Every Legal Option Must Be Explored to Remove Trump From California Ballot – Lt. Governor
Sputnik – 20.12.2023
WASHINGTON – California Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis on Wednesday wrote to Secretary of State Shirley Weber demanding that she explore “every legal option” to remove former President Donald Trump from the state’s 2024 ballot.
“Based on the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling in Anderson v. Griswold (2023 CO 63), I urge you [Weber] to explore every legal option to remove former President Donald Trump from California’s 2024 presidential ballot,” Kounalakis wrote in her letter.
Kounalakis said she was prompted by the ruling to conclude that Trump is ineligible to appear on the state ballot as a presidential candidate due to his alleged involvement in the so-called insurrection on January 6, 2021. Kounalakis also said Colorado’s decision could serve as the basis for a similar decision in California.
“California must stand on the right side of history,” the letter said. “The constitution is clear: you must be 40 years old and not be an insurrectionist.”
The White house has said on its website that the US Constitution lists three qualifications for the presidency – the president must be at least 35 years old, be a natural born citizen and must have lived in the United States for at least 14 years.
On Tuesday night, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that Trump is disqualified from the 2024 Republican primary ballot due to his role in the events on January 6 at the US Capitol, citing the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution. The amendment restricts people who are engaged in insurrection from holding public office.
The Trump campaign described the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling as being a “flowed decision” and said they will appeal.
Biden accuser Tara Reade sues FBI
The whistleblower says she was targeted for retaliation
RT | December 20, 2023
Former US Senate aide Tara Reade, who has accused US President Joe Biden of sexually assaulting her while serving as a senator, filed a civil rights complaint against the FBI on Wednesday. Reade’s attorney says the federal government sought to intimidate and harass her during and after the 2020 election campaign.
In a complaint sent to the Office of the Inspector General of the US Department of Justice, Reade called for an investigation of FBI practices that “target Biden family whistleblowers for exercise of their First Amendment right to free speech,” according to a press release by Dr. Jonathan Levy, her London-based attorney.
Reade also requested copies of all information about her that the FBI may have obtained “through unconstitutional surveillance, search, and seizure tactics” and to have her FBI file expunged.
In a letter to the DOJ seen by RT, Levy described how the FBI – and, in particular, its Sacramento, California office – allegedly began an “operation” against Reade after April 2019 “in order to silence and surveil her and if possible falsely arrest her for criminal activities.”
At the time that the purported FBI probe began, Reade had just made public that Biden, then a US senator, had allegedly subjected her to a “violent sexual assault” on the Capitol grounds in 1993. Though she had reported the incident through the proper channels, her case was “suppressed by Congressional investigators to protect Senator Biden and the records sealed,” according to Levy.
Reade was not “an agent or associate” of former President Donald Trump, whom Biden challenged in the 2020 election, nor was she sponsored by any political organization or made any monetary demands of Biden, Levy noted. The attorney also pointed out that there was no indication of her involvement in any criminal activity.
According to the complaint, the FBI launched its operation “for the specific purpose of unlawfully intimidating, harassing, surveilling, and discrediting,” as well as potentially arresting Reade. Among those allegedly involved, Levy named Director Christopher Wray, Special Agent Michael Catalano, and NCA1 Supervisory Senior Resident Agent Andrew D. Forristel.
The lawsuit demands “an investigation of FBI practices” that led to a whistleblower becoming the target of a federal grand jury investigation and a criminal probe in California, “even after she requested FBI protection from death threats.” The DOJ IG was also asked to investigate the extent of the FBI’s alleged surveillance of Reade, including her “social media, communications and financial accounts,” and to provide copies of all the records thus obtained before they are expunged from her FBI dossier.
Reade has sought to protect her reputation by writing a book and starting a podcast. She has also contributed a number of articles to RT about the weaponization of sexual misconduct charges and whistleblower retaliation, among other subjects.
Earlier this year, fearing arrest for “an ominous menu of kangaroo-court offenses,” she sought political asylum in Russia while visiting Moscow.
UN condemns Ukraine’s crackdown on largest Christian church
RT | December 19, 2023
Kiev’s push to outlaw the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) would violate freedom of religion, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said on Tuesday.
Turk spoke at the meeting of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland. He addressed the persecution of the UOC in the context of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.
“I note also my concerns regarding freedom of religion and belief in Ukraine, given continuing action by the authorities against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church,” Turk said during the meeting. He pointed to a proposed law that would allow Kiev to ban any religious organization suspected of having ties to Russia.
“These proposed restrictions to the right of freedom of religion do not appear to comply with international human rights law,” Turk said.
Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, advanced the bill in October. It is still being amended in committee, however, and is expected to be adopted early next year, according to speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk.
President Vladimir Zelensky’s government has accused the UOC of having ties with the Russian Orthodox Church. He also claimed that dozens of its clergy are acting as “spies” for Russia, even though the UOC officially severed ties with Moscow in March 2022.
