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Is Government the Cash Cow for Politicians?

Ambition Should Be Tempered by Love of Country, not of Money!

BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • OCTOBER 31, 2023

The conflict in Israel-Gaza illustrates perfectly how the United States government runs on corruption, with the deep pocketed Jewish and Israeli lobbies able to buy every national level politician that matters to give the loathsome Benjamin Netanyahu a carte blanche both in terms of a free pass on committing war crimes while also having unlimited access to the US Treasury and the contents of military arsenals. Given that the media is also in the hands of the same malefactors the poorly informed American public can only respond to the pablum that they are being fed about what is going on the world, i.e. Ukraine and Israel good, Russia and Palestine bad.

I am certainly not the first observer of politics in the United States who has noticed how this deterioration has come about in my lifetime, where a country that once upon a time believed in meritocracy has now been corrupted by money, with a ruling class, such as it is, that seems to be wallowing in the green stuff even as it pretends to be promoting policies that help the average American. Right now, the witless President Joe Robinette Biden is working on his latest fraud, consisting of bundling all the money that will be dumped on Israel and Ukraine into a package with Taiwan so it will pass effortlessly through Congress given its hostility both to Russia and China and its deep abiding love for all things Israeli. $100 billion is all Joe wants, $10 billion for Israel immediately and the rest to be doled out, mostly to good old boy Volodymyr Zelensky and a bit for the Taiwanese.

And it might be observed that part of the vast ocean of money somehow seems to stick to the fingers of the pampered residents of Capitol Hill. How, one might ask, did Biden, a blue-collar boy from Scranton Pennsylvania who has spent his entire adult life in government employment and who is married to a school teacher wind up with a net worth in the $9 million dollar range? Of course, it now appears that he received a notable assist from a son named Hunter who is something like a one-man cocaine snorting corruption machine who was more than willing to share his largesse with dad in exchange for a little assistance with foreign despots here and there.

One recalls how back in the seventies there was at least some speculation regarding how President Lyndon Baines Johnson, who spent his entire working life in government, started out raised in poverty and wound up being worth an estimated $15 million at his death in 1973 after he left the presidency, at a time when that was serious money, equal to about $100 million today. He was known to be well-wired into Texas Jewish and pro-Israel circles and appeared to have all the right contacts for making private investments that he did not have to publicly declare.

But no one figured out how to milk the system like the Clintons and I still chuckle when I recall how they tried to take the White House silver with them when they departed the residence. Upon leaving the presidency in 2001 they claimed to be completely broke and even in debt, but adroit manipulation of their Clinton Foundation since that time has produced a windfall of more than $300 million in today’s dollars. It was a pattern imitated by Barack Obama who left office with more cash in hand through the usual mechanism of largely unreadable books ghost written on their behalf that were then hawked in large numbers to Democratic Party constituents to support the cause. Barack’s cash value is now estimated to be in the $70 million range and he also owns substantial properties in Washington, Chicago and, of course, on Martha’s Vineyard, where he has a 29 acre estate valued at $12 million.

Of course, to a certain extent the misbehavior of presidents, at least while they are still in office, is not as egregious as it is for members of Congress and even Supreme Court Justices. Presidents are very visible and surrounded by staff and media witnesses of whatever they are up to while the sins of other senior government officials are more anonymous and they can engage in practices like taking bribes and insider trading based on their prior knowledge of legislation or expenditures that are pending that might produce a windfall profit if one is canny enough to buy the right stock. Congressmen are also well placed to use family members to carry out the trades, avoiding scrutiny of their own banking and investment activities. That has, indeed, been claimed in a number of cases where government officials have been able to accumulate large fortunes while holding office.

And there is no doubt that corruption of one form or another is the game that is played in Congress and elsewhere including at state and local levels. In a sense, it is all around us. The recent exposure of Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey’s apparent tendency to accept bribes was a particularly lurid tale in part because much of the loot consisted of $480,000 in cash stuffed into jacket pockets, closets and in a safe, along with 13 gold bars, two of them marked as 1 Kilogram in weight to the value of more than $100,000. In the garage was an upscale $60,000 Mercedes-Benz convertible that was a gift to Menendez’s then girlfriend, who had wrecked her own vehicle in an accident in which she had struck and killed a pedestrian. The car came from one of the New Jersey businessmen currently involved in the corruption and bribery investigation and no one can quite explain how an accident in which someone had died was never properly investigated by police. Menendez had allegedly helped the businessman by arranging to block a criminal investigation into his company’s activities.

Menendez, a Cuban American regarded as a political hardliner from his bully pulpit as Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has been investigated before over charges of possible corruption, but he has beaten the rap each time. He has currently resigned his chairmanship but has refused to leave the Senate and he claims he is innocent, of course. And as he’s inevitably been a major promoter of Biden’s war on Russia the White House will presumably do everything it can to protect him, but only up to a certain point.

There has been some discussion of the wealth of certain congressmen due to the recent death of 90 year-old Dianne Feinstein, Senator from California, who was regarded as both the wealthiest and oldest of all Senators. She was, in fact, born into a prominent Jewish family in San Francisco and acquired even more money and property from her three husbands, all of whom were also wealthy. It has never been suggested that she exploited her positions as Mayor of San Francisco and in Congress to illegally or otherwise obtain more money, to her credit, possibly because she was already rich. Nevertheless, her death was preceded by some high tone media coverage of the nature of her fortune and the family quarrel that is taking place regarding how all the money and the multiple high end properties will be divided up. By some accounts, Feinstein became a billionaire upon the death of her final husband financier Richard C. Blum in 2022, though who is entitled to what remains of the estate will now undoubtedly be determined through either litigation or negotiation involving her own daughter Katherine and the three daughters sired by Blum in a previous marriage. Far from getting rich off of politics, Blum and Feinstein were major donors to the Democratic Party.

