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Colombia: ELN Denies Responsibility For Murdered Social Leaders

teleSUR | July 7, 2018

Colombia’s National Liberation Army (ELN) has refuted allegations by the General Prosecutor that the group is responsible for the majority of social leaders murdered since the peace agreement was signed in 2016.

Posting on its official Twitter account on July 7, the insurgent group said: “The Office of the Prosecutor confuses and contaminates intentionally without providing information to support his accusations against us.”

The group also called attention to the General Prosecutor’s failure “to resolve the deaths and threats against leaders,” and said the words of National Director of Public Prosecutions Gonzalez Leon “represent a smokescreen to hide the true perpetrators of these murders.”

“The Prosecutor’s Office must stop participating in the ‘war of information’ and we urge the government to show its willingness to stop this extermination,” the ELN tweeted.

On July 6, Leon had told local media: “In the areas where these killings occur, we have found the (drug cartel) Clan del Golfo and the ELN as the main authors in Antioquia; the ELN in Choco and the municipalities of Cauca and Nariño, as well as FARC dissidents.”

The exchange followed a flurry of reports released by various social organizations earlier in the week, which variously accused the government and paramilitary groups of complicity in the killings.

One report, entitled ‘All The Names, All The Faces,’ names 123 of the 125 social leaders murdered between January 1 and July 4 this year. The two additional victims were murdered immediately after the report was published.

Another report on assassinations between 2002 and 2015 revealed that the majority of the murders aren’t related to Colombia’s half-century internal armed conflict, but are perpetrated by state security forces.

July 8, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Subjugation - Torture | , , | Leave a comment

Mainstream Media Admits FBI Groomed Terrorist for 4th of July Attack, Gave Him Supplies

By Rachel Blevins – The Free Thought Project – July 4, 2018

Cleveland, Ohio – An innocent man is now facing terrorism charges after he was caught plotting a bombing at a Fourth of July celebration and then arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The only problem is that the plot was created by undercover FBI agents, who convinced the man to agree to a role in the plan, and then provided him with supplies.

Demetrius Pitts, 48, is now facing criminal charges after conversations with undercover agents led to his arrest. According to the criminal complaint against Pitts, the FBI claimed that its agents reached out to him because he made comments on Facebook that indicated he may be interested in joining al-Qaeda, traveling overseas for training, and then returning to the U.S. to carry out an attack.

While it is not clear what the comments from Pitts—who was reportedly using a Facebook account with a different name—stated exactly, it is clear that there was no indication he actually planned on carrying out a terrorist attack. In fact, a report from NBC News admitted that “there’s no indication that Pitts could have carried off any attack on his own.”

FBI Special Agent in Charge Stephen Anthony justified the contact by insisting that instead of waiting to see if Pitts ever joined al-Qaeda and traveled overseas for training, agents were completely justified in reaching out to Pitt and trying to convince him to carry out an attack now.

“Law enforcement cannot stand by and wait for Mr. Pitts to make a violent attack,” Anthony said.

Pitts agreed to meet an undercover agent in person, and the criminal complaint claimed that the agent secretly recorded their conversations, which revolved around wanting to assassinate President Trump, and planning a terrorist attack in Cleveland. “I’m trying to figure out something that would shake them up on the Fourth of July,” Pitts told the agent.

However, the complaint raises questions about how much Pitts even wanted to be involved with the planned attack, because he simply wanted to “go look at the base of the ground” where it would take place, and he wanted the other “brothers” who the FBI agent claimed were involved, to fulfill all of the other parts of the plan.

“I don’t wanna meet all the Brothers,” Pitts said in one conversation.

“Now what about the detonator guy?” the agent asked.

“Now I don’t even wanna meet him,” Pitts replied. “He has nothing to do with me… The only thing I’m going to be responsible for is going to look at the spot, to scope out the scenery.”

In order to carry out his role, Pitts needed a bus pass to take him downtown and a cellphone to take photos of the places that would be bombing targets—both of which were supplied by the FBI.

Given the fact that he did not provide any of the supplies needed for the attack, he did not want to be the one who carried out the attack, and he simply promised to provide a basic layout of downtown Cleveland, proves that Demetrius Pitts was clearly not the ticking time bomb the FBI claimed he was.

The report claimed that Pitts was sentenced to prison for a robbery in 1989, and he pleaded guilty to theft in 2007. His latest run-in with the law occurred in 2016 when the state of Pennsylvania requested that Pitts be extradited on assault, robbery and theft charges.

