Infantry Soldier Dies in Arizona While on Border Mission

A 7th Infantry Division soldier serving on the U.S. southern border was found dead in Arizona.

The soldier's identity will not be released until next of kin are notified, but the body was found June 1 near Nogales, about 65 miles south of Tucson, according to Maj. Mark Lazane, a spokesman for U.S. Northern Command, which oversees the mission to support U.S. Customs and Border Protection along the southern border.

The death is under investigation, but "no foul play is suspected," Lazane said.

The case is also being investigated by the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Department and the FBI because the federal land where the soldier was found falls under their jurisdictions, he added.

Soldiers from the 7th ID at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, are among the more than 2,000 U.S. military personnel participating in the mission to support border patrol agents in an attempt to prevent migrants from crossing over illegally.

In April, two soldiers patrolling along the southern border in Texas were stopped and questioned by Mexican troops. The handful of Mexican troops pointed their rifles at the U.S. soldiers, believing that they had crossed the Mexico border. However, the American troops were north of the border, and the Mexican troops left.

The mission, which mostly involves logistics, aviation and surveillance support, is authorized to continue through September.

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/06/03/infantry-soldier-dies-arizona-while-border-mission.html

French weapons sales to Saudi jumped 50 percent last year

France’s weapons sales to Saudi Arabia rose 50 pct in 2018 despite the government calling for an end to the “dirty war” in Yemen, figures released on Tuesday showed, Reuters reports.

An annual government report showed that total arms sales rose 30 percent to 9.1 billion euros in 2018, driven by a sharp increase in sales to European allies.

France sold about 1 billion euros worth of arms to Saudi Arabia, with the main item being patrol boats. A partial naval blockade of ports controlled by the Houthi movement is one of the tactics used by a Saudi-led coalition in Yemen that has been criticised by campaigners for worsening a humanitarian crisis.

“With such transfers revealing a geopolitical alliance with these regimes and total violation of international commitments, one can only expect worsening conflicts in Yemen or the Horn of Africa, where the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are beginning to redeploy in partnership with France,” said Tony Fortin at the Paris-based Observatory for Armamanent.

The French government says its arms sales are governed by strict procedures that are in line with international treaties.

“Maintaining economic relations with these countries means keeping a presence in key regions for our security interests and our energy supplies. It is also about fighting terrorism and protecting our nationals on the ground,” Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly said in a preface to the report.

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190604-french-weapons-sales-to-saudi-jumped-50-percent-last-year/

Tiananmen Square - Do The Media Say What Really Happened?

Since 1989 the western media write anniversary pieces on the June 4 removal of protesters from the Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The view seems always quite one sided and stereotyped with a brutal military that suppresses peaceful protests.

That is not the full picture. Thanks to Wikileaks we have a few situation reports from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing at that time. They describe a different scene than the one western media paint to this day.

Ten thousands of people, mostly students, occupied the square for six weeks. They protested over the political and personal consequences of Mao's chaotic Cultural Revolution which had upset the whole country. The liberalization and changeover to a more capitalist model under Deng Xiopings had yet to show its success and was fought by the hardliners in the Communist Party.

The more liberal side of the government negotiated with the protesters but no agreement was found. The hardliners in the party pressed for the protest removal. When the government finally tried to move the protesters out of the very prominent square they resisted.

On June 3 the government moved troops towards the city center of Beijing. But the military convoys were held up. Some came under attack. The U.S. embassy reported that soldiers were taken as hostages:

TENSION MOUNTED THROUGHOUT THE AFTERNOON AS BEIJING RESIDENTS VENTED THEIR ANGER BY HARASSING MILITARY AND POLICE PERSONNEL AND ATTACKING THEIR VEHICLES. STUDENTS DISPLAYED CAPTURED WEAPONS, MILITARY EQUIPMENT AND VEHICLES, INCLUDING IN FRONT OF THE ZHONGNANHAI LEADERSHIP COMPOUND. AN EFFORT TO FREE STILL CAPTIVE MILITARY PERSONNEL OR TO CLEAR THE SOUTHERN ENTRANCE TO ZHONGNANHAI MAY HAVE BEEN THE CAUSE OF A LIMITED TEAR GAS ATTACK IN THAT AREA AROUND 1500 HOURS LOCAL.

