Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Journalist Andy Ngô is sued for sharing riot videos on Twitter

The photographers claim it caused them “harassment.”Ngô’s lawyer says the lawsuit is “frivolous.”

By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | December 11, 2021 

Two photographers from Portland Oregon have filed a federal copyright infringement lawsuit against journalist and author Andy Ngô. The photographers claim that Ngô shared their videos of protests in Portland on his Twitter account.

Andy Ngô has amassed a following in conservative circles for documenting riots and other events from BLM supporters, Antifa, and other groups.

The lawsuit was filed in the US District Court of Portland. It cites two videos taken by the plaintiffs, Melissa Lewis and Grace Morgan, during protests in Portland. The plaintiffs want the court to order Ngô to stop sharing their videos and for financial compensation.

The suit claims that Ngô “has made a practice of illegally copying and uploading plaintiffs’ videos onto his own Twitter account.”

The suit also notes that Ngô is popular in “right-wing” circles, and the photographers are “left-wing.” As a result, they allege they are “are deluged with harassing comments” when their videos are shared.

“This has resulted in instances where (Morgan and Lewis) were physically attacked by (Ngô’s) followers,” the suit adds.

The lawyer representing Ngô, Harmeet K Dhillon, claimed that Ngô did not violate Twitter’s rules and described the lawsuit as “frivolous.”

“The plaintiffs shared their videos publicly on Twitter, a platform designed for exactly their purpose, and Mr. Ngô commented on this publicly posted content using Twitter platform tools, not somehow surreptitiously downloading and uploading the clips as the plaintiffs falsely claim,” Dhillon said in a statement.

The complaint appears to be somewhat contradictory, in that it expresses that using a standard Twitter feature to share videos in a way that credits the original tweeter is causing them harassment but also that sharing their videos themselves is copyright infringement.

“Being an effective journalist means people will try to silence you. I was beaten several times by antifa. Now two antifa videographers in Portland filed a lawsuit against me. Why? Because I retweeted them on Twitter,” Ngô commented, showing screenshots of times he used Twitter’s sharing features to share the videos.

December 11, 2021 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite | , , | Leave a comment

Michael “Mike” Anthony Granata of Gilroy, California | 1965 – 2021 | Obituary

Michael “Mike” Anthony Granata February 21, 1965 – November 1, 2021

Michael, a longtime resident of Gilroy, passed away on November 1, 2021. Never a kinder more gentle man did I know than my husband, Michael.

For those who knew Mike, you know that he was a good and honest man. He was kind, considerate, and always polite.

Mike was adamant that people know what happened to him that caused his early and unexpected death. Message from Mike:

“Many nurses and non-nursing staff begged me and my wife to get the truth out to the public about the Covid-19 vaccines because the truth of deaths from the vaccine was being hidden within the medical profession. I promised I would get the message out. So, here is my message: I was afraid of getting the vaccine for fear that I might die. At the insistence of my doctor, I gave in to pressure to get vaccinated. On August 17th I received the Moderna vaccine and starting feeling ill three days later. I never recovered but continued to get worse. I developed multisystem inflammation and multisystem failure that medical professionals could not stop. My muscles disappeared as if to disintegrate. I was in ICU for several weeks and stabbed with needles up to 24 times a day for those several weeks, while also receiving 6 or 7 IVs at the same time (continuously). It was constant torture that I cannot describe. I was no longer treated as a human with feelings and a life. I was nothing more than a covid vaccine human guinea pig and the doctors excited to participate in my fascinating progression unto death. If you want to know more, please ask my wife. I wished I would have never gotten vaccinated. If you are not vaccinated, don’t do it unless you are ready to suffer and die.”

Mike did not deserve the pain and suffering he endured. He was a good man and deserved better.

Mike was born in San Jose, California and moved to Gilroy at age one, where he resided for the last 55 years.

Mike attended Las Animas Elementary and Gilroy High schools. He graduated from both San Jose State University and Santa Clara University earning several scholastic degrees.

Mike was an intelligent man but never flaunted it. Mike chose to clothe himself in humility, kindness and gentleness every day, and preferred to work quietly behind the scenes doing good deeds and expecting nothing in return.

Michael was a licensed professional engineer and the owner of Engineering By Design, Design Engineering and Professional Engineering and Design. For the last 10+ years Michael worked in the Marine industry utilizing his IP for design and engineering that is known and used worldwide.

Michael could be seen twice daily walking his Golden Retriever around the neighborhood or up at Gavilan College for the last 20+ years in his jeans, t-shirt and hat.

Michael was proud to be a gear-head, a true car restoration enthusiast and tinkerer.

Mike loved spending time with his wife, his dog, his cars and playing the drums as he was quite a gifted musician.

Michael was preceded in death by his brothers Anthony Edward Granata and Salvatore Anthony Granata.