More to the point if one is asking “How did they get so rich?” is the trajectory of former Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi and her husband Paul Pelosi. Nancy was one of six children born and raised in an intensely political environment, though having otherwise modest circumstances, in Baltimore. Her father was Baltimore mayor and congressman Thomas D’Alesandro, who was at one time investigated by the FBI but never convicted regarding association with criminals.

Nancy Pelosi and Hubbie Paul moved to California in 1969 after college and six years spent in New York City. She quickly became involved in local Democratic Party politics while he established himself as a businessman, specializing in real estate and high-tech investment, aided by his brother Ronald Pelosi who was a member of the San Francisco city and county Board of Supervisors. Nancy and Paul have five children. Nancy, who is 83 years old, initially won her congressional seat in a special election in San Francisco in 1987. She became first woman Speaker, though she lost her position recently as a result of the swing of the House to the Republicans in the 2020 election. She has announced that she will not be running for office in 2024 and will retire. She and her husband have indicated that they will live in their mansion in the upscale Pacific Heights district of San Francisco, though they have a vineyard in Napa Valley and additional properties in San Francisco. They are staying in the city in spite of an incident in October 2022, while Pelosi was in Washington, DC, in which an intruder entered their home demanding to know her whereabouts. He then attacked Paul Pelosi, with a hammer. Police arrested the attacker, 42-year-old David DePape, and he has been charged with assault and attempted kidnapping.

As of 2021, Pelosi’s net worth, as revealed by her government financial disclosure forms and other sources, was estimated to be at $120 million, more than doubling her $58 million valuation in 2009 and making her the 6th richest person in Congress. She indicated on her disclosure form that her principal source of income was her government salary, which peaked at $223,500 when she was speaker. She and her husband hold properties “worth at least $14.65 million, including the St. Helena vineyard in Napa Valley worth at least $5 million” and commercial properties.

According to investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald, the Pelosis have traded $33 million worth of tech stocks over the past two years, including Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, and Google. In May and June 2021, Pelosi’s husband purchased stocks in tech companies such as Alphabet, Amazon, and Apple, netting a gain of $5.3 million, while Nancy was working on anti-trust legislation to better regulate the tech industry, which many considered to be a clear conflict of interest as well as a case of potential insider trading. Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, had actually called Pelosi to lobby her in opposition to the new proposed regulations and, in their discussion, she openly opposed increasing regulations on stock trades by members of congress, stating that “we’re a free market economy” and congresspeople “should be able to participate in that”.

This comment attracted strong criticism including from some Democrats: “Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) tweeted: ‘No. It cannot be a perk of the job for Members to trade on access to information.’ Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) – one of the wealthiest members of Congress thanks to his business career that included leading his family’s distillery as well as the gelato brand Talenti – echoed: ‘I disagree with the Speaker.’ And Rep. Andy Kim (D-N.J.), who represents one of the most competitive districts in the nation, wrote that ‘I disagree strongly’ with Pelosi’s stance. ‘Americans are losing trust in government and we need to show we serve the people, not our personal/political self-interest.’ Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who has said that she doesn’t hold individual stocks or digital assets, reiterated late Friday that she thinks letting members of Congress trade individual stocks is a bad look. ‘There is no reason members of Congress should hold and trade individual stock when we write major policy and have access to sensitive information,’ Ocasio-Cortez said. ‘There are many ways members can invest w/o creating actual or appeared conflict of interest, like thrift savings plans or index funds.’”

So evidently Nancy Pelosi and many other congressmen believe that it is just fine to be regulating industries and also allowing the regulators to benefit materially when it is anticipated that the measures taken will improve those industries’ stock market standing or profitability. Doing so is a well-established principle referred to as insider trading and hers is an interesting viewpoint. It perhaps explains why there are so many multi-millionaires and possibly even a billionaire or two in Congress!

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.

October 31, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

Who keeps spreading the real disinformation?

ANSWER: The government (and its many cronies)

BY BILL RICE, JR. | OCTOBER 31, 2023

Independent journalists Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi recently had a conversation where they highlight a key point of our New Normal times – namely, that all real disinformation comes from government or mainstream media sources.

It occurs to me that our side needs to keep pounding home this point, which might resonate with enough citizens to make the proverbial difference.

What leaders on our side need to do is repeatedly point out that the real disinformation is coming from authorities and “experts.” If enough people accept this truism, the disinformation spreaders might encounter formidable obstacles as they attempt to enforce the rest of their freedom-eradicating agendas.

I’d start by simply pointing out all the allegedly true information promulgated by officials that was really false information.

Just with the categories of “settled Covid science,” most citizens in the world would probably acknowledge they’ve been sold a fraudulent bill of goods.

For example, how many adults really think the Covid “vaccines” and “boosters” prevent infections or stop or slow virus spread?

My guess: There might be 125 (?) people in world who still believe this official disinformation.

Also, if everyone was given a powerful dose of truth serum, I think everyone would admit that they know at least a few people who might have been harmed (or even died) because they received a Covid shot. So the narrative that the “vaccines” are safe or prevent “severe cases” is not really accepted by most people.

Quick thought exercise: If every person did believe the “vaccines” are safe and effective and this virus was a real threat to their health, every person would be getting the latest round of new boosters … instead of maybe five percent of the population. This means 95 percent of citizens are showing their true beliefs by what they are not doing.

This is what one might call a truth “tell.”

Poll questions that will never be asked …

It would be interesting if some well-known polling organization surveyed people and simply asked a large sample of citizens two questions:

Question 1: Do you think the Covid vaccines are “effective” at preventing new cases?

Question 2: Have you heard or read about any person who might have suffered a vaccine injury?

I just proposed two common-sense poll questions I know will never be asked by important polling organizations – because I know that every important organization is now captured. (“Every important organization” would include the important public opinion polling organizations.)

This example illustrates how it’s almost impossible to prove that the government and its many cronies are trading in disinformation – because all the exercises that might prove this won’t occur.

I’ve written a thousand times that officials won’t investigate that which they don’t want to confirm. Simple opinion polls would be one example of a truth-seeking tool that can never be employed in our New Normal.

