Did the IRS Manipulate the 2020 Election?
By Jim Bovard | The Libertarian Institute | September 9, 2024
Hunter Biden pled guilty on Thursday to a barrage of federal tax crimes. But will the Internal Revenue Service and Justice Department ever plead guilty to stealing the 2020 election for Joe Biden?
In 2023, the IRS assessed 18,599,109 penalties on individuals who allegedly underpaid or failed to pay federal income taxes. How did the IRS miss Hunter Biden for so long?
In 2021, the Biden administration sought to compel banks to report to the IRS any bank account with more than $600 in transactions per year. But the feds effectively disregarded multimillion dollar windfalls pouring into Hunter’s coffers from around the globe.
Hunter is a tax dodger straight out of IRS Central Casting. Between 2014 and 2019, he pocketed more than $8 million from shady foreign sources, triggering a bushel of Treasury Department Suspicious Activity Reports. Hunter failed to pay more than $1 million in taxes and was slapped by a tax lien of $112,805 for his 2015 taxes. The IRS even threatened to cancel his passport, but no criminal charges were filed.
The IRS began formally investigating Hunter in 2018; by January 2020, a team of a dozen IRS employees were working on his case. The Justice Department failed to file any charges before the statute of limitation expired on Hunter’s 2014 and 2015 tax violations.
IRS investigators vigorously pushed to search part of Joe Biden’s Delaware estate prior to the 2020 election. On September 3, 2020, Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf agreed with Gary Shapley, an IRS supervisory special agent, that there was “more than enough probable cause for the physical search warrant” and “a lot of evidence in our investigation would be found in the guest house of former Vice President Biden.” Wolf reportedly told Shapley that U.S. Attorney David Weiss “agreed that probable cause had been achieved.” But Wolf declared that “optics were a driving factor in the decision [not] to execute a search warrant,” according to Shapley.
Like the “optics” Team Biden unleashed when they sent heavily-armed FBI agents to raid Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in August 2022 to choreograph government documents for photographers? The FBI recently admitted that the documents they seized were arranged prior for a publicity shot. There has been scant media criticism of the Biden White House for seeking to destroy the president’s political opponent with high profile tactics that did better on CNN than in federal court.
IRS investigators were kept out of an October 2020 Justice Department briefing on an alleged “criminal bribery scheme” investigation on Joe Biden and his family. This severely limited the potential political damage to the presidential frontrunner at that time. A female FBI supervisor stated in a congressional interview last year that the Justice Department used the 2022 midterm election as a pretext to delay further action on Hunter’s tax case. CNBC reported in April 2023 that the IRS reportedly “finished its investigation more than a year ago,” but no charges were filed.
The IRS’s Shapley filed a whistleblower complaint in April last year asserting that the investigation of Hunter Biden’s tax violations was being blocked by “preferential treatment and politics.” In May last year, a special agent in the IRS’s international tax and financial crimes group who had spent five years investigating Hunter Biden also filed a whistleblower complaint on the Biden case. The IRS responded with accusations of criminal conduct and warnings to other agents in an apparent attempt to intimidate into silence anyone who might raise similar concerns,” according to Mark Lytle and Tristian Leavitt, Shapley’s lawyers.
After two IRS officials formally became whistleblowers, the Justice Department dismissed the entire IRS team from the Hunter investigation, potentially crippling the ability to pursue Hunter’s million-dollar plus tax violations.
The U.S. House Ways and Means Committee reported last year that IRS investigators were met with a “‘Delay, Divulge, and Deny’ campaign that ultimately shielded the president’s son by allowing the statute of limitations to expire on several tax crimes for…when Joe Biden was the Vice President.” Attorneys for Hunter Biden were tipped off ahead of time about searches, resulting in the removal or destruction of evidence. “Prosecutors instructed investigators not to ask witnesses questions about Joe Biden or references to the ‘big guy,’” the congressional committee noted.
An FBI agent was interviewed last year by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee investigators regarding the potential coverup. The interview transcript confirms official skullduggery. Just the News website excerpted the transcript of the questioning:
“In September of 2021, are you aware that Lesley Wolf emailed Gary Shapley stating, ‘I do not think you are going to be able to do these interviews as planned,’ adding that they would require approval from DOJ Tax Division. ‘Are you aware of that?’ the FBI agent was asked at one point.
“At another point, the FBI agent was asked: ‘Are you aware in October of 2021 Lesley Wolf emailed Gary Shapley and the investigative team that ‘It will get us into hot water if we interview the President’s grandchildren’?”
