EU Big Brother is Watching News of Fico Assassination Attempt
By John Leake | Courageous Discourse™ | May 17, 2024
According to a report this morning in BNN Bloomberg :
The European Commission said it’s “actively monitoring” the spread of fake news about Wednesday’s shooting Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico and warned it can slap Big Tech platforms with fines for failing to tackle disinformation.
The regulator “is equipped with wide-ranging investigatory and supervisory powers, including the power to impose sanctions and remedies,” it said in an emailed statement.
Violations could be punished under the European Union’s tough new Digital Services Act, which forces online platforms to put into place measures to tackle illegal content and disinformation, uphold user rights, and protect user’s health and wellbeing.
In other words, the European Commission has already decided the orthodox narrative of this crime—even before a full and transparent investigation has been performed—and will censor any theory or narrative of the crime that diverges from the orthodoxy.
Who Is Juraj Cintula?
Is the man who tried to assassinate Slovak Prime Minister Fico really a “lone wolf”?
By John Leake | Courageous Discourse™ | May 16, 2024
The Telegraph and the Times of India have published profiles on the 71-year-old Slovakian poet, Juraj Cintula, who tried to assassinate Slovak Prime Minister, Robert Fico. The following is from the Telegraph report:
Juraj Cintula, a 71-year-old poet from the western town of Levice, posted online rants against Mr Fico before opening fire on the Left-wing nationalist at close range on Wednesday.
A photo of the writer published on X, formerly Twitter, showed him protesting against the government’s controversial reforms…
[Fico] is viewed as one of the EU’s most pro-Russian leaders after campaigning on a platform to end weapons donations to Ukraine.
In a post for the Movement Against Violence in 2022, Mr Cintula condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “What Slavic brotherhood?” he wrote, referring to Kremlin claims that Ukraine and Russia could be joined as they were essentially the same country. “He is only the aggressor and the attacked.”
A friend from Levice told Markiza TV that the pair had debates about politics, saying: “I’m more for Russia. He had different opinions.”
In 2015, Mr Cintula founded the campaign group Against Violence and sought to get it officially registered in Slovakia. “Violence is often a reaction of people, as a form of expression of ordinary dissatisfaction with the state of affairs. Let’s be dissatisfied, but not violent,” a petition circulated by him said.
… Unverified video footage emerged on Wednesday of Mr Cintula saying he did not agree with Mr Fico’s “government policy”. In another social media post, he criticised the Fico government for not cracking down on gambling.
The suspect’s political leanings appear to have shifted over time. He was once pro-Russian, and railed against “eyeless gypsies” and migrants before shooting the populist prime minister, who is fiercely anti-migrant.
I was surprised by how quickly the Slovak interior minister, Matus Sutaj Estok, characterized Cintula as “a lone wolf” who “did not belong to any political groups.”
It seems to me that no apparent political group affiliation does not necessarily mean that Cintula was not influenced or directed by someone else. Cintula’s online political rants in which he expressed strong emotions and shifting opinions could have flagged him as man who could be approached and influenced by an agent serving powerful interests. In this hypothetical scenario, Cintula may have fallen under the influence of an agent who presented himself under false pretenses.
Like many other reasonable people, I noticed that Prime Minister Fico has vocally criticized COVID-19 vaccines, endless shipments of weapons to Ukraine, mass immigration, transgender ideology, and climate change ideology. This makes him one of the few heads of state in Europe who has challenged all four articles of faith in what I call the Holy Quadripartitus of Piffle.
1). COVID-19 vaccines are saving mankind. Anyone who questions the safety and efficacy of the vaccines is guilty of heresy.
2). The U.S. proxy war in Ukraine is a sacred mission and no negotiated settlement with Russia shall be countenanced. Anyone who criticizes the Ukrainian and U.S. governments, and any attempt to understand the war from the Russian point of view, is guilty of heresy.
3). Human induced climate change will soon destroy the earth if trillions aren’t spent to overhaul our entire energy policy. Anyone who questions this proposition is guilty of heresy.
4). The concept of biological sex is a mere “construct.” Skilled surgeons and endocrinologists can transform a boy into a girl or vice versa. Anyone who questions this assertion is guilty of heresy.