Earlier this year, Zelensky ordered the UOC’s clergy to leave the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, a monastery almost 1,000 years old. The monks were told they could stay if they switched their allegiance to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), a rival organization created by the Ukrainian government in 2018. Since then, half a dozen regions of Ukraine have outlawed the UOC, seizing its properties and turning them over to the OCU.
When the UN Human Rights Council criticized these actions as discriminatory, Kiev criticized the body for making “unbalanced political assessments” and claimed its crackdown was justified on national security grounds.
On Tuesday, Turk also urged Kiev to build a society where all communities would be included and the rights of all minorities protected, “including the right to use every language spoken in Ukraine.”
A proposed ban on the Russian language by the government in Kiev following the February 2014 US-backed coup was among the events that triggered Crimea’s decision to rejoin Russia and the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk to declare themselves independent people’s republics.
EU announces probe into Musk’s X
RT | December 18, 2023
The European Union announced on Monday that it was taking “formal infringement proceedings” against Elon Musk’s X social media platform over a recently implemented law intended to crack down on illegal content and disinformation online.
The announcement of the probe comes weeks after X (formerly Twitter) was asked to provide assurances that it was complying with the terms of the European bloc’s Digital Service Act. Under the law, which came into effect in August, a company can be fined up to 6% of its annual global income or banned from operating in the EU if it is found to have breached the sweeping legislation.
“Today we open formal infringement proceedings against X,” Thierry Breton, the EU commissioner responsible for the law’s enforcement, wrote in a post on the social network on Monday.
Breton added that the move had been taken in response to a “suspected breach of obligations to counter illegal content and disinformation; suspected breach of transparency obligations,” and “suspected deceptive design of user interface.”
The probe will also look at the effectiveness of X’s ‘community notes,’ in which users can fact-check or provide comments on the accuracy of certain posts.
Responding to the charge on Monday, X said it was “cooperating with the regulatory process,” and added that it was “important that this process remains free of political influence and follows the law.”
The platform, which was subject to a multi-billion-dollar takeover by Elon Musk last year, said it was focused on “creating a safe and inclusive environment” for its users, which it said it balances against “protecting freedom of expression.” At the time of the takeover, Musk branded himself as a “free speech absolutist.”
On October 10, the EU warned X in a formal letter that it had received “indications” that the social media platform was “being used to disseminate illegal content and disinformation in the EU” related to Hamas’ attack in Israel on October 7.
In a letter to Breton, X chief executive Linda Yaccarino responded to say the firm was “working to address the operational needs of this fast-moving and evolving conflict.” She added that X had removed hundreds of Hamas-affiliated accounts from the service.
Earlier this year, X was among several tech giants to sign up to an EU code of conduct to prepare for the launch of the Digital Services Act in August. However, X withdrew from the agreement in May, prompting backlash from Breton. “You can run but you can’t hide,” he warned Musk and X.
Registered Israeli foreign agent driving contrived campus antisemitism crisis
By Wyatt Reed | The Grayzone | December 17, 2023
Lawsuits accusing top US universities of harboring antisemitism all originate from one source: a corporate law firm that fielded the pro-settler ex-US ambassador to Israel, and which was registered as a foreign agent of an Israeli principal as recently as 2021.
The firm now represents professional Israel lobby activists posing as victimized “Jewish students” and seeking to crush the free speech rights of Palestine solidarity activists.
The fallout from December 5 House Committe on Antisemitism hearings has already cost University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill her job, while demands by billionaire pro-Israel donors and politicians for the firing of Harvard’s Claudine Gay have grown by the day. Both stand accused of refusing to condemn calls for the genocide of Jews, even though no such calls have taken place on their campuses.
Meanwhile, little attention has been paid to the forces orchestrating the carefully choreographed, heavily-funded campaign to crush Palestine solidarity activism on campus.
The law firm leading the assault on the universities has included David Friedman, the former ambassador to Israel under Donald Trump, among its partners. Until 2021, this firm, Kasowitz Benson Torres, was registered with the US Department of Justice as a foreign agent on behalf of an Israeli principal.
The firm’s clients include associates of a jailed Ukrainian billionaire who bankrolled neo-Nazi militias, along with a who’s who of corporations accused of defrauding and even killing consumers.
Meanwhile, the “Jewish student” witnesses who set the stage for the attacks on Magill and her fellow university presidents at the House Antisemitism Committee were employed on at least a semi-professional basis by Israeli lobbying cutouts.
They included Jonathan Frieden, a Harvard Law student who moonlights as president of Alliance for Israel; MIT graduate student Talia Khan, the president of MIT Israel Alliance; and Bella Ingber, co-president of NYU’s Students Supporting Israel.
Israel lobbyist moonlighting as UPenn student calls for Covid-style lockdowns on Palestine protests
The most harrowing — and clearly questionable — claims furnished during the December 5 congressional hearings came courtesy of Eyal Yakoby, an Israeli-American senior at UPenn.