Funding and authorizing a large number of autopsies of all the people who “died suddenly” is another example of taboo investigations.

Yet another example would be all the people who have contacted mainstream media news organizations and told editors or journalists that a loved one died or was severely injured by a vaccine.

Question: How many mainstream journalists followed up on these news tips?

I’m pretty sure the answer is zero. I would also be willing to bet that every news organization in the word has received numerous news tips like this … so this is not some random, outlier anecdote.

Not only have no real investigations of vaccine injuries been performed by the so-called “watchdog” press, the public doesn’t even know how many times these requests have been ignored and dismissed.

We don’t need Covid examples to know how important disinformation is to the Establishment classes …

The reason I think the public might belatedly accept the truism that it’s officials who spread disinformation is that, by now, many members of the public understand that official narratives of the past have been debunked.

Matt and Glenn discussed one the best-known examples of bogus government-spread disinformation when they discussed the justification for America’s invasion of Iraq. The main justification was, of course, that Saddam Hussein possessed “weapons of mass destruction.”

I’m sure some people still believe this, but I would guess at least 75 percent of thinking citizens now realize this was a lie.

The good news is that many people who supported the invasion of Iraq later came to believe that Iraq didn’t have such weapons and came to believe that American citizens shouldn’t have been stressed out over an impending attack from Iraq.

My take-away, which is very germane to discussions of our Covid times, is that some lies do later get exposed as lies. People are willing to admit they no longer believe the official narrative.

Whether they know it or not, these people are admitting that they were duped by sophisticated disinformation campaigns … and the disinformation didn’t come from kooks on the Internet – it came from the “leaders” of the important organizations in the country.

Another disinformation campaign that changed the world (for the worse)

The “War on Terror” had several components, including several accepted storylines which should now be viewed as dubious disinformation.

One of these storylines is that terrorists were going to attack America with “bio-weapons,” which meant the government needed to spend billions of dollars investigating possible viruses and, most importantly, begin working preemptively on “vaccines” that would protect American citizens if and when such an attack occurred.

The terrorist attacks of 9-11 changed the world, but it might have been the anthrax letters which were mailed shortly after these attacks that changed the world even more.

The (almost-certain) disinformation at the time was that terrorists had mailed those anthrax spores.

The story that’s more likely to be true is that it was an American who mailed the anthrax (which actually doesn’t pose any great threat to the population). Also, the anthrax almost certainly came from a lab funded by American tax payers.

It didn’t really matter where the anthrax came from or who mailed it, all that mattered was that the “gain of function” research into deadly viruses proceeded at warp speed. Scientists researching possible bio-weapons received a blank check. Most significantly, the Science Industrial Complex merged with the Military Industrial Intelligence Complex.

Nobody (except maybe Ron Paul) would have guessed that 20 years later this strain of “disinformation” would lead to the whole world being locked down and then to mandatory mRNA vaccines.

It wasn’t Saddam Hussein who made sure we couldn’t go to church or could no longer go to any job deemed “non-essential.” The dictators issuing those orders worked in our own government … and were issuing orders based on their own disinformation.

The few brave contrarians who tried to warn the population what was really happening were labeled as traitors, the “enemy,” “science deniers” and disinformation spreaders.

Just like it was a coordinated effort to fool everyone into thinking Saddam Hussein was coming after grandma and our children with weapons of mass destruction, so too with the Mother of All Pandemics, which was entirely the product of government-produced disinformation.

In other words, the public shouldn’t need examples of Covid disinformation to realize the government’s been trading in disinformation for longer than most people have been alive.

And the reason the government and its partners trade in disinformation is because … this works.

If more people would just pause and use their brains, they’d probably realize it’s only an entity as powerful as the government (or the government’s shadow rulers) that can use disinformation to control the majority of the population.

Truth be told, a few contrarians on social media probably couldn’t turn the whole giant ship of state or even debunk a few bogus narratives.

However, if the arguments of these contrarians were persuasive enough, these contrarians’ points might spread to the masses.

This scenario no doubt identifies the real fear of our ruling class. To stop this possibility, the contrarians were labeled “disinformation” spreaders … by the very people and organizations who were spreading the real disinformation.

They don’t want us to identify them … 

If a few more great communicators could simply point out who actually produces and then disseminates all the key disinformation, the world might have a fighting chance going forward.

What the world needs is some “Most Wanted” type posters that simply include the photos and job titles of the officials who are spreading the world’s important disinformation.

These posters would have to be humongous because they’d include photos of just about every key official in government and every editor and publisher of every mainstream media “news” organization.

The headline on this poster might say, “These are the people and organizations who are really spreading disinformation. These people have the means and the motives to spread dangerous disinformation. The public should quit trusting all of these people.”

I know such a project would be dangerous and wouldn’t even be “allowed” by the Censorship Industrial Complex. Still, somehow we’ve got to identify the real villains, who are the spreaders of the real disinformation.

October 31, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Former Jan 6th Prosecutor Runs For Congress, Focusing Campaign on Tackling “Conspiracy Theories” On Social Media

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | October 31, 2023

A counter-terrorism (national security) prosecutor who made a name for himself – or so he hopes – by going after participants in the January 6 riots is now hoping to capitalize on his previous career by switching directly to politics.

Will Rollins has announced that he is running for Congress in California, with his platform based on changing regulations that govern Big Tech’s social media, in order to combat what he considers to be conspiracy theories – such as QAnon and Covid-related issues – but also more vaguely, to take on “spreading division based on lies.”

In announcing the congressional run, Rollins revealed that his political efforts are based on the thinking that divisions in the US are not the result of, say, differing political and ideological beliefs within a free electorate, but of “democracy-eroding lies” that the media, Big Tech, and extremists, all help spread.

Apparently, there is such a thing as a democracy to erode, even if everyone gets corralled into the same place regarding some basic issues. And speaking of which, Rollins is warning that without his plan to hold said entities – media outlets, tech companies, and “extremists” – accountable, the US will be “exploited” by China and Russia.

