Lightning Strike Injures 2 National Guard Members in DC

Two members of the South Carolina National Guard supporting law enforcement in Washington, D.C., were injured by lightning early Friday morning as storms swept across the region.

The two "were in close proximity of a lightning strike while on duty in D.C." to support federal law enforcement, the National Guard Bureau said in a statement. Protests have been a daily occurrence in the District since the May 25 death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, at the hands of Minneapolis police.

The two Guard members were taken to a local hospital, where they were listed in stable condition, the Bureau said, adding that they will remain there for at least 24 hours for observation.

Officials did not have immediate information on exactly where and when the two Guard members were injured, or indicate whether they were Army or Air National Guard. Their identities have not been disclosed.

However, the District's Fire Department, in a Twitter post, said that the two were injured shortly after midnight while on duty in the vicinity of Lafayette Square across from the White House. It described their injuries as "non-life threatening."

The two are part of a still-building force of National Guard troops, whose armored vehicles have been an increasing presence on the streets.

More than 1,600 members of the District of Columbia National Guard have been activated to assist in controlling the protests and guarding historic sites and landmarks.

The D.C. units have been bolstered by more than 4,000 National Guard members from other states, including South Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Maryland, Missouri, Mississippi, New Jersey, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah and Idaho, the Bureau said.

More than 1,600 active-duty troops also have been posted to bases on the outskirts of the District to be on call if needed.

On Thursday, the Defense Department said that several hundred members of the Army's famed 82nd Airborne Division who had been sent to bases outside D.C. would return to Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/06/05/lightning-strike-injures-2-national-guard-members-dc.html

The Six-Day War: The Myth of an Israeli David Versus an Arab Goliath

The son of an Israeli General, Miko Peled reflects on the nefarious intent behind what was presented to the world as the heroic triumph of an outmatched Israel vs its aggressive Arab neighbors

June 2, 1967, was a tense day at the Israeli army headquarters in Tel Aviv. For weeks, IDF generals had been pushing the government to initiate a war and the atmosphere was tense. Israel’s Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, who also acted as minister of defense, came to see the generals at the IDF command center. All the generals who made up the IDF high command were present. This meeting became known as the showdown. Years later, some would even accuse the army of an attempted coup d’etat.

A fraud

One of the biggest frauds perpetrated by the Israeli military is the claim that the Six-Day War was initiated by Israel due to an existential threat. The reality though is that in 1967, the Israeli army faced an elected civilian government that was less excited about the prospects of war than the generals were. So, as is clearly seen in the minutes of meetings between IDF generals from those days, minutes that are available in the IDF archives, seeing that the government was hesitant, the military decided to sow fear, and they did it very effectively, claiming that the Jewish state faced an existential threat and that the army must act decisively.

The deception worked and over the following three days, Eshkol was forced to yield. He resigned his post as minister of defense and gave it to retired army Chief of Staff, General Moshe Dayan. The IDF generals got the war they so badly wanted. They initiated a massive assault against Egypt, reducing the Egyptian military to ashes and taking over the entire Sinai Peninsula. As a result, the IDF was able to capture the largest stockpile of Russian made military hardware outside of the Soviet Union.

Israel would make good use of the knowledge that came with this loot.

It also captured thousands of Egyptian soldiers who were stationed in the Sinai Desert and caught unprepared. According to the testimonies of Israeli officers, at least two thousand Egyptian prisoners of war were executed right there and buried in the dunes.

But the generals were not satisfied. They seized the opportunity that they were given and decided to make the most of it. Without any discussion, much less approval from the elected civilian government, the army proceeded to take the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and something the generals had been chomping at the bit to take for many years, the fertile water-rich Syrian Golan Heights, tripling the size of the state of Israel. They had finally completed the conquest of Palestine and pushed the eastern border of Israel all the way to the Jordan River.

The military moved like a bulldozer, destroying cities and towns both in the Golan Heights and in the West Bank. As a result, countless Syrians who lived in the Golan Heights, and hundreds of thousands of Palestinian residents of the West Bank and East Jerusalem became refugees.

The myth of the threat

As the generals themselves stated during their meetings prior to the war, the entire affair was about seizing an opportunity to start a war they knew they would win, and not about averting some existential threat. In fact, the word “opportunity” is mentioned several times in their discussions and the word “threat” is not mentioned at all.

One general who was present in those meetings was my father, General Matti Peled. According to accounts by some of his comrades who were there, accounts that I later verified by reading the minutes of the meetings, he stood up and told Prime Minister Eshkol that the Egyptian army was an ill-prepared army and therefore Israel must seize the opportunity to destroy it. He stated that the Egyptian army, which at the time was recovering from a war in Yemen, would need at least a year and a half to two years before it was prepared for war. The other generals concurred. My father then went further and said that the IDF command “demands to know why this army that has never lost a battle” is being held back. He didn’t say one word about a threat.

https://www.mintpressnews.com/six-day-war-myth-of-an-israel-david-versus-arab-goliath/268270/

This Makes No Sense: In Month When US Was Shut Down, BLS Estimated 345K New Businesses Formed

As people dig deeper in the entrails of the most bizarre – and most politicized – jobs report in history, they keep finding more and more irregularities.