“Over the course of the last few weeks, I’ve… read the statement, ‘Ninety-percent of pigs are gas chambered!’ on the pavement as I walked to class,” Yakoby moaned.
The most likely explanation for the appearance of this phrase on UPenn’s Locust Walk was not the presence of chalk-wielding neo-Nazis but rather, that of animal welfare advocates, who were presumably calling attention to the fact that most pigs are killed by slaughterhouses which employ a grotesque method of gas inhalation exposed by activists in late 2022.
“‘You’re a dirty little Jew and you deserve to die’ are not words said by Hamas, but by my classmates and my professors,” Yakoby claimed during a December 5 press conference convened by the House GOP leadership. Oddly, he neglected to name a single student or UPenn employee responsible for such inflammatory remarks.
Conjuring up images of a campus overwhelmed by Hamas-linked hatemongers, Yakoby seemed to call for imposing Covid-era lockdowns on students protesting Israel’s blood-drenched assault on the besieged Gaza Strip.
“During Covid, strict guidelines governed everything from class attendance and graduation walks,” he said. “But now, when students and faculty defy policies to intimidate Jewish students, where is the same resolute enforcement?”
Lawsuits target top US campuses with flimsy, unprovable allegations
Just hours after his appearance alongside members of Congress, Yakoby filed a lawsuit against UPenn, claiming the university violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by failing to respond to antisemitism.
Yakoby’s lawsuit was filled with dubious, highly politicized accusations, including complaints about the chanting of “antisemitic slurs” such as “Intifada revolution” and “from the river to the sea.”
A closer examination of other incidents described in the lawsuit against Penn reveals a great number of them appear to have been seriously exaggerated or manufactured out of whole cloth.
The most ‘threatening’ episode described by the Yakoby, for example, consists of a man who “threateningly approached him” and “yelled ‘fuck you.’” As a result of this experience — and the agony apparently endured when the plaintiff observed other students removing posters showing Israeli captives — the suit claims that “Yakoby missed his next two classes” because he was “shaken by these escalating acts of hate.”
The vast majority of claims of overt antisemitism appear to consist of statements by students and professors who criticized the state of Israel but generally took pains to distinguish between the political ideology of Zionism and the religion of Judaism.
Elsewhere, the lawsuit accuses professors of antisemitism because they questioned now-debunked Israeli atrocity propaganda about the October 7 attacks, including a demonstrably false claim by Yakoby that the “killing of 40 [Israeli] babies” by Palestinian militants had been “confirmed.”
Many of the alleged incidents described as “assaults” fail to meet basic evidentiary standards, leaving the court with no option but to take the plaintiffs’ word that the contents of the complaint happened as described.
Claims that a Jewish student was taunted with exhortations to “keep walking you dirty little Jew,” for instance, are typical of the highly suspect claims found throughout the lawsuit.
Indeed, no proof of this alleged interaction was provided, nor did the plaintiff’s provide even a vague sketch of the assailant’s identity. Instead, the entire emphasis is placed on the supposed lack of “sympathy” subsequently shown to the student by a professor who decided not to award her an “extension on her class lecture note assignment.”
The plaintiffs also took aim at Palestinian academic and poet Refaat Alareer, who had been invited to a literary festival at Penn before being murdered in a December 6 Israeli strike described by human rights monitors as a “targeted assassination.”
The demands of the pro-Israel activists include “terminating deans, administrators, professors and other employees” who they say are “responsible for the antisemitic abuse permeating the school, whether because they engaged in it or permitted it; suspending or expelling students who engage in such conduct… the adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism,” and “compensatory, consequential, and punitive [financial] damages.”
Israel lobbyists are also targeting America’s most expensive campus, New York University, leveling a litany of flimsy and unprovable antisemitism allegations to extract heavy financial damages, including a full refund of tuition. Bella Ingber, who also featured prominently at the House Republican press conference, is a leading face of the NYU lawsuit.
During the Republican presser, Ingber compared conditions at NYU to life under the German Nazi Reich.
“Since Oct. 7,” Ingber said, “the unmistakable anti-Semitism that I have experienced on campus is reminiscent of the Jew-hatred I’ve heard about from my grandparents, Holocaust survivors who experienced first-hand the deafening silence of their neighbors in Poland and Germany when the Nazis first rose to power.”
The plaintiffs of the Israel lobby-led lawsuit “request that a judgment be entered in each of their favor, and against NYU” which would see the university “terminating deans, administrators, professors and other employees responsible for the antisemitic abuse permeating the school, whether because they engaged in it or permitted it… suspending or expelling students who engage in such conduct,” and “compensatory and punitive damages.”
In other words, the lawsuit seeks campus-wide regime change, replacing any and all administrators with those willing to take instructions from the Israel lobby.
