Videos: US Air Defense System Downs Hostile Targets Over Baghdad Green Zone

A US air defense system has reportedly shot down several missiles near the US embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, early on Tuesday morning.

According to a correspondent with the Amman-based Al-Hadath news agency, at least 3 missiles were shot down by air defenses over the US embassy in the Green Zone, a fortified area of central Baghdad.

Video captured nearby shows air raid sirens roaring as the embassy's counter rocket, artillery and mortar (C-RAM) system, modified from the US Navy's Close-In Weapon System (CIWS), engages the incoming targets.

The US diplomatic hub in Iraq has come under increasing attack in 2020, after a US drone strike near Baghdad airport in January killed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a central leader in Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces, and Gen. Qasem Soleimani, the commander of Iran's elite Quds Force. The Green Zone was fortified during the US occupation of Iraq between 2003 and 2011, when US forces waged a counterinsurgency war against Iraqi insurgent forces.

Hours earlier on Monday, US convoys transporting military equipment in al-Diwaniyah and Babylon Governorate came under attack by several improvised explosive devices (IEDs), though they caused no casualties, according to a statement given to Al-Noor News by the Iraqi Prime Minister's Security Media Cell.

https://sputniknews.com/news/202009141080457304-videos-us-air-defense-system-downs-hostile-targets-over-baghdad-green-zone/

Exhaustive Pentagon Review Finds No Evidence For NYTimes' "Russian Bounties" Story

There's been huge efforts to validate The New York Times "bombshell" that wasn't — concerning its summer reporting that Russia secretly offered bounties to the Taliban to kill US troops in Afghanistan.

Two months ago the Pentagon vowed to get to the bottom of it, launching a review of all intelligence and sources which might provide corroboration. And now at the end of that investigation Gen. Frank McKenzie, commander of the U.S. Central Command overseeing the war in Afghanistan, says the detailed investigation found no corroboration of the story.

Recall that from the start the whole thing smelled like a dramatic and desperate last ditch effort to revive the failed Russiagate narrative but in a different form. Multiple intelligence agency heads voiced their immediate skepticism in the wake of the claims linked to unnamed intelligence sources in the CIA.

Gen. McKenzie, told NBC News: “It just has not been proved to a level of certainty that satisfies me,” adding that, “We continue to look for that evidence. I just haven’t seen it yet.”

The new NBC report, published Monday, finds further:

A U.S. military official familiar with the intelligence added that after a review of the intelligence around each attack against Americans going back several years, none have been tied to any Russian incentive payments.

The suggestion of a Russian bounty program began, another source directly familiar with the matter said, with a raid by CIA paramilitary officers that captured Taliban documents describing Russian payments.

So there it is: the Pentagon did a detailed examination of each and every attack on American troops going back several years and found nothing.

But it's yet another instance of the initial unchecked and unverified sensationalist claims from deep within the bowels of the Russia-obsessed mainstream going viral. But don't expect for a moment that this new Pentagon finding that essentially 'there simply no evidence!' will receive the same exposure and circulation.

But that's how propaganda is supposed to work after all.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/detailed-pentagon-review-finds-no-evidence-nyt-russia-bounties-story

Appeals court sides with Trump over drawdown of immigrant protections

A panel of judges of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a ruling Monday uphold the Trump administration's drawdown of temporary protected status (TPS) designations for a handful of countries, which allow more than 400,000 foreign nationals to live and work in the United States.

The panel lifted an injunction in a case filed by citizens of El Salvador, Nicaragua, Haiti and Sudan and their U.S. citizen children against the Trump administration's management of TPS.

The resolution could also affect TPS holders from Honduras and Nepal, who sued in a separate case that's tied to the main case.

The 2-1 decision showed a stark divide between the two conservative judges on the panel, Trump appointee Ryan Nelson and George W. Bush appointee Consuelo Callahan, and Obama appointee Morgan Christen.

The majority ruled the Trump administration was not subject to the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) in making TPS country designations, and denied that Trump's alleged racial animus played a part in TPS decisions

"While we do not condone the offensive and disparaging nature of the President’s remarks, we find it instructive that these statements occurred primarily in contexts removed from and unrelated to TPS policy or decisions," wrote Callahan in the majority opinion.

In her dissent, Christen agreed with plaintiffs both that administrative procedure was violated in changing TPS policy, and that Trump's personal racial animus played a part in the decisions, as illustrated by his cataloguing of Haiti as a "shithole country."

