Time To Turn the Cameras Around
Technology is a tool and a weapon. It may enhance and empower or disempower and enslave. A simple hammer can be a tool to construct a house or a weapon to bludgeon a man’s skull. As technology enhances, optimally, it would enhance the human condition. There is a delicate balancing between technological advancement and the wisdom to manage that advancement without causing destruction. Unfortunately, the wisdom to manage technological advancement often lags behind.
We are continuously told that there needs to be a balance between freedom and security. This of course is a false narrative, as once there is no freedom, there will be no security. If we examine what has been done in the name of security, it is astounding.
Our conversations are listened to and stored in databases, every keystroke on our keyboards is recorded, there are cameras on street corners, and the list goes on. All of this is in the name of security. The post 911 security state is something out of George Orwell’s 1984 where big brother is always watching you. It is clear that if you induce enough fear and hate, coupled with enough drugs and entertainment, people will willingly give up their liberty for a false sense of security. The result, of course, is that they will end up with neither.
So why am I suggesting we need a new government surveillance program?
The answer is simple. We don’t have one. Sure, we can file a FOI request. Maybe if we are lucky, we will get documents months later that is often heavily redacted information, and if we are really lucky, as a result, expose illegal activity. As was reported by Emerald Robinson, this of course recently happened, when it was discovered by Congress, that NIH scientists appeared to deliberately circumvent the law for the purposes of obstructing justice by using private emails, and even miss spelling words to avoid searches. These actions seem to indicate a criminal intent to obstruct justice.
I recently suggested in an interview on the Absolute Truth with Emerald Robinson that FOI requests are obsolete. To elaborate on that discussion, instead of FOI requests, we as civilians should be able to access government employee communications in real time whenever we want to. We should simply be able to look up one of our government employees and track all of their communications while they are working. We should also be able to track their phone conversations in real time and access transcripts of these conversations as they are occurring. This should all equally apply to government contractors.
It isn’t enough to be able to monitor their communications. We should also be able to watch what they are doing at all times in real time as well. As a civilian employer, you should be able to look up a government employee and watch what they are doing at all times while they are on the clock. For higher up level employees, you should be able to watch them after hours if they are meeting with other employees or government contractors. Body cameras would do the trick.
That’s right. Those cameras need to be turned around. If those cameras were monitoring in real time the employees in the prison where Epstein was held do you really think he would have committed suicide?
Of course, I am not excluding politicians or their interactions with each other or their staff. Politicians, government employees, and government contractors need to sacrifice their freedom for our security. Would the undeclared war on Russia have started, let alone escalated, if we as civilians were able to watch every conversation? Would we have ended up on the precipice of global war?
Imagine if every conversation of a war criminal like Fauci and other conspirators was on video. Global genocide would not be occurring. The people you know and love, would not be getting turbo cancers, strokes, heart attacks, autoimmune diseases, chronic fatigue, and neurological, problems to name a few.
Again, politicians sacrificing their freedom, is not merely for our freedom and security, it is for their security too. If we had constant monitoring of their activities, it is true they would not be able to make as much money in bribes, still, they are less likely to compromise themselves for blackmail purposes. The odds are that the typical politician’s blackmailable behavior will significantly decrease after the first real time escapades are viewed all over the place. I would maintain that physical intimidation will also decrease if there is constant monitoring of the typical politician. So, you see, if they sacrifice their freedom, it is clearly to maintain their safety as well. It is our duty to save the typical politician or government employee from themselves.
The reality is that we have created an upside down world with unfettered government that has become a direct threat to the people. The privacy of individuals and basic private property rights, and human rights in general have been kicked to the curb. Politicians and the government have been captured. A government that has secrets is inherently oppressive and contrary to the concept of a Constitutional Republic. Secret agencies and secret budgets are devastating to humanity.
Individual privacy and even communications are under attack. The idea that your private texts can be monitored, let alone censored from being sent, on its own should cause upheaval. Social media acting under the color of law censored medical information that could have saved countless lives over the past four years. So called hate speech laws are seeking to outlaw common sense. Canada’s laws preventing healthcare professionals from protecting children from gender mutilation are an example.
Maybe we should pass laws restricting the free speech of elected officials and government employees instead of limiting the free speech of us, the civilian employers?