“Bibi Netanyahu’s guys in the Trump White House” lead legal assault on campus speech
If the language of the NYU lawsuit sounds familiar, that is because it was brought by the same high-powered corporate legal firm presiding over the legal action against UPenn: Kasowitz Benson Torres, best known for its work on behalf of former President Donald Trump. The firm’s leadership has been aptly described as “Bibi Netanyahu’s guys in the Trump White House.”
The law firm was known as Kasowitz Benson Torres & Friedman until 2017, when its partner, David Friedman left to become US Ambassador to Israel. Friedman has been credited with working alongside former presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner to pressure Trump into adopting more radically anti-Palestinian positions.
The firm was founded in 1993 by attorney Marc Kasowitz, who gained national notoriety for his work representing Big Tobacco, describing himself as one of the “most feared lawyers in the United States.” Though reports describe him as a strong Trump ally and a go-to source for the former president, financial disclosures show Kasowitz and his wife have donated thousands of dollars to Democratic politicians as well, including former President Barack Obama, current President Joe Biden, and Sen. Chuck Schumer. Also employed by the firm is former Sen. Joe Lieberman, a hardcore neoconservative who now serves as chairman of the pro-war United Against a Nuclear Iran. While in Congress, Lieberman advocated for moving the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem as far back as 1995.
A quick glance at Kasowitz Benson Torres’ recent handiwork reveals a lengthy track record of defending Goliath from David. For example, its website boasts of successfully defending Comcast against a class-action lawsuit by angry customers. Other high-profile clients include Israeli pharmaceutical giant Teva, best known for causing the ongoing worldwide shortage of a vincristine — a crucial drug in treating most types of childhood cancers with no known substitute — after it deemed production insufficiently profitable.
In 2019, the firm signed on to represent the US-based co-defendants of notoriously-corrupt Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, who now languishes in a Kiev prison and is known for bankrolling current president Volodymyr Zelensky and the Ukrainian military’s neo-Nazi Azov Regiment. Ukrainian financial giant Privatbank maintains that Kolomoisky and his associates defrauded the bank out of billions of dollars.
A year later, Kasowitz Benson Torres was required to register as a foreign agent with the US Justice Department after agreeing to represent an Israeli real estate developer specializing in building luxury condos for ulra-Orthodox Jews living in illegal settlements.
This November, The Grayzone revealed a leaked letter signed by David Friedman and delivered to NYU administrators in advance of the lawsuit. The letter demanded NYU establish a position dedicated to “combating antisemitism,” and disband student clubs dedicated to Palestine activism.
Now, the law firm’s crusade to crush the free speech rights of Palestine solidarity activists is spreading across the country. This November, two of the firm’s partners revealed that the legal team plans similar suits for Harvard, Cornell, Columbia, MIT, Stanford, and UC-Berkeley, accusing them all of “deliberate indifference” to the supposed plight of Jewish students.
TikTok Permanently Banned Glenn Greenwald’s System Update Show Last Week and Refuses To Say Why
By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | December 15, 2023
The TikTok account of a popular show hosted by journalist Glenn Greenwald was permanently banned, sparking debate over censorship practices on social media platforms. The account, primarily used for posting show clips, was banned for allegedly violating TikTok’s community guidelines, specifically the integrity and authenticity policy.
“Your account was permanently banned due to multiple violations of our community guidelines,” the notice from TikTok said, giving little detail about why.
“We could not get any kind of an answer on why it is that our account is banned, but we know that it’s permanently banned,” Greenwald said.
Greenwald, a seasoned journalist with numerous awards, expressed frustration over the lack of clear reasons provided for the ban. He emphasized that his show strictly adheres to fact-based reporting and avoids disinformation or conspiracy theories. The content often critiques US foreign policy and censorship regimes, which Greenwald suspects might have influenced the ban.
This incident has raised questions about the influence of the US security state on social media platforms. Greenwald argues that companies like TikTok, Facebook, and Google are under pressure from US authorities to censor content, a claim that resonates with wider concerns about free speech and media control.
The ban on Greenwald’s show highlights the precarious nature of relying on major tech platforms for disseminating information. With the risk of sudden and unexplained bans, content creators find themselves vulnerable and at the mercy of these platforms’ opaque policies. This situation underscores the importance of alternative platforms committed to free speech principles, as pointed out by Greenwald.
“Look at how arbitrary and capricious this is. If your livelihood, if your ability to be heard, rests on Big Tech, you’re just in the palm of their hands,” Greenwald said.
Election fraud, impeachment inquiries, prosecution of political opponents… Can American politics get any worse?
By Drago Bosnic | December 15, 2023
The mainstream propaganda machine’s (ab)use of the term “conspiracy theory” (coined by the likes of the CIA in an attempt to stifle and discredit any information that could hurt their interests) has made it virtually impossible to talk about election fraud in the United States. Anyone even remotely suggesting that this could be possible in the “lighthouse of global democracy” was considered a “conspiracy nut”. Former president Donald Trump was even threatened with legal action if he doesn’t drop the idea. Worse yet, some Democrats have even accused him of supposed “treachery”, as the claims of election fraud could further undermine the otherwise “impeccable” image and reputation of the US.