This is his plan:

“Update regulations to break down information bubbles and propaganda networks to protect the public’s right to be informed; Require more transparency in advertising, so that we know whether what we’re consuming online was written by a human or a Russian bot; Create accountability for harmful lies and conspiracy theories amplified by Big Tech.”

From insisting on preventing “divisions” (but having to qualify his claims that “adversaries” from around the world tried to “capitalize” on those divisions post-January 6 by saying they reportedly tried this) – Rollings suddenly goes on to justify his policies by saying new rules around tech, etc., are needed in order to “incentivize the presentation of multiple views.”

But these will have to be “vetted” and approved of before being allowed to be presented, let alone incentivized, it appears from the musings Rollings is posting online.

Perhaps the most interesting thing that has come out of this candidacy so far is the revealing of the political and ideological profile of one of the January 6 prosecutors.

October 31, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite | , | Leave a comment

500 casualties in a new Israeli massacre in Gaza

Palestine Information Center – October 31, 2023

GAZA – Israeli warplanes bombed the densely-populated Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday killing 100 civilians and wounding 400 in a preliminary estimate.

Dozens remain under the rubble of the destroyed buildings, medical sources said.

The health ministry spokesman said that the casualties in the Jabalia massacre might exceed those murdered in the shelling of the Ma’madani Hospital.

Local sources said that the warplanes fired 20 missiles and huge American-made bombs on a residential block that contains 20 houses, destroying them completely over the heads of their occupants.

Iyad al-Buzom, the interior ministry spokesman, said that the Israeli warplanes dropped at least six bombs on the camp, each one weighing more than 1,000 kilograms. He added that the majority of those killed were women and children.

More than 120,000 citizens inhabit the Jabalia refugee camp, whose total area is 1.4 square kilometer.

October 31, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

University of Arkansas imposes Israel ‘loyalty test’ on Jewish author and cancels event

MEMO | October 31, 2023

Academic freedom is under fire in the US as Jewish author silenced for stance on Israel. American- Jewish scholar, Nathan Thrall, has faced censorship from the University of Arkansas, which banned his speaking event over his refusal to sign a pledge affirming loyalty to Israel. Thrall was set to discuss his ground-breaking new book exposing Palestinian life under Occupation, before the University invoked a repressive anti-boycott law to cancel the talk.

“I was just told that I cannot speak at @UArkansas unless I sign a pledge that I will not boycott Israel or its occupation,” Thrall said on X yesterday revealing that he had refused the demand. “A 2017 state law requires @UArkansas to impose this McCarthyist requirement. A reminder that the current effort to quash free speech is not new.”

Thrall also revealed that events for the book were called off on NPR and the BBC’s American platforms due to listener complaints. “I’m quite sure that a book advocating for Israel would not have had its advertisements pulled,” Thrall added. “There’s an atmosphere that is wholly intolerant of any expression of sympathy for Palestinians under Occupation.”

Over 30 US states have adopted legislation aimed at suppressing the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. These anti-BDS laws, promoted by pro-Israel lobbying groups, prohibit state entities from contracting with or investing in any company that boycotts the apartheid state. Some even require individuals and businesses to sign a pledge not to boycott Israel as a condition of obtaining state contracts.

Critics argue that this amounts to an unconstitutional political litmus test that requires declaring loyalty towards Israel and its policies, at the expense of free speech and political dissent. The American Civil Liberties Union has called anti-BDS laws a “profound violation of the First Amendment” that chill activism by making people prove they do not support boycotts for Palestinian rights.

High-profile cases like the cancellation of author events over refusal to sign anti-BDS pledges highlight how the laws censor Israel critiques and activism. Rights groups contend basic democratic principles are undermined when states act as “enforcers” of Israeli policy, demanding ideological purity on this polarising issue as a prerequisite for contracts.

Despite the dubious legality of anti-BDS legislation, the trend continues spreading across states seeking to please pro-Israel interests by cracking down on activism.

In February, the US Supreme Court declined to review the law in the State of Arkansas requiring every government contractor to pledge loyalty to Israel. The justices turned away a challenge to the anti-boycott pledge by the Arkansas Times.

Read also:

Texas teacher fired for refusing to sign anti-BDS oath 

October 31, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

FBI = Following Biden’s Instructions?

By James Bovard | October 30, 2023

Does “FBI” now stand for “Following Biden’s Instructions”? The FBI is doing backflips to boost Joe Biden’s re-election campaign. Unfortunately, federal courts don’t recognize law enforcement shenanigans as a violation of the Voting Rights Act.

The FBI is categorizing Donald Trump’s supporters as terrorist suspects, according to a new report in Newsweek. The FBI created “a new category of extremists that it seeks to track and counter: Donald Trump’s army of MAGA followers,” Newsweek revealed. The FBI is relying on the same counterterrorism methods honed to fight al Qaeda to go after the incumbent president’s political opponents.

Naturally, the latest Washington crusade against extremism has more malarkey than a White House summit. Federal bureaucrats heaved together a bunch of letters to contrive an ominous new acronym for the latest peril to domestic tranquility. The result: AGAAVE—“anti-government, anti-authority violent extremism”—which looks like a typo for a sugar substitute.

Recently, the FBI vastly expanded the supposed AGAAVE peril by broadening suspicion from “furtherance of ideological agendas” to “furtherance of political and/or social agendas.” Anyone who has an agenda different from Team Biden’s could be AGAAVE’d for his own good. The great majority of the FBI’s “current ‘anti-government’ investigations are of Trump supporters,” William Arkin, a highly respected investigative journalist, reported in Newsweek.

The FBI crackdown is following some of the most overheated political rhetoric of our era. Biden has denounced Trump supporters for “semi-fascism.” Biden tweeted last November, “Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans are a threat to the very soul of this country.”