"Remarkably, the government urges us to interpret the many denigrating comments in the record as descriptions of inferior living conditions in foreign countries, rather than evidence of racial animus. But we cannot sweep aside the words that were actually used, and it would be worse for us to deny their meaning. Some of the statements expressly referred to people, not to places," wrote Christen.

"The President’s statements require no deciphering," she added.

Under Trump, the Department of Homeland Security has acted to eliminate TPS designations, which allow citizens of certain countries to live and work in the United States.

The program was renewed by Democratic and Republican administrations for more than two decades, essentially without changes.

The original lawsuit alleged that the Trump administration violated the APA and acted based on racial animus in eliminating TPS designations for those countries.

https://thehill.com/latino/516337-appeals-court-sides-with-trump-administration-over-drawdown-of-immigrant-protections

>>10649121

Talk is cheap Q especially when it's not backed up with action

Joe Biden Promises Fewer Fires, Floods, and Hurricanes if He Wins in November

On Monday, Democratic nominee Joe Biden condemned President Donald Trump as a “climate arsonist,” predicting that if the president wins reelection in November, America will witness more “hellish” events like fires in the West, flooding in the Midwest, and hurricanes on the East Coast. He effectively promised that if he wins, America will suffer from fewer fires, fewer floods, and fewer hurricanes.

Although Biden excoriated Trump for “ignoring the facts” and “denying reality,” he focused his remarks on the wildfires ravaging California, Oregon, and Washington State — fires exacerbated by bad forest management more than any sort of climate change.

“If you give a climate arsonist four more years in the White House, why would anyone be surprised if we have more of America ablaze? If you give a climate denier four more years in the White House, why would anyone be surprised when more of America is under water?” Biden asked.

“Donald Trump’s climate denial may not have caused these fires and record floods and record hurricanes, but if he gets a second term, these hellish events will continue to become more common, more devastating, and more deadly,” the Democrat insisted.

“Meanwhile, Donald Trump warns that integration is threatening our suburbs,” Biden said, referring to Trump’s attack on Biden’s plan to federalize local zoning (which poses a serious threat to local control of neighborhoods in the name of racial integration). “It’s ridiculous. But you know what is actually threatening our suburbs?”

“Wildfires are burning the suburbs in the West, floods are wiping out suburban neighborhoods in the Midwest, hurricanes are imperiling suburban life along our coast,” Biden said. “If we have four more years of Trump’s climate denial, how many suburbs will be burned from wildfires? How many suburban neighborhoods will have been flooded out? How many suburbs will have been blown away in superstorms?”

https://pjmedia.com/election/tyler-o-neil/2020/09/14/joe-biden-promises-fewer-fires-floods-and-hurricanes-if-he-wins-in-november-n930658

>>10649121

The Full List – Here Are The 269 Companies Who Are Supporting BLM & Antifa Riots

Antifa is an umbrella term to describe radical left-leaning militant groups that typically confront neo-Nazism and white supremacists at demonstrations.

People associated with Antifa have been present for significant demonstrations and counter-demonstrations over the last three years, sometimes involving brawls and property damage.

Trump and members of his administration have singled out Antifa as being responsible for the violence at protests triggered by the killing of Floyd.

The main question remains where did Antifa and BLM get their funds from?

Little is known about who funds Antifa activists, or how the groups get their resources. Antifa is not a single organization, and therefore, financial details, if any exist, are murky.

But after all many companies decided to step up and publicly support the riots that BLM and Antifa are organizing through America.

The full list of 269 companies is out!

As Medium reported you can use this list as a guide in what businesses you wish to support. Please also consider using this list the next time someone makes the argument that we are living in a white supremacist country with institutionalized racism. If major companies consider supporting violent rioters and looters good for their bottom line, your cause isn’t oppressed.

The full list is below and it includes at least one statement per company:

23andme: https://archive.is/Mjbwk

72andSunny: https://archive.is/B1x7Y

AbbVie: https://archive.is/Q2Vqj

Abbey Road Studios: https://archive.is/AJlrg

The Academy (the Oscars): https://archive.is/cNRYf

Activision Blizzard: https://archive.is/qfRJ1

Adidas: https://archive.is/ezQ22

Airbnb: https://archive.is/GmMjl

Alaska Airlines: https://archive.is/wnICf

Amazon: https://archive.is/lBR4u

AMD: https://archive.is/i3krt

American Airlines: https://archive.is/XBwhw

American Express: https://archive.is/kzWXa

American Apparel: https://archive.is/ETfYw

Apple Music: https://archive.is/cj97E

Ancestry: https://archive.is/5Q9JW

https://conservativeus.com/the-full-list-here-are-the-269-companies-who-are-supporting-blm-antifa-riots/

Homo Homini Lupus Est: Did Navalny’s Allies Poison The Oppositionist For Flying Too Close To The Sun?