Given the fervent belief in the Holy Quadripartitus—the Nicene Creed of the vaccine cartel, arms dealers, money launderers, lobbyists, racketeers, and child butchers—it is a matter of certainty that Prime Minister Fico has a vast array of powerful enemies.
UK Army Unit Labeled Accurate COVID Reporting as “Malinformation”
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | May 16, 2024
More details are coming out about the Covid-era activity of the UK army unit, the 77th Brigade, which the country’s government used to spy on citizens, suppress dissent around issues related to the pandemic, and flag content for social media sites to label or remove.
The unit, said to be of the psyops (“psychological operations”) variety, carried out a series of controversial and even suspected unlawful activities over this period of time, although in early 2021, the UK government flat-out denied it was involved in “any kind of action against British citizens.”
But a batch of subsequent responses to freedom of information requests, including those filed a year later by the Big Brother privacy-promoting NGO, tell a different story.
Perhaps it’s hardly the fault of the 77th Brigade that it spread disinformation while saying it was fighting it, or that it was among agencies that came up with the idea to get government censors to infiltrate social platforms – after all, the unit was set up in 2015 for the purpose of conducting “covert (online) warfare and subversion campaigns.”
The more pertinent question may be why the UK government decided to rely so heavily on the military (the country’s air force, RAF, was also involved) in order to monitor and censor people’s discussions about things like masks, lockdowns, vaccines – and why these soldiers were instructed to turn on their fellow citizens.
Either way, it did, and it was: In one example early in the pandemic – March 2020 – Guardian reporter Jennifer Rankin tweeted that both UK and EU sources had confirmed the former was not a part of the EU’s PPE procurement project.
The military was quick to label this as “malinformation” – apparently the “code word” for making sure the government is perceived positively regardless of whether reporting/content is accurate. In Rankin’s case, it was.
Big Brother Watch researcher Jake Hurfurt writes about this and cites a whistleblower who revealed how the 77th Brigade managed to bypass legal rules around using the army to monitor dissent at home.
“The leading view was that unless a profile explicitly stated their real name and nationality, which is, of course, vanishingly rare, they could be a foreign agent and were fair game to flag up,” the whistleblower is quoted as saying.
But there’s another way the authorities worked around “the problem,” Hurfurt explains: “As in the United States, UK government officials insist that the flagging of social media content by officials was legal because the officials were just making suggestions, not demanding censorship.”
UK Disinformation Unit Minutes Reveal Consideration of Placing Government Employees Inside Social Media Companies
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | May 15, 2024
Recently released minutes from the UK government’s Counter Disinformation Unit (CDU) governing board, the Disinformation Board, provide further evidence of the authorities’ direct involvement in monitoring online speech during the pandemic but also flagging it for removal.
But even this wasn’t enough for CDU, which in 2023, after several years of criticism and scrutiny by some media and privacy groups, got rebranded as the National Security Online Information Team (NSOIT).
One of the moves considered by top UK officials was to “embed” civil servants in companies running social platforms, and it remains unclear if this was in fact done, writes Big Brother Watch’s Jake Hurfurt for Public.
CDU was only one building block in the UK’s Covid-era censorship effort; several military units were enlisted to participate as well, most notably and controversially the 77th Brigade, whose job is supposed to be spreading misinformation, and in general, finding its “psyops” targets abroad, not at home.
NSOIT (CDU) also states that it is “countering disinformation and hostile state narratives.” But these and several other outfits, as well as private contractors hired by the government, were tasked with surveillance of British citizens and suppression of those seen as “Covid measures dissenters.”
And so, what scores of freedom of information requests have since revealed is that they went not after disinformation-spreading “foreign adversary” – but ordinary British citizens, medical professionals, journalists, and even politicians who were engaging in legitimate, albeit critical of the government, speech.
Regarding the lengths to which the UK was prepared to go – specifically if officials actually got “embedded” in social media companies – this is unclear to this day thanks to the government’s refusal to provide access to reports compiled by Logically, a private company.
