The strikes which paralysed the Saudi oil industry on Saturday morning, forcing it to halve its output of crude oil, were made by Iranian drones launched from Hashd al-Shaabi bases in southern Iraq, a senior Iraqi intelligence official has told Middle East Eye.

The attacks on Abqaiq and Khurais, two key Aramco facilities in eastern Saudi Arabia, were in retaliation for Israeli drone strikes on Hashd al-Shaabi bases and convoys in August, which were co-ordinated and funded by the Saudis, the official said.

“The latest attack comes for two reasons: another message from Iran to USA and its allies that as long as its siege on Iran continues no one will have stability in the region. However, the second more direct reason is a strong Iranian revenge for the recent Israeli attacks by drones launched from SDF-controlled areas in Syria against pro-Iranian Hashd bases,” he said.

Iraq categorically denied any involvement after an anonymous Iraqi intelligence official told Middle East Eye that the strikes were launched from Iraqi territory and were in retaliation for Saudi-funded Israeli drone strikes in August on Iranian-trained forces in Syria.

Controlling "exactly what people think" is the job of the media, MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski boldly declared Wednesday morning.

While discussing President Trump's entreaties to the American people to remain skeptical of the press, Bzezinski worried that if the economy turns south, Americans may end up trusting him over the media.

"And it could be that while unemployment and the economy worsens, he could have undermined the messaging so much that he can actually control exactly what people think," Brzezinski said. "And that, that is our job."

Saudi Arabia's crown prince has told US President Donald Trump the kingdom was "willing and able" to respond to the latest attacks claimed by Yemen's Houthi rebels on its oil facilities, state media reported.

"The kingdom is willing and able to confront and deal with this terrorist aggression," Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ( MBS) told Trump during a phone call on Saturday, according to the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA).

MBS was referring to drone attacks earlier in the day on two state-owned Saudi Aramco oil facilities, which triggered enormous fires and disrupted global energy supplies.

Despite US officials repeatedly over the weekend claiming they were "certain" attacks came from Iraqi soil, likely from Iran-backed militias acting as proxies, they've now changed their tune to line up behind the latest Saudi military assessment.

US officials have told FOX that the attacks originated from Iranian soil, which is the first time such a direct charge has been issued since the early Saturday morning crisis.

What the media did not tell you is that the man who is behind the latest allegations is a far left hack.

Max Stier is President and CEO, Partnership for Public Service.
What this group is into is the high performance work organizations (HPWO); in short, systems philosophy of managed change in the pursuit of moving the greatest mass of the people from where “they are now” to “where we want them to be” according to a strategic plan.

Then there is this – Max Stier is a former Clinton lawyer.

And this, from FEC.gov – Stier is a committed leftist who donated to the Obama campaign and DNC:

Lets buy a pair and share each shoe!
These two friends lost their legs in Great March of Return protests.

MSNBC co-host Mika Brzezinski went too far on her television platform on Friday — and even her own husband and co-host, Joe Scarborough, wound up scolding her for her incessant anti-Trump line of conversation.

The discussion centered around Brzezinski’s skewed interpretation of something President Donald Trump said during his larger comments about vaping and children’s health.

She even suggested, in this discussion, that maybe Barron Trump wasn’t the president’s son.

The New York Times suddenly made a major revision to a supposed bombshell piece late Sunday concerning a resurfaced allegation of sexual assault by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh — hours after virtually all 2020 Democratic presidential candidates had cited the original article as a reason to impeach Kavanaugh.

The update included the significant detail that several friends of the alleged victim said she did not recall the purported sexual assault in question at all. The Times also stated for the first time that the alleged victim refused to be interviewed, and has made no other comment about the episode.

The United States has issued satellite images and cited intelligence to back its allegation Iran was behind attacks on major Saudi oil facilities.

Iran denies involvement in Saturday's air attacks, which were claimed by Iran-aligned Houthi rebels in Yemen.

But unnamed US officials speaking to US and international media say the direction and extent of the attacks cast doubt on Houthi involvement.

The incident has cut global oil supplies by 5% and prices have soared.

President Trump is using the phrase “locked and loaded” to describe our current stance toward Iran, and the big news networks appear to believe that some sort of U.S. military action could be imminent.

We just witnessed the worst attack on Saudi oil production facilities in history, and it would seem to be extremely unlikely that the U.S. and Saudi Arabia would allow this to pass with no response. Houthi rebels in Yemen have publicly taken responsibility for the attacks, but as you will see below, U.S. officials have already completely rejected that explanation for a variety of reasons. At this point, we are being told that the attacks probably originated either from Iranian-backed Shia rebels in southern Iraq or from Iran itself. And if the U.S. strikes back by conducting airstrikes inside Iran, that could literally cause World War 3 to erupt. We are so close to a major war breaking out, but most Americans are still not paying attention.