Michael is survived by his wife, Susie Granata of Gilroy, his parents Anthony and Elizabeth Granata of Morgan Hill; his sister Catherine Flowers (John) of Brentwood, CA; Nieces: Heather Trumbull (Christopher), Mindy Peterson (Ryan), Jeannene Brady, and Alyssa Granata, and great nephews and niece: Anthony and Trevor Peterson, and Karlie and Colin Trumbull.

December 11, 2021 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

US delivers rockets to Ukraine

By Layla Guest | RT | December 11, 2021

The Pentagon has disclosed details of the shipment of anti-tank missile systems and projectiles supplied to Kiev, as Moscow grows increasingly concerned about the prospect of a full-blown conflict in Ukraine’s Donbass region.

In a statement received by Russian news outlet TASS on Thursday, Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Anton Semelroth said that “the $60 million package… included 30 Javelin command and control launchers, as well as 180 missiles.” According to him, the rocket launchers were delivered to Ukraine on October 23.

“In 2021, the US allocated more than $450 million in aid to Ukraine for security tasks as part of our continued commitment to support the country’s ability to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the spokesman added.

Semelroth’s comments come amid warnings from Moscow over tensions in the war-torn region close to Russia’s borders. Last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that “more and more forces and equipment are being accumulated on the line of contact in the Donbass, supported by an increasing number of Western instructors.”

At the end of November, the top diplomat said that claims Ukraine’s troops had deployed American-made Javelin rocket launchers were a matter of grave concern and could lead to a full-blown offensive in the war-torn region.

“In recent weeks, we have seen a stream of consciousness from the Ukrainian leadership – especially when it comes to the military – that is excessively inflamed and dangerous,” Lavrov said.

Just hours before, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence service, Kirill Budanov, revealed that advanced US-made Javelin systems had been tested by Ukraine’s troops and were being used by soldiers in the Donbass.

Russia’s ambassador in Washington, Anatoly Antonov, warned the White House earlier in November that supplying Ukraine with deadly armaments could diminish hopes for peace in the region, stating that Moscow believes “another opportunity to encourage Kiev to stop the war has been missed.”

The conflict in eastern Ukraine began following the events of the 2014 Maidan, which eventually led to the ‘People’s Republics’ in Donetsk and Lugansk declaring their independence. However, neither Moscow nor Kiev officially recognize them, and the Kremlin has insisted that the onus is on Ukraine to strike a peace deal with the leaders of the breakaway regions.

December 11, 2021 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Disclosing Pfizer vaccine data ‘may take until 2096’

RT | December 9, 2021

The US Food and Drug Administration is cooperating with a Freedom of Information Act request for clinical data associated with Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine, but may require 75 years to do so – even longer than a prior estimate.

The FDA has insisted it cannot commit to a faster release of the medical data associated with the approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, according to a legal brief filed on Tuesday in response to the FOIA request. The agency reiterated that after processing 12,000 pages in about a two-month period, it will only be able to process 500 pages per month going forward. With tens of thousands of additional files up for review, plaintiffs fear the process may drag on two decades longer than the previous 55-year estimate.

Lawyer Aaron Siri sued the FDA on behalf of a group of doctors calling themselves Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency, who had previously complained the FDA wasn’t supplying the data they had requested in a timely fashion. Having pointed out last month that the FDA had looked through Pfizer’s documents in a mere 108 days in order to license the vaccine, Siri questioned why the agency now required a whopping 20,000 days to make the same documents public.

Approximately 451,000 pages regarding the clinical trials for a vaccine millions of Americans are being mandated to take will remain floating in legal limbo for up to 75 years if the agency has its way, Siri warned. He called it “dystopian” for the government to pay Pfizer billions of dollars, shield it from lawsuits and require citizens to be injected with its product, only to refuse access to the documents used to grant its licensure in the first place.

The FDA has justified the unusual timetable by pointing out its Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research – the body tasked with reviewing the records – only has 10 staffers, two of whom are “new.” The FDA also complained that stepping up the pace would divert “significant resources away from the processing of other FOIA requests that are also in litigation.”

December 9, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

An Earlier Warning: “We’re not going back to normal”

By Stephen Lendman | December 9, 2021

In March 2020, then – MIT Technology Review’s editor in chief/current Wired editorial director Gideon Lichfield said the following:

“We’re not going back to normal.”

A new abnormal that’s “upend(ing) our way of life” in the West is here to stay.

Everything most people in the US/West took for granted is changing.

Including “how we work, exercise, socialize, shop, manage our health, educate our kids, take care of family members,” and most everything else.

Expecting a return to normal after “a few weeks (or) months” won’t happen.

“Some things” most valued “never will.”

Draconian policies initiated early last year weren’t meant to be “temporary.”