Logically made millions from contracts with the British military, Hurfurt notes. Completing the picture of the web of sometimes loosely, other times tightly inter-connected entities that work hard to censor online speech, he adds:
“(Logically) has a large US presence and is headed by US ex-intelligence officer Brian Murphy, who worked at the Department for Homeland Security (DHS).”
Meanwhile, the UK government explains its refusal to shed light on the question of whether or not its officials were directly involved with social media companies as fears those reports “would reveal its capabilities to hostile actors.”
Australia jails whistleblowers for telling the truth
By Maryanne Demasi, PhD and Magdalene L. D’Silva, BA/LLB, LLM, MA | May 15, 2024
On May 14, 2024, David McBride, a 60-year-old former military lawyer, was sentenced to five years and eight months in prison with a non-parole period of 27 months, for ultimately blowing the whistle on alleged war crimes committed by other Australian soldiers in 2013.
McBride initially tried to raise his concerns internally with the Australian Defence Force (ADF), but became unsatisfied with the process, so he set up a website and uploaded a trove of secret documents.
Former military lawyer David McBride
When ADF officials found the website containing classified material, they wrote to McBride reminding him of his duty not to disclose it, prompting him to take it down. No action was taken against McBride for his website leak and the Court noted in sentencing that those leaks gave rise to very little risk.
It was only after McBride leaked the material to ABC journalists who aired them in the ‘Afghan Files’ story alleging Australian soldiers did ‘kill people unnecessarily’ that McBride was arrested, interviewed and charged.
Federal police raided the ABC’s Sydney headquarters in 2019, searching for evidence of a leak, but decided against charging the journalists.
In 2023, McBride pleaded guilty to several charges, including stealing secret classified military documents and leaking them to journalists. However McBride couldn’t rely on those documents in his legal defence when the Australian government stopped them from being adduced as evidence on national security grounds.
McBride argued there was a “culture of cover-up” at the command level of the Australian Army. While most soldiers acted ethically, he said some were needlessly investigated and others were protected after allegedly, “put(ting) a gun to someone’s head and blow(ing) their head away” even if they were unarmed or handcuffed.
McBride says he felt a moral obligation to bring these issues to light, believing the Australian public deserved to know the truth about their country’s military actions.
The years-long legal battle which has now landed McBride in prison, has sparked acrimonious debates about the need for an independent Whistleblower Protection Authority in Australia, and the media’s vital role in making powerful institutions accountable.
Human rights whistleblower lawyers said McBride’s punishment sends a chilling message to potential whistleblowers. They contend the Australian government should protect those who expose wrongdoing, not punish them.
Critics argued, however, that McBride was entitled and self-interested. Prosecutors suggested McBride had abandoned the internal investigation he initiated without waiting for the result, violated his signed confidentiality acknowledgments as a military lawyer, and compromised the lives of soldiers and their families while potentially harming Australia’s national security and international relations.
The Brereton Inquiry, commenced by the ADF before McBride’s whistleblowing leaks, found credible information that Australian Special Forces had unlawfully killed people in Afghanistan.
It also appears no harm has been demonstrated because of McBride’s actions, though the ACT Supreme Court said in sentencing, that potential harm to Australia’s defence personnel, their families, Australia’s national security and international relations, still exists.
In sentencing McBride, ACT Supreme Court Justice David Mossop said that while he was a person of good character strongly devoted to duty, from his time in Afghanistan he was unable to accept that his opinions about the ADF may be incorrect.
Justice Mossop considered McBride knew he was committing a criminal offence when disclosing the information but hoped he would have a (public interest) defence. McBride had legal duties and constraints as a soldier and lawyer serving the Army, but no specific duty to disclose the secret information to outsiders when there were other legitimate ways he could have raised his concerns.
ACT Supreme Court Justice David Mossop
Justice Mossop also said McBride had no remorse and still believed he did the right thing, so he sentenced McBride to prison to deter him from disclosing anymore military information and to deter other people ‘with strong opinions’ who are also under a legal duty not to disclose information, from doing so.