Pitts has now been charged with providing material support to a terrorist organization because he agreed to use a cellphone and a bus pass provided by the FBI to take photos of downtown Cleveland.

Diane Stoudemire, Pitts’ aunt, told USA Today that she was shocked by the news and that Pitts has “never been a violent person.”

“He had had some problems with drugs and everything,” Stoudemire said. “He came up without his father, which is my brother, that was killed before Demetrius was born. His mother passed away while Demetrius was in penitentiary, so he’s been having such a hard time.”

This is not the first time the FBI has used its undercover agents to befriend a man online who looks like he may be critical of the U.S. government and sympathetic to terrorist groups in the Middle East, and has convinced him to carry out an attack on U.S. soil—so that the FBI can then heroically arrest the suspect, even if he refused to carry out the attack.

In December, the FBI was credited with stopping a man from carrying out an ISIS-inspired attack after their undercover agents attempted to coerce him into it, but when he refused to carry out the attack, he was still painted as a “terrorist,” and he now faces up to 20 years in prison.

Then in March, a similar incident happened when an FBI informant targeted a mentally ill man who agreed online, to carry out an attack and was arrested as soon as he claimed he would accept supplies from the FBI.

While the FBI appears to have intentionally sought out the men its agents befriended in all three cases, the agency chose to ignore several reports about a suspect who was actually planning an attack.

The FBI received multiple credible reports that Nikolas Cruz was planning to commit mass murder in the months before the Parkland shooting. Less than six weeks before the shooting, someone the FBI described as “a person close to” Cruz reached out to the agency and desperately pleaded for their help. The person reported Cruz’s “gun ownership, desire to kill people, erratic behavior, and disturbing social media posts, as well as the potential of him conducting a school shooting.”

Yet the FBI apparently chose to focus on fictitious cases and did nothing to interfere with Cruz’s rampage.

Rachel Blevins is an independent journalist from Texas, who aspires to break the false left/right paradigm in media and politics by pursuing truth and questioning existing narratives. Follow Rachel on Facebook, TwitterYouTube, Steemit and Patreon.

July 5, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception | , , | Leave a comment

Sputnik Latvia’s editor-in-chief detained by police in Riga for almost 12hrs

RT | July 5, 2018

Sputnik Latvia Editor-in-Chief Valentins Rozencovs has been held and interrogated about his work by Latvian police for almost 12 hours. The agency said its journalists face “routine” pressure from officials in Baltic countries.

Rozencovs, who is a Latvian citizen, was detained “for conversation” shortly after he landed in the Latvian capital on Wednesday evening. His spent all night answering the officers’ questions. Authorities did not file any formal documents as detention for fewer than 12 hours is not considered a formal arrest in Latvia, Rozencovs said.

“I was detained in Riga for a conversation, as they [the police] called it, upon my arrival from Moscow. They did not file any reports,” the editor-in-chief said after his release on Thursday, as cited by Sputnik. “The security police were interested in my work as senior editor of Sputnik Latvia and the work of the outlet itself in Latvia.”

The press service of the agency stressed, in the wake of the incident, that Russian media are under pressure due to its growing popularity over mainstream media.

“Unfortunately, pressure on our journalists has become routine in the Baltic countries,” the statement read. “Democratic European states are concerned about the growing popularity of Sputnik websites in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, representing a point of view which is different from what they consider the only right one.”

In April, the Latvian National Council opposed the use of Sputnik’s material by state-funded media on electronic media. The watchdog, which can strip a news outlet of its license, said that spending taxpayers’ money “to strengthen Sputnik and popularize its brand is not in the interests of Latvian society.”

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova condemned the policies against Russian media, saying that they would only harm the Russian-speaking population in Latvia. Around 500,000 Russian nationals live in the country, which amounts to around a quarter of the population.

The detention of the journalist is a part of an information war, Latvia MEP and co-chairman of the Latvian Russian Union (LRU) Miroslav Mitrofanov believes.

“There is a cold war between the West and Russia. Information confrontation is part of it,” he told RIA Novosti. The politician added that Latvian authorities are showing their “irritation” with the news outlet’s activity, as the ruling parties can save their position “only if there is no source of alternative information in Latvian.”

