"For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths." Northwoods is a ministry dedicated to refreshing Christians and challenging them to search for the truth in Christianity, politics, sociology, and science
"I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life"
Father God, thank you for the love of the truth you have given me. Please bless me with the wisdom, knowledge and discernment needed to always present the truth in an attitude of grace and love. Use this blog and Northwoods Ministries for your glory. Help us all to read and to study Your Word without preconceived notions, but rather, let scripture interpret scripture in the presence of the Holy Spirit. All praise to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Please note: All my writings and comments appear in bold italics in this colour
The Obama administration’s top spies manipulated the probe from the onset, according to John Ratcliffe
A US intelligence report on Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 presidential election, commissioned by then-President Barack Obama, was nothing more than deliberate manipulation, CIA Director John Ratcliffe has said, citing his agency’s recent internal review.
Known as the 2016 Intelligence Community Assessment on Russian Election Interference (ICA), the report kickstarted the Russiagate conspiracy, prompted special counsel Robert Mueller’s inquiry, and “ate up the first two years” of President Donald Trump’s first term, Ratcliffe said in an interview with the New York Post published on Wednesday. The new CIA head ordered an internal review of the report in May.
Obama ordered the ICA just six weeks before leaving office. According to the CIA review of its drafting and rushed release, declassified on Wednesday, then-CIA Director John Brennan, FBI Director James Comey, and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper were unusually and “excessively involved” in the process.
“The rushed timeline to publish both classified and unclassified versions before the presidential transition raised questions about a potential political motive behind the White House tasking and timeline,” the review said, calling the work on the report “chaotic,”“atypical,” and “markedly unconventional.”
The CIA review found that Brennan had effectively directed the compilation of the ICA and particularly insisted on including the later discredited Steele dossier, a compilation of unverified rumors about Trump and his alleged links to Russia.
The dossier was compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele and reportedly funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign.
“This was Obama, Comey, Clapper, and Brennan deciding, ‘We’re going to screw Trump,’” Ratcliffe said, commenting on his agency’s findings. “It was, ‘We’re going to create this and put the imprimatur of an IC assessment in a way that nobody can question it.’ They stamped it as Russian collusion and then classified it so nobody could see it.”
“Brennan and Clapper and Comey manipulated [and] silenced all the career professionals and railroaded the process,” the CIA director added.
American public opinion was further manipulated by constant media leaks and unnamed officials cited by The Washington Post, The New York Times, and other mainstream outlets.
“Before work on the assessment even began, media leaks suggesting that the IC had already reached definitive conclusions risked creating an anchoring bias,” the review noted.
The ICA, as well as the FBI’s 2016 ‘Crossfire Hurricane’ investigation and the subsequent Mueller inquiry, cast a long shadow over Trump’s first term, with allegations of “Russian collusion” persisting in the media even after Mueller’s report found no evidence to support them. Moscow has also repeatedly denied any election interference.
Tulsi Gabbard was put where she is to clean up the intelligence community. Here, however, she seems to believe what that community is saying about Iran's nuclear program. She surely knows better than to believe the CIA, the same group that declared WMDs in Iraq when they didn't exist. The same group that probably had a hand in America's highest-profile assassinations. The very heart of Deep State.
The IAEA also agrees with the CIA, even though Iran has restricted their inspections to where they have not seen any of the military run nuclear research stations deep underground. And, why do they need 60% nuclear fuel?
US intel has no evidence Iran building nuclear weapon
– top Democrat
Senator Mark Warner says President Donald Trump is ignoring spy agencies’ data on Iran, which still shows no move toward nuclear weapons
US intelligence still assesses that Iran, despite stockpiling enriched uranium, has not taken steps to develop nuclear weapons – a view which has remained unchanged since March, according to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s top Democrat.
US President Donald Trump claimed on Tuesday, however, that he believes Tehran was “very close” to obtaining nuclear weapons at the time of Israel’s recent military strikes. His statement contradicts earlier remarks by his own director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, who told lawmakers that Iran “is not building” one. The Iranian authorities insist that their nuclear program is purely peaceful and that they have every right to pursue it.
In an interview with MSNBC on Wednesday, the vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Democratic Senator Mark Warner, said senators were briefed this week – following the Israeli strikes – that US spy agencies still find no evidence that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons.
He criticized Trump’s remarks as “foreign policy by tweet,” calling them irresponsible and perplexing, given that they contradict the intelligence briefings lawmakers have received.
Warner noted that in March, Gabbard stated that Iran had “taken no steps toward building a bomb.”
“And we got reconfirmed… Monday of this week, that the intelligence hasn’t changed,” he added.