McBride abandoned his defence of a higher duty to act in the public interest even if it involves disobeying orders, when the Court ruled this out. Yet he remained defiant, justifying his actions saying, “I served my country. I stand tall and I believe I did my duty and I see this as a beginning to a better Australia.”
In the lead up to his sentencing, he added “So long as people believe I stood up for what I believed in, I can go to jail with my head held high.”
Independent MP Andrew Wilkie was outraged by McBride’s prison sentence, saying that governments “hate people shining a light on official misconduct.”
He added, “They consistently want to punish the whistleblower, and they consistently want to send a signal to would be whistleblowers to shut up, to not break ranks, to not cause problems for governments.”
AAP: Independent MP Andrew Wilkie
Daniela Gavshon, Australian Director of Human Rights Watch, said McBride’s sentencing shows that Australia’s whistleblowing laws need exemptions in the public interest.
“It is a stain on Australia’s reputation that some of its soldiers have been accused of war crimes in Afghanistan, and yet the first person convicted in relation to these crimes is a whistleblower not the abusers,” Gavshon said in a statement.
Many regard whistleblowing as morally courageous, especially when done in the public interest, as McBride claimed he did. But whistleblowing is a dangerous endeavour in Australia because of the significant legal and personal risks.
Compared to the US, where whistleblower protections are considered more robust, McBride’s case demonstrates the protracted and costly legal battles faced by whistleblowers in Australia, when up against institutions with unlimited resources.
It’s now feared McBride’s prosecution and sentencing will deter other whistleblowers from disclosing information because Australia’s laws arguably do not protect whistleblowers like McBride, who try internal reporting channels first but then find them inadequate.
While there must be a balance between national security concerns and the public’s right to know about the actions of their government and military, McBride’s case means other Australians thinking about whistleblowing, risk imprisonment too, especially where there is low trust in internal reporting channels and no alternative external reporting channel.
Australia’s Government has already announced plans to bolster public whistleblowing protections. But that won’t help McBride whose imprisonment highlights the urgent need for clear guidance and protection when disclosing information to prevent more serious harms, and the vital need for a free press if and when internal whistleblowing channels, fail.
Prior to being imprisoned, McBride recorded the following video:
Ukraine Prepares Total Mobilization in 5 Controlled Cities – Russian Official
Sputnik – 15.05.2024
SIMFEROPOL – Kiev is preparing full-scale mobilization in five Ukrainian-controlled cities in the coming days, Vladimir Rogov, a senior official of the Russia-appointed Zaporozhye regional administration, told Sputnik on Wednesday.
“According to the received operational information, [the cities of] Kostyantynovka, Slovyansk, Pavlograd, Zaporozhye, Kharkov should be subjected to total mobilization in the coming days. We are talking about the complete blocking of roads in the cities with checkpoints, filtration measures, apartment and house-to-house rounds. Everything is expected to start on May 17-18,” Rogov said.
He added that hundreds of employees of the Ukrainian military recruitment centers were coming in the cities to collect people, with reinforcements from the Ukrainian National Guard and the Ukrainian Security Service.
On April 11, the Ukrainian parliament adopted a bill on mobilization aimed at replenishing Ukrainian forces depleted by two years of armed conflict with Russia. On April 16, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed it into law. The document will take effect on May 18.
Martial law was introduced in Ukraine on February 24, 2022. The next day, Zelensky signed a decree on general mobilization. The martial law and mobilization have been continuously extended since then. On May 9, Zelensky signed bills to extend mobilization and martial law in the country for another 90 days. Under martial law, men aged from 18 to 60 are prohibited from leaving Ukraine.
Meta’s Oversight Board Adopts International “Norms” Instead of US Free Speech Principles
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | May 14, 2024
In a world where international law (a set of ratified documents) is being rapidly replaced with narratives about a “rules-based system,” it is no wonder that US tech giants like Meta choose to set their free speech “baseline” not on their country’s Constitution, but on “international human rights norms.”
The less clarity there is, the more space for abuse and biased interpretation, critics might say. But Meta Oversight Board member Kenji Yoshino is satisfied that this is the right approach, and even spelled it out.
“Our baseline here is not the US Constitution and free speech, but rather international human rights norms,” Yoshino recently told the National Constitution Center, a private nonprofit.
