Twitter rolls out ‘DISPUTED’ warnings for users trying to post ‘misleading’ content after backlash over Biden emails censorship
RT | October 16, 2020
Twitter is cracking down on the spread of “misleading” content ahead of the US election, as users attempting to retweet anything similar to the NYPost’s Hunter Biden leaks will now get a warning the material is “disputed.”
Attempting to retweet offending content will trigger a prompt warning the user that the material they’re trying to post is “disputed,” Twitter revealed on Friday, posting an image of the new warning screen.
The user will be able to click a button to “find out more” about why Twitter doesn’t want the material shared, and then presumably post it anyway.
The new feature arrives in the aftermath of a major controversy arising from Twitter’s censorship of a series of stories critical of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, published by the New York Post based on emails supposedly extracted from his son Hunter’s laptop.
Conservative politicians, lawmakers and press have slammed Twitter for prohibiting users from even linking to the story, and some users who shared details of the stories found themselves locked out of their account for reasons that ranged from sharing “hacked material” to posting “personal information” without permission.
The social media giant’s guidelines for what is considered “misleading” are themselves somewhat nebulous, having grown since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic to encompass not just “disinformation” but also “disputed” content, a vague descriptor that could apply to most of what users post on the platform.
The Republican National Committee on Friday filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission charging Twitter had illegally meddled on behalf of the Biden campaign when it squelched the spread of the Biden-laptop stories. The platform had even briefly blocked a link to the US Congress website, when Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee attempted to skirt Twitter’s censorship by reposting one of the banned articles on their official .gov page.
Twitter also apologized to its users for a prolonged outage on Thursday night, which left many speculating about whether the platform was testing an intensified form of censorship ahead of November’s elections. The site blamed a “system change initiated earlier than planned” that had “affect[ed] most of our servers” – an explanation which likely did little to put conspiracy theories to rest.
Facebook subsidiary Instagram rolled out a feature similar to Twitter’s ‘wrongthink warning’ last year, which alerts users when they are about to post something “potentially offensive.” In April, Facebook began alerting users as to whether they’d shared, replied to, or otherwise interacted with posts that were later deemed to be “misinformation,” specifically content concerning the novel coronavirus that had been “debunked” by the World Health Organization.
In June, the platform further expanded its wrongthink-alert system, warning users when they attempted to share articles that were over 90 days old – regardless of whether they were true or not.
Facebook has also resorted to somewhat more subtle tactics of “shadowbanning” – which on Wednesday was once again confirmed by its communications chief Andy Stone, a former Democratic Party staffer. He tweeted that the platform was restricting the spread of the New York Post’s story until the platform’s fact-checkers could stamp their own judgment on the material.
US Army Wants To Make COVID Social Distancing ‘Permanent’ Even After Pandemic Ends
By Tyler Durden – Zero Hedge – 10/14/2020
For the majority of Americans wondering when this socially distanced dystopian nightmare of ‘6 feet apart’ and ‘wear a mask!’ and ‘mandatory hand sanitizer’ will finally be over, the Pentagon has just given serious cause for concern. When will it all end?
Perhaps leading the way as an example of where we all might be headed as a country, the United States Army has strongly hinted that it’s looking to make its coronavirus protective measures permanent.
This according to alarming statements reported by the military site Defense News :
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the defense industry began adjusting its facilities to avoid major outbreaks that could shut down production lines for days or weeks at a time. And now that those changes are in place, the U.S. Army’s top acquisition official thinks they should remain so for good.
Speaking to reporters during the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference, Bruce Jette, assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology, said he sees long-term benefits from maintaining the kind of social distancing protective measures put in place across industry.
US Army combat medics maintaining social distancing, via U.S. Army Medical Center of Excellence
The DoD has observed a significant drop in cases of the common cold, viral infections, and the flu – and expects this will last so long as troops practice a distancing regimen.
Jette’s comments and predictions of what might come sound downright dystopian and inhuman in terms of the holistic well-being of American troops.
“I don’t know that I would ever say it’s totally back to normal,” Jette was quoted as saying. “I don’t see us backing off of using these same techniques on a contouring basis, even as the vaccine continues to mature.”
This senior Army official is essentially saying that even if an effective vaccine is developed there’s no returning to normal.
Image via U.S. Navy
“I would say we don’t back off of the COVID-19 standards because it will also reduce the impact of flu and other illnesses,” he added. “We think continuing to apply these same techniques would be further beneficial to the people and to the Army overall.”