Imposing them began “a completely different way of life” — with the worst of diabolical aims in mind, including loss of public health and freedom.

The “poorest, weakest,” and least advantaged will be most adversely affected in the US/West and elsewhere.

Lichfield’s hope for the US and other nations “to fix yawning social inequities that make large swaths of their populations so intensely vulnerable” went the other way.

Since US-led Western dark forces renamed seasonal flu covid with diabolical aims in mind, things in their countries and elsewhere greatly worsened.

Looking ahead to the new year, the state-sponsored road to hell with ill intentions is highly likely to worsen further without mass-rebellion against what’s surely intended.

Ignore more scariant than variants rubbish.

The daily MSM-proliferated drumbeat aims to shift attention from ongoing state-sponsored destruction of public health and freedom to the worst of all possible worlds.

A year ago, J Patrick Whelan MD, PhD warned about what unfolded since that time.

Horrors include “permanent” damage to the heart, brain, and other organs — from kill shots designed for this purpose, all age groups affected.

Myocarditis (heart muscle inflammation) cases alone exploded to many multiple times pre-2020 levels.

Researcher Steve Kirsch found that myocarditis cases in jabbed teen-aged boys may be around “1,000 times” higher than before mass-jabbing began for this age group.

The new normal is profoundly the other way around.

In the US alone, nearly 900,000 adverse events reported over the past year, according to CDC VAERS data, is in fact over 100-fold higher based on an HHS estimate.

By its earlier analysis, 100 million or more Americans were adversely harmed. Hundreds of thousands died.

All of the above and more of the same is officially suppressed, including by MSM, complicit with cover-up to let destruction of public health and freedom continue unimpeded.

On Thursday, GOP Senator Rand Paul called for prosecuting and imprisoning fraudster Fauci for lying to Congress.

Fair enough but he missed the far greater issue.

As lead Biden regime kill shot pusher, Fauci is complicit with unparalleled mass-murder, accountability long overdue.

The same thing goes for other co-conspirators throughout the US/West and elsewhere.

Instead of right prevailing over wrong, things are going the other way.

According to The Epoch Times, Nevada “became the first US state” to call for fining mass-jabbing refuseniks.

Effective July 1, 2022, state workers will be fined $55 monthly — for protecting their health over destroying it by kill shots.

A monthly family charge of $175 will be imposed.

What’s ignored is that the above flagrantly breaches international and constitutional law.

Will kill shot mandates follow in most other states?

Will Biden regime hardliners go the same way federally?

Will the undemocratic Dem-controlled Congress pass legislation to be signed into law by the fake Biden that overrides judicial rulings against their unconstitutional/health and freedom-destroying mandates?

Europe is advancing in similar fashion toward tyranny by mandated kill shots.

The fake omicron scariant pushed things in this direction throughout the West and elsewhere.

According to World Population Review data, kill shots are mandated for over 200 million people worldwide — excluding US mandates.

In the coming months, will the above number explode to billions?

The stuff of chilling science fiction in scariest form is now reality.

Eminent truth-telling physician Vernon Coleman MD stressed what he warned about before, saying:

Mass-jabbing proponents claim that they’re “perfectly safe and perfectly effective.”

“Even when they wouldn’t be considered safe enough to use as oven cleaner, the fanatics enthuse about them.”

“Young people and those who know little about medicine or science, talk about (them) with reverence because they’ve been indoctrinated into believing” Big Lies.

In the US, less than 1% of adverse events and deaths from jabs are reported.

An unparalleled global holocaust has been underway since last December, the worst of it surely ahead with mass-rebellion against what’s going on.

Yet US/Western dark forces, their counterparts in other countries, and MSM co-conspirators pretend that what’s destroying health and freedom is beneficial.

Where’s enough mass-outrage to make a difference?

Why hasn’t it exploded while there’s time to halt the most diabolical scheme ever hatched in world history.

From 1930 through television’s early days, the Shadow radio show was one of the most popular on air.

As a young boy, I recall tuning in regularly to hear shows introduced by the following lines:

“Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!”

Unparalleled evil in the hearts and minds of today’s US/Western dark forces far exceed what the fictional/invisible crime-fighting Shadow exposed, fought against and overcame.

December 9, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , | Leave a comment

Twitter bans popular account highlighting Nancy Pelosi stock trades, @NancyTracker

Twitter purges another account that scrutinizes powerful figures

By Tom Parker | Reclaim The Net | December 8, 2021

Twitter has booted @NancyTracker, a popular account that documented Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s stock trades and drew attention to the millions of dollars she and her husband have generated through trading.

The account had over 200,000 followers when it was banned. Some of its most popular tweets highlighted that Pelosi’s role as a government official gives her access to “insider information” and noted that Pelosi’s returns have significantly outpaced both the market and some of the world’s best investors.