Another cable from June 3 notes:

THE TROOPS HAVE OBVIOUSLY NOT YET BEEN GIVEN ORDERS PERMITTING THEM TO USE FORCE. THEIR LARGE NUMBERS, THE FACT THAT THEY ARE HELMETED, AND THE AUTOMATIC WEAPONS THEY ARE CARRYING SUGGEST THAT THE FORCE OPTION IS REAL.

In the early morning of June 4 the military finally reached the city center and tried to push the crowd out of Tiananmen Square:

STUDENTS SET DEBRIS THROWN ATOP AT LEAST ONE ARMORED PERSONNEL CARRIER AND LIT THE DEBRIS, ACCORDING TO EMBOFF NEAR THE SCENE. ABC REPORTED THAT ONE OTHER ARMORED PERSONNEL CARRIER IS AFLAME. AT LEAST ONE BUS WAS ALSO BURNING, ACCORDING TO ABC NEWS REPORTERS ON THE SQUARE AT 0120. THE EYEWITNESSES REPORTED THAT TROOPS AND RIOT POLICE WERE ON THE SOUTHERN END OF THE SQUARE AND TROOPS WERE MOVING TO THE SQUARE FROM THE WESTERN SIDE OF THE CITY.

The soldiers responded as all soldiers do when they see that their comrades get barbecued:

THERE HAS REPORTEDLY BEEN INDISCRIMINATE GUNFIRE BY THE TROOPS ON THE SQUARE. WE CAN HEAR GUNFIRE FROM THE EMBASSY AND JIANGUOMENWAI DIPLOMATIC COMPOUND. EYEWITNESSES REPORT TEAR GAS ON THE SQUARE, FLARES BEING FIRED ABOVE IT, AND TRACERS BEING FIRED OVER IT.

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/06/tiananmen-square-do-the-media-say-what-really-happened.html#more

Israel Continues Its Interference in the Syrian Crisis

On June 2, the Syrian Arab News Agency reported on Israeli aggression on the T4 airbase, located in the eastern countryside of Homs province. It’s recognized that the Syrian Air Defense System managed to destroy two missiles. The remaining rockets hit targets on the territory of the base, resulting in one death, two injured servicemen, and damage to an arms depot and other equipment.

For the past several days the Israeli aviation repeatedly attacked the Syrian territory. Tel-Aviv struck artillery and two anti-missile batteries not far from Damascus, on the night of June 2. Three Syrian soldiers were killed, and seven others were severely wounded.

The Israeli forces hasted to declare that the strikes were retaliation for the launches of the Syrian missiles towards Mount Hermon in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said he had ordered the strike.

“We won’t tolerate fire at our territory and will respond forcefully to any aggression against us,” he said.

The Prime Minister also held a meeting on security issues after the Syrian attacks on the Golan Heights.

However, the actual reasons for the Israeli attacks are entirely different. Currently, the country is preparing for the parliamentary elections, so Netanyahu needs good public relations to demonstrate his determination. He does his best to score points in the domestic arena, including the acts of aggression against the sovereign state. Thus, he proves the intention not to retrieve the occupied territories to Damascus. Notably, in the lead-up to the Knesset elections in April, the same provocation was seen.

Since the beginning of 2019, the Israeli side more than ten times has carried out massive strikes on various objects in Syria that allegedly belonged to Iran.

Apart from open aggression against Damascus Tel-Aviv often use another method of influence, namely accusing the Syrian government of preparing chemical weapons provocation. The Israeli Foreign Ministry has repeatedly stated without a shred of evidence that Bashar Assad possesses vast reserves of chemical weapons, and even is capable of producing a new shipment of arms, violating the international rules and restrictions.