However, the latest poll, conducted jointly by Heartland Institute and Rasmussen Reports, based in Illinois and New Jersey, respectively, found that 20% of voters who cast mail-in ballots during the 2020 presidential election admit to participating in at least one kind of voter fraud. Heartland and Rasmussen claim that when asked, “During the 2020 election, did you fill out a ballot, in part or in full, on behalf of a friend or family member, such as a spouse or child?”, 21% of respondents who said they voted by mail answered “yes”. It should be noted that filling out a ballot on someone else’s behalf is illegal in all US states (although some allow people to assist others with voting).
In addition, 17% of mail-in voters said they voted “in a state where you were no longer a permanent resident”, while the same percentage also admitted to signing a “ballot or ballot envelope on behalf of a friend or family member”. Both actions are illegal and automatically invalidate votes. The report further points out that over 43% of voters cast ballots by mail, which is by far the highest percentage in US history. Another 10% of all respondents — not just those who said they voted by mail — claimed that they know “a friend, family member, co-worker, or other acquaintance who has admitted … that he or she cast a mail-in ballot in 2020 in a state other than his or her state of permanent residence”.
However, more disturbingly, 8% of all respondents said “a friend, family member, or organization, such as a political party” offered them “pay” or a “reward” for agreeing to vote in the 2020 election. The results of the poll show that election fraud was not only present during the 2020 election, but was actually quite common, particularly in the case of mail-in ballots. It also shows that Trump’s claims were certainly not exaggerated, much less a “conspiracy theory”. However, the troubled Biden administration will certainly keep insisting on this notion, for obvious reasons, of course. And yet, this isn’t where their troubles end, as President Joe Biden is faced with an impeachment inquiry.
Namely, on December 13, the House of Representatives approved the launch of a formal impeachment probe, just hours after Hunter Biden refused a Congressional testimony. According to the Wall Street Journal, formalizing the impeachment process will give Congress additional power by improving the likelihood that a court will authorize access to grand jury materials, as well as boosting the chances that the GOP will be able to overcome objections such as executive privilege. The White House has been trying to torpedo Congressional subpoenas and demands for transcribed interviews with Biden family members since they were launched back in September.
These refusals were based on the grounds that the existing impeachment probe was invalid because the House didn’t vote to authorize it. However, with a 221-212 vote in favor of the inquiry, the Biden administration can’t use this as an excuse anymore. House Speaker Mike Johnson even directly accused the White House of impeding the investigation, which has so far been two-pronged. Namely, the House Oversight Committee is focusing on the Biden family’s corruption, while the House Judiciary Committee is investigating the weaponization of the Justice Department and FBI, as both are being used by the DNC to prosecute political opponents, with a particular focus on Donald Trump.
The sheer number of cases launched against him is absolutely unprecedented. No president has ever been indicted in the US, but Trump now has over half a dozen major cases and a plethora of smaller ones, including for alleged “election subversion”. Trump’s business-minded approach to politics and geopolitics has made him quite a lot of enemies among the political elites in Washington DC, which he, ever so “endearingly” (but not without reason), likes to call “The Swamp”. His statements about Putin and Russia are effectively considered “heresy” among both Democrat neoliberals and his “fellow” Republican neocons. Trump’s aversion toward warmongering is his “gravest crime”.
While in office, he had tremendous problems with warhawks within his own administration, resulting in several high-profile sackings, such as the case of the infamous John Bolton, one of the leading members of the so-called “war party” in Washington DC. Trump’s realpolitik approach stands in stark contrast to the warmongering elite’s overly ideological and completely impractical foreign policy framework that has not only created enemies everywhere, but has also effectively united them. He regularly criticizes his political opponents for underestimating Russia, a resurgent global superpower, rightfully calling it dangerous for US and global security.
However, Trump’s repeated warnings have not only been ignored, but simply rejected by the political establishment. It seems that high-profile US political figures committing any crime can get away with it, including sexual misconduct with minors, as long as they support the official narrative, even when the said narrative leads to a world-ending thermonuclear exchange. However, fighting the narrative in order to prevent such a conflict will almost certainly result in years of incessant and largely unfounded slandering (at best) or even land one in jail on trumped-up (no pun intended) charges. Either way, the current political situation completely dispels the illusion that the US is a democracy.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
Congress Extends Mass Surveillance Program
By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | December 14, 2023
On Thursday, the US House of Representatives passed a funding bill for next year’s defense expenditures, which controversially incorporates a short-term extension of certain surveillance authority.
The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) received overwhelming bipartisan support in the House, passing with a vote of 310 to 118. This count far exceeded the two-thirds majority needed for approval. Following its passage, the bill is now headed to the White House, where it awaits President Joe Biden’s signature to become law.
The temporary extension in question belongs to the surveillance capabilities under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which was slated to expire at year’s end and have now been renewed through April 2024.