@NancyTracker was created by The Free Press Report which also created the largest Ghislaine Maxwell trial tracker account, @TrackerTrial.

Twitter suspended both accounts earlier today and claimed that The Free Press Foundation had broken its rules against “platform manipulation and spam.” It also referenced rules that prohibit artificially amplifying or suppressing information.

However, The Free Press Foundation pushed back against Twitter by saying that all of the @TrackerTrial’s engagement was “organic” and that “there was not outside amplification.”

In October, less than two months before the accounts were suspended, @NancyTracker said it had received “a cease and desist order from a lawyer representing someone high up in the [Political] office.”

“I will not name names. And I will also not cease or desist,” @NancyTracker added at the time.

The Free Press Report is urging fans of the @NancyTracker account to follow it on free speech social network Gab and has already built an audience of tens of thousands of followers on the platform.

Filmmaker Daniel Bostic described the censorship of the @NancyTracker account as a “full on authoritarian crackdown just days after Dorsey leaves.”

Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey stepped down on November 29 and was replaced by Parag Agrawal. Since being appointed CEO, Agrawal has faced scrutiny for his past comments that Twitter’s role is “not to be bound by the First Amendment” and that he wished Twitter had censored some content sooner.

Investor and Bitcoin commentator Anthony Pompliano also suggested that the censorship was linked to Agrawal by highlighting that the accounts had been suspended and tweeting: “New Twitter CEO seems to be having a busy week.”

The censorship of these popular accounts is the latest in a wave of Twitter censorship that has occurred since Agrawal took the reigns. A link to the American Heart Association website was recently flagged as “unsafe” and numerous accounts have been suspended after Twitter announced new rules that ban the sharing of photos or videos of people without their permission.

December 9, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

Sweden and Germany: No Deaths In Children Due to Covid

BY PAUL ELIAS ALEXANDER | BROWNSTONE INSTITUTE | DECEMBER 8, 2021

The decision by parents to vaccinate their child against Covid is really a question of risk management. Parents must seriously consider that Covid-19 is a less dangerous illness for children than influenza. It has shown to be so and quite stably near 20 months now.

Children do not readily acquire this pathogen, spread to other children, spread to adults, take it home, get severely ill, or die from it. It is that simple. We know children tend not to transmit Covid-19 virus and that the concept of asymptomatic spread has been questioned severely, particularly for children.

Children, if infected, just do not spread Covid-19 to others readily, either to other children, other adults in their families or otherwise, nor to their teachers. This was demonstrated elegantly in a study performed in the French Alps. The pediatric literature is clear science on this. Overwhelming data shows that the SARS-CoV-2-associated burden of severe disease or death in children and adolescents is very low (statistically zero).

Swedish data by Ludvigsson reported on the 1,951,905 children in Sweden (as of December 31, 2019) who were 1 to 16 years of age who attended school with largely no lockdowns or masks. They found zero (0) deaths. “Despite Sweden’s having kept schools and preschools open, we found a low incidence of severe Covid-19 among schoolchildren and children of preschool age during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.”

A recent German study (collating evidence from three sources 1) a national seroprevalence study (the SARSCoV-2 KIDS study), 2) the German statutory notification system and 3) a nationwide registry on children and adolescents hospitalized with either SARS-CoV-2 or Pediatric Inflammatory Multisystem Syndrome (PIMS-TS)) reported that there were zero (0) deaths in children 5 to 18 years old across the period of study.

Governments and public health officials have driven this pandemic of fear and propaganda. But parents willing to assess this purely from a benefit versus risk position might ask themselves: ‘If my child has little if any risk, near zero risk of severe sequelae or death, and thus no benefit from the vaccine, yet there could be potential harms and as yet unknown harms from the vaccine (as already reported in adults who have received the vaccines), then why would I subject my child to such a vaccine?

And in the presence of the potential risks, as well as the fact that a vaccine for Covid-19 is simply not indicated in children, why would a parent allow their child to be vaccinated with still-experimental vaccines? The children should live normally, free, and if exposed to SARS-CoV-2 we can rest assured that in the vast majority of cases, they will have no to only mild symptoms while at the same time developing naturally acquired immunity, and harmlessly; an immunity that is definitely superior to that which might be caused by a vaccine.

The innate immunity in children that they come with and which works to protect them will work here and has worked here wonderfully (innate antibodies and NK cells, as well as other components of the innate immune compartment). This approach would also accelerate the development of the much needed herd immunity about which much has been written.

In addition to concerns related to immediate or long-term sequelae of the new mRNA vaccines in children, there is clear data suggesting that the vaccines might not be as effective against infection and spread as initially reported.

We also have reports of the vaccinal antibodies functioning to suppress the innate antibodies (potentially devastating for children who depend on these as their first line of defense) and outcompeting them given the vaccine antibodies are specific and have high affinity for their antigen, while innate are non-specific and with low-affinity. This is a huge problem, especially if the vaccinal immunity outcompetes the naturally acquired immunity antibodies, etc.