Okay, maybe I am taking it a bit too far… The point is that the government, i.e. deep state, is an uncontrollable monster that must be reined in. Literally, the government is waging war against the people. The tightening noose of oppression will continue until we stop it. The deep state envisions a world, where most of us no longer exist, and for those that do remain, it will be a world transformed into the airport, degrading, humiliating, and exhausting.
June 7, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | Human rights |
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A shocking three-month investigation by the New York Times has revealed gruesome details of abuse, torture and mistreatment of Palestinians held at Israel’s Sde Teiman detention facility. The exposé, based on interviews with former detainees, Israeli military officers, doctors and soldiers who served at the site, paints a harrowing picture of the conditions endured by the roughly 4,000 Palestinian detainees who have passed through the facility since 7 October.
Sde Teiman, an army base in southern Israel, has become a makeshift interrogation site where most Gazans captured by the occupation army have been brought for initial questioning. Detainees, classified as “unlawful combatants” under Israeli legislation, can be held for up to 75 days without judicial permission and 90 days without access to a lawyer or a trial. Their location is withheld from rights groups and even the International Committee of the Red Cross, in what legal experts say contravenes international law.
Former detainees described a litany of abuses at the hands of their captors, including beatings, electric shocks, humiliating treatment and rape. Eight former detainees, whose detention at the site has been confirmed by the military, reported being punched, kicked, and beaten with batons, rifle butts, and a hand-held metal detector while in custody.
Two detainees said their ribs were broken as a result of the assaults, with one claiming he was kneed in the chest and another stating he was kicked and beaten with a rifle. Seven detainees said they were forced to wear only a diaper during interrogations, and three claimed to have received electric shocks.
The Times’ investigation also uncovered allegations of sexual abuse and torture. Muhammad Al-Hamlawi, a 39-year-old senior nurse, recounted a horrific ordeal in which a female officer ordered two soldiers to lift him up and press his rectum against a metal stick fixed to the ground. The stick penetrated his rectum for roughly five seconds, causing it to bleed and leaving him in “unbearable pain.”
A leaked draft of a report by UNRWA, the main UN agency for Palestinians, cited similar accounts, including one detainee who said interrogators “made me sit on something like a hot metal stick and it felt like fire.” Another detainee according to the UN “died after they put the electric stick up” his anus.
Detainees described the dehumanising conditions they were subjected to, including being blindfolded, handcuffed and stripped naked except for their underwear. They were crammed into military trucks and driven to Sde Teiman, where they were held in open-sided hangars, forced to sit handcuffed in silence on mats for up to 18 hours a day. Exhausted detainees who fell asleep were summoned by officers and beaten as punishment.
The interrogation process itself was a nightmarish ordeal. Detainees were brought to a separate enclosure they dubbed the “disco room,” where extremely loud music was played to prevent them from sleeping – a form of torture that caused one detainee’s ear to bleed. Wearing nothing but a diaper, they were questioned and accused of being members of Hamas, then beaten when they denied any connection to the group.
The Israeli military has denied allegations of “systematic abuse” at Sde Teiman, claiming that any abuse of detainees is strictly prohibited and thoroughly investigated. However, the sheer number of consistent accounts from former detainees, coupled with the testimony of Israeli personnel at the site, suggests a disturbing pattern of mistreatment and torture.
Perhaps most disturbingly, of the 4,000 detainees held at Sde Teiman since October, 35 have died either at the site or after being brought to nearby civilian hospitals.
The revelations of the Sde Teiman detention facility have attracted growing scrutiny from the media. In May, CNN exposed gruesome details of abuse, torture and mistreatment of Palestinians in Sde Teiman. Israel’s Supreme Court has also begun hearing a petition from rights groups to close the site. As a result, Israel has begun moving Palestinians held in Sde Teiman to military-run prisons in the occupied West Bank.
June 7, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, Zionism |
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US President Joe Biden told ABC News on 6 June that the Israeli government has listened to his “concerns” about a major military offensive in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah.
“They were going to go into Russia – into Rafah – full bore, invade all of Rafah, go into the city, take it out, move, move with full force. They haven’t done that. And what they’ve done is they’ve agreed to a significant agreement,” the US president said as Israeli warplanes continued their months-long blitz of residential areas and displacement camps in the city.
Residents of Rafah who spoke with Reuters on Friday morning described the latest raids as “one of the worst nights,” adding that “some people were wounded inside their homes before being evacuated this morning.”
Residents also said that Israeli tanks that have taken control along the border with Egypt made several raids towards the west and the center of the southern city.