Last month it became known that the Israeli government had been responsible for staging several White Helmets’ videos on the alleged use of the chemical weapons against civilians in Idlib province by the Syrian Arab Army.

It’s reported that the Israeli personnel has written scripts, trained the representatives of Civil Defense in the territory of the Golan Heights, then transferred them to Idlib province, and also looked for volunteers for staging fake videos. Later the footages were submitted to the mainstream media for further replication.

The actions of Israel in Syria are illegal. Tel-Aviv is not interested in the early resolution of the Syrian crisis. Hiding behind the fight against the presence of Iranian forces, supporting the White Helmets, Israel continues to violate the sovereignty of Syria, as well as provisions of UN Security Council resolutions. The UN is an international organization designed to watch the peacekeeping process all around the World. When is it going to pay precious attention at the Israeli aggression towards Syria?

https://www.globalresearch.ca/israel-continues-interference-syrian-crisis/5679527

Saudis Use Israeli Spyware to Target Dissidents

Eli Lake, the pro-Israel Bloomberg columnist, thinks selling Israeli-made Pegasus spyware to Saudi Arabia not a good idea. Lake recently met Palestinian blogger Ayad al-Baghdadi (no relation to the ISIS leader of the same name) who has reportedly been targeted by the Saudi regime.

Now living in exile in Norway, al Baghdadi still has to fear the long arm of Saudi intelligence as empowered by Israeli technology.

Pegasus and similar hacking programs are now able to break into a phone without requiring the user to even click a link. In some cases, a bogus WhatsApp call is enough to infect the phone and make it a powerful tracking device. That makes it particularly suited to monitor Arab dissidents like Al-Baghdadi, who rely on the encrypted messaging service to make contact with networks of activists across the Middle East.

Al-Baghdadi has reason to worry after the assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, apparently by a team of Saudi intelligence operatives.

The NSO Group, the company that created Pegasus, expresses the hope that their spyware won’t be used for illicit purposes, but the sentiment is close to meaningless. Lake talked to Danny O’Brien, the director of strategy at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

“If you sell a piece of equipment like this to a place like Saudi Arabia,” he told me, “it’s going to be used to target journalists, human rights activists and lawyers.”

Israeli officials used Pegasus to target Amnesty International investigators. Mexican drug cartels used Pegasus to surveil reporters asking too many questions. Not surprisingly, spyware is a growth industry.

https://deepstateblog.org/2019/06/03/saudis-use-israeli-spyware-to-target-dissidents/

Putin-Erdogan Agreement Falls Apart as Russians Realize That Arming the Turks is Insane

Just three and a half years ago, on January 20, 2016, the Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan had good reason to congratulate himself. He had successfully arranged a scheme of payoffs for two men who were intimate advisors to the presidents of the United States and Russia — at the very same time. They were Lieutenant-General Michael Flynn, the National Security Advisor to Donald Trump; and Dmitry Peskov, the spokesman for Vladimir Putin.

No one had pulled off the simultaneity before; but it was short-lived. Flynn was forced to resign after just 24 days in office and charged with lying to the FBI. He subsequently pleaded guilty and is now facing a prison sentence. Investigation of his lucratively paid lobbying for Turkey is still under way.

Peskov remains in his Kremlin office, as he has for the past seven years. However, the Defence Ministry led by Sergei Shoigu and the General Staff headed by General Valery Gerasimov, have rebelled against Peskov’s line with Putin, ending for all practical purposes the terms of agreement Putin and Erdogan signed last September for a Turkish protectorate of Idlib governorate in northwestern Syria.