Such bold statements require bold justification, and so this Oversight Board member noted that in terms of free speech “values” the US is “an outlier,” while Meta’s global reach means it must adjust its policies accordingly.
There are plenty of openly authoritarian regimes out there, with their own “free speech values,” but when Yoshino – from the William J. Brennan Center for Justice – spoke about “striking a balance” between US law and international “norms” – he chose to mention the palatable to his audience example of Europe.
What’s striking in this context, however, is that in many, if not all European countries, “hate speech” is criminalized, unlike in the US. It isn’t clear from Yoshino’s statements how a balance between such different approaches to speech can even be achieved in a social platform’s guidelines, particularly around elections.
But, that is the explanation for why the giant chooses not to make the First Amendment its “baseline.”
And if the baseline is international human rights norms, Yoshino admitted, “often times that calculus comes out differently than it would if the baseline were First Amendment norms.”
Such statements will do little to reassure those in the US already wary of Meta’s handling of content, censorship, and free speech, especially ahead of yet another high-stakes election coming up.
The fact that after a brief “pause” the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) are now officially back in the business of “communicating” (opponents of the policy would say, “colluding”) with social media platforms, doesn’t help matters.
If anything, it raises fears of a concerted censorship push, driven both from the outside by government pressure, and from within Meta itself.
RFK Jr. Files Lawsuit Against Meta, Alleging Censorship of Presidential Campaign Video
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | May 14, 2024
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is running as an independent candidate in the upcoming US presidential election, has announced that he filed a lawsuit against Meta (Facebook and Instagram) in the US District Court for the Northern District of California.
Kennedy alleges that the two platforms censored a video, the documentary “Who is Bobby Kennedy,” that is part of his presidential campaign.
We obtained a copy of the lawsuit for you here.
The filing, submitted by Kennedy and his political action committee (PAC), accuses Meta of using its platforms to prevent users from watching, sharing, or posting links to the video, a short time after it was first released.
The platforms are accused of suppressing a video about the presidential candidate’s career and his criticism of vaccines as a result of the US government’s repeated demands that tech companies do so.
To bolster this argument, the filing refers to Murthy v. Missouri, currently in the Supreme Court, where the allegation is that the White House pressured and colluded with social media powerhouses to censor content it disfavors, including around vaccines.
Meta first blocked the documentary on May 3 – two days later formally reversing this decision, describing it as “a mistake” – but Kennedy maintains that the film is still demoted and shadow-banned, and otherwise sabotaged in terms of visibility.
He also made a point that the case is not only about free speech suppression, i.e., a First Amendment issue, but also, interference in the democratic process.
“Meta is censoring a biographical film about a major candidate in an election year,” Kennedy stressed – and one might add, this is happening on some of the major and most influential platforms.
This is not the politician and activist’s “first rodeo” trying to take Big Tech to task for, in his view, unjustifiably censoring his content.
A lawsuit he brought against Google (YouTube) for removing his videos critical of Covid vaccines’ efficacy is now being considered in a court of appeals. In that case, Kennedy also accused Google of making the decision to block his content in collusion with the current government.
15 nations have made their position on the WHO sovereignty grab public before the WHA meeting commences
How many other countries are entirely fed up with the World Stealth Organization’s misleading spin about “equity”?
BY MERYL NASS | MAY 12, 2024
The negotiations have been controlled by globalists, not nations, from day one.
Eleven nations informed the UN General Assembly they were not going along with the UN’s support for the WHO Pandemic Preparedness Agenda last September. In alphabetical order:
- Belarus
- Bolivia
- Cuba
- Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
- Eritrea
- Islamic Republic of Iran
- Nicaragua
- Russian Federation
- Syrian Arab Republic
- Venezuela
- Zimbabwe
The Netherlands’ government has been instructed to delay the WHO votes or vote No by the lower house of Parliament.
Slovakia said it will not sign current drafts of both documents.
Croatia’s new majority party is against the WHO’s pandemic preparedness plan
Italy’s Senator Borghi said Italy will vote No on the treaty and furthermore that there are 10 more months in which to reject the IHR Amendments.