On September 7th, Russian media Pravda.ru suggested that a potential version of why Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny could have been poisoned.

It relates to a conflict a colleague of his – Vladimir Ashurkov and other foreign partners. And the probable poisoner is a bookseller from London, a friend of Evgeny Chichvarkin and Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a previously unknown girl by the name of Maria Pevchikh.

First of all, however, what was Navalny doing in Siberia?

Alexey Navalny arrived in Novosibirsk on August 15th.

During the trip, he was accompanied by employees of FBK (Navalny’s NGO “Anti-Corruption Foundation”), including: Georgy Alburov, Pavel Zelensky, Ilya Pakhomov, Vladlen Los, press secretary Kira Yarmysh and unknown to anyone Maria Pevchikh.

According to the schedule, Navalny held a meeting with volunteers and recorded materials for a new investigation ahead of the 13 September elections, and later went to Tomsk. It is this part of the journey that holds the key to solving the mysterious poisoning.

In Tomsk, Navalny collected information and talked about the work of United Russia in the housing sector.

Special attention was paid to Tomskvodokanal LLC. The company maintains water supply networks throughout the city after it won the competition against the Moscow-based Rosvodokanal (RVK).

At the same time, RVK is the country’s largest private operator of centralized water supply and sanitation systems, which Ashurkov supports from time to time. All this became known from the video posted by FBK on September 3rd.

The interests of Rosvodokanal extend much further than Siberia. In particular, RVK is fighting for water supply in Ryazan, trying to get a 49-year contract.

Nevertheless, the defeat in Tomsk significantly hit the company’s plans, so the reported media ally of Ashurkov, Alexey Navalny, was thrown into the case.

Elections and concern for the housing and communal services sector in Siberia have become a good cover for the struggle for the market.

But why exactly the trip to Tomsk became such an issue and what role Ashurkov and the owner of shops from London played in the poisoning of Navalny, becomes clear if the history of their interaction with Navalny is traced.

This traces back to 2010, back then Navalny didn’t have his own “brand” yet and ran a political blog on the LiveJournal platform, which finally attracted the long-awaited attention of a potential investor. He was contacted by Vladimir Ashurkov, who from September 2006 to February 2012 was director of asset management and control at CTF Holdings Ltd, the managing company of the Alfa Group consortium.

Later, it was Ashurkov who brought Navalny to the public, providing contact with foreign financier William Browder and Evgeny Chichvarkin, who settled in London. This made it possible to build a strategy for creating their own brand and gaining influence on the social and political agenda. Big bets were placed on Navalny: he was supposed to create a broad democratic opposition movement.

https://southfront.org/homo-homini-lupus-est-did-navalnys-allies-poison-the-oppositionist-for-flying-too-close-to-the-sun/

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>>10649360

Now let’s put all the facts together. For the first time in ten years, invulnerable to the authorities and law enforcement officers, Navalny goes into a conflict with his allies and immediately finds himself in a coma.

At the same time, not somewhere in the center of Moscow, but on a business trip, where Ashurkov sent him to investigate and, moreover, sent a girl to him who works closely with him on political projects.

Then Germany allegedly discovered Novichok traces, and immediately accused Russia.

Meanwhile, Zimin, who paid for the flight, was dismissed as a suspect because he is a ‘generous philanthropist’, while Ashurkov and his accomplices remained in the shadows, controlling the situation in Germany through Maria, successfully getting rid of the powder keg, which was ready to explode at any moment.

As a result: Navalny is at death’s door. Russia is blamed for the entire fiasco.

But the tangle of strange coincidences is slowly beginning to unwind. And now the main thing for those who really wanted to remove Navalny was to have time to fan the hype so that everyone was looking for people with Novichok ampoules, and not those who really benefited from the blogger’s death.

Another side that gained profit from the ‘poisoning’ of Navalny is the part of the Euro-Atlantic establishment that stands against the closer Russian-German cooperation (for example Nord Stream 2 project) and the stabilization of the Western-Russian relations in general. In this case, the entire poisoning story may have been staged by British MI6 and affiliated structures and agents.

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