Consider this: should the Army and eventually the entire DoD implement “permanent” social distancing measures, which would at the very least mean for years to come, that would put the entirety of American society a mere stone’s throw away from being forced to do the same.
In a sense, US armed forces might be the ‘canary in the coal mine’ in this case, revealing where we’re all headed and what might be forced on the already weary American people, who overwhelmingly are ready to truly return to normal.
Climate science and the Supreme Court
By Judith Curry | Climate Etc. | October 16, 2020
An alternative assessment of U.S. Supreme Court Justice nominee Amy Coney Barrett’s statements on climate change.
For those of you not in the U.S., confirmation hearings on the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett for the Supreme Court are currently underway. There are many very political issues surrounding this nomination and its timing. Lets put all that aside for the moment, and consider her statements on climate change.
Barrett’s statements [link]:
“I will not express a view on a matter of public policy, especially one that is politically controversial.”
“I don’t think my views on climate change or global warming are relevant to the job I would do as a judge. Nor do I feel like I have views that are informed enough.”
“I’m certainly not a scientist,” she said when asked by Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) whether she had a personal opinion on the issue. “I mean, I’ve read things about climate change. I would not say I have firm views on it.”
“I don’t think I’m competent to opine on what causes global warming or not.”
The twitterati are hysterical over these statements. From a Washington Post article:
“The judge’s exchange on climate change was short, but her critics say it is disqualifying”
“It is a requirement that a Supreme Court Justice be able to review evidence to make a decision,” he said. “The scientific evidence of climate change is beyond reasonable doubt or debate, yet Amy Coney Barrett refused to acknowledge reality.”
“A climate change case is already on the Supreme Court’s docket next year. It will hear a case involving several oil companies, including Dutch Royal Shell, being sued by the city of Baltimore, which is seeking to hold them financially responsible for their greenhouse gas contributions. Barrett’s father spent much of his own career as a lawyer for Shell.”
An article in the Esquire is entitled: Amy Coney Barrett’s answer on this climate change question is completely disqualifying.
“Put simply, this is just totally disqualifying for any official holding public office in the year 2020. This isn’t even an up-to-date Republican bullshit line on the topic. “I’m not a scientist” is so 2014, maybe because even the Elite Political Media—pockets of which are just today allowing themselves to be hoodwinked by another Emails caper—caught on to how dumb it is. Does Judge Amy Coney Barrett accept the scientific consensus that gravity is keeping her in that chair? If so, why? She’s not a scientist, so how could she possibly know?”
There are two issues here that deserve discussion:
- Whether ‘belief’ in climate change actually means anything when spouted by politicians and other non-scientists
- What judges should be expected to know about climate science.
“I believe in climate science”
I think that Amy Coney Barrett’s answers to the climate question was admirable. She wanted to stay out of a contentious political debate. But more importantly she wasn’t going to pass a judgement on something for which she had not carefully evaluated the evidence and did not find herself qualified to make a judgement on. I thought her stance on this showed wisdom and humility.
In the 2016 presidential debates, Hillary Clinton said: “And I believe in science”, with specific reference to climate change.
In the political debate on climate change, ‘I believe in climate science’ is a statement generally made by people who don’t understand much about it. They use such statements as a way of declaring belief in a scientific proposition that is outside their knowledge and understanding. The belief of individuals making such a statement is often more akin to believing in Santa Claus than relating to actual understanding of science. In the case of Hillary Clinton’s acceptance speech at the U.S. Democratic National Convention, Clinton’s appeal to science was a partisan rallying cry that was coupled to the mockery of Donald Trump and his supporters as ‘anti-science.’
In the context of the climate change, ‘I believe in science’ uses the overall reputation of science to give authority to the climate change ‘consensus’, shielding it from questioning and skepticism. ‘I believe in climate science’ is a signifier of social group identity that supports one particular solution: massive government legislation to limit or ban fossil fuels. ‘Belief in climate science’ makes it look as though disagreement on this solution is equivalent to a rejection of the scientific method and worldview. When exposed to science that challenges their political biases, these same ‘believers’ are quick to claim ‘pseudo-science,’ without considering (or even understanding) the actual evidence or arguments. An excellent summary of all this is provided in a previous blog post discussing an article by Robert Tracinski.
In my albeit limited experience, very few politicians have made a serious attempt to understand climate science, beyond being able to parrot talking points provided to them by advocacy groups.