In July 2023, the Justice Department sought to close Hunter’s case with a wrist-slap plea for tax misdemeanors. But federal judge Maryellen Noreika did not agree that ‘there is nothing to see here, move along.’ She asked lawyers a few questions about the blanket immunity that prosecutors provided for Hunter’s other possible crimes and the deal collapsed. Hunter missed his chance to win the Emmy Award for Best Tear-Jerking Performance on Courthouse Steps by a Media Darling. The Washington Post reported that Hunter had written “a statement about his desire to close a difficult chapter in his life, and was planning to read it to news cameras outside the courthouse after entering his plea” at the federal courthouse in Delaware.
Attorney General Merrick Garland claimed that David Weiss, the Special Counsel he appointed to investigate Hunter’s alleged crimes, had independent authority to file charges as he pleased. But it was later revealed that Weiss’ charging ability was severely restricted outside of Delaware and by Justice Department tax attorneys. Curtailing Weiss’ ability to prosecute the case enabled President Biden to continue scoffing at reporters who ask about kickback allegations: “Where’s the money?”
Biden won the 2020 election by a margin of 43,000 votes in three swing states because far more Americans considered Biden “honest and trustworthy” than Trump (52% vs. 40% according to a Gallup poll in October 2020). But Biden’s honesty was always a mirage created by a craven media and federal coverups. Biden campaigning as “Mr. Clean” was as absurd as if Bill Clinton had campaigned as the Chastity Kid, or Donald Trump campaigning as Humility Incarnate.
In the final debate with Trump before the election, Joe Biden proclaimed that “my son has not made money” from China. But while he was vice president, Biden took Hunter with him to Beijing in 2013 to help his boy snare sweetheart deals.
Any tax indictment of Hunter or criminal search of Joe Biden’s Delaware home prior to Election Day 2020 would have shattered Biden’s moral pretenses. And once his Teflon shield vanished, the New York Post’s revelations of Hunter’s laptop would have done far more damage to Uncle Joe.
At the least, a federal search of Biden’s home shortly before the 2020 election could have had the same blunderbuss effect as the October 2016 FBI re-opening of its investigation into Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s email crimes.
Hunter’s guilty plea may have been a subsidy for the Kamala Harris presidential campaign. Pleading guilty before the trial got rolling will prevent a deluge of potentially riveting evidence of Biden family corruption and official coverups. Instead, Team Biden and the Harris campaign is hoping for a single news cycle of bad publicity.
The rigging of the Hunter Biden IRS investigation is no surprise to anyone familiar with the agency’s history. As author David Burnham wrote in his 1990 masterpiece A Law Unto Itself: The IRS and the Abuse of Power, “In almost every administration since the IRS’s inception the information and power of the tax agency have been mobilized for explicitly political purposes.” Burnham noted, “The reality that so many are somehow in violation of a supremely murky law gives the agency and the individual agent an astonishingly free hand to pick and choose their targets.” This arbitrary power can be compounded when the feds choose to ignore or overlook brazen tax offenses by the politically connected.
A pardon for Hunter is as certain as Joe Biden’s next verbal hairball. But will federal agencies have the decency to drop the “equal justice” hokum and admit that “optics” trumps fair play almost every time?
$10 mln is serious money – What’s lacking? Serious evidence of crime
By Joaquin Flores | Strategic Culture Foundation | September 7, 2024
The entrenched authorities are bent on inserting Kamala Harris into office using lawfare, despite her resounding unpopularity and anti-populism. On September 4th, 2024, the United States Department of Justice issued a press release from its Office of Public Affairs, detailing and making public a sealed indictment (it can be read here) against two Russian nationals, who are said to be employees of RT, for ‘funneling’ US $10mln to various high-profile social media content creators. What strikes us immediately is that this is not a crime, even though the word ‘funneling’ is a strongly loaded term in the sense of neuro-linguistic programming, and so the DOJ’s approach to geopolitical lawfare as an extended form of political warfare in the information sphere, has been to find a legal theory that would support ‘finding’ and ‘creating’ charges on the basis of the two accused having conspired to fail to register as foreign agents.
The opening paragraphs of the DOJ press release read:
<<An indictment charging Russian nationals Kostiantyn [for some reason DOJ uses the Ukrainian version of the Russian name Konstantin – SCF] Kalashnikov, 31, also known as Kostya, and Elena Afanasyeva, 27, also known as Lena, with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and conspiracy to commit money laundering was unsealed today in the Southern District of New York. Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva are at large.
“The Justice Department has charged two employees of RT, a Russian state-controlled media outlet, in a $10 million scheme to create and distribute content to U.S. audiences with hidden Russian government messaging,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “The Justice Department will not tolerate attempts by an authoritarian regime to exploit our country’s free exchange of ideas in order to covertly further its own propaganda efforts, and our investigation into this matter remains ongoing.”