Biden’s Homeland Security Advisor Liz Sherwood-Randall declared, “The use of violence to pursue political ends is a profound threat to our public safety and national security… it is a threat to our national identity, our values, our norms, our rule of law—our democracy.” And since Team Biden says that Trump supporters could be violent, suppressing them is the only way to protect “the will of the people” or whatever honorific is used for rigged election results.

In June, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security issued a warning: “Sociopolitical developments—such as narratives of fraud in the recent general election, the emboldening impact of the violent breach of the U.S. Capitol, conditions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and conspiracy theories promoting violence—will almost certainly spur some domestic terrorists to try to engage in violence.”  In other words, alleging that there was election fraud in past elections can qualify a person as a terrorist suspect—and justify suppressing their political activity in subsequent elections.

Biden’s FBI views Trump supporters as a deadly threat to democracy, thereby justifying subverting or crippling Trump supporters’ ability to oppose Biden and other Democrats.

The FBI is required to have (or claim to have) solid information before launching a criminal investigation. But the bureau needs almost zero information to open an “assessment.” The FBI conducted more than 5,500 domestic-terrorism “assessments” in 2021, a 10-fold increase since 2017 and a 50-fold increase since 2013. “Assessments are the closest thing to domestic spying that exists in America and generally not talked about by the Bureau,” Arkin noted. The House Weaponization Subcommittee warned that  “the FBI appears to be complicit in artificially supporting the Administration’s political narrative” that domestic violent extremism is “the ‘greatest threat’ facing the United States.”

Those assessments could prove perilous because the official demand for terrorists far exceeds the domestic supply. A top federal official told Newsweek last year, “We’ve become too prone to labeling anything we don’t like as extremism, and then any extremist as a terrorist.” “Trespassing plus thought crimes equals terrorism” is the Biden standard for prosecuting January 6 defendants.

FBI whistleblower Steve Friend complained of current FBI leadership, “There is this belief that half the country are domestic terrorists and we can’t have a conversation with them. There is a fundamental belief that unless you are voicing what we agree…you are the enemy.”

Did the Biden administration secretly want Newsweek to vindicate the fears of legions of Trump supporters? Perhaps those “assessments” are repeating a tactic used against Vietnam War protesters: FBI agents were encouraged to conduct frequent interviews with antiwar activists to “enhance the paranoia endemic in such circles” and “get the point across that there is an FBI agent behind every mailbox,” according to an FBI memo from that era.

The more abusive the FBI becomes, the more outraged that Trump supporters sound, thereby justifying further FBI repression. That also makes it easier for Team Biden to portray Trump supporters as public menaces.

Biden’s war on extremism could become a self-fulfilling prophecy that destroys American political legitimacy. An official in the Office of Director of National Intelligence lamented, “So we have the president increasing his own inflammatory rhetoric which leads Donald Trump and the Republicans to do the same”—and the media follow suit. Biden is exempt from official suspicion even when he denounced Republicans as fascists who want to destroy democracy. Yet if Republicans sound equally overheated, Biden’s FBI has pretexts to unleash the hounds.

Is there any limit to the federal entrapment operations designed to spur headlines that make politicians applaud? The latest FBI crackdown echoes a DHS campaign that was leaked to the press in 2021. Federal policymakers launched a “legal work-around” to spy on and potentially entrap Americans who are “perpetuating the ‘narratives’ of concern,” CNN reported. The DHS plan would “allow the department to circumvent [constitutional and legal] limits” on surveillance of private citizens and groups. Federal agencies are prohibited from targeting individuals solely for First Amendment-protected speech and activities. But federal hirelings would be under no such restraint.

Will the FBI’s interventions in the 2024 presidential election be even more brazen than its 2016 and 2020 stunts? Will the agency exploit its “assessments” to recruit knuckleheads to engage in another pre-election Keystone Kops plot to kidnap a governor, as it did in Michigan in 2020?

The FBI has a sordid history of intervening in presidential elections since 1948—if not before. A 1976 Senate report on FBI abuses warned, “The American people need to be assured that never again will an agency of the government be permitted to conduct a secret war against those citizens it considers threats to the established order.” Unfortunately, Americans may not learn the damning details of another FBI “secret war” until long after the next election.

Ironically, the Biden administration is vilifying anti-government opinions at the same time judges are exposing federal crimes. Federal court decisions in July and September condemned the Biden censorship regime—and those rulings were preceded by Supreme Court decisions striking down President Joe Biden’s student-loan-forgiveness scheme and vaccine mandates.

But Team Biden still presumes anyone who suspects the feds are violating the Constitution is up to no good. In the same way that Biden based his 2020 election campaign on vilifying Charlottesville 2017 protests, so the Biden re-election campaign will vilify anyone who distrusts the feds. Regardless of the outcome, the 2024 election will be another boomtime for cynics.

October 30, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, False Flag Terrorism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | Leave a comment

Kremlin weighs in on call for US to reverse course on Russia

RT | October 30, 2023

A recent article by US economist Jeffrey Sachs calling on Washington to establish a new sustainable détente with Russia is a rare sight, but evidence that debates on the issue are picking up steam, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov has said.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, Peskov commented on Sachs’ piece, which was published in early October but has only recently gained media traction. The economist, who serves as the director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, wrote that the world is on the precipice of a “30-year US neocon debacle in Ukraine.”

He explained that Washington’s long-cherished hopes for NATO expansion eastward to Russia’s borders have been dashed by Ukraine’s devastating losses on the battlefield, the threat of Moscow launching a massive offensive, and collapsing support for this course in both Europe and the US.

As Ukraine teeters on the brink, Sachs argued, the US could avert a potential catastrophe by changing course and reaching security guarantees with Moscow. A potential deal could include a pledge that NATO would not expand closer to Russia, as well as an agreement between Moscow and Kiev that predominantly ethnic Russian areas would be recognized as part of Russia, the economist said, apparently referring to Crimea and four other former Ukrainian regions that overwhelmingly voted to become part of Russia.

Commenting on the article, Peskov said Moscow has not received any proposals on the matter. While describing the piece as “an economist’s point of view, nothing more,” he noted that “such thinking is quite rare at the moment.”