“I think he’s listening to me,” Biden added when asked by ABC News if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heeded his warnings.
Elsewhere in the interview, Biden claimed Netanyahu will stick by his own ceasefire proposal. “He’s publicly said he is. Our European friends are in on it. We have to get a ceasefire.”
“What [Israel has] done is they’ve agreed to a significant agreement that if in fact Hamas accepts it,” the US president said before adding that the offer is backed by much of the Arab world.
“We’ll see. This is a very difficult time,” Biden said.
On Thursday, senior Hamas officials revealed that the Israeli ceasefire proposal “does not mention stopping the aggression or the withdrawal [of troops from Gaza].”
“The Israeli documents speak of open-ended negotiation with no deadline, and it speaks of a stage during which the occupation regains its captives and resumes the war. We had told the mediators that this proposal is unacceptable,” Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters on Thursday.
The Cradle columnist Khalil Harb earlier this week described the proposal presented by Biden as a “repackaging of last month’s Hamas-approved agreement, which he is now repositioning as an Israeli-sanctioned deal.
June 7, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | Human rights, Israel, Joe Biden, Palestine, United States, Zionism |
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Remember Deborah Birx, the “scarf lady” United States bureaucrat who joined President Donald Trump and chief coronavirus fearmonger Anthony Fauci for regular televised briefings to whip up fear of coronavirus and support for crackdowns and new health practices supposedly required by “the science”?
She was there day after day pushing mask wearing and social distancing that had not been shown to produce any net reduction in disease spread, mass PCR testing that proved unreliable, elimination of early treatment efforts, implementation of conveyor belt to death ventilators and remdesivir hospital protocols, production and distribution of Operation Warp Speed “vaccines” that proved to be both ineffective and dangerous, closure of businesses, prohibition of gatherings, and other tyrannical quackery. Birx also was conniving behind the scenes to strengthen national crackdown-related measures and traveling around the country promoting coronavirus fear and encouraging state governments to implement, maintain, and expand their crackdown measures.
In other words, Birx was a primary villain behind the coronavirus crackdowns in America.
Well, Birx is back. And she is pursuing a similar mission again. She is stirring up fear of a new disease du jour — bird flu — and calling for new crackdowns in response. In an interview this week at CNN, Birx declared, “we should be testing every cow weekly” with PCR tests for bird flu. She also wants to test every “dairy worker” as well as test “to really see how many people have been exposed and got asymptomatically infected.”
Birx seems to be jonesing for a replay of the coronavirus crackdown approach, this time in the name of countering bird flu. Indeed, she may want to take the crackdown bigger this time. In the interview, she suggests that the failure to already be doing the extensive testing she supports for bird flu means “we’re making the same mistakes today that we made with covid.” Got that? For Birx, a big mistake with the government response to coronavirus was that it didn’t do enough soon enough. With time, however, Americans have increasingly come to realize that government actions taken in the name of countering coronavirus created much more suffering than did coronavirus.
Don’t let Birx and other authoritarians succeed in using bird flu as an excuse to roll out a new crackdown dangerous to both health and liberty. Let’s end this tyrannical push now. Just say no to Birx and her new scheme.
June 5, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | Human rights, United States |
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A former engineer has accused Meta – the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp – of being biased against Palestinians, according to Reuters.
Ferras Hamad filed a lawsuit in California on Tuesday, alleging discrimination and wrongful termination. He had been an engineer on Meta’s machine learning team from 2021 until February.
Meta was deleting internal employee messages by Palestinian-Amerians that mentioned the deaths of their relatives in Gaza and investigated their use of Palestinian flag emojis, Hamad alleged. By contrast, no such investigations were launched into employees using Israeli or Ukrainian flags, he said.
According to Hamad, he was fired after pointing out irregularities with an emergency procedure for handling “site events” (SEV), when it resulted in restrictions on Instagram posts by Palestinian personalities. In one case, he said in the complaint, a short video by photojournalist Motaz Azaiza showed a destroyed building in Gaza, but Meta had labeled it as pornographic.
When Hamad attempted to resolve that case, Meta told him he was violating the policy barring employees from dealing with the accounts of people they knew personally – although Hamad insists he is not personally acquainted with Azaiza.
The former engineer had handled SEV cases related to Gaza, Israel and Ukraine before, and obtained confirmation in writing that this was part of his job description. He filed an internal discrimination complaint in January, but was fired a few days later.