History is repeating itself. A newly published book, The Thirty-Year Genocide, Turkey’s Destruction of its Christian Minorities, 1894-1924, is the most detailed record to date of the policies of the Ottoman sultanate and its successor, the nationalist government led by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, to destroy the entire populations living on Turkish territory of Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians. The 650-page work explains region by region, year by year, what the Turkish methods of ethnic cleansing were, and why. “The Armenians were the main victims of Turkish atrocity,” the authors, Benny Morris and Dror Ze’evi, write, “in terms of the numbers slaughtered in 1894-96 and 1915-1916. Certainly, the Turks appear to have hated them the most.”

More

https://russia-insider.com/en/politics/putin-erdogan-agreement-falls-apart-russians-realize-arming-turks-insane/ri27186

Jewish News Outlet Exposes Jewish Role in LGBT “Civil Rights” Movement

The people groups like the Anti-Defamation League and Southern Poverty Law Center call “anti-Semites” are often accused of promoting “conspiracy theories”, “tropes”, and “stereotypes” about Jews and their dominate role in promoting and leading various subversive social and cultural movements, including the promotion and normalization of pornography, tattoos, transgenderism, homosexuality and sexual deviancy more generally, among other movements.

In reality, “anti-Semites” are just pointing out easily observable and provable facts about Jews and their subversive, anti-Christian, anti-Western cultural inclinations.

Indeed, radical Jewish activists, who are deeply influenced by their Jewish background and ethnicity as Dr. Kevin MacDonald so ably demonstrated in his masterpiece Culture of Critique, have been leading champions of all of the degenerate and entirely subversive movements and cultural norms mentioned above. Incredibly, Jewish news outlets and activist organizations often openly and proudly report on these facts, as The Times of Israel recently did in regard to the Jewish role in the so-called “civil rights” struggle for the LGBT community.

http://therealistreport.com/jewish-news-outlet-exposes-jewish-role-in-lgbt-civil-rights-movement/

Justice Department Watchdog Started 10 New Investigations of the FBI Since Last Year

Several probes appear to be linked to bureau's actions before 2016 presidential election

The government watchdog tasked with oversight of the FBI initiated 10 new investigations of the bureau since last year, according to a review of archived versions of the page tracking the agency’s ongoing work.

The Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General (OIG) is best known for its ongoing investigation of the FBI’s use of a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to spy on Trump-campaign associate Carter Page. The inspector general has nearly completed that investigation and is expected to release a report in the coming weeks.

But the FISA inquiry is one of at least six inspector general inquiries which appear to be directly related to FBI and DOJ activities targeting the Trump campaign before the 2016 presidential election. All six of the investigations were made public on the OIG’s Ongoing Work page between January 2018 and April this year.

In three separate investigations, the inspector general is reviewing the FBI’s use of undercover operations, confidential human sources, and covert contracts. Evidence made public since the 2016 election suggests that all three of these bureau components were involved in the counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign.

The inspector general is also scrutinizing how the FBI handles misconduct investigations of its employees. This probe may include the many FBI officials who have either been fired from or left the bureau since 2017. The fired FBI officials include Director James Comey, Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok.

The watchdog inquiry into the FBI confidential human sources program may in part focus on former British spy Christopher Steele. The bureau hired Steele in 2016 and paid him to provide raw intelligence from his notorious anti-Trump dossier. The bureau fired Steele after learning that he provided the same intelligence to news media in violation of the rules for confidential human sources.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/justice-department-watchdog-started-10-new-investigations-of-the-fbi-since-last-year_2950650.html

Amnesty For Dreamers ‘Would Incentivize and Reward Illegal Immigration’

The Trump Administration said Monday it opposes House Resolution 6, the American Dream and Promise Act of 2019, according to an Office of Management and Budget statement. The bill “cancels and prohibits removal proceedings against certain aliens and provides such aliens with a path toward permanent resident status.” Notably, the protections include amnesty for DACA recipients or “Dreamers.” On Monday, the Supreme Court denied the Trump administration’s latest request to end the obama-era program.