“Nevertheless, some kind of a discussion is gradually gaining momentum,” Peskov added.

In the article, Sachs suggested that Russia’s demands to NATO and the US which were made shortly before the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022 should be used as a springboard for a thaw in relations.

In the proposals presented in December 2021, Moscow asked the West to formally ban Ukraine from entering NATO, while insisting that the alliance should retreat to its 1997 borders, before it expanded. The overture, however, was rebuffed by the West.

October 30, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

US seeks strategic dialogue with Russia

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | OCTOBER 30, 2023 

Almost four weeks into Hamas’ attack on Israel, Russia is in no hurry to exploit the Biden administration’s quandary over the collapse of Middle East security. The western media was unanimous that Russia was waiting in the wings to seize the opportunity once the US took its eye off the ball in Ukraine. However, no such thing happened. 

Ukraine war is on autopilot. The compass has been set, the die is cast and the calculus is holding steady with regard to the strategic objectives set by President Vladimir Putin in February last year. Russia senses that it has gained the upper hand in the war and that is irreversible. 

Ukraine’s counteroffensive has failed and the fighting is presently restricted to two sectors of the frontline, as Russian forces strengthen the security of the Donetsk region and seek to regain control of territories up north in the borderlands of Donbass and Kharkov region from where they retreated for tactical reasons last September and October.

Yet, Moscow has not begun its grand offensive, as many had predicted. One plausible explanation is that Moscow is watching the maelstrom sweeping through the Middle East. Moscow is particularly sensitive about any spillover into Syria. 

With an eye on the formidable US naval build-up in Eastern Mediterranean with the deployment of two aircraft carrier groups, President Vladimir Putin has publicised that Russian jets equipped with hypersonic Kinzhal missiles are roaming the skies above the Black Sea, which can strike targets 1000 kms away at Mach 9 speed, which no existing missile defence system can intercept. Suffice to say, the war in Ukraine remains attritional. 

Curiously, Russia conducted a simulated nuclear strike in a drill on Wednesday overseen by Putin, hours after Russian parliament voted to rescind the country’s ratification of the global nuclear test ban treaty (CTBT). The drill needs to be seen in the broader context of global strategic stability. A Kremlin statement said, “The purpose of the training exercise was to check the level of preparedness of military command bodies, as well as the skill of the leadership and operational personnel in managing the troops (forces) under their command.” Everything, however, adds up in these extraordinary times. 

At its most obvious level, the Palestine-Israel conflict is a manifestation of the growing imbalance in the existing system of international relations. New wars are emerging; longstanding conflicts are mutating (eg., Nagorno-Karabakh). Last week, Pakistan bracketed Palestine and Kashmir as the UN’s unfinished business in the post-colonial era. North Korea and Iran are flash points that have no military solution. 

In the months ahead, without doubt, Washington will continue to provide Israel with military and diplomatic support but an extended Israeli operation lasting months in Gaza will mean dispersal of US resources that might be needed in other theatres. The conflict in Gaza underscores the imperative for a rethink in the US’ notions of global hegemony. The fact remains that the US, despite its self-proclaimed status as the “Indispensable Nation” (Madeline Albright) and the guarantor of “rules-based order,” failed to prevent the latest eruption of conflict in the Middle East. 

Arguably, therefore, the latest US proposal for a systematic resumption of strategic dialogue with Russia can be seen as a sign of positive thinking. Unsurprisingly, Moscow has displayed a studied indifference to the US proposal. But that needn’t be taken as the last word. Historically, Soviet-American strategic dialogue brought on board into the agenda all major issues and most minor issues affecting international security. 

The big question, therefore, is the timing of the US proposal. Against the backdrop of the gathering storms in the Middle East, the Biden Administration probably seeks to calm the nerves by proposing talks with Russia on global strategic balance, since the guardrails in arms control no longer exist. This is one thing. 

At any rate, Russia’s “neutrality” in a Middle East conflict could also be a consideration. Equally, Western leaderships understand that the war against Russia is practically lost — although they will not admit it publicly — and engagement with Russia is needed.   

Again, although the US has provided Israel with significant military and diplomatic support and keeps influencing the latter not to escalate the conflict, there are variables in the situation and any big conflagration in the Middle East will require a massive concentration of material and financial resources that are limited even for a superpower, since there are other unresolved problems in the world, too.

The breakdown of trust in the Russian-American ties hurts US interests. Fundamentally, it must also be understood that what Moscow seeks even today after nearly 20 months of battling NATO and the US in Ukraine’s killing fields is a sustained engagement with Washington and a willingness to accommodate mutual interests. 

On its part, Russia is conducting itself as a responsible power vis-a-vis the crisis in Gaza. There is no shred of evidence to show that Russia has acted as a “spoiler”. On the contrary, Moscow has been projecting its credentials as a potential peacemaker who enjoys good relations with all key players — Israel, Hamas, Iran and other regional states alike. 

In fact, President Biden’s recent remarks on the Gaza situation bring the US position rather close to Russia’s. Biden read out the following from a prepared text at a joint press conference with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of Australia: 

“Israel has the right and, I would add, responsibility to respond to the slaughter of their people. And we will ensure Israel has what it needs to defend itself against these terrorists. That’s a guarantee… 

“But that does not lessen the need for — to operate and align with the laws of war for Israeli — it has to do everything in its power — Israel has to do everything in its power, as difficult as it is, to protect innocent civilians. And it’s difficult. I also want take a moment to look ahead toward the future that we seek. 

“Israelis and Palestinians equally deserve to live side by side in safety, dignity, and peace. And there’s no going back to the status quo as it stood on October the 6th. That means ensuring Hamas can no longer terrorise Israel and use Palestinian civilians as human shields.

“It also means that when this crisis is over, there has to be a vision of what comes next. And in our view, it has to be a two-state solution.” 