At the time, she said the US intelligence community “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.”
When Trump was reminded of this by journalists on Tuesday, he replied: “I do not care what she said.”
Responding to Trump’s remark, Warner said, “you’ve got the president basically dismissing all of the intelligence.” He added that even as vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, he is unclear on the current US strategy, asking: “If I don’t have the foggiest idea, what do the American people know?”
Trump said he has not yet decided whether to support Israel’s military action against Iran, but echoed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim that Iran was “weeks away” from developing a nuclear weapon.
Since launching its campaign against Iran last week, Israel has targeted uranium enrichment infrastructure, bombing centrifuge facilities – including a site at Natanz, south of Tehran – and laboratories used to convert uranium gas into metal, according to Israeli officials and the IAEA.
Trump has called for Iran’s “unconditional surrender,” claiming that the US now controls its airspace. He also said killing Khamenei would be “easy.” Media reports suggest he may soon join Israel’s military campaign. Tehran has vowed not to yield to pressure and warned it will retaliate if attacked.
‘Small group’ of Khalistanis in Canada fund violence in India
– Ottawa
Canadian intelligence has said Sikh extremists use the country
as a base to carry out anti-India activities
A small number of Khalistani separatists in Canada continue to use the country as a base to fund political violence in India, the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) has said in a report.
Khalistanis, or Sikh separatists, seek to carve out an ethno-religious country from the Indian state of Punjab. The movement for a nation of Khalistan reached its peak in India in the 1980s and has few backers in the country now. However, members of the Sikh diaspora have been trying to revive the movement in Canada.
India and Canada disagree on the degree of the threat posed by Khalistani activists. “Some Canadians participate in legitimate and peaceful campaigning to support the Khalistan movement,” the CSIS said in its report. “Non-violent advocacy for an independent state of Khalistan is not considered extremism.”
The Canadian intelligence report added: “Only a small group of individuals are considered Khalistani extremists because they continue to use Canada as a base for the promotion, fundraising or planning of violence primarily in India.”
The report reaffirmed allegations of an Indian government connection in the killing of prominent Khalistan figure Hardeep Singh Nijjar. The agency claimed that India, along with Russia, China, Pakistan and Iran, are the “main perpetrators of foreign interference and espionage” against Canada.
Actually, I'm inclined to believe that the WEF and the USA are the main perpetrators of foreign interference in Canada.
The report, which was presented in the Canadian Parliament last week, nearly coincided with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s talks with his Canadian counterpart, Mark Carney, at the G7 Summit in Kananaskis, where they agreed to improve diplomatic ties. Canada-India relations began to deteriorate after the 2023 G20 summit in New Delhi, where then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Modi only held informal talks, exchanging concerns over “anti-India activities” in the North American nation.
Ties between the countries reached a low in October 2024 when Canadian officials accused Indian diplomats of targeting Sikh activists in Canada, leading to the mutual expulsion of diplomats. The CSIS report noted that in October 2024, Canadian investigators found evidence that linked agents of the Indian government and criminal networks to sow violent activity in South Asian communities in Canada.
“Further, links between the Indian government and the Nijjar murder signals a significant escalation in India’s repression efforts against the Khalistan movement and a clear intent to target individuals in North America,” the report added.
Keep in mind, France24 leans hard to the left. They ignore the astonishingly brilliant treatment of the prisoners in the new prison - a model for the whole world. And they mention, all too briefly, that El Salvador was one of the worst narco countries in the world, if not the worst, and now is a remarkably safe country. That transition in just a few years is amazing and needs to be emulated in many other countries in the Americas.
What is really problematic here is that the street gangs murderous ways seem to have been adopted by state prisons. Bukele must clean this up, or he will completely ruin his impressive legacy.
Bukele’s El Salvador: Popularity, power, and the price of security
Issued on:
16:22 min
From the show
Nayib Bukele came to power in El Salvador in 2019, winning outright in the first round of presidential elections. Since then, he has steadily consolidated his control. Bukele’s party has dominated the National Assembly since 2021. In 2022, he declared a state of emergency, which remains in effect to this day. He also pressured the Supreme Court to allow him to run for a second term – previously prohibited by the Constitution. Despite concerns over his human rights record, Bukele enjoys overwhelming popularity, with polls showing over 80 percent approval. Since the start of the state of emergency, more than 400 inmates have died in jail. This year, he began constructing a new mega-prison to house hundreds of illegal migrants deported by the United States and labelled terrorists. Six years into his presidency, FRANCE 24 takes a look at the Bukele phenomenon. Laurence Cuvillier and Matthieu Comin report.