The White House reportedly received a letter from North Korea’s Kim Jong Un inviting President Trump to visit Pyongyang, which could be the first overture before the potential fourth official visit.

The White House and the State Department did not immediately respond to Reuters to confirm the report in South Korea’s Joongang Ilbo newspaper. The letter reportedly pre-dated the country’s last short-range launch from a week ago.

The recent White House shakeup could have had implications in these discussions.

Incoming National Security Advisor, Charles Kupperman, made the claim Nuclear War With USSR Was Winnable.

He made those statements in the 1980s. I do not know his views today, but let's review what he said then.

President Donald Trump’s acting national security adviser, former Reagan administration official Charles Kupperman, made an extraordinary and controversial claim in the early 1980s: nuclear conflict with the USSR was winnable and that “nuclear war is a destructive thing but still in large part a physics problem.”

Kupperman, appointed to his new post on Tuesday after Trump fired his John Bolton from the job, argued it was possible to win a nuclear war “in the classical sense,” and that the notion of total destruction stemming from such a superpower conflict was inaccurate. He said that in a scenario in which 20 million people died in the U.S. as opposed to 150 million, the nation could then emerge as the stronger side and prevail in its objectives.

The Constitution of the United States of America

Congress Doesn’t Have the Authority: Congress lacks the constitutional authority to simply grant the District a voting representative, as the Constitution explicitly limits such representation to states alone. Members of Congress are bound by their oath to reject proposals that violate the Constitution.

After arriving at the Beirut airport on my way to Damascus for a conference of union representatives, I myself personally experienced just how much the Lebanese people totally hate and resent the presence of those pesky Zionists hovering around their southern border, always up to no good.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared war on the two-state solution. His plan, which he promised to implement if he is reelected, would annex between 30-40% of the West Bank, including all of the Jewish settlements, in the blocks and isolated around Palestinians communities, and the entire Jordan Valley. There is not a single Palestinian alive who would agree to a mini-fragmented Palestinian state under those conditions. Netanyahu declared that he will negotiate with President Trump to gain his agreement for these territorial conquests. He never mentioned, even in passing the need to negotiate with the Palestinians.

Former CIA Officer Kevin Shipp, who is an expert on counter-intelligence, says McCabe is going roll over on his co-conspirators and talk if the DOJ cuts him a deal. Shipp explains,

“Yes, I do think he will talk, absolutely. It’s either that or be imprisoned with Billy Bob for the next 15 or 20 years. The motivation is great for him to talk...

This is one of their most outrageous things the Shadow Government and the Deep State has done. They ran a counter-intelligence espionage operation, and that was their excuse to open an investigation...

It is clear to me that spying on Trump was ordered by Obama. It had to be, no doubt about it. He gets a Presidential brief on what the FBI, CIA, NSA are doing every single day. The FBI spied on the Trump campaign with an unprecedented domestic spy operation, and that is rocking this country.”

With Sheriff's all across America claiming they won't enforce any new un-Constitutional gun grab laws enacted in our country or within their states with at least 20 county sheriff's in the far-left state of Washington leading the way after Washington state voters passed several new gun laws that went against the US Constitution, the Democrat debate on Thursday night quickly showed America the way things will go should 'Robert Francis O'Rourke' (or possibly any Democrat win the presidency in 2020) with O'Rourke insanely spouting words that some Law Enforcement officials have warned could lead to a bloodbath in America: "Hell yes, we're gonna take your AR-15".

On a very warm September morning in Kabul, several dozen men, women, and children sit on the carpeted floor of a room at the Afghan Peace Volunteers’ Borderfree Center. The women cluster together. All wear burqas, but because of the heat they push the steel blue veils back, revealing their faces. Most of the men wear traditional tunics and pakol hats.

Parents and children alike listen intently to Masoma, a young Afghan woman who coordinates the Center’s “Street Kids School.” She explains the importance of steady attendance, and parents nod in agreement. Most of the 100 students come on time for their Friday classes, but a handful had recently skipped, showing up only on the day when the center distributes monthly food rations for the Street Kids families.

Saudi Arabia finally lost the war on Yemen. It has no defenses against the new weapons the Houthis in Yemen acquired. These weapons threaten the Saudis' economic lifelines.

Saudi Arabia has nothing that could stop mass attacks by these drones. It would require hundreds of Russian made Pantsyr-S1 and BUK air defense systems to protect Saudi oil installations. There would still be no guarantee that they could not be overwhelmed.