Read more:

‘President was clear about RT’: Journalist barred from Elysee Palace despite having credentials

July 5, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , | Leave a comment

Pro-Israel group loses ‘anti-Semitism’ case against Leicester council

Jewish colonists stealing Palestinian olives in the West Bank
MEMO | July 4, 2018

Leicester City Council has “won its long-running legal battle” against a pro-Israel advocacy group over a motion backing a boycott of Israeli settlement produce, reported the Leicester Mercury.

In a ruling issued Tuesday, the Court of Appeal rejected the arguments brought by Jewish Human Rights Watch (JHRW), who had taken legal action against the 2014 council motion.

As reported by the local paper, “JHRW challenged a High Court judge’s previous decision to reject the pressure group’s attempt to force the council to rescind the boycott”, arguing that “the council had breached its own equalities rules and had acted in a discriminatory manner”.

The council, however, won yesterday’s case, and “JHRW has indicated it will not pursue the matter further”. In addition, “JHRW is now likely to have to pay the council’s legal costs.”

The council’s barrister, Kamal Adatia, said after the case: “The High Court originally dismissed the claims of discrimination made by this group back in June 2016, and now the Court of Appeal has emphatically thrown out their appeal.”

“The ruling totally endorses Leicester’s approach to handling this motion, and has made no change whatsoever to the way in which councils can pass such motions in future.”

“The judgement is a landmark – not for organisations like JHRW, but for all local councils. It recognises their fundamental right to pass motions of this nature and makes it clear that they can, like Leicester, fully comply with their equality duties when doing so.”

City Mayor Sir Peter Soulsby said: “Their argument has been trounced in the judge’s decision.”

“I strongly resent the implication it is not possible to criticise the Israeli government without being anti-Semitic.”

The motion backing a boycott of goods made in internationally-condemned Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory was, Soulsby said, “never anticipated to have a major impact (on our purchasing)”, but rather “was a powerful gesture to show support for the plight of the Palestinians”.

In a bizarre press release, Jewish Human Rights Watch spun defeat as victory, claiming that despite their appeal being rejected, the ruling “made a number of very important changes to the law”.

July 4, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Official Fake News

By Serge Halimi | CounterPunch | July 3, 2018

Emmanuel Macron, who was comfortably elected to the presidency with the support of almost the entire French media, has demanded that his parliamentary majority provide him with a law against ‘fake news’ during election campaigns. Perhaps he’s preparing for the next one.

The draft legislation reveals both the blindness of those who govern when challenged and their inclination to invent new coercive countermeasures. You would have to be myopic indeed to believe that the victory of ‘anti-establishment’ candidates, parties and causes (Donald Trump, Brexit, the Catalan referendum, Italy’s Five Star Movement) could, even marginally, be the consequence of authoritarian regimes spreading fake news. The US press has been trying to demonstrate for a year, as yet without conclusive evidence, that Trump owes his election to fake news manufactured by Vladimir Putin.

Macron has a similar obsession, to the point of hoping to make fake news vanish with a law that is both useless and dangerous. Useless because France’s Council of State pointed out on 19 April that ‘French law already contains several measures intended to combat the dissemination of false information’: in particular the law of 29 July 1881 on the freedom of the press, which permits curbs on the dissemination of false information and the expression of views that are defamatory or abusive or incite hatred.

And dangerous because the bill about to go before parliament would require a judge to act within 48 hours to ‘stop the artificial and large-scale dissemination of news constituting false information.’ But, the Council of State’s response continued, ‘these are hard to determine legally, especially when the judge must give a judgement within a very short time.’ Macron’s law would also strengthen Internet service providers’ and hosts’ duty of cooperation with the authorities, since it extends to all false information restraints that were initially aimed at preventing ‘apologism for crimes against humanity, incitement to hatred and child pornography.’

Media ownership by the president’s billionaire friends, toxic advertising claims, and suppressing public television channels’ funding are not the subject of any draft law. And why limit this judicial apparatus to the campaign season? In the past few decades, in almost every war — in the Gulf, Kosovo, Iraq and Libya — there has been a proliferation of lies and news manipulation. Not by Russia, Facebook or social media, but by our beacons of democracy and journalism: the major western daily newspapers, with the New York Times in the vanguard, the White House and European capitals. Not to mention the Ukrainian government, which deliberately announced the false death of a journalist last month. If a judge needs to order the arrest of the people responsible for spreading this fake news, at least they’ll be easy to find…

Serge Halimi is president of Le Monde diplomatique

July 3, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Fake News, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Upon Israel’s request, Twitter closes Hamas, Hezbollah accounts

MEMO | July 3, 2018

Twitter has closed a number of accounts belonging to Hamas and Hezbollah officials, the Israeli Ministry of Public Security and Strategic Affairs said yesterday.