Meta did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Mark Zuckerberg’s social media behemoth has been widely criticized by human rights groups over its censorship of content related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – specifically, suppressing the Palestinian viewpoint. Almost 200 employees have raised concerns about the matter in an open letter to Zuckerberg and other executives, earlier this year.
June 5, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, United States, Zionism |
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On June 3, the former Marine Corps intelligence officer and Sputnik contributor was removed by US Customs and Border Protection officers from a plane bound for Russia, where he was to attend the 2024 St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).
The US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) does not have the authority to seize passports without probable cause, former Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter told Sputnik, commenting on Monday’s incident.
Ritter recalled that as he prepared to board the plane, he was pulled out of line by three armed CBP officers who took control of his passport. He said that when he asked them “on what authority,” they cited orders from the US Department of State.
“They provided no warrant, no documentation, nor did they provide a receipt for my passport. They provided no explanation of what they were doing. They just did it,” the Sputnik contributor pointed out.
Ritter stressed that his constitutional rights under the Fourth Amendment were violated because the document requires CBP officers to provide a warrant or some other form of authority upon which to conduct the seizure of his passport.
“Under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution and others, I’m free to travel. The US government cannot restrict my travel without specific justification, none of which was articulated to me and none of which I believe exists. So it’s a violation of my Fifth Amendment,” the former Marine Corps intelligence officer added.
He suggested that “the real reason” behind all this “appears to be to prevent” him from participating in the SPIEF 2024 and to prevent the work he planned to do as a journalist with his documentary film crew. According to him, he was planning to make a documentary about “the reality of Russia”.
“This is my First Amendment right under freedom of speech and a free press. And this right was likewise violated by the US government, by the Biden administration,” Ritter noted.
The Sputnik contributor recounted that he had traveled to Russia “two times in the last year using this same passport,” and that on each time, the US government was notified in advance of his intent to travel and of his itinerary.
In an apparent reference to his planned trip to Russia to attend SPIEF 2024, Ritter said he was “not off on a secret mission” and that the US government “knew full well” what he was up to.
“And this is why I believe they acted in the way they did. This has a chilling effect, not just on me and the work I was doing, but on all Americans who choose to speak out against the policies of the United States that they disagree with and to travel abroad at the same time that they are criticizing the US government. And what the US government is saying is that we can control your movement. We can control your life. We can punish you for what you’ve been saying that we disagree with,” the former Marine Corps intelligence officer emphasized.
June 5, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | Human rights, United States |
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IHR amendments were approved last night at the World Health Assembly.
James Roguski and I just had a chat about what this means.
https://x.com/lawrie_dr/status/1797344388667814140
Corbett | June 4, 2024
After years of build-up and anticipation, the 77th World Health Assembly has come and gone. So, what did the would-be lords of global health gavel down on? And what does it mean for the future of the fight for health freedom? Joining us today to talk about these important issues is James Roguski.
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The Amendments to the IHR have been adopted
Watch the World Health Assembly sessions
Oklahoma SB 426 (prohibiting enforcement of policies required or recommended by the World Health Organization)
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“Climate change and health” resolution adopted at the World Health Assembly
James Roguski:
The old system is crumbling, and we must build its replacement quickly.If you are fed up with the government, hospital, medical, pharmaceutical, media, industrial complex and would like to help build a holistic alternative to the WHO, then feel free to contact me directly anytime.
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June 5, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Video | Human rights |
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By Lucas Leiroz | June 4, 2024
The persecution of political dissidents in the US is becoming commonplace. People who oppose Washington’s aggressive foreign policy are being seen as enemies and treated as criminals, even when there is no plausible reason to charge them. Recently, military analyst Scott Ritter had his passport confiscated by US authorities without any specific reason, showing the advanced levels of tyranny in the country.
Ritter was on a plane at the New York airport. His plan was to travel to the Russian Federation, as he had a special invitation to participate in the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, which will begin in the next few days. Ritter was already boarding when three policemen suddenly forcibly removed him and seized his documents. When asked about the reason for this action, the policemen said they were following orders from the US State Department and refused to clarify any details about the case.
“I was boarding the flight. Three [police] officers pulled me aside. They took my passport. When asked why, they said ‘orders of the State Department’. They had no further information for me (…) They pulled my bags off the plane, then escorted me out of the airport. They kept my passport,” he told journalists.