We are now just one week away from the end of Julian Assange’s uniquely lengthy imprisonment for bail violation. He will receive parole from the rest of that sentence, but will continue to be imprisoned on remand awaiting his hearing on extradition to the USA – a process which could last several years.

At that point, all the excuses for Assange’s imprisonment which so-called leftists and liberals in the UK have hidden behind will evaporate. There are no charges and no active investigation in Sweden, where the “evidence” disintegrated at the first whiff of critical scrutiny. He is no longer imprisoned for “jumping bail”. The sole reason for his incarceration will be the publishing of the Afghan and Iraq war logs leaked by Chelsea Manning, with their evidence of wrongdoing and multiple war crimes.

U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina has called on the U.S. administration to send a message to Iran by bombing the Islamic Republic’s oil refineries.

“Iranian supported Houthi rebels who attacked Saudi oil refineries is yet another example of how Iran is wreaking havoc in the Middle East. The Iranian regime is not interested in peace – they’re pursuing nuclear weapons and regional dominance,” Graham tweeted on Saturday.

In April of 2018, the Associated Press reported that the Department of Homeland Security acknowledged that it had detected unauthorized cellular phone surveillance devices operating in Washington, DC.

Commonly known as “StingRays,” the devices are designed to mimic cell phone towers. Essentially, when a StingRay is activated, it forces nearby cellular traffic to go through it rather than through official towers. This allows the operator of the StingRay to know the exact location of a specific cellphone. With more advanced models, the device can force a phone to use older, unencrypted 2G wireless signals allowing a third party to eavesdrop on calls and messages. Some can even attempt to install malicious software on a phone. StingRays are typically the size of a briefcase but can be as small as a cellphone.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement of his intention to annex areas of the West Bank following next week’s elections shows Israel is becoming a “racist, apartheid regime”, Turkey’s foreign minister was quoted as saying on Sunday, Reuters reports.

Netanyahu said on Tuesday he would annex the Jordan Valley, a swathe of the occupied West Bank that Israel captured in 1967 and which Palestinians want as part of a future state. The move alarmed Middle Eastern nations, European powers and Arab foreign ministers.

On Saturday, Turkey’s foreign ministry said the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) would convene in Jeddah on Sunday to discuss Netanyahu’s statement.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is moving quickly to alter the political reality in Palestine, and facing little or no resistance.

On September 10, Netanyahu declared his intentions to annex swathes of Palestinian land adjacent to the Jordan River, an area that covers 2,400 square kilometres, or nearly a third of the Occupied West Bank. That region, which extends from Bisan in the north to Jericho in the south, is considered to be Palestine’s food basket, as it accounts for an estimated 60 percent of vegetables that are produced in the West Bank.

While Israel has already colonized nearly 88 per cent of the entire Palestinian Ghoor (or Jordan Valley), dividing it between illegal agricultural settlements and military zones, it was always assumed that the militarily occupied region will be included within the border of a future Palestinian state.

It does not bother President Trump the Israelis are spying on him. In fact, he believes it is not true despite evidence to the contrary. Every president since Truman knew about Israel’s aggressive intelligence efforts, but not Trump the Clueless.

A judge last week ruled the federal government’s Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB), which secretly categorized more than 1 million people as “known or suspected terrorists,” is unconstitutional.

Like a number of “War on Terror” reforms instituted in the Bush years, the TSDB’s unconstitutionality was obvious from its inception. Indeed, the very idea that we needed to “take the gloves off” in our post-9/11 “State of Exception” was an original selling point of some of these programs.

The New York attorney general’s office said Friday that it had tracked about $1 billion in wire transfers by the Sackler family, including through Swiss bank accounts, suggesting that the family tried to shield wealth as it faced a raft of litigation over its role in the opioid crisis.

Earlier this week, thousands of municipal governments and nearly two dozen states tentatively reached a settlement with the Sackler family and the company it owns, Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin. But the attorneys general of a majority of states, including New York and Massachusetts, are balking at the proposed deal, contending that the Sackler family has siphoned off company profits that should be used to pay for the billions of dollars in damage caused by opioids.

Jerusalem Post Middle East

Attack on Saudi was large and sophisticated, satellite images show, and involved numerous drones.

Satellite images released by US officials on Sunday showed the extent of damage on Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq oil processing facility and at Khurais oil field. The images show 17 impact points on key petroleum infrastructure, including four hits on liquefied natural gas storage tanks.

The images reveal extreme precision by the drones or cruise missiles which struck the oil facilities. ABC News reported on Monday that officials have ascertained that a dozen cruise missiles and 20 drones were fired in the attack. This degree of sophistication is beyond the ability of Yemen’s Houthi rebels, notwithstanding their claim of responsibility.