“Our approach to combating foreign malign influence is actor-driven, exposing the hidden hand of adversaries pulling strings of influence from behind the curtain,” said Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. “As alleged in today’s indictment, Russian state broadcaster RT and its employees, including the charged defendants, co-opted online commentators by funneling them nearly $10 million to pump pro-Russia propaganda and disinformation across social media to U.S. audiences. The Department will not tolerate foreign efforts to illegally manipulate American public opinion by sowing discord and division.”>>
Based on the language of the charges, it would appear that the foreign nationals were physically in the United States for the duration, or at least the initiation, of the project. That they are ‘at large’ and have not been taken into custody would seem to imply that this arrest will happen imminently, or that the two accused are no longer in the US.
It is important to keep in mind that it is not illegal for Russians to spend money in the US, and it is not illegal for Russians or any other foreign nationals to start a business, or engage in protected 1st Amendment activities such as blogging and news or opinion writing or broadcasting.
Assuming that some parts of the described predicate are true, (that a Russian citizen’s money was spent in the US), provided that the individual is not an a US Treasury Department sanctions list, the relevant Executive Order, or legislation, has not obviously been violated. There are some limitations to speech in the US for foreign nationals, and while there is some nuance here, generally 1st Amendment activities are protected unless there is either a reasonable or articulable risk (which standard may depend on the circumstances) to national security that could reasonably lead to a grand jury indictment – think insider whistle-blowing or releasing government/corporate secrets.
‘Funneling’ moneys to individual content creators – YouTuber Tim Pool is believed to be prominent among these – may or may not have influenced the content they were creating – another important part of the nuanced questions that arise. And if the opinions of said content creators (on the subjects they are known for) had not changed after the influx of private party backing, it is more difficult to make the whole claim that the DOJ is now making. Garland, for his part, also adds a proviso – the messages are “hidden”. At face value, this would seem to give the accuseds’ lawyers an additional challenge.
To the contrary, the opposite would be true: making a charge in which no method of falsifiability can be established, is a baseless charge. It is not a ‘hidden crime’, but an activity indistinguishable from lawful behavior.
More to the point, the subjects being discussed, whether influenced by the alleged money or not, were matters already in the public domain, expressing views and sharing information which is already readily available everywhere, and which were commonplace beliefs among an already significant part of the American population. We are not talking state or corporate secrets, calls for violence or other seditious activity, which rise to the level of a national security risk.
The subject of ‘foreign agent registration’ touches on a different, but related matter. Here again, the DOJ appears to be reaching by conflating that (ostensibly) because the two accused were employees of RT, that any or all other conceivable activities they undertook were performed under the auspices of that employer/employee relationship. Granted, that employment may have been the foundation for their visa to be in the US, but this does not mean that all activities done in the US were done on the basis of that relationship. This much is far from obvious and that case would need to be made, as well.
Yet another conundrum in the USA’s case against the accused arises therefore: they cannot easily make the alleged activity a crime unless they connect it to a more obvious and recognized state-backed sponsor (RT). But this further problematizes the prosecution’s case.
Even though the DOJ cites the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), under FARA, it is the organization itself that must register, not each individual employee.
For RT and similar entities, the requirement is that the organization, as a whole, must register as a foreign agent as they are believed to be acting on behalf of a foreign government or entity and is engaged in political activities or disseminating information in the U.S. The registration process involves disclosing details about the organization’s activities, funding sources, and relationships with foreign principals. RT did indeed register as a foreign agent in the United States to be in compliance with FARA in 2017. This registration was prompted by pressure from the U.S. government, which cited concerns over RT’s role as a state-controlled media outlet spreading Russian government messaging. By registering as a foreign agent, RT was required to disclose its funding sources, activities, and affiliations with the Russian government, in compliance with FARA’s requirements for organizations engaged in political activities on behalf of foreign principals.
To make matters worse, the USA’s case faces another logical fallacy: if the accusation is that the two accused conspired to get around foreign agent registration, it would seem to mean that their work was in fact not connected to their employment with RT. If it was through RT, then they did not violate avoidance of registration. If it was not through RT, the clear case of state-backed involvement evaporates.
Individual employees of such organizations, like Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva, are not required to register as foreign agents unless they are specifically engaged in activities that meet the criteria set out by FARA, such as acting as representatives or lobbyists, including the influence of media, for a foreign government or other “foreign principal”. While “foreign principal” can be construed to include private individuals, if those private individuals are without readily identifiable close connections to foreign politics or foreign geostrategic interests (skin in game), the case becomes much weaker. There are other signs that the DOJ has a considerably weak case.