Here is what we are left with: One side attacks science and the other side uses science for political attacks. Neither side actually cares about or understands the science.
Kudos to Amy Coney Barrett for providing an appropriate answer to the climate change questions.
Supreme Court
A New York Times article discusses why judge’s ‘opinions’ on climate change are relevant to the Supreme Court. The EPA endangerment finding may be facing a challenge in a future Republican administration. There are also lawsuits against the U.S. government and oil companies that could make it the Supreme Court.
The Wikipedia has a good overview on the Juliana case against the U.S. government as well as previous cases. Apart from procedural issues, I don’t see what kind of ruling by the Supreme Court on climate change that would hinge on the Justices’ understanding or ruling on details of the science.
The Dutch Urgenda ruling accepted the authority of the IPCC assessment reports. This was an unusual ruling based upon the U.S. court system, which leaves matters of policy to the legislative and executive branches.
Australia Faces Challenging Times Caused by Deteriorating Relations with China
By James ONeill – New Eastern Outlook – 16.10.2020
A recent article published in Russia Today on 13 October 2020 by Tom Fowdy raised some very important issues affecting Australia’s economic well-being. That economic position is rapidly deteriorating as the country’s crucial economic relationship with China disintegrates at an accelerating rate. Australia’s export structure has had several distinctive features over the 250 or so years since it was first colonised by the British in the late 18th century.
Its initial role was to serve as a penal colony for people from Britain who had committed crimes, but not severe enough to warrant execution. The rights of Australia’s indigenous population who had inhabited the country for more than 100,000 years did not enter the equation. Indeed, they were not officially regarded even as human beings, that status only being assigned in the 1960s. Before then the aboriginal people had the same legal status as flora and fauna.
The defeat of the British in Singapore by the Japanese army in 1941 lead to the beginning of a move from reliance on the British for the country’s security to reliance upon the Americans. The latter’s troops arrived in 1942 and they have been there ever since.
Australia’s trading patterns showed a similar reliance upon the British until the latter’s joining the European Common Market on 1 January 1973 forced a reappraisal of that economic relationship. Thereafter, Australia’s trade shifted progressively to its Asian neighbours, a trend that accelerated in every year since the 1970s. Today, Asian nations account for the vast bulk of Australia’s trade with the world.
China, which accounted in 2019 for more than one third of the total Australian exports, was easily the biggest trading partner, accounting for nearly twice the amount of trade than that with Japan, the second most important trading partner.
Despite its geography, being a landmass immediately South of its major trading partners, the Australian political psyche has remained firmly fixed to the Anglo-United States worldview. Since the end of World War II in 1945, Australia has joined the United States in at least four major military conflicts; Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, that are not only geographically remote from Australia, but also involved no discernible vital Australian strategic interest.
The fact that all four wars were based on false justifications did nothing to enhance their legitimacy. The Korean War was manifestly aimed at the overthrow of the then newly installed Communist Party in China. This was readily discernible from the actions of the Allied troops that clearly violated the terms of the United Nations Security Council resolution authorising military action (in the absence of Russia and with China’s seat still held by the Nationalists.)
The lies told about Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction” or Afghanistan’s alleged role in sheltering the falsely accused Osama bin Laden for his alleged role in the events of 11 September 2001 are too well known to bear repetition here. What is important for present purposes is that the falsehoods and ulterior motives for the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq did not deter Australia from either its initial involvement or its continuing role as an occupying power.
Australia similarly joined in the United States manufactured war in Vietnam, again for no discernible strategic or military interest to Australia. It was the experience of the 1972 –1975 Whitlam Labor government in Australia in response to that war that cemented the subservience to United States interests.
Whitlam had removed Australian troops from Vietnam and recognised the PRC as China’s legitimate government. Both moves met with bitter opposition by the Liberal Opposition party. What sealed the Whitlam government’s fate however, was its decision to close the American run spy base at Pine Gap in Australia’s Northern Territory. The Whitlam government was dismissed by the country’s Governor General John Kerr the day before Whitlam was to announce Pine Gap’s closure to the Australian parliament. That the base is still open (one of at least eight United States military bases in Australia) speaks volumes about the geopolitical consequences of the Whitlam dismissal.
Through these tumultuous years trade with China continued to flourish. China also became the largest source of foreign students, the largest source of foreign tourists, and the third largest source of foreign investment. In 2020 all this changed. Clearly acting as a mouthpiece for the American administration, Australia demanded an “explanation” from China at the beginning of this year for the outbreak of the Corona virus.