According to Haaretz the move comes two weeks after Israeli Minister of Public Security and Strategic Affairs Gilad Erdan sent a letter to Twitter’s CEO and executive chairman claiming the social media giant was “largely irresponsive to requests by the Israeli authorities to remove terrorist content and shut down terrorist accounts.”

He also said in his letter that “enabling terrorist organisations to operate freely and spread their messages via your platform may be a violation of existing Israeli laws regarding providing support to terrorist organisations.”

The letter supplied a list of 40 Twitter accounts which are affiliated with Hamas and Hezbollah and threatened legal action if they are not removed. Twitter, according to the Anadolu Agency, closed 35 of them.

July 3, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Falter vs. Atzmon: Update

Gilad Atzmon | July 02, 2018

Dear friends and supporters,

As you know, three months ago I was sued in the High Court of England by the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism’s Chairman Gideon Falter regarding a paper that I published on my website. I asked for your support and was thrilled to find out how vast and kind your support was.

Before the trial could begin, the court held a preliminary hearing to do with the meaning of the words of my article. There was a dispute between the sides about how far my words went, and what the allegations I made were. This dispute had to be resolved by the court before the actual trial could take place.

The judge in the case, Mr Justice Nicklin, applied his own meaning to my article at the preliminary hearing, which included a ruling from him that my article claimed that the funds collected by Mr. Falter and the CAA were obtained by “fraud” on Mr. Falter’s part.

I did not (and do not) believe that Mr. Falter was motivated by fraud and I do not think that there is anything I said that suggested it. However, I have to accept the ruling that the court made.

Even taking the case to this point had been costly on both a financial and personal level, and after this ruling it was clear to me that I had no option but to apologise and settle the case.

The overall battle for free speech has been very expensive and it is probably far from over.

The case has re-confirmed to me the crucial importance of freedom of expression and the restrictions imposed on it by the libel courts in this country.

Despite what has been suggested earlier today by Mr Falter in a press release, the court didn’t make any finding that I myself am an anti-Semite.

Thank you again for your support.

Gilad

In case you want to support my legal fees

July 2, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | | Leave a comment

Senate Minority Leader Introduces ‘Democrats Only’ Marijuana Prohibition Roll-back Bill

By Daniel McAdams | Ron Paul Institute | June 29, 2018

In October, a Gallup poll found, for the first time, majority support among Republicans for legalizing marijuana. Such majority support had already existed among Democrats and independents. Then, this month, huge majorities of delegates at the Republican Party of Texas state convention approved party platform planks calling for decriminalizing marijuana possession; moving marijuana from Schedule 1 to Schedule 2 of the United States government’s Controlled Substances Act; allowing the cultivation, manufacture, and sale of hemp and hemp products; and expanding the state’s low-THC cannabis oil medical program. And, this week, voters approved a medical marijuana ballot measure in Oklahoma, another “conservative” state, making it the 30th state to legalize medical marijuana.

The time seems to be ripe for Democrats in the US Congress to reach out for Republican support in ending the US government’s marijuana prohibition. Yet, this week, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) instead chose to introduce the Marijuana Freedom and Opportunity Act (S 3174), a bill that seeks to remove much of the United States government’s marijuana prohibition and includes a provision that will likely ensure that the bill receives support from few to no Republicans.

The provision directs that a portion of US taxes generated each year from the marijuana industry be placed in a newly created “Marijuana Opportunity Trust Fund” from which the money will be distributed via Small Business Administration loans to marijuana companies owned and controlled by women and “socially and economically disadvantaged individuals.” Looking at US statutes subsection 15 USC 637(d)(3)(C) that explains the meaning of “socially and economically disadvantaged individuals” one finds out that the group is presumed to include “Black Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans, Asian Pacific Americans, and other minorities.”

In short, included in Schumer’s bill is a special race-and-sex-based subsidy for marijuana businesses. This provides clear reason for Republican senators — many of whom already are wary of supporting a significant marijuana prohibition roll-back — to not support the bill. First, race-and-sex-based government preferences tend not to be popular among Republican voters and politicians. Second, the provision converts the bill from legislation that just takes the small government step of eliminating marijuana-related legal restraints to legislation taking the big government approach of subsidizing marijuana businesses. A Republican Senator who cosponsors or votes for the bill would, in general, be endorsing a new government subsidy and, in particular, be helping fund marijuana businesses — something much different than merely tolerating their existence.