So why are we rushing to vaccinate our children? Drs. Fauci of NIAID, Walensky of CDC, and Francis Collins of NIH are reckless here with the vaccine developers e.g. Pfizer and Moderna, for they know these vaccines lack the proper safety testing and we do not know what will happen to children long-term.

This really is about risk management decisions we as free people (as parents) are presumably allowed to make in the USA. This is not only about science. Remember also, children cannot give proper informed consent e.g. an 8-month-old, a one-year-old.

This is a very important ethical matter. The death rate in children e.g. under 12, is as close to zero as we can get. None of the lockdown and school closure policies worked and all have failed with crushing harms on populations.

We have masked our children, closed schools, locked them down, driven surges in suicides in adults as well as our children due to these policies, and now we seek to vaccinate children with a vaccine for which we have no data on the long-term harms. Is there any wonder why there is a loss of trust and why parents might be reluctant to comply with every edict being issued by governments concerning health?

Dr Alexander holds a PhD. He has experience in epidemiology and in the teaching clinical epidemiology, evidence-based medicine, and research methodology.

December 9, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Fauci: Father of Cancel Culture

21st Century Wire | December 4, 2021

Here is one story which the Big Pharma-funded mainstream media will never come to grips with – because the ramifications are simply too disturbing, and could up-end the entire ‘global pandemic’ and vaccine narrative.

Ever since the HIV/AIDS crisis reared its head in the 1980’s, the media, along with government ‘public health’ boffins, have managed to convince millions of Americans that Dr. Anthony Fauci, aka “America’s Doctor,” is some sort of national hero. But based on the evidence presented in Robert F Kennedy Jr’s new book, The Real Anthony Fauci, nothing could be further from the truth.

For decades, Fauci has been directly responsible for attacking and ruining the careers of countless scientists and academics who dared to hold views or pursue scientific conclusions which threatened the pharmaceutical industrial cartel. For nearly 40 years, Fauci has been that industry’s own personal gatekeeper embedded in the most powerful medical and science position in the US federal government structure, and in control of billions in public research and development grants for various drugs and vaccines. He has also repeatedly violated federal laws to allow his Pharma partners to abuse not just lab animals, but also vulnerable people – including children, in deadly experiments using toxic AIDS and cancer chemotherapies which were known to be extremely dangerous. Fauci was never charged for his crimes. Instead he was promoted.

the Father of Cancel Culture
published 11/28/2021
All my links are here:
http://dluxnation.com
https://linktr.ee/jamiedlux

December 9, 2021 Posted by | Corruption, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | , | Leave a comment

US billionaire surrenders looted antiquities worth $70m

Birthright Israel founder Michael Steinhardt flips off anti-Israel protesters outside celebratory gala | Source Twitter capture
MEMO | December 8, 2021

A US billionaire hedge fund manager has surrendered 180 antiquities worth $70 million after an investigation found that they had been looted and illegally smuggled.

Michael Steinhardt, 81, illegally acquired art that was smuggled from 11 countries, including Egypt, Syria and Turkey, during wars or civil unrest using 12 criminal networks.

A raid on his home in 2018 revealed several stolen art pieces, including a ceremonial vessel in the shape of a stag’s head from 400BC, worth $3.5 million, which was taken from Milas in Turkey amidst widespread looting in the city.

They also retrieved a gold bowl looted from Nimrud in Iraq worth $150,000 where artefacts were being trafficked by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Daesh).

In 2017 investigators seized a marble bull’s head statue stolen from a temple in Sidon, Lebanon, during the civil war in the country, from Steinhardt’s home.

The prosecutor’s office determined that the recovered artefacts were for sale on the international art market without lawful paperwork.

Steinhardt will not face criminal charges, but he has been given a lifetime ban from acquiring other artefacts.

US Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr said: “For decades, Michael Steinhardt displayed a rapacious appetite for plundered artefacts without concern for the legality of his actions.”

“His pursuit of ‘new’ additions to showcase and sell knew no geographic or moral boundaries, as reflected in the sprawling underworld of antiquities traffickers, crime bosses, money launderers and tomb raiders he relied upon to expand his collection.”

December 8, 2021 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Papers reveal what CIA did to captives in Afghanistan

By Kit Klarenberg | RT | December 7, 2021

New published documents have shed fresh light on the CIA’s detention and interrogation program in Afghanistan, describing in alarming detail some of the extreme techniques used by officers that resulted in deaths in captivity.

In a recent legal filing, the lawyers of Abu Zubaydah – the Guantánamo Bay detainee almost tortured to death by the CIA, held without charge by the US for nearly 20 years – urged that their client be released, given Washington’s wars in Afghanistan and with Al-Qaeda are finally over.