The accusatory tone of the Australian demand was not well received in Beijing. This began a series of economic countermeasures by China. The initially relatively small economic impact of banning wine imports was clearly intended to send a signal.
That signal fell on deaf ears. Australia’s anti-China rhetoric progressively escalated through 2020. The Chinese response was to increase the banning of Australian imports. The latest (early October 2020) was to ban coal imports from Australia. This is a market worth $US13 billion to the Australian economy. It will not be the last item to be banned or greatly restricted, with iron ore (more than US$100 billion) probably being the next commodity banned, already falling 17% each month since July.
The Covid crisis has also resulted in an almost complete cessation of Chinese student arrivals (again the largest foreign source) and an industry worth billions of dollars and thousands of jobs to the Australian economy. It would be naïve to expect those numbers to recover in the foreseeable future. The same is true with Chinese tourists, a vanishing species and again unlikely to return to anywhere near previous levels. Again, tens of thousands of jobs are lost.
The rational response by an Australian government would be to review both its policies and its rhetoric. Not only has the Morrison government shown no such inclination, it is difficult to see how it could feasibly do so without adversely affecting its close and continuing (subservient) relationship with the United States.
The memory of the fate of the 1975 Whitlam government which dared to pursue policies contrary to United States wishes continues to cast a very long shadow over Australian politics.
Fowdy suggests that Australia’s situation “might be described as the most clear and explicit reaction yet of the discomfort in the Anglo-sphere world caused by the rise of China.” I respectfully agree. The solution however, is not to try and maintain the dominance of the Western world as it has been for the past 300 years.
Instead there needs to be a recognition that the Anglo-Saxon dominance was an historical anomaly, and that the old order is resetting itself. In Australia’s case that will require some major mental adjustments.
The country has flourished in recent decades precisely because of its geography and growing trade and other links with what Australians call “the near North.” What has been manifestly lacking is the political attitudes and conduct that match the geopolitical and trade realities. Unfortunately, that adjustment may be a bridge too far for the Australian psyche. It has only itself to blame.
James O’Neill is an Australian-based former Barrister at Law.
Russia weighs military cooperation with Iran after arms embargo expiration: Foreign Ministry
Press TV – October 16, 2020
The Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman says Moscow will consider military technical cooperation with Iran in line with mutual interests after the expiration of a United Nations arms embargo on Tehran.
“We are convinced that all possibilities stemming from the expiration of the provisions of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231 that are linked with military technical cooperation with Iran will be duly taken into account and used on the basis of mutual benefit and in the interests of the peoples of our two states,” Maria Zakharova said on Thursday.
She was referring to the resolution that endorsed a multilateral 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and major world powers, including Russia.
All the parties to the talks about Iran’s nuclear program were aware from the very beginning that there is no link between restrictions on weapons supplies to Tehran and the settlement of issues pertaining to its nuclear program, added Zakharova.
She emphasized that the United Nations Security Council did not impose a weapons embargo on Iran in 2015, but the country “voluntarily undertook a number of restrictions.”
“It was done in the interests of the soonest successful outcome of the talks on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) to settle the situation around the Iranian nuclear program,” the Russian diplomat said.
She noted that the term of the corresponding provisions has expired.
Zakharova stressed that Iran was a “reliable partner” for Russia in many areas of cooperation.
On August 14, the UN Security Council almost unanimously refused to support a US-sponsored draft resolution on extending the arms embargo against Iran, which is due to expire on October 18 under the JCPOA.
During the 15-member Security Council vote, the US received support only from the Dominican Republic for its anti-Iran resolution, leaving it far short of the minimum nine ‘yes’ votes required for adoption.
The following month, Washington suffered another embarrassing loss as it failed to trigger the so-called snapback provision in the JCPOA aimed at re-imposing all UN sanctions against Iran.
The UN Security Council member states challenged the US’s rationale that it was still a participant state to the nuclear accord, citing its unilateral withdrawal in May 2018.
Speaking during a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the country will be free to trade weapons as of Sunday after the United States failed in its attempts to secure an extension of the embargo.
Moscow had earlier said “new opportunities” will emerge in cooperation with Iran the UN embargo expires, and that any agreements with Tehran will have “nothing to do with the unlawful and illegal actions of the US administration, which is trying to intimidate the entire world.”