July 2, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception | , | Leave a comment

British government involved in torture, report found

MEMO | June 28, 2018

The British government’s involvement in torture and rendition is “beyond doubt” the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) said today. The parliamentary committee, which oversee the work of the intelligence machinery of the UK, revealed the true scale of the UK government’s involvement in torture and rendition since the war on terror was launched by US President George Bush in 2001.

It is one of the most damning indictments ever of UK intelligence. Torture and rendition, according to the ISC, were much more widespread than previously reported. The ISC rejected the intelligence agencies’ defence and said that the cases were not just “isolated incidents”.

A litany of cases of concern was highlighted in two reports by the USC. One report deals with the mistreatment and rendition of detainees between 2001 and 2010, while the other considers current issues.

It said that in 232 cases UK personnel continued to supply questions or intelligence to other services despite knowledge or suspicion of mistreatment. In 198 cases UK personnel received intelligence from liaison services and knew that the detainees had been mistreated or at least should have suspected mistreatment.

Committee chairman, Conservative MP Dominic Grieve said: “In our view the UK tolerated actions, and took others, that we regard as inexcusable.” In three individual cases the MI6 or MI5 even made or offered to make a financial contribution to others to conduct a rendition operation. In 28 cases, the agencies suggested, planned or agreed to rendition operations proposed by others. In a further 22 cases, MI6 or MI5 provided intelligence to enable a rendition operation to take place. In 23 cases they failed to take action to prevent rendition.

Rendering or rendition involves sending a person from one country to another for imprisonment and interrogation, by methods such as torture, which would be illegal in the country doing the rendering. Prisoners were taken to prisons known as black sites scattered around the globe in some of the most brutal regimes to interrogate and torture prisoners. US intelligence agencies used the process of “extraordinary rendition” to send terror suspects for interrogation by security officials in other countries, where they have no legal protection or rights under American law.

“That the US, and others, were mistreating detainees is beyond doubt, as is the fact that the agencies and defence intelligence were aware of this at an early point,” the report says. “The same is true of rendition: there was no attempt to identify the risks involved and formulate the UK’s response. The report said that there was no understanding in HMG [Her Majesty’s Government] of rendition and no clear policy – or even recognition of the need for one.”

Grieve, said that the committee had reluctantly decided to bring the inquiry to a premature end because it had been denied access to key intelligence individuals by the prime minister. “It is difficult to comprehend how those at the top of the office did not recognise the pattern of mistreatment by the US,” he continued. Grieve also said that had the inquiry continued, the committee would have called the then home secretary, David Blunkett, and the previous foreign secretary, Jack Straw, to explain what they understood to be the situation at the time and why a briefing was not requested.

The committee also said that they wanted to interview the MI6 officers involved but the government had “denied [us] access to those individuals.”

Craig Murray, a former British diplomat, who gave “key evidence” to the ISC said in a Facebook post that he is the only senior British civil servant to enter a written protest of the torture policy but was sacked as a result.

June 28, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Macron Embraces Liberal Authoritarianism by Attempting to Force French Children Into The Military

By Adam Garrie | EurasiaFuture | June 28, 2018

Emmanuel Macron was the first modern French President not to experience compulsory military service as prior to his eighteenth birthday, the French government abolished conscription. However, after benefiting from the fact that France is a country facing no traditional military threats, Macron has now put forward formal proposals which would force all 16 year old French girls and boys to serve in the military.

Macron’s proposals not only defy the pan-European trend of ending compulsory service but they also defy logic. It is well known that especially in the age of high-tech warfare, conscripted armies are simply not as efficient nor as effective as those comprised of volunteers. Countries that maintain compulsory military service are generally those that face major existential threats from traditional armed forces, countries with small populations or nations that simply have not got around to modifying old rules. In any case, many of the countries that still do enforce some kind of compulsory service are reducing the amount of years or months required while also offering a variety of exemptions.

Furthermore, while most countries that still conscript young people only begin the process when one has turned 18 and while furthermore, they generally only ever draft males – Macron has set the bar at the age of 16 and will require both males and females to forcibly join the armed forces if he gets his way.

Macron’s proposals represent a massive step backwards for the French people. France is a country that has enjoyed all the benefits of pan-European peace while its volunteer armed forces continue to inflect suffering upon the developing world along with their other NATO allies. There can be no justification for conscription during a time of unparalleled peace, but Macron has other things in mind.