Without his passport, Ritter is unable to leave the US territory. In practice, he will begin living under a regime similar to house arrest, not only being monitored by American authorities, but also being prevented from leaving the country. It is curious that this happened precisely during a trip by Ritter to Russia. It seems that Washington is trying to make it clear to all its citizens that there will be no tolerance for citizens who maintain any form of ties with Moscow.
Ritter has long been one of the most vocal critics of military support for Ukraine. In his interviews and articles, he openly advocates for an end to arms supply and for a friendly policy between the US and Russia. Ritter has repeatedly exposed the truth about Ukrainian Nazism and Western collusion with ultranationalism and racism. In addition, his main work as a military analyst consists of providing detailed, technical analyses that show the situation of the sides in the conflict.
While Western media have long claimed that Kiev is “winning the war,” Ritter has emerged as a dissenting voice proving the opposite, saying that military control of the conflict belongs to the Russian Federation. He has refuted fallacious narratives such as the “Ukrainian victory in Kiev” or the “Kherson counteroffensive.” Using impartial and technical military analysis, Ritter has substantiated each of his arguments about Russia winning the war. Today, his work is recognized as one of the best among military experts around the world, with many of his predictions having come true.
This is not the first time that Ritter has suffered persecution in his own country. In the past, he has been criticized, defamed and even detained by American authorities because of his stance against Washington’s war initiatives. Ritter severely criticized the American decision to invade Iraq, stating that there were no weapons of mass destruction in the country. At the time, he was a UN weapons inspector and had privileged information about the real situation in the Middle East.
Currently, in addition to providing military analysis on the war in Ukraine, Ritter has also been strongly critical of Israeli violence in the Gaza Strip, which has certainly generated discontent among radical Zionists in American domestic politics. In addition, he has worked to refute fallacies and stereotypes about Russia and the Russian people, making frequent trips to Russia to show the local reality. Recently, Ritter was in Chechnya, Moscow and St. Petersburg and spoke to the Western media about what real life is like in Russia today, explaining that the country is in a favorable economic situation, without any effect of Western sanctions.
It is already clear that persecution is the fate of any American dissident. When US citizens disagree with their country’s policies, the authorities attack, arrest and defame them. Unfortunately, this is the reality in the country that claims to be the global guardian of democracy. However, this lie is increasingly discredited. Despite all the propaganda efforts, it is already clear to the world that the US is no longer a democracy.
Lucas Leiroz, member of the BRICS Journalists Association, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, military expert.
You can follow Lucas on X (former Twitter) and Telegram.
June 4, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | Human rights, United States |
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Western governments are increasingly turning towards overt methods of repression as they lose their grip on control of the masses.
The Clooney Foundation for Justice (CFJ) has been forced to disavow comments by a legal director with the organization calling for the arrest of Russian journalists after intense backlash.
Anna Neistat, who leads the foundation’s The Docket project, claimed Thursday that her team is urging international authorities to prosecute Russian reporters.
“We want them to travel to other countries and be arrested there,” said Neistat, revealing that she is pressuring the European Union and International Criminal Court to pursue the matter. Neistat made the comments during an interview with the US state-backed propaganda outlet Voice of America.
The organization has since backpedaled on the provocative claim with a statement asserting that “someone in our foundation misspoke,” but observers see the proposal as yet another sign of the West’s growing authoritarianism and intolerance of dissenting voices.
Author and political analyst Caleb Maupin joined Sputnik’s The Critical Hour program Monday to discuss the incident.
“There’s a lot of things to keep in mind in reaction to this news story,” said the author and reporter. “The first of which is that the European Union has basically already outlawed all Russian media within the EU space, right? You can’t watch RT. Websites are suppressed, blocked, and it’s pretty hard to look at Russian media in the EU.”
“RT France has been shut down. You can’t watch RT in Belgium, you can’t watch RT in EU countries,” he continued. “What is a little bit different, though, about this is that this was specifically aimed at journalists who would report in Russian, for Russian audiences, but would do so from EU countries. And the idea was that they would be charged, and what’s interesting also is that the warrants for their arrest would be secret.”
“They would be arrested upon arrival and it would be a way to basically just kidnap these reporters and journalists and hold them hostage. And, if you look at it, it’s a particularly nasty proposal. And that’s probably why I noticed that George Clooney is now backing away from it and saying, ‘oh, people from our foundation misspoke, we didn’t mean this,’ etcetera.”