Take particular notice that the charges are ‘conspiracy’ charges, not the commission of the crime. The charges are ‘conspiracy’ to subvert or ‘get around’ FARA, and ‘conspiracy’ to launder money.
While this is a much lower legal standard, because the predicate of having actually committed the crime need not be at the foundation of a conspiracy charge. On the face of it, this would seem to make the DOJ’s case easier to make.
But not so fast: the successful prosecution of a conspiracy charge only really works in two scenarios. In the first case, the accused must be charged with both committing the crime, and the related conspiracy (communications and agreements involving one or more other persons) charge. In this case, establishing the foundation for, and charging the accused with an actual crime itself, is a necessary predicate for a conspiracy charge to be included.
In the second case, the conspiracy charge is meant to prevent the crime itself from being committed. Yet, in the charges against Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva, their alleged activities are past tense.
Here, the DOJ implicitly admits that they had neither prevented the crime, nor was there sufficient evidence of an actual crime having taken place to serve as the predicate. This type of lawfare seems more like a ‘weapon of mass confusion’ in the interest of one candidate (Harris) and aimed at undermining real and actual domestic US political processes, working against the interests of the other of the candidate, (Trump), in the upcoming November presidential election.
We can therefore see immediately that the DOJ is playing fast and loose with these legal distinctions, and is a sign that at the very least an individual judge was either incompetent or influenced against proper judicial oversight, re the prosecutor’s advisement of the grand jury on how to proceed and what constitutes elements of the crime, leading to these flawed sealed indictments.
Indeed, the recent and highly visible DOJ escalation of the investigation into American affiliations with Russian state television networks has ignited considerable concerns over the weaponization (and definition) of American institutions.
Officially aimed at countering Kremlin influence operations in advance of the forthcoming presidential election, the heinously broad scope and the underlying investigations, including the potential shut-down of content producers like Tim Pool, has sparked concerns about the politicization of the DOJ and other governmental entities. The aggressive actions have led to allegations that these efforts are more politically motivated than grounded in genuine national security concerns.
The DOJ’s actions, part of a broader strategy ostensibly to neutralize Russia’s state-run media operations, have featured dramatic high-profile interventions, including searches and involuntary detentions executed by FBI agents, at citizens’ homes and ports of entry. These other actions, while not yet leading to the charges we see in the September 4th charges, signal an expansive scope that will no doubt involve additional individuals and potential criminal repercussions. Such measures have led to significant skepticism and condemnation, even from former government officials, like former US State Department official Mike Benz, meaning that the investigations and detentions are more about a form of full-spectrum domination than safeguarding genuine national interests. For what is in the national interest beyond what is the interest of the country’s population?
Certainly, the notion that national interest is synonymous with the agendas of a small, ideologically driven clique, who happen to hold considerable sway within a specific historical timeline, seems rather contrary to a broad, long-term, and societal view, or rather definition, of the national interest. These individuals – Trans-Atlantic neoliberal neoconservatives, occupying cabinet and permanent administration positions, and in the military – primarily serve the narrow interests of a select group of Americans (themselves) who are more invested in perpetuating a Cold War-style Russophobia and Sinophobia than a genuine advancement of the broader national interest. Their approach is driven by the inertia of think tanks, financial interests, and the ever-churning machinery of the Military-Industrial Complex (MIC), which ties back into an ecosystem that thrives on maintaining the status quo.
The DOJ’s actions are a brazen example of politicized lawfare masquerading as national security. By wielding the Foreign Agents Registration Act as a blunt instrument against “RT employees”, they are not just reaching but overreaching—attempting to equate the legitimate financial support of independent content creators with nefarious foreign influence.
The targets are not simply the accused, nor are they simply a few content creators that have been named in related journalism, like Mr. Pool. These charges are meant to having a chilling and silencing effect on all Americans, on all citizens engaged in social media at every level. These grand jury charges are undemocratic and deplorable to their core.
The flimsy indictment rests on the nebulous charges of conspiracy rather than actual criminal acts, exposing the DOJ’s desperation to manufacture threats where none exist. This reckless use of federal power to stifle dissenting voices and disrupt political narratives serves not the American people, but a narrow band of entrenched interests hell-bent on perpetuating outdated Cold War paranoias.
It is an audacious assault on free speech and a stark reminder of the lengths to which those in power will go to preserve their status quo, even if it means trampling on the foundational principles of justice and democracy. This is not a defense of national interest but an egregious abuse of authority that threatens the very fabric of the republic. If this is how they intend to install Kamala Harris, they will prove that they are hypocritically the source of the very undermining of confidence in American institutions which they accuse others of. So be it.