It is very unusual to have this level of disagreement made public even before the start of the World Health Assembly meeting. And with “hybrid negotiations” aka backroom horse-trading, leading right up to the meeting, nobody will have time to consider the treaties before they are due to be voted on. It has been a corrupt process from start to finish. It could only succeed with stealth (no one knowing what is really in the treaties) and bribes.
Now that the US has announced that 100 countries are being paid off to develop their pandemic preparedness agenda, will the bribes be enough to get these treaties across the finish line? Will the unbribed be miffed? How much will it cost the US taxpayer for the world’s nations to agree to dictatorial control of pandemics and health information going forward?
How hawks in US are trying to demonize students protesting Israeli genocide
By Mohsen Badakhsh | Press TV | May 12, 2024
The US government has resorted to brutal measures not only to suppress the growing student movement in colleges across the country against the US-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza but also to demonize it by labeling protesters as “criminals” and “terrorists.”
Such oppressive measures – by a country that routinely uses its propaganda machinery to project itself as the “leader of the free world” – evoke familiarity as Washington has always falsely accused countries, organizations and individuals critical of its hegemonic policies of such measures.
In the past week, many American lawmakers across the political spectrum have labeled these protesting students and professors at America’s most prominent universities as Iran-backed “terrorists”, “pro-Hamas fanatics” and “criminals,” while referring to the traditional Palestinian keffiyehs as “terrorist headdress” and the protest encampments on college campuses as “little Gazas.”
Such racist and derogatory language against Palestinians as well as American critics of Washington’s military and economic support for the Israeli apartheid regime and the ongoing Gaza genocide was employed by members of the US Congress at the behest of the powerful pro-Israel lobby.
Take note of the following remarks by Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas made last week while introducing legislation to cut off federal funding of universities that have not done enough to suppress student protests against the persisting US-Israeli genocide in Gaza.
“We’re here to discuss ‘little Gazas’ that have risen upon campuses across America and liberal college administrators and politicians who refuse to restore law and order and protect other students. These ‘little Gazas’ are disgusting cesspools of anti-Semitic hate — full of pro-Hamas sympathizers, fanatics and freaks,” Cotton stated.
“The terrorist sympathizers in these ‘little Gazas’ aren’t peacefully protesting Israel’s conduct of the war. They’re violently and illegally demanding death for Israel, just like their ideological twins: the ayatollahs in Iran,” he hastened to add, trying to connect the pro-Palestine campus movement to Iran.
Such remarks point to Washington’s long-held strategy of linking Iran, a country that has dared to challenge the Western hegemony, to any meaningful criticism of its Israeli ally while falsely depicting the Islamic Republic and resistance groups as instigators of terrorism and human rights violations.
This is while top American officials have admitted to establishing, enabling and funding the world’s most notorious terrorist groups – such as Daesh (ISIS) – to wage wars of terror and destabilize countries such as Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.
Washington has also earned notoriety for waging military coups to topple popular governments and install ruthless dictators to push their interests in different regions, including Iran, all in the name of “democracy” and “rule of law.”
Joining the hawkish Arkansas senator in sponsoring the so-called ‘Bailouts for Campus Criminals Act’ were 18 other Republican senators that likened peaceful student protesters to “terrorists” and “criminals” just for taking a stand against US support for the Israeli regime’s genocidal war on Gaza.
“Hamas sympathizers engaging in criminal behavior on college campuses should be ineligible for student loan bailouts,” said Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee who co-sponsored the bill.
“We must hold these criminals accountable and ensure taxpayer dollars do not go toward paying off their debt,” she added, while having no word on billions of dollars worth of weapons sent to Tel Aviv by US President Joe Biden that are used to slaughter Palestinian children and women.
Meanwhile, Republican Senators Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Rick Scott of Florida, Joni Ernst of Iowa, Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, and others also demanded a freeze on federal funding for US universities that have not done enough to condemn and punish student protesters.
The move also signifies that major US higher education institutions rely heavily on federal funding and are expected to abide by Washington’s policies, including its support for genocidal war crimes in Gaza.
