Last week's posts at Moon of Alabama:
- September 15 – Fake News About Iran, Russia, China Is U.S. Journalism's Daily Bread
- September 19 – South Africa's Government Debunks Politico Fakenews Of Threats Against A U.S. AmbassadorRelated:
The Dangerous Myths About China’s Nuclear Weapons – War On The Rocks
- September 16 – Now Trump's Middle East Event May Really Become "A Historic Moment"
Related:
'This is the beginning of the end of the Israeli-Arab conflict' – Israel Hayom
> Asked whether the US is considering the possibility of appointing Dahlan, who lives in the UAE, as the next Palestinian leader, Friedman replied: "We're thinking about it," but we have no desire to engineer the Palestinian leadership. <
- September 18 – New Documents Reveal Secret British Efforts To Arm, Assist And Propagandize 'Moderate Rebels' In Syria
Related:
The Foreign Office and the Propaganda War on Syria – Barbara McKenzie (2016)
- September 19 – Supreme Court Fight Exposes Bipartisan Hypocrisy
Related:
Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Death – Ian Welsh
> Bad, bad times, made worse by one old woman’s selfish disregard for everyone else. If that offends you, so be it. Important people don’t get “don’t say bad things about the dead” when everyone else has to suffer because of their decisions. <
Michael Tracey @mtracey – 0:01 UTC · Sep 20, 2020
After the death of R.B. Ginsburg (87) the US political system falls into disarray. J. Biden (78) and D. Trump (74) declare the future of the nation is at stake. N. Pelosi (80) is bereft with grief. M. McConnell (78) plots his strategy. Spring chicken C. Schumer (69) vows revenge
- September 20 – NYT First Reinforces, Then Silently Debunks Its False Claims About Russia's Covid-19 Vaccine
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Other issues:
Stephen F. Cohen has died. He was the one U.S. scholars who really knew and made sense of Russia.
- The Reminiscences of Stephen F. Cohen – Oral History
- Stephen F. Cohen, pre-eminent contemporary American scholar of Russia & USSR, friend of Gorbachev & advisor to Bush, dies at 81 – RT
- Stephen Cohen Has Died. Remember His Urgent Warnings Against The New Cold War. – Caitlin Johnstone
- Trump as New Cold War Heretic – Stephen F. Cohen / Nation (2018)
The president has broken with the nearly 20-year orthodoxy of blaming Russia alone for today’s post-Soviet confrontations. - Max Boot (CFR) vs Stephen Cohen on Russia 2018 08 02 – CNN (vid)
Assange trial:
- Empire’s Mask Slips at Julian Assange Trial – Pepe Escobar / Dissident Voice
- Mainstream US reporters silent about being spied on by apparent CIA contractor that targeted Assange – Max Blumenthal / Grayzone
Popcorn:
- The Post-Objectivity Era- Summary of "Hate Inc: Why Today's Media Makes Us Despise One Another" – Matt Taibbi
- Matt Taibbi is a cancel culture hypocrite – Yasha Levine
Here’s what Matt hopes you don't remember: When the cancel mob came for him, he was the "upper class Twitter Robespierre" ratting on his colleagues.
Must read:
- How the west lost – Anatol Lieven / Prospect Magazine
After the long stand-off against communism, victory seemed as total as it was sudden. But the west has since fractured and is now losing prestige and influence—does the reversal expose a moral defeat?
> This was coupled with the belief that good relations with China could be predicated on China accepting a so-called “rules-based” international order in which the US set the rules while also being free to break them whenever it wished; something that nobody with the slightest knowledge of Chinese history should have believed. <
Elections:
- The Transition Integrity Project (TIP) is a shadowy group of government, military and media elites who have concocted a plan to spread mayhem and disinformation following the November 3 presidential elections. – Mike Whitney / UNZ
- Biden’s proposed Iran policy doesn’t go far enough – Eldar Mamedov / Responsible Statecraft
- People worry that 'moderate' Democrats like Joe Biden are the same as Republicans. Our study suggests they may be right – Independent
Boeing 737 MAX:
- As Boeing Inches Toward 737 MAX Recertification, 787 and Lunar Lander Go Sour, Charleston v. Seattle Looms – Naked Capitalism
- The Design, Development & Certification of the Boeing 737 Max (pdf) – House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
- U.S. House probe of 737 MAX finds ‘disturbing pattern’ of Boeing failures and ‘grossly insufficient’ FAA oversight – Seattle Times
> Another new document reveals that in a June 2016 flight test, the Boeing test pilot had trouble completing a slow speed test needed for certification because MCAS kept kicking in. Engineers noted how MCAS was “observed ratcheting” up the angle of the horizontal tail with repeated activation. Another engineer in the email exchange asks “What happens when we have faulty Angle of Attack”?
Other documents startlingly tie together two previously known events.
In a meeting on March 30, 2016, Keith Leverkuhn, the Boeing vice president who headed the MAX program, formally approved an expansion of MCAS to allow it to activate at low speed.
This required removing what had previously been a necessary activation trigger for the software — a high G force. From that point on, MCAS was activated solely by a high angle of attack and was given more authority to move the horizontal tail. <
Use as open thread …