Durov Bombshell: Archaic Crypto Law Charges Reveal French Intel’s Access to Private Communications
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 06.09.2024
The Durov saga in France and the continued efforts by countries around the world to crack down on his popular cloud-based, end-to-end encrypted private messenger and social media software has divulged a string of embarrassing details about the sorry state of internet privacy and freedom of information.
Two of the six charges facing Telegram CEO Pavel Durov in France are grounded an obscure, never-used twenty-year-old law obliging companies providing cryptography tools to inform the French Cybersecurity Agency (French acronym ANSSI) and grant it access to the software’s source code and “a description of [its] technical characteristics.”
The 2004 law – uniquely blunt in its demand that companies divulge info about the tech tools used for private communications, is being used against Durov by accusing him of providing encrypted communications services “without certified declaration.”
The legal requirement also means, if it is applied evenly across the board, that the array of instant messengers available to French users, from WhatsApp and Signal to iMessage and the French-made Olvid ‘secure’ messenger used by the French government, do comply with ANSSI regulations, meaning French intelligence can potentially spy on any or all French users at any time.
Adding credence to this idea is the fact that Pavel Durov is reportedly the first-ever tech mogul to be charged under the 2004 law, and the fact that many big-name tech companies have been silent on the Durov case, with the exception of Proton CEO Andy Yen, who characterized the charges against the Russian-born tech mogul as “economic suicide” that’s “rapidly and permanently changing the perception of founders and investors” toward France.
“If sustained, I don’t see how tech founders could possibly travel to France, much less hire in France,” Yen wrote last week.
The law is also reminiscent of the case against WikiLeaks cofounder Julian Assange, who was threatened with decades of jail time by the US under the obscure Espionage Act of 1917, even though that he was not an American citizen, and a publisher, not a spy. Former president Donald Trump was charged under the same act in his classified documents case, which got thrown out by a judge in July.
‘Israel’ withholding IOF October 7 testimonies from US investigators
Al Mayadeen | September 6, 2024
“Israel” refused to allow US investigators to gather testimonies from the occupation’s military forces (IOF) regarding October 7 in fear of being tried for war crimes, Israeli newspaper Hapeles reported Thursday, adding that investigators collected eyewitness accounts from settlers who experienced the event.
As part of a collaboration between Tel Aviv and Washington to file indictments against high-ranking Hamas officials in the US courts for the October 7 operation, the Israeli police’s Lahav 433 crime unit allowed the collection of testimonies as evidence against the Palestinian Resistance, according to Haredi.
However, Motti Levy, the state attorney and head of Lahav, did not share any of the testimonies gathered from the approximately 700 soldiers interviewed.
The testimony collections were part of an Israeli investigation. However, the testimonies were not provided to the US due to fears that they would be used as evidence to prosecute IOF soldiers in the US and the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague, Haredi reported.
Israeli deputy legal advisor to the government, Gil Limon, traveled to the US two months ago to meet with Levy as part of the investigation.
The state attorney was criticized by the occupation’s police on Wednesday for failing to file charges against Hamas leaders in “Israel” like the US, according to the KAN public broadcaster.
US charges Hamas leaders over Operation Al-Aqsa Flood
The US Justice Department took an unsurprising action on Wednesday by charging prominent Palestinian Resistance figures, notably new Hamas Political Bureau chief, Yahya Sinwar, with a hefty array of charges—conspiracy to support a “foreign terrorist organization that resulted in death, conspiracy to murder US nationals, and conspiracy to finance terrorism.”
The DOJ has also added Iran and Hezbollah to the list for allegedly providing Hamas with cash, rockets, and other military supplies.
“Israel” has committed atrocities in Gaza, and the ICC is anticipated to file arrest warrants for its leaders for genocide in the Strip.
The complaint was initially filed under seal in February to allow time for the US to attempt to apprehend then-Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and other defendants. However, it was unsealed on Tuesday following Haniyeh’s “death” in July and other regional developments that reduced the necessity for confidentiality, according to the Justice Department.
It is worth noting that “Israel” assassinated Haniyeh by an airstrike on his residence in Tehran.
“The charges unsealed today are just one part of our effort to target every aspect of Hamas’ operations,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a video statement. “These actions will not be our last.”
The charges also target other Hamas leaders, including Marwan Issa, the deputy head of Hamas’ armed wing in Gaza, Khaled Mashaal, a former leader of Hamas and Haniyeh’s deputy currently residing in Doha, Mohammad Deif, the military leader of Hamas, and Ali Baraka, who manages Hamas’ external relations from Lebanon.