Putin couldn’t have put this across differently. There is a sense of expectation in Moscow that in the emergent conditions in regional security, the US and its allies will “reconsider their notions of defeating Russia in the Ukraine conflict at any cost” — as an establishment think tanker wrote in the Kremlin-funded RT last week. 

Trust is lacking, he concluded, “compromises without the full consideration of Russian interests” are difficult to reach, but “a pivotal stage in the (world) order … is taking shape before our eyes.”  

October 30, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Hungary calls halt of Nord Stream probe ‘outrageous and scandalous’

Al Mayadeen | October 28, 2023

In an interview for RIA Novosti, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto stated that the lack of intention to continue in the investigation of the explosion on the Nord Stream pipeline that occurred last year is “outrageous and scandalous.”

“I really do find it outrageous and scandalous that no forward progress has taken place regarding the attack against the Nord Stream pipeline. It has taken place more than a year ago. So, there’s no forward progress and I don’t really see the intention to have forward progress which is outrageous,” Szijjarto said.

He added that his country prefers a thorough and deep investigation into the situation regarding a recent incident at Finland’s Baltic connector pipeline that took place earlier this month.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán warned after the attack on the Nord Stream pipeline that it would view any acts of sabotage on gas routes used to buy gas from Russia as a casus belli, or a reason for war, though he noted that the warning had been heeded.

“What we, Hungarians, did immediately: we made clear that there is another pipeline, not just Nord Stream, but there is Southern Stream, coming gas from Russia through the southern corridor,” he said.

Internal play 

Famed journalist Seymour Hersh, who had previously exposed US war crimes in My Lai and Abu Ghraib, and had most recently exposed the US’ role in the Nord Stream explosions, revealed further information in an interview with China Daily in March this year.

Hersh argued that the US elites had a “long-standing history” of being “disturbed by the Russian gas and oil sales to Western Europe” which was further confirmed after US President Joe Biden’s public threat to “bring an end” to the Nord Stream pipelines just two weeks prior to the war in Ukraine. This, Hersh said, proved that it “wasn’t much of a secret what we wanted to do.”

Biden’s decision to order the demolition of the Nord Stream pipelines, says Hersh, was motivated by Germany’s projected reluctance to continue arming Ukraine.

Significantly, Hersh explained that the US administration was unhappy with the fact that its proxy war against Moscow was not “going well”, and “decided in late September to trigger the mines.” He said that American foreign policy elites had made it clear, in the past, that they objected to Russian-Europpean cooperation. Based on that, Hersh said he was not “surprised one bit” by the decision to sabotage the Nord Stream Pipelines.

October 30, 2023 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli ‘ethnic cleansing’ plan leaked

RT | October 30, 2023

A leaked policy document compiled by Israel’s Ministry of Intelligence calls for the depopulation of Gaza and the forced displacement of its residents to Egyptian territory, according to a copy published by the Sicha Mekomit news site on Saturday.

The ten-page document, dated October 13, recommends that Israel establish tent cities in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula to accommodate the Gazan population. These tent cities should then be developed into permanent settlements, with a“sterile zone of several kilometers” separating them from the Israeli border.

Under the plan, Gaza’s 2.3 million residents would be told that “there is no longer any hope of returning to the territories that Israel will occupy in the near future,” and that “Allah made sure that you lost this land because of the leadership of Hamas.”

US support will be vital to the plan’s success, the document states. Washington could put “pressure on Egypt, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates to contribute to the initiative either in resources or in accepting displaced persons,” it notes, adding that Spain, Greece, and Canada could also be convinced to accept refugees from the strip.

Sicha Mekomit stated that the plan “amounts to the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.” According to the Ministry of Intelligence, however, the policy would be portrayed to the rest of the world as  causing “fewer casualties among the civilian population” than the current cycle of Hamas attacks and overwhelming Israeli reprisals.

Despite its name, the Ministry of Intelligence does not oversee the activities of Israel’s security and intelligence agencies. Instead it prepares studies and policy papers for review by the government, which ultimately decides whether or not to implement them.

The ministry is headed by Gila Gamliel, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party. Gamliel is the second Netanyahu ally in recent weeks to recommend the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, with the Meshgav Institute, a right-wing think tank, publishing a similar policy paper last week describing the war as “a rare opportunity” for the “relocation and final settlement of the entire Gaza population.”

The Meshgav Institute is led by Meir Ben Shabat, who served as Netanyahu’s national security adviser from 2017 until 2021. The paper was published online but deleted after it drew international condemnation.

Netanyahu’s office told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that the ministry’s document represents “initial thoughts” on the future of Gaza, and will not be considered until the war is over.

October 30, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

A doctor’s insight into vaccine injury

By Thomas Lane | TCW Defending Freedom | October 30, 2023

Dr Keith Berkowitz is a founding member, with Dr Pierre Kory, of the Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC). He is treating a lot of vaccine-injured patients at his practice in midtown Manhattan. Dr Berkowitz was kind enough to answer a few questions on the Covid vaccine and the vaccine injured. 

***

Who is most at risk for vaccine injury?

One thought is that if someone had Covid first, and then got the vaccine after being sick, the rates of vaccine injury were higher because they already had an antibody response, their immune system was already revved up, and then they got an injection of another antigen. Another group I see is people with autoimmune disease, they seem to be more triggered. I have several cases of people who had dormant autoimmune disease, such as ulcerative colitis and rheumatoid arthritis, and post vaccine it got retriggered. What people forget about vaccines is that they have an immunosuppressive effect. So in that two- to three-week period, the immune system takes a hit, which makes the body vulnerable to other illnesses. The third group I see that are most at risk of vaccine injury are people with high histamine levels.

What are the most common symptoms of vaccine injury?

Mildest is probably loss of taste and smell, mild digestive issues, or a cough. More severe are the autoimmune responses, the neurological symptoms, like brain fog, and tinnitus (which is one of the toughest to treat), myocarditis and pericarditis (inflammation of the heart), cancer, which I would call the most severe.

Is that new cancers, or cancers that have returned?