European countries have made increasingly aggressive attempts in recent years to restrict media and control the flow of information across the continent. The EU has outright banned Russian media outlets from broadcasting within the 27-nation bloc, but measures have been taken against third-party platforms, as well. The video sharing website Rumble was forced to block French users from accessing the platform after refusing to comply with government demands to block Russian content.
Politicians in the UK have also explored blocking the website, and the country recently detained journalist Kit Klarenberg at an airport in London, questioning him for five hours about his political views.
Across the Atlantic, the United States has famously condemned journalist Julian Assange to 12 years of effective confinement after the Wikileaks founder published leaked material revealing US war crimes in Iraq. Former CIA director and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made plans to kidnap and murder the firebrand transparency activist, it was recently revealed.
The uproar over the CFJ’s comments comes as Sputnik contributor Scott Ritter was denied travel to speak at a conference in Russia Monday, having his passport confiscated by authorities on apparent orders from the US State Department. Free speech concerns have also been raised over police crackdowns on campus pro-Palestine encampments, a move demanded by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“I will say, though, that the Ukrainians have been saying this from the beginning,” said Maupin of the calls to arrest Russian journalists. “I mean, they have this list of ‘information terrorists’ – which I’m proudly on, by the way, I’m listed by the Ukrainian government as an ‘information terrorist’ – and they have been calling for the assassination and murder of journalists, and they’ve done it since the war has begun.”
“This is not a change for Ukraine. What’s changed here is that the Clooney Foundation made such a statement and wanted to enlist EU governments in carrying it out.”
Western governments are usually more subtle in their attempts to control information, noted Maupin, typically relying more on efforts to influence popular narratives rather than outright censorship. The move towards more overt repression may be seen as a response to the increased transparency allowed by the Internet, or perhaps another sign of the West’s loss of power as a multipolar world order comes into view.
“They like subtly bringing up points they like,” Maupin noted. “Finding people who say things that they agree with and boosting them rather than saying it themselves. This is how the intelligence world works, and a huge amount of what the American intelligence apparatus does is construct media narratives and insert ideas into media discourse.”
“A lot of what the intelligence apparatus does is just boost certain messages and try to control the conversation in a subtle way to advance US foreign policy goals.”
June 4, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | European Union, Human rights, UK, United States |
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I’ve long criticized our current US justice system – on all levels – as becoming much more about political justice than blind justice. The bizarre trial and conviction of former President Donald Trump last week on 34 felonies only reinforces my concerns.
The New York District Attorney, Soros-backed Alvin Bragg, has been notorious for downgrading felony charges against others to misdemeanor charges. According to a recent article in the Daily Mail, Bragg had downgraded 60 percent of felony cases to lesser charges, resulting in violent criminals being released on the streets and a crime wave across New York City.
But when it came to Donald Trump, Bragg lurched in the other direction, upgrading what normally would have been misdemeanor charges against anyone else to 34 felony charges against the former president. How can this sudden “about-face” be explained other than politics?
Jonathan Turley, who is no fan of Donald Trump, has been covering the trial closely and has found more than a little disturbing the exuberant celebrations of Trump’s conviction among the mainstream media and his political opponents. Recently, he wrote:
“The conviction of former President Donald Trump in Manhattan of 34 felonies produced citywide celebrations [which] extended to the media, where former U.S. Attorney Harry Litman told MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace that it was ‘majestic day’ and ‘a day to celebrate.’ When I left the courthouse after watching the verdict come in, I was floored by the celebrations outside by both the public and some of the media.”
Regardless of one’s view of Donald Trump, it is a disturbing development in our society when justice is treated more like a football game where you root for your “team” rather than a way of preserving our freedom and liberty in an equal way for all.
The real goal of the trial was political. None other than George Soros’ son Alex let the cat out of the bag recently when he advised fellow Trump-haters how to take advantage of the trial result. He posted on Twitter after the verdict, “Democrats should refer to Trump as a convicted felon at every opportunity. Repetition is the key to a successful message and we want people to wrestle with the notion of hiring a convicted felon for the most important job in the country!”
It was not about justice in any way. It was all about being able to call the likely Republican presidential nominee a “felon” so as to undermine his support among voters. In other words, election interference.