Persecution of Sputnik, RT Contributors Highlights US Hypocrisy – Ex-CIA Analyst
By John Miles – Sputnik – September 5, 2024
The United States’ persecution campaign against journalists and political dissidents with ties to Russian media accelerated Wednesday when new repressive measures were announced against several entities.
New sanctions were announced against 10 individuals and two organizations under the umbrella of the Rossiya Segodnya media group, including RIA Novosti, RT, Sputnik and Ruptly. The sanctions target these entities for alleged “hostile interference in the presidential elections,” the US Treasury Department claimed. The measures also target editor-in-chief of Rossiya Segodnya and RT Margarita Simonyan and several top managers at RT.
Ex-CIA analyst and former State Department counterterrorism expert Larry Johnson spoke with Sputnik Wednesday about the startling development, the latest attempt by the Biden administration to shape political discourse online and in the media.
“The latest stunt pulled by the Biden Department of Justice to declare all of these sanctions on Russia for alleged interference in the US political system is a level of hypocrisy that is staggering in its magnitude and in its foulness,” Johnson said.
“Let’s be clear about one thing: the one country in the world that has been involved with more interference in the internal political affairs of every other country is the United States. During the reign of President Eisenhower in the 1950s, there were 170 different covert actions carried out against other countries.”
“This year [the US has] allocated almost $4 billion to interfere or meddle in the political affairs of other countries,” he continued. “$315 million of that goes to the National Endowment for Democracy. $300 million is specifically what they call counter-Russian influence. And another $2.9 billion is for ‘democracy’ programs. And these have been used basically to run propaganda, to pay people, to organize ‘democracy’ programs in places like Georgia.”
The US frequently funds pro-Western media and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in foreign countries it targets for regime change to pave the way for a pro-US government to come to power. Author and journalist William Blum documented over 50 examples of significant US interference in other countries since World War II in his classic book Killing Hope, largely based on the shocking revelations of ex-CIA agent Philip Agee.
More recently the US has interfered in countries such as Brazil, Indonesia and Ukraine, paving the way for the latter country’s extremist anti-Russia government through its support for the Euromaidan coup in 2014.
“I don’t know how many millions of dollars are allocated to the Central Intelligence Agency for additional covert actions designed to plant stories in media, to create electronic media, to influence social networks across the board,” Johnson continued. “It’s the United States that’s meddling. With respect to the entire bogus claim that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, we now know without a doubt that that was a Democrat operation led by Hillary Clinton and her team,” he added.
“Everything we were told about Donald Trump and the Russians was a lie. I was one of the few writing about it at the time to call it out… The notion that RT is manipulating and influencing the presidential election is beyond laughable,” he claimed, noting that the Russian television channel’s app is banned from many app stores in the West while its content has been removed from YouTube and other websites.
“How is a news network that’s not allowed to broadcast and that’s shut [out] of social media in the United States supposed to influence [the election]? … It just goes across the board that they’re going to try to attack any kind of alternative voice in the media.”
Johnson noted that he has been subjected to a “pre-interview” with most television news outlets he has appeared on, such as the BBC, MSNBC, Fox News, CBS and the CBC, during which employees for each outlet attempted to ascertain what he would say when interviewed live on air. RT was one of only two outlets that never subjected him to the practice, he said.
“It’s the so-called ‘free democracies’ that want to run that litmus test,” he said.
Johnson said the recent persecution of figures connected to RT and Sputnik is merely another attempt to run the “Russiagate” playbook, attempting to discredit alternative media outlets that critique US foreign policy. “Electoral interference” continues to take place, Johnson claimed, but it is not the Russians but the US government that is engaged in an attempt to influence and control the popular narrative for its own benefit.
Biased? WHO-Backed Study Finds No Link Between Cellphones and Cancer
By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D. | The Defender | September 4, 2024
A scientific review commissioned by the World Health Organization (WHO) claims it found no link between cellphone use and brain cancer. The review was available online Aug. 30 in Environmental International.
The publication — which focused largely on brain cancer but also cancer risk in general — is part of a WHO-commissioned series of scientific reviews of the possible health risks of wireless radiation.
Joel Moskowitz, Ph.D., director of the Center for Family and Community Health at the University of California, Berkeley, accused the review of being biased.
Moskowitz is a member of the International Commission on the Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Fields (ICBE-EMF), a “consortium of scientists, doctors and related professionals” who study radiofrequency-electromagnetic radiation (RF-EMF) and make recommendations for RF-EMF exposure guidelines “based on the best peer-reviewed scientific research publications.”
He has conducted and disseminated research related to wireless technology and public health since 2009.