Utah GOP Senator Mike Lee led a robust effort to axe this extension, despite facing defeat.
Notably, a group of thirty-five senators, featuring Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul, rallied behind him. However, the movement fell short of the forty-one votes needed to successfully exclude the provision.
A warrantless surveillance mechanism provided for by Section 702 targets non-Americans overseas, a point of sensitive debate because the provision has, despite failed promises from the likes of the FBI to stop, caused surveillance of US citizens.
Two improvement proposals for these mandates were put forth by Republican members but were subsequently withdrawn by House Speaker Mike Johnson amid significant intra-GOP conflicts over the issue.
Kentucky GOP Rep. Thomas Massie expressed his dissatisfaction with the inclusion of the FISA extension in bill.
The US Navy Bought Surveillance Data Through Adtech Company Owned by Military Contractor Which Harvests Location Data From Smartphones
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | December 13, 2023
A report from 404 Media, for the most part based on Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, has put the pieces of a puzzle together to reveal that the US Navy was in business with an adtech company – that “just” happened to be owned by a major military contractor.
The company, nContext, is owned by Sierra Nevada Corporation, and what this triangle of surveillance was “keeping in the family” is the business of personal data changing hands, and reportedly, global (globally collected) data, at that.
404 Media writes that the public records it has seen show that the Navy was able to use a software tool (called, the Sierra Nevada nContext Vanir) that the US Department of Defense (Pentagon) uses for its surveillance operations around the world.
nContext, supposedly in the adtech (i.e., marketing) business, is behind developing that tool. However, the publicly available documents do not detail what kind of data the company had at its disposal, that was up for sale.
Above all, this is yet another example of how the ad industry – supposedly innocuous, other than for the suspicious amount of money it generates – actually can, and does at times work in insidious ways.
With this context in mind, the complexity and murkiness of the industry is perhaps not haphazard, but there to muddle up things as much as possible: because what this case shows is that an ad company can be collecting people’s data, allegedly for ad purposes (in and of itself, a highly controversial business) – but it then also gets available to all sorts of contractors, including those working closely with the US government, including the military and law enforcement.
The big picture: a government/country that is actively creating workarounds around its own laws and Constitution, which are supposed to mandate protecting citizens (including their right to privacy) – in this case, their private digital data.
“Crucially, when government agencies buy this data from a commercial entity, they can bypass legal restrictions put in place to protect the transfer and use of that information” – is how 404 Media describes this in its report.
In the specific case explored here, and in some previous Wall Street Journal articles, it appears that the information in question is location data taken from people’s phones and computers.
Important points regarding the WHO’s proposed Pandemic Treaty and major changes to the IHR
By Meryl Nass, MD | December 11, 2023
The Committee roster can be found here.
1. The WHO is not an honest broker.
- a. Its Director-General has repeatedly lied about the WHO’s 2 proposed treaties: the pandemic treaty/agreement, and International Health Regulation (IHR) amendments, claiming they do not seize sovereignty, when there is no doubt they do precisely that. See Why Does the WHO Make False Claims Regarding Proposals to Seize States’ Sovereignty? by David Bell, MD, PhD and attorney Thi Thuy Van Dinh, PhD.
- b. The WHO appears to have deceived the public about whether the amendments “approved” in May 2022 followed the legally required procedure of a full WHA vote. Twelve members of the European Parliament wrote to the WHO on November 28, 2023 asking for evidence that the WHO actually conducted a vote of the entire World Health Assembly to pass several new amendments in May 2022, with a 48 hour deadline. The WHO did not respond, and the twelve European parliament members declared the May 2022 amendments null and void last week.
- c. The WHO’s principal legal office, Steven Solomon, stated in early October that the IHR working group did not have to follow the required procedure (found in the existing 2005 version of the International Health Regulations) to make public the draft of new proposed amendments 4 months in advance of a vote. Thus, we may not see the new amendments until after the WHO members have voted on them.
2. The WHO’s proposed treaties are unconstitutional
- a. They demand that nations perform surveillance of their citizens’ social media footprints and censor them to prevent ‘infodemics’ (too much information, according to the WHO’s definition), misinformation and disinformation, surveil
- b. They say that nations should give up the intellectual property rights of their citizens.
- c. There is no due process for the declaring or ending of public health emergencies of international concern, for which no standards exist.
3. In the Oct. 30 draft of the treaty, A new WHO Secretariat and Conference of Parties for pandemics are to be established in the future and will make their own rules. Thus, agreeing to this means providing a blank check to the WHO to do whatever it wants at some later date.
4. The 2 proposed treaties ignore existing international law prohibiting the proliferation of biological warfare agents (the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention and the 2004 Security Council Memorandum 1540) and demand that nations search out new agents (a.k.a. “potential pandemic pathogens”) and share them with the WHO, which will “share them globally.” The WHO has already established a BioHub for this purpose and a Pathogen Access and Benefits System.
