipt of US support across many reports and by many regional officials.

Assad noted “Washington lent force to the Caesar Act, [because] it wanted to express its support to the terrorists”, referring to the most recent bout of the US sanctions on Syria.

The much-condemned Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act came into effect on June 17, six months after it was signed into law by the US administration, targeting individuals and businesses anywhere in the world that operate either directly or indirectly within the sphere of Syria’s economy.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the bans “the beginning of what will be a sustained campaign of economic and political pressure to deny the Syrian government any form of revenue”.

“The measures are meant to prevent the government from securing a military victory”, US Ambassador to the UN Kelly Craft announced that month amid Syria’s ongoing battle against foreign-backed militancy and terrorism.

Assad, however, asserted that the war will not prevent the country from assuming its duties, and attributed all of the country’s gains against the foreign-backed terrorists so far to supporting the country’s army, SANA reported. Washington’s blockade, he advised, was to be confronted through boosting domestic production and self-reliance.

The president went on to point to an instance of Israeli support for Takfiri terrorists inside the country by citing a round of Israeli strikes against Syrian military positions in the eastern province of Deir Ez-Zor and the southwestern province of As-Suwayda on June 23. The Syrian Defense Ministry confirmed at the time that two Syrian army soldiers had lost their lives and four others sustained injuries during the strikes.

“The Israeli aggression on Deir Ez-Zor came to facilitate the movement of Daesh terrorists,” Assad added.

https://fort-russ.com/2020/08/assad-us-needs-terrorists-uses-sanctions-to-support-them/

Pompeo feels insulted when quizzed about US crackdown on protesters at home after he bashed ‘authoritarian regimes’ for same

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo took offense at the suggestion police abuse of protesters at home had anything in common with behavior he criticizes in “authoritarian regimes,” deeming the comparison “incomprehensible.”

Asked during an interview Wednesday with Radio Free Europe whether the heavy-handed US response to protests “on its own turf” had “harmed America’s image” abroad, the American diplomat lashed out at the reporter, denouncing the question as “insulting.”

“The difference between the US and these authoritarian regimes couldn’t be more clear,” Pompeo insisted, reminding his interviewer, “we have the rule of law, we have the freedom of press, and every one of [the protesters being arrested] gets due process.”

To somehow suggest that America’s moral authority is challenged by the amazing work that our police forces, our law enforcement do all across America, I frankly just find the question itself incomprehensible and insulting.

It’s hardly the first time Pompeo has been reminded of US inconsistency regarding its sanctimonious pronouncements about other countries’ crackdowns on “peaceful protesters” – or the press, for that matter.

A staunch defender of the right of some Hong Kong residents to express their discontent with Chinese rule by destroying their city, Pompeo was confronted with the disconnect between Washington’s indulgence of those “protesters” and its brutality toward some Black Lives Matter protesters back in June. Then, too, he brushed off the notion of a “moral equivalency between what takes place in these countries where they repress their people” and the US.

Despite Pompeo’s praise of their “amazing” work, US cops have killed more people in the few months following George Floyd’s death at police hands than Chinese cops have in the entirety of the Hong Kong protests. And while the US diplomat spent the past few months praising America’s press freedoms, the Trump administration was kicking dozens of Chinese journalists out of the US and severely curtailing the operations of Chinese media organizations.

Even the secretary of state’s invocation of religious freedom as that which sets the US apart rings a bit hollow given that American places of worship have been prohibited for months from holding services due to the Covid-19 pandemic, while Wal-Marts and military contractors have been able to operate uninterrupted.

Pompeo launched what US media called his “anti-China, anti-Russia tour” in the Czech Republic earlier this week. He promised to deliver “freedom” to Belarus, where a landslide election in favor of incumbent President Alexander Lukashenko has brought hundreds of thousands of protesters onto the streets declaring the vote to have been rigged.

https://www.rt.com/news/497947-pompeo-protests-belarus-crackdown-hypocrisy/

Mother of 7-year-old boy found encased in concrete in an animal crate gets maximum sentence

Horrific

A Colorado mother whose 7-year-old son was found encased in concrete inside an animal crate has been given the maximum sentence for her role in his death, KUSA-TV reported Wednesday.

Elisha Pankey, 45, was sentenced to 32 years behind bars and 5 years mandatory parole by District Court Judge A. Bruce Jones after she pleaded guilty to the felony charge of child abuse resulting in death.

The outlet noted that the boy's father, Leland Pankey, was sentenced to 72 years in prison earlier this year.

The couple's son, Caden, was found dead inside a storage unit in December 2018, but authorities say that he likely died months before that.

According to KMGH-TV, the Denver medical examiner's office reported that Caden had been severely malnourished and had cocaine metabolite and methamphetamine in his system at the time of his death. He also sustained several injuries to his head, trunk, and extremities. The autopsy added it's possible that he may have suffered from asphyxia, dehydration, or hyperthermia.

Elisha Pankey told investigators last year that her husband abused Caden while she was at work during the day.

The KMGH-TV report added:

Pankey said Caden died in July 2018 after his father kept him in a dog kennel, the affidavit said. A woman who had been in the Arapahoe County Jail with Elisha Pankey in December said Pankey told her that she believed her son suffocated in the dog kennel.

Leland Pankey kept Caden in the kennel overnight — with blankets on top of it — and the boy cried out that he was hot and thirsty, Elisha Pankey told her fellow inmate, according to the affidavit.

On the day Caden died, his mother and father bought Quikrete, trash bags and water, drove Caden's body to the storage unit on Evans Avenue, and mixed the concrete and poured it into the kennel, the affidavit said.

"The horrific death of Caden McWilliams shocked the conscience and was incomprehensible to the people of Denver," said District Attorney Beth McCann in a statement Tuesday.

"Now that Elisha Pankey has been sentenced, the legal proceedings in this case have concluded. Yet Caden's story is one that will always be in my heart, the hearts of our incredible prosecutors, victim advocates and investigators, as well as everyone who knew and loved Caden," she added.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/mother-son-encased-in-croncrete

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