The market has a way of prevailing, however. The repeated attempts at using “lawfare” to remove Trump from the political scene have all backfired and actually have served to make the former president even more popular among voters. Immediately after Trump’s conviction on the 34 charges he began sending out fundraising appeals based on his “persecution” by the state of New York. As of this writing, he has, according to press reports, raised over $200 million for his campaign.
The politicization of justice is not limited to the Democratic Party. The wind sown by political opponents of Donald Trump may well become the whirlwind they reap when their own political opponents are in positions of power. When that is the case, we all lose.
Copyright © 2024 The Ron Paul Institute
June 3, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties | Democratic Party, Donald Trump, Human rights, United States |
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Scott Ritter. © David McNew/Getty Images
The US State Department has seized the passport of former Marine and UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, he told RT on Monday.
Ritter was on his way to Russia for the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) when he was pulled off the plane and had his documents confiscated.
“I was boarding the flight. Three [police] officers pulled me aside. They took my passport. When asked why, they said ‘orders of the State Department’. They had no further information for me,” Ritter told RT. “They pulled my bags off the plane, then escorted me out of the airport. They kept my passport.”
Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer, who later served as the US and UN weapons inspector in Iraq. He is also a RT contributor, writing about international security, military affairs, Russia, and the Middle East, as well as arms control and nonproliferation.
He most recently visited Russia in January, spending time in Chechnya, Moscow and St. Petersburg, among other places.
The most recent post on Ritter’s Telegram channel put the Clooney Foundation for Justice on notice for its alleged crusade against “Russian propagandists.”
“Here I am. In your face. If telling the truth about Russia makes me a propagandist in your book, then I accept the title,” he wrote. “Bring it on. I’ll school you on the First Amendment.”
“You have zero concept of what free speech is. Try and arrest me and you’ll find out. In spades. It’s war,” he added.
June 3, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | Human rights, United States |
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Copper cannot be mined quickly enough to keep up with current policies requiring the transition to electric vehicles (EVs), according to a University of Michigan study.
Copper is fundamental to electricity generation, distribution and storage. According to GlobalData, there are more than 709 copper mines in operation globally, with the largest being the Escondida mine in Chile, which produced an estimated 882,100 tonnes of copper in 2023.
This may sound like a lot but with electrification ramping up globally it is not. The Michigan study, Copper mining and vehicle electrification, has focused on the copper required just for the production of EVs over the coming years.
Many countries across the world are putting forward policies for EVs. For instance, in the US the Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law in 2022, calls for 100% of cars manufactured by 2035 to be electric.
However, an EV requires three to five times more copper than petrol or diesel cars, not to mention the copper required for upgrades to the electricity grid.
“A normal Honda Accord needs about 40 pounds of copper. The same battery electric Honda Accord needs almost 200 pounds of copper,” said Adam Simon, professor of earth and environmental studies at the University of Michigan.
“We show in the paper that the amount of copper needed is essentially impossible for mining companies to produce.”
The researchers examined 120 years of global data from copper production dating back to 1900. They then modelled how much copper is likely to be produced for the rest of the century and how much copper the US electricity infrastructure and fleet of cars would need to upgrade to renewable energy.
The study found that renewable energy’s copper needs would outstrip what copper mines can produce at the current rate. Between 2018 and 2050, the world will need to mine 115% more copper than has been mined in all of human history up until 2018 just to meet current copper needs without considering the green energy transition.
To meet the copper needs of electrifying the global vehicle fleet, as many as six new large copper mines must be brought online annually over the next several decades. About 40% of the production from new mines will be required for EV-related grid upgrades.
The research concluded that instead of fully electrifying the entire US fleet of vehicles, they should focus on manufacturing hybrid vehicles.
“We know, for example, that a Toyota Prius actually has a slightly better impact on climate than a Tesla. Instead of producing 20 million EVs in the US and, globally, 100 million battery EVs each year, would it be more feasible to focus on building 20 million hybrid vehicles?”
Apart from EVs, copper is, of course, vital in other sectors: for instance, building infrastructure in the developing world such as an electricity grid for the approximately one billion people who don’t yet have access to electricity.
“What we will end up with is tension between how much copper we need to build infrastructure in less developed countries versus how much copper we need for the energy transition,” warned Simon.
“We are hoping this study gets picked up by policymakers who should consider copper as the limiting factor for the energy transition, and to think about how copper is allocated.”
© 2024 The Institution of Engineering and Technology
June 2, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | Human rights, United States |
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