Writing to a DC district court, they argued that these developments meant there was no legal justification for keeping him captive, and he must be immediately discharged. What the petition omits to mention, however, is that Zubaydah’s detention was, from day one, intended to be permanent in order to keep the CIA’s criminal maltreatment secret and ensure his abusers were insulated from prosecution in perpetuity.

In July 2002, four months after his capture in Pakistan, the Agency’s team in Afghanistan specifically sought “reasonable assurances” from superiors that he would “remain in isolation and incommunicado for the remainder of his life.” In response, a memo stated that there was “fairly unanimous sentiment” within CIA headquarters that Zubaydah “will never be placed in a situation where [he] has any significant contact with others and/or has the opportunity to be released,” and would “remain incommunicado for the remainder of his life.”

Langley’s desire for total omerta in all matters concerning its torture program is understandable, for a great many people have much to hide.

At the start of December, BuzzFeed published hundreds of declassified papers related to CIA Inspector General investigations into child sexual abuse by Agency staff and contractors. Buried among these was a May 2004 Special Review of the CIA’s detention and interrogation program, launched after Gul Rahman, an Afghan suspected of having militia ties, died at the ‘Salt Pit’ black site in Kabul 18 months prior.

It notes that Rahman was subject to sleep deprivation sessions lasting 48 hours, during which he was denied clothing “to cause cultural humiliation,” and subject to “hard takedowns” – a euphemism for “rough treatment.” Despite this, he remained uncooperative and provided no intelligence, only admitting his identity after several days “in cold conditions with minimal food and sleep.” A psychological assessment in November 2002 noted his “remarkable physical and psychological resilience,” and resultantly recommended “continued environmental deprivations” to get him to talk.

One afternoon that month, when food was delivered to Rahman, he reportedly threw a water bottle and his defecation bucket at guards, warning that he’d seen their faces “and would kill them upon his release.” When Salt Pit’s manager learned of this incident, he authorized ‘short-chaining’ the prisoner – tying his hands and feet to the floor so he could not stand or sit comfortably – naked from the waist down in his cell.

On the morning of November 20, Rahman was found dead. Subsequent investigations by the Inspector General found that Salt Pit staff had employed a number of techniques and “improvised actions” approved by neither the Department of Justice nor CIA headquarters. These included frequent freezing showers, at such icy temperatures they left the suspect unable to speak properly.

A psychologist present at Salt Pit recalled observing Rahman “showing the early stages of hypothermia” after being subjected to one such shower, and ordered guards to give him a blanket. Another contractor declared that these showers were a deliberate “deprivation technique,” deployed when it was perceived he was being uncooperative, and never for “hygienic reasons.”

Nonetheless, when asked by investigators whether cold was used for the purposes of interrogation, a nameless CIA staffer coyly responded, “not per se,” but acknowledged physical and environmental discomfort “was used to encourage the detainees to improve their environment.” They went on to argue that “cold is hard to define,” asking rhetorically “how cold is cold? How cold is life-threatening?’”

While the Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA’s detention and interrogation program remains classified today, its 525-page executive summary referred to Rahman over 100 times. Details of his death were largely absent, although it was revealed that not only was no Agency staffer disciplined as a result of it, but Salt Pit’s manager – who was not a trained interrogator, and had a history of behavioral issues – was recommended for a $2,500 cash award for “consistently superior work” four months later.

An Agency Accountability Board eventually decided to take the mild step of suspending the most junior CIA officer involved for 10 days without pay, but even this was overturned by the Agency’s then-Executive Director Kyle Foggo, who wrote to the staffer personally to say, “while not condoning your actions, it is imperative, in my view, that they… be judged within the operational context that existed at the time of Rahman’s detention.” Foggo was subsequently jailed for fraud, having helped friends improperly profit from CIA contracts in Iraq.

The executive summary names Rahman as the only prisoner known to have died in CIA custody – although the Inspector General Review shows this to be untrue. It records how in June 2003, an Afghan citizen allegedly implicated in rocket attacks on a joint US Army and CIA position in the country’s northeast attended Asadabad Base “at the urging of the local Governor,” whereupon he was detained in a facility guarded by US soldiers for four days.

During his brief period in captivity, a CIA contractor “severely [beat] the detainee with a large metal flashlight and kicked him during interrogation sessions,” leading to his death. His body was then turned over to a local cleric and his family, without an autopsy being performed. Neither the contractor nor his Agency supervisor was trained or authorized to conduct interrogations, although he faced no penalty, bar his contract not being renewed.

The review also makes clear that a penchant for extreme violence among CIA staff in Afghanistan, and the impunity with which they committed crimes, wasn’t restricted to its assorted prisons in the country. For example, it records how in July 2003, an officer visited a religious school, to determine if any staff or pupils could offer information related to the detonation of a remote-controlled explosive device that had killed eight border guards a few days earlier.