While liberalism used to connote an idea of relaxed governmental controls on everything from the economy to public morality, today’s liberalism is increasingly embracing an atmosphere of classic authoritarianism which is used to enforce not patriotic nor moral values, but contemporary ultra-liberal ones. In other words, liberalism has pivoted from “do as you will do – no matter the consequences” to “do as we say or else be severely punished for not embracing our particular liberal set of social values”.

Macron’s attempt to militarise society by targeting children is the next logical progression of such a barbaric modus operandi and what is more worrying is that other liberal authoritarians in Europe may follow Macron in throwing away Europe’s peace by turning it into a needlessly more militarised region.

Without a doubt, the biggest problem that contemporary Europe faces is the migration crisis that was itself caused by Angela Merkel forcing a pan-EU open door policy down the throats of ordinary people who never got to have a formal say in the matter. As France has been one of the countries to most readily embrace Merkel’s open door policy, Macron bears his share of responsibility for the present crisis.

Macron has implied that his conscription policy is an attempt to use military service to create social solidarity where at present there is a great deal of discord. However, by militarising the youth, all it will do is propagate an atmosphere of violence that can only be tackled by tough policing when combined with an end to open door policies for economic migrants posing as refugees.

The problems in French society are due to a combination of lax enforcement of current drug laws, poor policing techniques against the proliferation of gangs, terror cells and weapons and an attitude of so-called political correctness which disallows police from following basic lines of logic in cracking down on criminal activities in society.

All Macron’s conscription plans will do is create more anger and violence among ordinary citizens who at the moment simply want professional police to do their job without the constraints they are currently under. Furthermore, Macron’s plan seeks to shift the blame for the migrant crisis onto an invisible foreign threat that a bulked-up, partially conscripted French military will now prepare to fight. This weapon of mass distraction seeks to point the finger at any given “foreign menace” as the cause of the current breakdown in French society when in reality it was France’s and the EU’s own policies which sowed the seeds of the current atmosphere of widespread discontent.

Macron’s liberal authoritarianism will simply punish French children for literally no reason at all, while simultaneously providing himself an excuse to deflect from the blame he has earned by his refusal to wake up to reality regarding Europe’s migrant crisis.

If there was ever a reason for French men and women to take to the streets and protest their government, this certainly is among the most important.

June 28, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Candidate for local elections gunned down in Mexico

Emigdio Lopez Avendano, a Mexican politician killed in the latest act of violence in Mexico (file photo)
Press TV – June 26, 2018

A candidate in Mexico’s elections was gunned down along with four other people on Monday as they made their way to a campaign rally, the Oaxaca state government and police said.

The candidate was identified as 50-year-old Emigdio Lopez Avendano, a member of an indigenous community called Piedra Ceniza, the state justice department said.

He and the four other people killed in the attack on their truck supported the party of leftist presidential front-runner Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, it added. Two other people were wounded.

Lopez Avendano was running for a local council seat in Oaxaca.

Sunday’s voting will see Mexico elect a new president, congress and state and local officials.

The campaign has set a record for violence, with more than a hundred politicians and candidates killed, most of them at the local level.

June 26, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Subjugation - Torture | , | Leave a comment

‘Everyday Censorship’ Proposed That Should Enrage Us All

21st Century Wire | June 22, 2018

When one of the creators of the Internet as we know it today (not you Al Gore!) voices their discontent with the latest overstep of power towards full throttle censorship, you know it’s serious business.

Tim Berners-Lee, best known for his work helping to create the World Wide Web, along with other Internet pioneers, have penned an open letter opposing the Members of European Parliament (MEPs) who voted earlier this week in favor of a plan to force publishers to automatically remove any content that appears to violate copyright.

The Independent reports this means “memes, mixes, sampling, and even reuse of news and parliamentary footage, will get caught up and deleted without warning.”

Publishers will be expected to monitor all their content uploads and check for copyright material and remove it immediately, and ostensibly by doing so automatically, as outlined in Article 13 of the proposal.

In the open letter asking MEPs to remove Article 13, the letter’s 57 signatories write:

“Article 13 takes an unprecedented step towards the transformation of the internet, from an open platform for sharing and innovation, into a tool for the automated surveillance and control of its users.”

Read more about this latest Internet censorship plan at The Independent…

June 23, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | | Leave a comment