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said late last month that Moscow and Tehran roundly reject efforts by the US to permanently extend an arms embargo against the Islamic Republic.
Speaking at a joint press conference that followed a meeting with his visiting Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif in Moscow, Lavrov added, “We stressed that Moscow and Tehran, like the entire international community, categorically reject US ambitions to impose some kind of indefinite arms embargo.”
Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:
Will the Mediterranean Sea save Lebanon from drowning in debt?
Steven Sahiounie | Mideast Discourse | October 16, 2020
The Lebanese population faces between six to twelve hours of electricity cuts per day, and in some rural areas, there is simply no electricity provided by the government grid. Amid the backdrop of decrepit infrastructure, government corruption, devalued currency, and widespread poverty, Lebanon began talks with Israel concerning their maritime borders in the gas-rich Mediterranean Sea on Wednesday at the UNIFIL headquarters at Naquora.
The UN peacekeeping force UNIFIL has been monitoring the disputed land boundary since Israel’s’ military withdrawal from south Lebanon in 2000, ending a 22-year occupation. The two sides met together in the same room but directed their communications through a US mediator.
The US is the mediator between the two countries which remain technically ‘at war’ while hoping to end a long-running dispute which could eventually see Lebanon producing gas to convert to domestic electricity, as well as a potential revenue producer which could pay off Lebanon’s huge debts. Lebanon’s currency has lost 80 percent of its value against the dollar over the last year, and its debt-to-G.D.P. ratio is one of the world’s highest.
Lebanon and Israel are struggling to deal with high COVID-19 infection rates, while Netanyahu is slipping in the polls due to abuse of power charges, and the Lebanese government is in limbo after being labeled as corrupt and inept, while desperate for cash from foreign donors as it faces the worst economic crisis since its 1975-1990 civil war. The financial collapse was compounded by an explosion at the Port of Beirut in August, killing nearly 200 people.
Israel is already pumping gas from huge offshore fields, and this meeting will allow both sides to proceed further within the safety of an understanding of the maritime borders.
US pressure
The talks follow years of diplomacy by Washington, and the Trump Administration had hoped to use the Naquora meeting as a dramatic media show less than a month after landmark US-sponsored normalization agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain; however, this showy plan was aborted.
The US envoy David Schenker explained that these talks “have nothing to do with the establishment of diplomatic relations or normalization.” However, it was last month that the US turned up the pressure on Lebanon to start the talks with a deadline for the agreement before the US election on November 3, while the second round of talks is scheduled for October 28.
The Naquora meeting
President Michel Aoun is the key person managing the off-shore energy resources portfolio, and he placed a representative from the Lebanese Petroleum Administration (LPA) on the negotiating team as a nod to pressure from Washington who had insisted on civilian presentation, whereas Hezbollah requested only military and technical delegates.
There are four points on the agenda of the Naqoura talks: setting the land reference point from which to depart toward the sea; defining the southern maritime border where the disputed area is located; agreeing on the land border demarcation after the completion of the maritime demarcation, and exchanging documents and handing over copies to the United Nations.
The Lebanese Negotiating team
Brigadier General Bassam Yacine is the lead negotiator, Marine Colonel Mazen Basbous is the head of operations in the Lebanese military, Najib Masihi is a Lebanese American expert in maritime and territorial boundaries, and Wissam Shbat is a board member of LPA and head of its geology and geophysics unit.
Lebanon’s offshore possibilities
In 2017, Lebanon’s information minister announced the Cabinet had approved licenses for Italy’s Eni, Frances’s Total, and Russia’s Novatek to carry out exploratory drilling off the Lebanese coast in two of Lebanon’s 10 offshore blocks to determine whether oil and gas exist in the area.
Analyst Diana Kaissy, who heads the Lebanese Oil and Gas Initiative think-tank, said it was “impossible to know” the extent of the accessible reserves before exploration operations begin, but she said, “preliminary evaluations” showed the five blocks offered by the government were the “most promising,” with block nine bordering a sector disputed by Israel.
At issue is more than 330 square miles in the Mediterranean that Israel and Lebanon both claim is in their exclusive economic zone. The pressure to resolve the dispute has mounted as Israel and Cyprus have begun exploiting offshore gas.
Lebanon estimates it has 96 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves and 865 million barrels of oil offshore. Israel is aiming to get a percentage of a contested area of 860 square kilometers that Lebanon is claiming.