If you think for one minute that Trump is in control in the world, think again. You are underestimating the power and reach of America's Deep State.
Trump would like to end Deep State's powerful commitment to keeping the war industry's inventory moving, but if he threatens them, they will just kill him. That's why he insists on raising NATO budget commitments to 5% of GDP, when he has no use for NATO.
Ukrainian attacks on Russian planes
‘Western’ intel op – Jeffrey Sachs
Kiev’s Operation Spider’s Web was jointly planned by
the CIA and MI6, the public policy analyst has claimed
Ukraine’s drone strikes on Russian military airfields earlier this month were a “Western intelligence operation” orchestrated by the CIA and MI6, American public policy analyst Jeffrey Sachs has claimed.
In an interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson released on Wednesday, Sachs accused Western intelligence services of covertly working to undermine peace efforts aimed at resolving the Ukraine conflict, acting on orders from the US “deep state.”
On June 1, Ukrainian drones struck several Russian airbases in a coordinated assault across five regions – from Murmansk in the north to Irkutsk in Siberia – which Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky later called Operation Spider’s Web.
Kiev claimed that around 40 Russian military aircraft were damaged or destroyed, including long-range bombers. Moscow has dismissed the numbers and extent of damage, saying some of the aircraft were damaged, but that it was minimal and will be repaired. It added that most of the drones were intercepted.
The attacks were reportedly carried out using commercial trucks rigged with explosive-laden drones smuggled into Russia.
Asked whether the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) could have executed such a large-scale attack on its own, Sachs replied, “of course not.”
“This was a Western intelligence operation. Without question,” he said, adding that the plan was likely prepared in secret by the CIA with help from the British.
Sachs was also asked whether US President Donald Trump, who has been actively mediating peace efforts, could have been unaware. He replied that the CIA is “self-operating” and “out of control,” and has not been held accountable by Trump or previous presidents for over 50 years. He believes the agency answers to the “deep state” and military companies that fund its operations.
I so totally agree!
Sachs called the attacks a “reckless” escalation that risked a direct confrontation between the two nuclear superpowers. “Whether or not the White House knew, the operation itself is completely reckless and alarming, because attacking part of the nuclear triad in this way is a step towards nuclear Armageddon.”
Sachs argued that to prevent the Ukraine conflict from escalating further, the US must cut funding for the “desperate” Kiev regime and negotiate directly with Russia.
“In the end, we can’t control Ukraine, but they can’t fight without the US,” he said, noting that Trump has the constitutional authority to end the conflict by changing US foreign policy.
Western officials have denied involvement in the attacks. Russian investigators have launched a probe, and the Russian military has since targeted strategic military sites across Ukraine, including weapon design bureaus, repair facilities, and airfields used by Ukraine’s tactical aircraft.
Hollywood star Mel Gibson, a vocal supporter of US President Donald Trump, has urged the American government to reveal the “truth” about the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The Australian-born actor shared a clip from journalist Tucker Carlson’s interview with former Congressman Curt Weldon, which was published on Monday. The tragedy that took place nearly 25 years ago “might be the biggest scandal in American history,” Gibson wrote on X on Tuesday.
On September 11, 2001, Al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four passenger airliners and crashed two of them into the twin World Trade Center skyscrapers in Manhattan. A third plane struck the Pentagon building, and a fourth crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000 people were killed.
“Three buildings collapsed as if they were programmed to do so. Not two – three. To this day, no one has explained how Building 7 fell, even though no plane hit it,”Gibson wrote. He went on to argue that “towers were designed to withstand airplane impacts.”
“What really happened that day? And why is no one allowed to talk about it? Enough with the fear. It’s time for the truth. About 9/11. About history. About all of us,” Gibson added in his post.
According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Building 7 collapsed because of fires ignited by debris from one of the towers hit by a plane.
In his interview, Weldon dismissed the label of conspiracy theorist, implying that the CIA and the government are skilled at cover-ups. “You know, what gets me is reporters who call people conspiracy theorists. Well, that’s all the agency does! They’re the ones who create the conspiracies,” the former politician argued. “They have whole courses for their agents on how to make people look like they’re conspiracy theorists.”
Weldon urged Trump to appoint “people of impeccable integrity” to a commission that would “study the facts” around 9/11.
For years, some have speculated that the official version of events may not have been entirely true, and even claimed that the attack was an inside job. Authors and activists have tried to poke holes in the 2004 report by the 9/11 Commission set up by the US Congress.
The 9/11 Commission concluded that “none of the measures adopted by the US government from 1998 to 2001 disturbed or even delayed the progress of the Al-Qaeda plot.”