The OMB says President Trump will veto the bill in its current form saying it “would only exacerbate illegal immigration.” Specifically, the OMB claims the bill “would incentivize and reward illegal immigration while ignoring and undermining key Administration immigration objectives and policy priorities, such as protecting our communities and defending our borders.”

The bill passed the House Committee on Rules Monday evening and awaits a full House vote later today.

https://saraacarter.com/amnesty-for-dreamers-would-incentivize-and-reward-illegal-immigration/

Leaked FDA Study: Toxic “Forever Chemicals” Contaminate Many Foods

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has quietly revealed some troubling information about a class of toxic chemicals that the agency found in significant levels in our food supply.

At a recent scientific conference, the FDA shared the findings of its first broad testing of food for a worrisome class of nonstick, stain-resistant industrial compounds called per- and polyfluoroalykyl substances, or PFAS.

The FDA has not made its findings public yet, but agency researchers discussed the results at a conference held by the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry last week in Finland. The Environmental Defense Fund and the Environmental Working Group obtained the FDA presentation and provided it to The Associated Press.

Substantial levels of PFAS were found in grocery store meats and seafood and in off-the-shelf chocolate cake:

The levels in nearly half of the meat and fish tested were two or more times over the only currently existing federal advisory level for any kind of the widely used manmade compounds, which are called per- and polyfluoroalykyl substances, or PFAS.

The level in the chocolate cake was higher: more than 250 times the only federal guidelines, which are for some PFAS in drinking water. (source)

PFAS are found everywhere and are nearly impossible to fully avoid.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a group of man-made chemicals that includes PFOA, PFOS, GenX, and many other chemicals. PFAS have been manufactured and used in a wide variety of industries around the world, including in the United States since the 1940s. PFOA and PFOS have been the most extensively produced and studied of these chemicals.

As of 2015, neither PFOA or PFOS chemicals are manufactured or used in the U.S., due to health and environmental concerns, according to the rules of the EPA’s stewardship program for the substances, signed in 2006. But both chemicals persist in the environment because they don’t degrade.

https://www.naturalblaze.com/2019/06/leaked-fda-study-toxic-forever-chemicals-contaminate-many-foods.html

Broward County Deputy Who Failed to Confront Parkland Shooter Arrested For Child Neglect

Former Broward County Deputy Scot Peterson was arrested and charged on Tuesday for child neglect after an investigation into law enforcement’s response to the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that occurred last February.

Scot Peterson stood by and did nothing to stop the mass shooter who ended up killing 17 students and teachers.

Peterson, 56, was arrested on 11 charges related to the Parkland shooting.

WCTV Eyewitness News reported:

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement has arrested former Broward County Sheriff’s Deputy Scot Peterson on charges of child neglect and culpable negligence as a result of a 15-month investigation into the actions of law enforcement following the school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

“The FDLE investigation shows former Deputy Peterson did absolutely nothing to mitigate the MSD shooting that killed 17 children, teachers and staff and injured 17 others,” said FDLE Commissioner Rick Swearingen. “There can be no excuse for his complete inaction and no question that his inaction cost lives.”

Peterson was the school resource officer for MSD during the shooting. Officials say the investigation revealed Peterson refused to investigate the source of gunshots, retreated during the active shooting while victims were being shot and directed other law enforcement who arrived on scene to remain 500 feet away from the building.

Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis recently suspended Broward Country Sheriff Scott Israel over his department’s abysmal response to the Parkland shooter.

“There was no wrongdoing on my part. I served the county honorably,” Scott Israel defiantly said in a press conference just after DeSantis made the announcement in January.

Law enforcement at every level failed to stop the massacre. The Parkland shooter, Nikolas Cruz, was even on the FBI’s radar several months before he went on a shooting spree at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/06/just-in-broward-county-deputy-who-failed-to-confront-parkland-shooter-arrested-for-child-neglect/

Homelessness jumps 12% in L.A. County and 16% in the city; officials ‘stunned’

In a hard reality check for Los Angeles County’s multibillion-dollar hope of ending homelessness, officials reported Tuesday that the number of people living on the streets, in vehicles and in shelters increased by about 12% over last year.