5. The proposed treaty and amendments also demand that nations perform 2 additional forms of surveillance of their citizens: microbiological surveillance of their populations, animals and ecosystems for pathogens, and surveillance and sharing of medical and hospital records, both of which violate privacy protections.
6. The proposed amendments remove the guarantee of “Human rights, dignity and freedom of persons” that are found in the current international health regulations.
7. The two proposed treaties are both binding, whereas the earlier IHR were recommendations only, apart from minor requirements for notification of certain outbreaks to the WHO. The two proposed documents would give the WHO and particularly its Director-General vast authority to manage healthcare globally. The current Director-General is not a medical practitioner and instead has a PhD in Community Health.
8. The WHO lacks the personnel and expertise to manage international pandemics and other health concerns. Any developed nation has within it much more capacity to understand and manage medical events within its borders, and likely international events as well.
9. The proposed treaty calls for rapidly produced vaccines and for nations to implement domestic legislation to permit the use of unlicensed medical products without manufacturer liability, instead “managing” the liability issues using existing models, such as the US’ Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program, which has so far compensated 8 Americans for injuries related to EUA COVID products (primarily vaccines) from the 12,358 claims filed. https://www.hrsa.gov/cicp/cicp-data
10. It is apparent that in the process of developing the “Pandemic Accord” and amendments to the IHR, WHO/WHA positioned itself in a combined law-making/executive/expert/censorship role, which is a well-known path to usurpation of unrestrained power. It should not be surprising, therefore, that the proposed Amendments grant expressly such power to the WHO.
11. The WHO receives 85% of its funding from voluntary contributions, and only 15% from dues paid by its 194 member nations. Most of the voluntary contributions are earmarked for special projects that the WHO carries out. When President Trump withheld US funding in 2020, Bill Gates became the WHO’s top funder. The (unelected) WHO serves many private masters, yet seeks to govern the world’s population.
12. Virtually every recommendation the WHO made for managing the COVID pandemic was counterproductive. Why would we give the WHO the power to enforce the same bad advice on the US and world?
Dr. Meryl Nass Rejects Maine Medical Board’s Conditions for Reinstating Medical License
By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | December 13, 2023
The Maine Board of Licensure in Medicine on Tuesday voted unanimously to extend the suspension of Dr. Meryl Nass’ medical license to a period of 39 months, saying she had violated rules set by the board in caring for three patients with COVID-19.
The board ruled that Nass, a biological warfare expert and an outspoken critic of federal COVID-19 policies, had “exhibited incompetency” or failed to meet standards of care in her treatment of the patients.
It imposed a fine of $10,000 toward hearing costs and a two-year probationary period during which Nass would be required to personally finance the costs of engaging professional oversight of her work, take courses in ethics and medical recordkeeping and undergo a competency evaluation, among other things.
The board issued its decision in a three-minute hearing during which neither side was permitted to present closing arguments.
Nass wrote on her substack that the hearing was an “anticlimactic finish” to a case that has dragged on since anonymous complaints were first filed against her in October 2021 for making “misleading” statements.
Those complaints were filed soon after the board issued a position statement, stating that licensees could face disciplinary action if they “generate and spread COVID-19 vaccine misinformation or disinformation.”
Nass, a practicing internal medicine physician and member of the Children’s Health Defense scientific advisory board, was subsequently investigated by the Maine board and faced the initial suspension of her license on Jan. 12, 2022, for spreading COVID-19 “misinformation.”
The board also accused her of improperly prescribing hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin for three patients for off-label uses of those drugs and failing to keep proper records and medical documentation.
Just prior to her first October 2022 hearing, the board suddenly dropped the charges of “misinformation,” but her license remained suspended and the board continued to investigate the charges related to her treatment of three patients with COVID-19, even though there were no patient complaints related to that treatment.
The board based their Tuesday decision on this set of charges.
Rather than conducting the hearings about the allegations against Nass over consecutive days, the board held single-day hearings about every other month since October 2022 — with Nass’s ability to practice medicine suspended the entire time.
During its seventh day of hearings in September, the board discussed its decision against her and a series of penalties that would be imposed on her. The six board members present and eligible to vote at the September hearing voted that her actions were grounds for discipline on eight of the 13 counts against her.
However, the board never formally finalized that decision and order, or responded to Nass’s inquiries about the decision until Tuesday’s hearing, Nass told The Defender.
Nass said she does not intend to comply with the conditions imposed by the board to recuperate her license, because “their interpretation of what happened and what I’m guilty of completely ignores all the testimony in the hearing that lasted almost a year.”
That included testimonies from Nass’ patients who, according to Nass’ attorney, all made “glowing comments” about her availability, her medical advice and her handling of their cases and expressed anger that Nass was being targeted by the board for their cases.
In total, Nass said that nine people’s testimonies and hundreds, or even thousands of documents demonstrating the legality and ethics of her practices were ignored by the board.