Consider this: according to the BLS report, which was based on a survey week from May 10th through May 16th when virtually all of the US was still shut down, the government decided that a record number of new businesses were formed. According to the BLS’s Birth/Death model which is used to adjust the raw payrolls data for estimated new business openings and closures, a record 345K new jobs were created due to new businesses opening in a month when – we will repeat again – the US was largely shut down! This also means that over 60% of the business closures from the month of April (April Birth/Death -553K) were somehow undone in a month when the US was still mostly closed down.

Needless to say, this was entirely a statistical adjustment in the “eye of the beholder”, one which even the BLS felt ashamed of, because in a little noticed addendum to the jobs report, the BLS announced it had made “changes” to its net birth-death model due to the coronavirus pandemic, changes which apparently included the modeling of massive business reopenings when millions of small businesses were shutting down. From the BLS:

These two methodological changes are the following:

A portion of both reported zeros and returns from zero in the current month from the sample were used in estimation to better account for the fact that business births and deaths will not offset.

Current sample growth rates were included in the net birth-death forecasting model to better account for the changing relationships between business openings and closings.

https://www.activistpost.com/2020/06/this-makes-no-sense-in-month-when-us-was-shut-down-bls-estimated-that-345k-new-businesses-were-formed.html

Biden: Probably ’10 to 15 percent’ of Americans ‘are just not very good people’

Former Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday said that 10 to 15 percent of “people out there that are just not very good people.”

Speaking during a virtual town hall with young Americans, Biden discussed the importance of a president setting an example for the country on issues of race during a conversation moderated by actor Don Cheadle.

Biden accused President Trump of dividing the nation, saying “The words a president says matter, so when a president stands up and divides people all the time, you’re going to get the worst of us to come out.”

“Do we really think this is as good as we can be as a nation? I don’t think the vast majority of people think that,” the former vice president added. “There are probably anywhere from 10 to 15 percent of the people out there that are just not very good people, but that’s not who we are. The vast majority of the people are decent, and we have to appeal to that and we have to unite people — bring them together. Bring them together.”

Biden’s comments were reminiscent of some other controversial comments made by former presidential nominees.

In 2012, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said during a private fundraising event that “47 percent” of voters would support former President Obama and who “are dependent upon government” and who “believe that they are victims.” In 2016, Hillary Clinton said that half of Trump’s supporters belong in a “basket of deplorables.”

https://truepundit.com/biden-probably-10-to-15-percent-of-americans-are-just-not-very-good-people/

Venezuela, Minneapolis, Iran, Europe – Trump’s Last Gasps of Collapsing World Control – Or is it?

There comes a time when shooting around in circles just hits walls, bullets splinter off sidewalks, and shatter a window here and there. But people are in safety. They watch from a distance and with self-assurance.

Venezuela has received five tankers from Iran loaded with hydrocarbons – petrol gas, additives – shipped through a totally US-militarized Caribbean Sea, amidst warnings of attacks and retaliations – and as usual, sanctions ’no end’. How much more sanctions can a country get? There is an immune system, called sovereignty and fearlessness – confidence and dignity. Knowing your rights. That’s what makes the whole difference.

Granted, the tankers were escorted by the Venezuelan Navy and Air Force; especially through Venezuelan waters. And they made it undisturbed to the port of El Palito, a small Venezuelan port run by Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA. The American shooting didn’t take place and the event was not televised.

Another aggression against Venezuelan sovereignty is the Bank of England’s withholding totally illegally some US$ 1.2 billion worth of Venezuelan gold, deposited voluntarily by Venezuela in times of trust – as part of Venezuela’s reserve funds. With oil prices collapsed, Venezuela decided to use part of her gold reserves to purchase medication and food to counter the disastrous corona effects.

Venezuela claimed the gold deposited at the Bank of England (BoE) which offers gold custodian services mostly but not exclusively to developing nations; and so, does the New York FED and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Basle and several other international institutions and central banks considered safe and trustworthy. These are legal arrangements under which the depositing country may withdraw the funds at any time and at will.

Venezuela has a sovereign right to claim these funds without any explanation or justification. The BoE refused, claiming the Government of Nicolas Maduro was not the legitimate government recognized by the UK. Can you imagine – if any government decides to confiscate funds from another government, because they don’t like its leadership — where would we end up? – Well, there is not much guessing. We are already there. The Anglo-Zionist world makes its own rules and decides over and above any international law. And the spineless European puppets follow their cue. It is high time that this matrix collapses and gives way to a civilization that recognizes the values of democracy, justice, basic ethics and human rights.

In this case, Venezuela explained that the money is needed to buy food and medication to counter the nefarious effects of COVID-19. The UN, intervening on behalf of Venezuela, has requested the BoE to return the money. That gesture or action by the UN is in itself is an act of ‘independence’ by the UN against the US, for whom the UN otherwise does the bidding. But to no avail. The BoE didn’t release the Venezuelan-owned gold. As a compromise, Venezuela suggested that the funds be handed over to UNDP (United Nations Development Program) which would buy vital food and medication for Venezuela.

Already at the end of 2018, Venezuelan Finance Minister Simón Zerpa and Central Bank President Calixto Ortega, travelled to London to demand that Venezuela be allowed to take the gold back to Venezuela. In January 2019, the BoE refused the request. All it said publicly was that it did not comment on customer relationships. However, the real reason was clear.

https://thesaker.is/venezuela-minneapolis-iran-europe-trumps-last-gasps-of-collapsing-world-control-or-is-it/