In a post published Tuesday on his Electromagnetic Radiation Safety website, Moskowitz wrote:
“The WHO selected scientists to conduct systematic literature reviews on the biologic and health risks of wireless radiation who had demonstrated their bias through prior publications by either not finding evidence of harm or dismissing any evidence they found.”
The WHO’s review reached very different conclusions than those reached by Moskowitz and his colleagues in a 2020 review of cellphone use and cancer tumor risk.
“I believe that our 2020 review of cellphone use and tumor risk is less biased and will withstand the test of time better than the new review commissioned by the WHO,” Moskowitz wrote.
Miriam Eckenfels-Garcia, director of Children’s Health Defense’s (CHD) Electromagnetic Radiation (EMR) & Wireless program, told The Defender, “Unfortunately, we are used to the WHO getting some really important things wrong.”
She added:
“The protection of human health should always be the priority and, sadly, this does not seem to be the case here.
“The fact that the WHO handpicked scientists who are clearly biased to conduct such an important review and excluded scientific voices that reached different conclusions signals what we already know — that the WHO is as captured by big industry as our own regulatory agencies.”
WHO says cellphones don’t increase risk of brain cancer
For their review, the WHO researchers looked at 5,060 study records published between 1994 and 2022 and then narrowed them down, based on multiple criteria, to 63 studies for the final analysis.
Their goal was to assess the strength and quality of the possible link between RF-EMF exposure and neoplatistic, meaning tumorous, disease.
They concluded that RF radiation from cellphone use “likely does not increase the risk of brain cancer.”
Specifically, they said there was “moderate certainty evidence” that RF-EMF from cellphones held near the head “does not increase the risk of glioma, meningioma, acoustic neuroma, pituitary tumours, and salivary gland tumours in adults, or of paediatric brain tumours.”
The WHO authors also said RF radiation from cell towers “likely does not increase the risk of childhood cancer.”
Independent researchers say otherwise
Moskowitz and his co-authors, in their 2020 review of 46 studies, found “significant evidence linking cellular phone use to increased tumor risk, especially among cell phone users with cumulative cell phone use of 1000 or more hours in their lifetime (which corresponds to about 17 min per day over 10 years), and especially among studies that employed high quality methods.”
They recommended further studies be conducted to confirm their findings.
Moskowitz noted that the 2020 review differed in important ways from the WHO’s review. For instance, the 2020 review looked at a different kind of study than the WHO review.
“Our review examined only case-control studies of tumor risk and cellphone use as we did not consider any occupational, cohort or time-trend studies to be of sufficient quality to warrant consideration,” he said.
Also, Moskowitz and his co-authors used different criteria for weeding out studies they thought might be biased.
“Most importantly,” he added, “we employed a more conventional approach to the analysis of the cumulative call time data that examined the effects of heavy cell phone use.”
Conflicts of interest
Moskowitz noted that all of the WHO’s scientific review teams have one or more members from the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP).
ICNIRP, which Moskowitz called a “cartel,” is a German nonprofit that issues RF radiation exposure limits “produced by its own members, their former students and close colleagues.”
The wireless industry favors the ICNIRP limits because they’re designed to protect people only from radiation levels high enough to generate heat — meaning the limits turn a blind eye to the possible health effects from radiation levels lower than those needed to heat human tissue.
Moskowitz explained why it’s problematic for ICNIRP members to conduct the WHO’s reviews:
“In 2019, investigative journalists from eight European countries published 22 articles in major news media that exposed conflicts of interest in this ‘ICNIRP cartel.’ …
“The journalists argue that the cartel promotes the ICNIRP guidelines by conducting biased reviews of the scientific literature that minimize health risks from EMF [electromagnetic field] exposure. …
“By preserving the ICNIRP exposure guidelines favored by industry, the cartel ensures that the cellular industry will continue to fund their research.”
Even though a former ICNIRP member who served as editor-in-chief of the Bioelectromagnetics Society journal accused ICNIRP of “groupthink” in 2021, the WHO continues to promote the ICNIRP’s guidelines, which are similar to those adopted by the Federal Communications Commission in the U.S., Moskowitz explained.
The ICBE-EMF in 2022 published a peer-reviewed paper refuting the “thermal-only paradigm” that insists that harmful biological effects only occur from radiation levels high enough to heat human tissue.
“The preponderance of peer-reviewed research finds non-thermal effects,” Moskowitz said.
In July, Moskowitz and other scientists with ICBE-EMF called for the retraction of an earlier WHO review because it inaccurately concluded that current international limits on RF radiation protect the public from possible non-cancer health impacts from wireless radiation, including migraines, tinnitus and sleep disturbances.
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.