“What they essentially have done is said that I have to practice according to their way of looking at things, or I will never be able to get an unrestricted license back. So I will not be practicing medicine again, according to their requirements,” Nass said.
Instead, Nass is suing the board and its individual members in federal court, alleging the board violated her First Amendment rights and her rights under the Maine Constitution.
The complaint alleges the board engaged in retaliatory conduct against Nass, and suspended her medical license for publicly expressing her dissenting views on official COVID-19 policies, the COVID-19 vaccine and alternative treatments.
“Because she was outspoken, the board targeted Dr. Nass as someone to silence,” her attorney, Gene Libby told The Defender in August when Nass filed the lawsuit.
CHD President Mary Holland agreed. Speaking to Nass about the board hearings on CHD.TV in September, she said the hearing sounded like a “show trial” that is “really about showing a power dynamic” rather than about seeking justice or finding out what happened.
Holland said it seemed Nass was targeted “to send a message to doctors everywhere that, ‘You don’t get to do what you think is in the patient’s best interest. You do what we tell you to do.’”
The first round of oral arguments in Nass’ lawsuit against the board is scheduled for Jan. 10, 2024, before Judge Jon Levy in Portland, Maine.
Brenda Baletti Ph.D. is a reporter for The Defender. She wrote and taught about capitalism and politics for 10 years in the writing program at Duke University. She holds a Ph.D. in human geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master’s from the University of Texas at Austin.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
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Jewish Guilt is the Discourse of The Goyim
By Gilad Atzmon | April 24, 2018
For quite some time the British have accepted that British Jewish organizations have hijacked the political discourse. As has happened in other Western countries, the British political establishment has engaged is a relentless rant against antisemitsm. Sometime the focus drifts for a day or two. An alleged ‘Russian nerve gas attack’ provided a 48 hour pause. Occasionally we bomb Arabs in the name of ‘human intervention’ only to realize a day or two later that we have, once again, followed a premeditated foreign agenda. But, somehow, we always return to the antisemitism debate, as if our media and politicians are a herd of flies gravitating to a pile of poop. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- BEN-GVIR: “ALL OF LEBANON MUST BURN” — w/ Mouin Rabbani
- There Are No Budget Constraints In New York City: “Coastal Resiliency” Edition
- The UN’s plan to levy taxes on global trade is a sinister power grab
- Is there a future for the U.S. strategy in the Arctic?
- UN inquiry finds Israel ‘intentionally’ targeting Palestinian children in Gaza, occupied West Bank
- Citizens Around the World Demand Israel’s Expulsion From the United Nations
- ‘Israel not party to US-Iran talks, will continue full operations in Lebanon,’ Israeli far-right minister says
- Two killed in brazen Israeli ceasefire violation in southern Lebanon
- Which Country Is the Big Loser from the Ramadan War?
- Israeli Intel Whistleblower: Israel Ended Clinton Iran Deal With Epstein Blackmail
- If Americans Knew
- UN: Israel Continues to Commit Genocide and Other Atrocity Crimes by Deliberately Targeting Palestinian Children
- Bari Weiss, Free-Speech Fraud & Zionism Promoter, Would Rather Deport Than Debate
- ‘Doctor of the Poor’: Israeli Occupation Arrests Prominent Palestinian Physician
- Search for Your Church (and see if it has been targeted by the Israeli gov’t)
- Mark Levin Flying to Israel as Netanyahu Reportedly Seeks to ‘Leverage’ Levin to Trash Trump’s Iran Deal
- Watch: Zionist Brags about Israel’s Power to Get the World to Do What Israel Wants
- In Gaza, another senseless death on what should have been a joyous day – Daily Update
- The Republican & Democratic Politicians Trying to Scuttle Iran Agreement
- Israel’s continued targeting of civilians in Lebanon renders ceasefire meaningless
- U.S. intelligence warns Israel is likely to undermine Iran peace deal, officials say
- No Tricks Zone
- 3 New Studies Find Increasing Trends In Solar Radiation Since The 1980s – Easily Explaining Warming
- THE TRANSCEIVER PARADOX: Why Organoid Intelligence (OI) Could Become Our Ultimate Alien Predator
- German Wind Turbines Face Regulatory Shutdown Due To Excessive Noise
- New Study: Chile’s Relative Sea Level Was 3.2 Meters Higher Than Today During The Mid-Holocene
- Beyond The Pitch: Why FIFA’s World Cup Is One Of Humanity’s Best Investments
- Climate Alarmists Now Using Natural Phenomena To Support Their Claims
- New Study: Significant CO2 Fluxes From Non-Volcanic Sources Are Largely Neglected In Carbon Budgets
- Women Climate Scientists Being Harassed, Insulted By Skeptics, Claims Berkeley Earth Researcher
- Germany’s Longterm Spring Climate Data Show “No Climate Trend”
- New Study: Solar Photovoltaic, Wind Power Fail To Meet Annual Energy Demands 62% Of The Time
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