Unfazed by the hostile and repressive crackdown on student protests at major American universities, teenage high school students in numerous US cities have started their own protest rallies against Washington’s ironclad support for persisting Israeli war crimes across occupied Palestine.
The emergence of the new protest movement led by the younger American student community in major US states such as New York, California, Illinois, Texas, Oregan, Maryland and Washington clearly points to the futility of harsher measures taken by US officials aimed at deterring and punishing any opposition to its oppressive policies – nationally as well as through foreign interference.
The development has raised new fears among US politicians and analysts about likely repercussions in the presidential and congressional elections next November for both political parties amid concerns about a potential upheaval and violence in the rematch presidential race between the 82-year-old Biden and the 80-year-old former president Donald Trump.
Moreover, a dozen American senators have also issued strongly-worded warning to the International Criminal Court (ICC)’s chief prosecutor Karim Khan against the UN court’s possible handing of arrest warrants against the Israeli regime officials over their persisting genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.
“Target Israel and we will target you,” vowed pro-Trump Republican senators that included Tom Cotton, Mitch McConnell, Rick Scott, Tim Scott, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio.
The move came amid speculation that the court may issue arrest warrants against top Israeli officials over the genocidal war in Gaza that has so far killed nearly 35,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children.
Also this week, the largest American Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization slammed the US House of Representatives for passing a controversial legislation that criminalizes any criticism of the Israeli apartheid regime.
In a statement released on Wednesday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) insisted that the so-called ‘Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2023’ is a “one-sided, and dishonest” document that ignores persisting anti-Palestinian racism across the United States.
The House approved the bipartisan bill, introduced by New York Republican Congressman Mike Lawler, in a 320-91 vote and forwarded it to the Senate for passage and likely enactment by Biden’s signature.
Pointing to Washington’s traditional support for persisting Israeli atrocities against the Palestinian population, the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei reiterated earlier this month the validity of Tehran’s distrust of the US and rejection of the apartheid Zionist regime, citing American complicity in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and its brutal crackdown on student protests.
Ayatollah Khamenei declared that the only solution to the Palestinian issue would be the return of the entire land to its rightful owners and allowing them to decide what to do with the Zionist occupiers.
He further pointed to the expansion of the American student protest movement to universities across Europe and other parts of the globe, insisting that “Gaza remains the leading concern of the world” with a growing realization about the evil nature of the Zionist regime as well as the validity of the Islamic Republic’s unrelenting policy of rejecting the legitimacy of the Israeli occupying entity.
It remains to be seen what Washington’s defiance of the growing worldwide condemnation of Israel’s genocide in Gaza will spell for it in a highly sensitive election year in the face of a very divisive Congress and persisting tensions with Russia, China and the West Asia region over various military, political, economic, and strategic issues.
Mohsen Badakhsh is an educator and freelance journalist.
The 17th Amendment Allowed Empire
Tales of the American Empire | May 9, 2024
Most Americans know that political corruption is destroying the United States, which devotes massive resources to expand and rule its empire. The US Constitution was written to keep some power in the hands of the states, who appointed their US Senators, but the 17th Amendment, promoted by American business titans and ratified in 1913, removed this control with direct Senate elections to allow the centralization of power in Washington DC. Repealing the 17th Amendment is a simple idea that would have an immediate impact on the nation as states regain control of the federal government. US Senators would suddenly focus funding on helping people in their state and have little interest in military interventions overseas.
______________________________________________________
“Trump Tanks ‘Bipartisan’ $60 Billion Ukraine-Border Deal”; Glenn Greenwald describes our corrupt Senate; January 27, 2024; 
• Trump Tanks “Bipartisan” $60 Billion …
Related Tale: “A Genocide Called World War I”; • The Genocide Called World War I
“Ben Sasse Calls for Repealing 17th Amendment, Eliminating Popular-Vote Senate Elections”; Brittany Bernstein; National Review; September 9, 2020
“NSA finally admits to spying on Americans by purchasing sensitive data”; Ashley Belanger; Arstechnica; January 26, 2024
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From the Archives
An Expert Military Analysis of War with China
Actually, None is Necessary
By Fred Reed • Unz Review • December 13, 2020
The Correlation of Armed Forces: U.S. goods and services trade with China totaled an estimated $634.8 billion in 2019. Exports were $163.0 billion; imports were $471.8 billion. The U.S. goods and services trade deficit with China was $308.8 billion in 2019. Trade in services with China (exports and imports) totaled an estimated $76.7 billion in 2019. Services exports were $56.5 billion; services imports were $20.1 billion. The U.S. services trade surplus with China was $36.4 billion in 2019.