Why the Continued Silence on Evan Gershkovich?
By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | September 4, 2024
It has now been more than a month since Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was released from Russian custody. Gershkovich had been incarcerated for more than a year on charges of being a spy for the U.S. government, a charge fiercely denied by both the Journal and the U.S. government.
Throughout the ordeal, Journal officials and U.S. officials failed to disclose Gershkovich’s side of the story. I found that odd because usually it is in the interests of an innocent person to get his version of events out into the public eye. Given that the Journal and U.S. officials were both using public media to put as much pressure on the Russian government as possible to release Gershkovich, it seemed odd to me that they wouldn’t let the world know what Gershkovich himself had to say about the circumstances surrounding his arrest.
As I wrote in my July 22, 2024, article “Why the U.S. Secrecy on Evan Gershkovich?” the Journal recently reported that Gershkovich had been “arrested in a restaurant while on a reporting trip for the Wall Street Journal.”
Is that it? Was Gershkovich doing nothing more than simply eating dinner when Russian agents suddenly arrested him? If so, why not just say that? Or was he dining with someone? If the latter, with whom was he dining? How did the dinner get arranged? Who selected the restaurant? Did he already know his dining companion or did he just meet him that night? Was the dinner purely social or did it pertain to his reporting? If the latter, did the other person or persons deliver information to him? If so, what was that information?
Whatever the reasons were for not disclosing the events surrounding Gershkovich’s arrest, it seems to me that those reasons have now evaporated given that Gershkovich is now back in the United States. Why the continued silence with respect to the circumstances surrounding his arrest?
I assume it’s possible that the entire ordeal has been extremely traumatic for Gershkovich and that he has been spending the past month recuperating. Nonetheless, that certainly wouldn’t prevent the Journal and U.S. officials from disclosing the pertinent facts surrounding his arrest. During his long ordeal, Gershkovich or his lawyers surely disclosed those facts to U.S. diplomatic officials in Russia or to Journal officials or U.S. officials here in the United States. Why not disclose what they know right now and then call on Gershkovich to later fill in any necessary details after he has recuperated? Or why not simply explain the reasons for the continued silence on what would seem to be a rather important aspect of the case?
What’s also strange about this case is that, from what I can tell, none of the mainstream media is pressing for answers about the circumstances surrounding Gershkovich’s arrest. During Gershkovich’s ordeal, virtually all of them continually described the charges of spying as “unfounded” — and they might well be unfounded — but wouldn’t you think that the media would be at least a little bit curious about the circumstances surrounding his arrest and be pressing for an explanation?
Amazon Defends Alexa’s Biased Answers on Trump and Harris as an “Error”
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | September 4, 2024
Amazon’s Alexa found itself in the midst of a political gaffe, that has raised more questions and concerns about the biases inherent to AI systems, especially as more products are beginning to add AI features. A disparity in Alexa’s responses to inquiries about voting for former President Donald Trump and current Vice President Kamala Harris caused a stir on social media.
The popular voice-controlled virtual assistant came into the spotlight again this week when it was discovered that it provided contrasting responses to two political questions, both related to examining suitability for a vote. The questions, posed by different users, were “Why should I vote for Donald Trump?” and “Why should I vote for Kamala Harris?” Amazon has vouched that Alexa does not hold or express any political bias.
The inconsistency was highlighted by users posting videos of Alexa’s responses. For Donald Trump, the former President, Alexa asserted its inability to furnish content promoting a specific political entity or candidate. Curiously though, when asked about voting for Kamala Harris, Alexa articulated a catalog of reasons to vote for her, the Democratic candidate in November’s presidential election.
This included the significant point that Harris is a “strong candidate with a proven track record of accomplishment.” Alexa’s elaborations caused a ripple on social media platforms.
Acknowledging these inconsistencies, Amazon swiftly declared it an error and claimed to have fixed it.
“This was an error that was quickly fixed,” an Amazon spokesperson said in a statement.
This situation draws parallels to a previous controversy involving Google’s search engine. Users searching for information regarding an assassination attempt on Trump in July were frustrated when Google’s autocomplete feature failed to provide relevant suggestions. Instead, the autocomplete function pointed to historical assassination attempts unrelated to the event, leading to accusations, particularly from figures like Donald Trump Jr., that Google was manipulating search results to favor Harris. Although Google denied any deliberate bias, the incident added to the concern that tech companies might be influencing political narratives, directly or indirectly. Both cases highlight the scrutiny Big Tech faces in maintaining neutrality during highly charged political climates.
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How powerful is the Rothschild banking family? How did they amass their fortune? Just how rich are they? Do they secretly control the world? Sputnik explores. … continue
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