A teacher reportedly “smiled and laughed inappropriately” while being interviewed by the officer, prompting them to strike the man twice in the torso with their rifle butt, then repeatedly kick him as he lay prostrate on the ground – the incident was said to have been witnessed by 200 students. In response, the CIA simply brought the officer back home, whereupon they were “counseled and given a domestic assignment.”

Still, the review cannot be considered comprehensive, for it merely reflects what incidents were officially recorded. Disturbingly, the document concludes by noting that while documentation of the capture, rendition, detention, and interrogation of “high value detainees” was “comprehensive,” documentation related to detainees of “lesser notoriety” was “far less consistent.”

As the CIA wasn’t compelled to document the capture and detention of all individuals until June 2003, the Inspector General was “unable to determine with any certainty the number or current status of individuals who have been captured and detained.” In other words, the question of how many detainees were actually murdered under the auspices of the CIA torture program remains very much open – which in turn means anyone who could shed light on the matter, such as Zubaydah, can never be at liberty again.

Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions. 

December 8, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

The Omnipotent Power of the Pentagon

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | December 8, 2021

No matter how you feel about the Pentagon and the military-industrial complex, you can’t help but be impressed at how they are able to successfully plunder and loot American taxpayers, no matter how much needless death, suffering, and destruction they wreak on people around the world.

Think about it: They just exited Afghanistan after their 20-year failed war against the Taliban, a war that left thousands of American soldiers and countless Afghans dead and the entire country destroyed. On top of all that death and destruction was the total waste of hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. taxpayer money. It’s also worth mentioning that for those entire 20 years, they intentionally lied to the American people regarding progress in their undeclared forever war.

And what has been the result? They get rewarded! Congress is on the verge of giving them more taxpayer money than ever before! That’s impressive, even if in a negative way!

In other words, they are no longer wasting money in Afghanistan in the form of bombs, bullets, gasoline, oil, medicare care for wounded soldiers, etc. That’s got to mean that a lot of money is now being saved.

So, does Congress reduce the military’s budget by the amount of money that is no longer being wasted in Afghanistan? Are you kidding? Like I say, believe it or not, they are actually upping the amount of U.S. taxpayer money that they are allocating to these people! They are giving them more taxpayer money than when they were in Afghanistan wasting all that taxpayer money!

That is power, sheer power! How can anyone not be impressed by it, even if In a negative way?

The fact is that the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA own Congress, lock, stock, and barrel. Not only is Congress filled with national-security state assets, even those members of Congress who maintain the appearance of some degree of independence do not dare to buck the national-security establishment. They know that if they were to buck them, they would soon be targeted with extinction in the next election.

There is another factor that is impressive in a negative way — the ability of the Pentagon and the CIA to engender official enemies to scare Congress into granting the national-security establishment whatever it wants.

Just look how they have succeeded in converting their old Cold War enemies, China and Russia, into new big official enemies of the United States. After milking the “war on terrorism” racket for as much as they could for the past 20 years, they’re now circling back to milk their old Cold War racket against their old Cold War communist enemies.

What’s also fascinating is how they are able to engender these official enemies while convincing people that they are the innocent victims who are forced into defending America and the world from the barbarians at the gate.

Consider how they have done this with Russia. Their strategy has been absolutely brilliant, again in a negative way.

First, they tell Russia that NATO will not expand eastward after Russia called it quits on the Cold War racket. It was a lie. Instead, NATO began gobbling up former members of the Warsaw Pact, moving NATO’s forces and U.S. missiles inexorably closer to Russia’s borders.

When NATO threatened to absorb Ukraine, which would have given the Pentagon and the CIA control over Crimea and also enable the U.S. to station missiles right on Russia’s border, NATO officials and U.S. officials knew precisely that Russia would have to react.

When Russia did react in the predicable way, the U.S. response was brilliant, again in a negative way. Instead of NATO and the U.S. creating the crisis, it was Russia who was presented as the aggressor. NATO, Ukraine, and the U.S. were all seen as the victims of Russian aggression. The only thing that was missing was the threat of “godless communism,” which was the basis of their Cold War racket against Russia and the rest of the Soviet Union.

It’s been pretty much the same with China. While the U.S. government was mired down with its forever wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan, China was prospering and establishing friendly relations with countries all over the world. The U.S. Empire could not tolerate that. That’s when they launched their vicious trade war against China and began doing everything they could to destroy China’s economic prosperity. Among their favorite weapons was economic sanctions, a foreign-policy tool that targets the civilian population of a country as as way to achieve political ends.

Today, China is portrayed by the U.S. mainstream press as a grave threat to U.S. national security, just like it was during the Cold War racket. In one way, the situation with China is even better than with Russia. Given that China is still a communist regime, U.S. officials and their assets in the U.S. mainstream press can still use the “godless communism” angle that they did during the Cold War racket.

