United States

After recruiting Trump, the KGB and Moscow have clearly also managed to make all House Republicans their puppets, because the Senate bill that passed last week and slapped new sanctions on Russia (but really was meant to block the production on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia and which Germany, Austria and France all said is a provocation by the US and would prompt retaliation) just hit a major stumbling block in the House.

At least that's our interpretation of tomorrow's CNN "hot take."

In what looks like vindication for Elon Musk and Tesla’s autopilot software, the National Transportation Safety Board has ruled that a fatal crash involving a Tesla Model S sedan that occurred in Florida last year was the result of human error.

Here’s a summary of the NTSB report’s findings, via Reuters.

Authored by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

Sunday, a Navy F-18 Hornet shot down a Syrian air force jet, an act of war against a nation with which Congress has never declared or authorized a war.

Washington says the Syrian plane was bombing U.S.-backed rebels. Damascus says its plane was attacking ISIS.

Vladimir Putin’s defense ministry was direct and blunt:

A couple of weeks ago we expressed some level of 'amazement' at just how sophisticated, efficient and pervasive the 'Russian hacking' community had become after CNN reported that they had managed to hack into a Qatari News Agency and post a 'fake' news story all in an apparent attempt to drive a wedge between the U.S., Qatar and some of it's Gulf Arab neighbors.

Authored by Alastair Crooke via The Automatic Earth blog,