There is talk within the Washingtoniat of a possible war with China. Steve Bannon, who apparently was dropped on his head as a child, actually favors such a war. We hear the usual shoo-the-boobs alarm about how the Chinese are doing something terrible and we must gird our loins and American values and show them what for, bow wow, woof. The danger is that the current game of who-blinks-first in Asian waters might actually provoke a shooting war. You know the kind of thing: One warship refuses to get out of the way of another, a collision ensues, some retard lieutenant who signed up on waivers opens fire, and we’re off and running. It is not a good idea to let children play with matches.
The said war is discussed either in emotional terms by idiots or in purely naval terms by those familiar with such things, so we hear of the First Island Chain and the Second Island Chain and whose missiles against the other’s missiles and so on. This would be appropriate if we were fighting World War Two again. Which we aren’t. Let’s take a quick-and-dirty look at how such a war might go.
To begin the war, America would overestimate itself and underestimate China. This is doctrine in the Pentagon. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Iran To Target Military Industrial-Tech Complex That Facilitated Gaza Genocide
- Collapsing Empire: The Resistance Disarms ‘Israel’
- Suicide Should Not Be a Government Service
- Rethinking America’s greatest threat: Iran vs. Israel-Firsters
- Iran accuses adversaries of false flags to strain Turkey ties
- Poland rules out sending Patriot missiles to US/Israel amid war on Iran
- Tehran approves new Hormuz plan with major restrictions
- No Threat Can Force Iran’s Surrender /Trita Parsi & Lt Cl Daniel Davis
- UK’s New Pandemic Plan Would Turn Big Tech Into a Mass Location Tracking Network
- Growing insecurity, soaring prices fuel protests in north as regime bans evacuation: Sources
- If Americans Knew
- Joe Kent Urges Americans To Call White House and Congress To Object To Sending Troops Into Iran
- DNC Resolution to Reject AIPAC Funding Puts Democratic Leaders in the Hot Seat
- Swedish foundation to build 400 schools as over 650,000 Gaza children remain without education for 2 years
- Israeli army admits photshopping image of slain Lebanese journalist
- This is how Israel is systematically killing health workers under the cover of war in Lebanon
- Carrying life under fire: Israeli invasion of Lebanon leaves pregnant women facing deadly risks
- Champagne all around for the new death penalty (for Palestinians) law – Not a ceasefire Day 172
- Why are Palestinian books struggling to be seen on Amazon?
- The Line Between Affinity and Conspiracy
- As Iran targets US military bases, will they be relocated to Israel? Not a ceasefire Day 171
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study Finds Warming Saves Lives…Cold Temperatures 12 Times More Deadly Than Excess Heat
- German Science Blog Accuses PIK Climate Institute Of Hallucinating Climate Tipping Points
- Devastating Assessment Of Comirnaty Vaccine By Former Senior Pfizer Europe Toxicologist
- New Study: CO2 Is ‘Effectively Negligible’ As An Explanatory Climate Change Factor Since 2000
- Former Pfizer Toxicologist Dr. Helmut Sterz Tells Bundestag Hearing Pfizer Vaccine Should Have Never Been Approved
- Energy Expert: Germany’s Nuclear Phaseout Was A “500 Billion Euro Mistake”
- New Research: South Australia’s Mid-Holocene Sea Surface Temperatures Were 4°C Warmer Than Today
- Storing Green Energy To Last Germany 10 Days Would Require A 60-Million Tonne Battery
- New Studies: UK Sea Levels Were 4 Meters Higher Than Today During The Mid-Holocene
- Destructive Green New Deal: German Energy And Metal Group Warns Of Drastic Crisis
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