Since the Pentagon and the CIA are still killing people in the Middle East, the threat of anti-American terrorism continues to exist. Combine that with the scary notion that the Russians and Chinese Reds are coming to get us, and you have the perfect justification for the continuation and expansion of the U.S. national-security state and its deadly, destructive, and very expensive rackets.

December 8, 2021 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

A Constitutional Cure for Covid-19

By Marilyn M. Singleton, MD, JD – December 6, 2021

Covid, Covid, Covid. Variant, variant, variant. Trust me, I’m the government’s highest paid employee, and “I represent science.” Show your papers, wear a mask, take a shot or lose your job. And the beat goes on for an infection where 99.95 percent of infected persons under age 70 years recover. It’s becoming clear that Covid-19 is not merely a disease but an excuse to concentrate power in the government.

It’s time for the political histrionics to stop. Multiple studies have shown that the consequences far outweigh any potential (and illusory) benefits of masks, lockdowns, and school closures. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director admitted that the current Covid-19 mRNA vaccines, while helpful in reducing deaths and hospitalizations, do not stop transmission of the virus. “Breakthrough” cases in vaccinated persons are on the rise. Moreover, the current vaccines likely are not effective for the new, likely less lethal Omicron variant. Public health experts opine that the SARS-CoV-2 virus (that causes Covid-19) and its multiple variants are becoming endemic. That means SARS-CoV-2 and its infinite number of variants will not be eliminated, but become a manageable part of the human-viral ecosystem.

Sadly, our government is not responding in accordance with the scientific facts. Instead, federal and some local governments are mandating more vaccines, culminating in proof of vaccination to engage in society and continue living as a normal human being. This is not science. This is nascent totalitarianism.

Two lines from the 1990 Cold War era spy film, The Hunt for Red October foreshadowed our government’s warp speed trajectory to authoritarianism. “Privacy is not of major concern in the Soviet Union, comrade. It’s often contrary to the collective good.” And a White House official casually boasted, “I’m a politician that means I’m a cheat and a liar.”

It didn’t take long for President Biden to tell the big lie. As president-elect, Mr. Biden said there would be no vaccine mandates. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (the third in line for the presidency) brilliantly illustrated the intersection of lying and privacy. As late as August 2021, Speaker Pelosi said, “We cannot require someone to be vaccinated. That’s just not what we can do. It is a matter of privacy to know who is or who isn’t.”

Without skipping a beat, the executive branch issued three separate vaccine mandates: all federal contractors (including remote workers), an Occupational Health & Safety Administration (OSHA) requirement for businesses with more than 100 employees, and a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) requirement for employees, volunteers and third-party contractors of health care providers certified by CMS.

The judicial branch is fighting back against the President’s attempt to jettison the Constitution’s separation of powers clauses, a large chunk of the Bill of Rights, and Supreme Court precedents on bodily autonomy with these mandates. On November 9th, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals put the OSHA mandate on hold. The Court reasoned that the mandate “threatens to substantially burden the liberty interests of reluctant individual recipients put to a choice between their job(s) and their jab(s).” And “the loss of constitutional freedoms ‘for even minimal periods of time … unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury.”

Citing the lack of congressional authorization and harm to access to medical care, on November 29th a Missouri federal district court placed a temporary halt on the CMS health care workers “boundary-pushing” mandate. The government planned to enforce the mandate by imposing monetary penalties, denial of payment and termination from the Medicare and Medicaid program. The ruling covers providers in Kansas, Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming.

On November 30th, a Louisiana federal district court blocked the CMS mandate issuing a nationwide injunction in a lawsuit brought by 14 states (Arizona, Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah and West Virginia). “If the executive branch is allowed to usurp the power of the legislative branch to make laws, two of the three powers conferred by our Constitution would be in the same hands. … [C]ivil liberties face grave risks when governments proclaim indefinite states of emergency.”

That same day, a Kentucky federal district court issued a hold on the federal government contractors mandate, citing lack of authority of the executive branch—“even for a good cause”. The court reasoned that if a procurement statute could be used to mandate vaccination, it “could be used to enact virtually any measure at the president’s whim under the guise of economy and efficiency.” The ruling covers Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee.

The mainstream media finally reported on the toxicity and poor results of Dr. Fauci’s “standard of care” treatment, remdesivir. This prompted families to use the courts rather than watch their relatives needlessly die. Victories for patients are growing. A Chicago area judge recently ordered a hospital to “step aside” and allow a physician to administer ivermectin in an effort to save a dying patient. It worked.

People are tired of lies. When Google employees are signing a “manifesto” to fight the mandates, you know the seeds of revolt have sprouted.

December 8, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , | Leave a comment