I’m seeing both.

Which autoimmune diseases are you seeing?

First, autoimmune disease is what I’m seeing most in vaccine injury. Specifically thyroid disease, more than anything else. What’s interesting is that I’m seeing normal thyroid function, and positive thyroid antibodies. So typically we wouldn’t check for thyroid antibodies if thyroid function was normal. So that group is often missed for that reason.

Would you say any vaccine was worse than the others?

It seems to be batch-related. That’s the question. There’s a theory that 10 per cent of the batches, roughly, caused 90 per cent of the issues. If you look at the original technology, the mRNA was created at a 70 per cent purity. There’s speculation that, because of manufacturing issues, they weren’t able to create that level of purity, and achieved only 50-55 per cent purity. So does one really know if that level of purity works? Especially being that it was never tested.

Why is there so much denial around vaccine injury?

I think there was a blind trust of the government and the pharmaceutical companies, coupled with a fear aspect of Covid (remember people thought that 50 per cent of hospitalised Covid patients died, when it was more like less than 1 per cent). Fear made people not think any more, and now they’re in denial about the choice they made. Another thing I can’t figure out: If you’re vaccinated, how does an unvaccinated person put you at risk? Also, why did doctors not do their own research? It was blind faith. Medications all have side effects – why was this one different?

How do you respond to the proponents of the vaccine who say, regarding vaccine injury, correlation is not causation?  

That’s true, but why are they not even looking into it? If they are so confident, then just study it. What do they have to lose? Why not disprove it? Why is disproving it a major issue for them? If you don’t agree with me, prove me wrong.

Traditionally, vaccines take 10-15 years to get approval, because all that time they are studying long-term effects. The Covid vaccine, which was administered as soon as it was created, is still only about three years old. Therefore, have we yet to see the potential damage it can cause? 

Absolutely. Do you know what percentage of drugs approved by the US Food and Drug Administration are withdrawn within five years? 31 per cent. One out of three drugs are taken off the market within five years. That’s incredibly high. That tells me we’re not checking properly. Now with this vaccine, one of my biggest questions is why did we decide to use new technology? Is a pandemic the right time to test new technology? I would argue probably not. And why did some countries around the world, like China and Russia, not use this technology? And at the end of the day we have to ask, was the treatment worse than the problem? And should medical products be tied to financial incentives? That creates a huge conflict. There were incentives to use the vaccine. If a drug or a treatment was really that good, would you need to push it like that?

Any final comments?

This is going to take years to figure out. It isn’t going away any time soon. I feel bad for the people who took something which they thought they were doing for the right reason, and now they are suffering. And they’re not being helped. Why does the government create a long Covid initiative, but not a vaccine-injured initiative? Why are we ignoring these patients? And why are we [in the US] approving a product for over six-month-olds when other countries are saying over 65 years? Another thing that doesn’t make sense is a study on teenagers showed that we have to vaccinate a million young men to prevent one hospitalisation. And the potential in a million doses is 1,000 with side effects. So the hospital to side effect rate is one to a thousand. It doesn’t make any sense! My worry is the trust in the medical system may never come back. And I’m not sure that it’s not deserved.

October 29, 2023 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

Sen. Ron Johnson Accuses Public Health Agencies of ‘Appalling Lack of Transparency’ on COVID Vaccines

By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | October 27, 2023

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) accused federal public health agencies of displaying an “appalling” lack of transparency with the American public during the pandemic, depriving them of “the benefit of informed consent.”

In a letter sent Oct. 25 to the heads of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health, Johnson said that even now, “As new and alarming information continues to come to light, federal health agencies continue to stonewall and gaslight Congress and the public.”

The lawmaker pointed to an FDA-funded study published this month that identified a potential safety signal linking mRNA COVID-19 vaccines to seizures in children ages 2-5.

Johnson questioned whether the CDC was aware of these findings last month when it recommended everyone 6 months of age and older be vaccinated to protect against COVID-19 this fall and winter.

Johnson said the leaders of these agencies — Xavier Becerra, Dr. Robert Califf, Dr. Mandy Cohen, and Lawrence Tabak, D.D.S., Ph.D. — have failed in their duty to be transparent with Americans regarding what they knew about the safety and efficacy of the vaccines.

As a result, they “have not even come close to ensuring that doctors can provide informed consent on a new gene therapy masquerading as a ‘vaccine’ that was rushed to market without adequate safety or efficacy testing,” he said.

The Wisconsin senator has been a vocal critic of the federal COVID-19 response and an outspoken advocate for people injured by the vaccine. In 2022, he led a roundtable discussion with doctors and scientists to shed light on what was known so far about the vaccines.

Johnson has also accused the CDC of colluding with Twitter to censor his own social media posts about the vaccines.

In his letter, the lawmaker wrote that the agencies’ refusal to respond to the “vast majority” of his questions and information requests “only heightens [his] level of suspicion.”

He listed over a dozen letters he sent requesting information on the COVID-19 vaccines that the agencies “have failed to adequately address.”

These included requests for data about vaccine lots linked to high rates of adverse events, information suppression on social media and the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program.

The CDC and FDA also failed to fulfill Johnson’s requests for their adverse events surveillance data and their analyses of the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS, database.

Children’s Health Defense also is suing the FDA to respond to its Freedom of Information Act requests to make that same data available.

Johnson listed 11 other outstanding requests he made regarding the other aspects of the pandemic.

But these make up only a partial list of over 60 public letters Johnson said he has sent to government agencies concerning various aspects of the pandemic.

“It is well past time for U.S public health agencies to be transparent,” he said.

Johnson requested the agencies respond by Nov. 8 to questions about what they knew about the risks COVID-19 vaccines posed to children, when they knew it and how they plan to address those issues.

Brenda Baletti Ph.D. is a reporter for The Defender. She wrote and taught about capitalism and politics for 10 years in the writing program at Duke University. She holds a Ph.D. in human geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master’s from the University of Texas at Austin.

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

October 29, 2023 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

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