The annual point-in-time count, delivered to the Board of Supervisors, put the number of homeless people just shy of 59,000 countywide. Within the city of Los Angeles, the number soared to more than 36,000, a 16% increase.

And as in past years, most — about 75% — were living outside, fueling speculation of a growing public health crisis of rats and trash near homeless encampments downtown.

The findings in L.A. follow a string of similarly dire point-in-time counts from across California, as government officials struggle to respond more forcefully to the state’s abject lack of affordable housing. The shortage is driving up rental prices, forcing people onto the streets at a rapid pace.

“At this point of unprecedented wealth in the county of Los Angeles, we are equally confronted with unprecedented poverty manifesting itself in the form of homelessness,” Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas told The Times.

In a statement, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti called the increase in homelessness “heartbreaking,” but said he was he hopeful about the city’s recent work to alleviate the crisis, including an investment of $42 million to respond to public health concerns and intensify street-based services.

“This work has never been for the faint of heart, and we cannot let a set of difficult numbers discourage us, or weaken our resolve,” Garcetti said in a statement to The Times.

But among others in L.A. County, the point-in-time count crushed the optimism from last year’s tally, when a modest decrease in homelessness was recorded. The uptick left officials struggling to understand how the tide could have turned so badly in a year when millions of dollars had been spent rolling out new initiatives to move people into shelters and permanent housing.

RELATED: There’s a trash and rodent nightmare in downtown L.A., with plenty of blame to go around

Funds from the 2017 Measure H sales tax reached full strength last year and expanded homeless services got more people off the street than ever before — a little more than 20,000 into some form of housing, according to the county. Yet the number of people becoming homeless outpaced those historic gains.

“Last year's count, we felt we were trimming in a way that would suggest we were getting our arms around this,” Ridley-Thomas said. “And yet this year we are pretty well stunned by this data.”

Tuesday’s supervisors meeting was packed with homeless and housing advocates, some of whom yelled, “Shame on you!” and “That’s an undercount!” when county officials showed the point-in-time count on a large screen.

Board chair Janice Hahn called the figures “very disappointing, very troubling, very sad” — both to county officials working on the issue and to residents seeking tangible results.

Bracing for what appeared to be difficult years ahead, L.A. city and county officials have backed off their one-time mantra of “ending homelessness,” and are fully linking the crisis on the region’s streets to a housing crisis that is beyond their control.

https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-homeless-count-encampment-affordable-housing-2019-results-20190604-story.html

But keep giving money to Israel and every other country US Gov

Trump floats new emergency declaration to impose Mexico tariffs

Senate Republicans said Tuesday that the administration has floated declaring a second national emergency to implement new tariffs on Mexico, a move that would set up a high-stakes clash with Congress.

GOP senators emerged from a closed-door lunch with White House deputy counsel Pat Philbin and Justice Department officials saying the issue was discussed during the meeting, but that the administration indicated it had not yet reached a resolution on whether or not it would need to take the controversial step.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) told reporters that Republican senators pressed administration officials during the lunch on whether or not there would need to be a new national emergency declaration.

"I think that was somewhat up in the air. … I think that's a distinct possibility but I don't think there's any definitive answer," Johnson added.

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said that the administration is still "working through" if Trump would need to declare a national emergency in order to move forward with the tariffs.

"The way they put it was, they’re still working through all the details on it and they have not decided what their approach is going to be yet with regard to that. That was my understanding," Rounds said.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said that a new national emergency declaration was discussed during the lunch, while Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) told reporters that the White House indicated it would need a new declaration.

Trump says he will impose the tariffs on Mexico under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act as soon as next week unless Mexico cracks down on the flow of migrants from Central America across the southern border.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/446912-trump-floats-new-emergency-declaration-to-impose-mexico-tariffs