The 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) stipulates that coastal states have sovereign rights in a 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) concerning natural resources; however, the maritime dispute does not fall within the UNIFIL’s current mandate, and Israel is not a party to UNCLOS.
Lebanon reached a maritime border agreement with Cyprus in January 2007. This prompted Beirut, in July and October 2010, to deposit with the United Nations the geographical coordinates of the southern and southwestern maritime borders of that EEZ. Cyprus went ahead and signed an EEZ delimitation accord with Israel in December 2010.
Lebanon and Israel could share in the disputed 860 square kilometers, which covers Lebanon’s offshore gas Blocks 8, 9, and 10. The “Hoff line” proposal gave Lebanon 550 square kilometers, which was rejected as Beirut insists on full rights in this disputed area. Lebanon has refused to join the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum or any other regional mechanism that includes Israel; therefore, it has been more or less isolated in the eastern Mediterranean gas process given the emerging alliance between Israel, Egypt, Cyprus, and Greece.
France’s Total energy company is set to begin gas exploration in Block 9 by the end of the year, while Israel approved in June oil, gas exploration in Block 72, close to Lebanon’s Block 9 where exploration will soon start.
Hezbollah and Amal
Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah in a joint statement with Amal, the country’s other main party of resistance, released hours before the talks were due to start, called for the negotiating team to be revised to include only members of the military.
The Lebanese preconditions included having military and technical delegates, instead of diplomatic delegates, and setting no timeline to reach a deal, to avoid US pressure on the negotiations.
Last month the US placed sanctions on the top aide to Nabih Berri, the leader of Amal, for corruption and financially enabling Hezbollah.
Hunter Biden Sought ‘Lucrative’ Deal for Himself, His ‘Family’ With Chinese Firm, New Emails Suggest
By Tim Korso – Sputnik – 15.10.2020
Bombshell emails obtained by the New York Post made headlines on 14 October, as they suggested that Joe Biden was involved in his son’s overseas business affairs after all. The rapid spread of the story was, however, impeded by Facebook and Twitter, both of which limited users from sharing it under various pretexts.
Hunter Biden, son of former Vice President and current Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, previously pursued an agreement with a Chinese energy giant that would be “interesting” to him and his “family”, a new trove of emails published by the New York Post suggests.
The emails come from the same MacBook Pro laptop that contained the purported correspondence of Biden that rocked media outlets and social media on 14 October. The computer, which had a Beau Biden Foundation sticker on it, was dropped off at a repair shop in the state of Delaware in April 2019, but was never collected. The shop’s owner handed it over to the FBI, but not before copying its contents and sending it to former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who, in turn, provided the material to the NYP.
Sputnik could not independently verify the authenticity of the emails.
Twenty Percent for H[unter] and Ten More for ‘Big Guy’?
The newly released emails from the alleged correspondence of Hunter Biden suggest that the latter was engaged in negotiations involving the company CEFC China Energy, a former top 10 firm in China, and continued between May and September 2017. The first piece from the new trove of emails, dated 13 May 2017, concerned Hunter becoming either the chair or vice-chair of an unnamed company with a “remuneration package” worth “850”, when he already had a paid position on the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma.
In addition, the same letter suggested that the shares in the company would be divided between six people, identified mostly by their initials. At least three sets of initials refer to the author and the recipients of the email, James Gilliar, Rob Walker, and Tony Bobulinski. The remaining names on the list are “Jim” and “H”, the latter of which may stand for Hunter Biden, another alleged recipient of the mail. “H” was supposed to get 20% of the shares for himself and hold 10% more “for the big guy”. Who the “big guy” is remains unclear from either the alleged email or the New York Post report.
Alleged ‘Lucrative Arrangement’ for Biden ‘Family’
The next piece of correspondence unearthed by the NYP was purportedly sent by Hunter Biden to Gongwen Dong, a Chinese citizen who allegedly had ties to his country’s authorities and was an associate of the now-arrested chairman of the CEFC, which went bankrupt in 2020 after a series of scandals involving fake deals and inflated financial results, Ye Jianming. In the alleged email, dated 2 August 2017, Hunter purportedly reveals that a person, whom he only refers to as “chairman”, had at first offered him a payment of $10 million per year in “consulting fees” for three years, but later made a “much more lasting and lucrative arrangement” where he would receive 50% of the shares in an unnamed holding company.
In the mail, Hunter allegedly indicates that the offer of getting a 50% share in the joint venture was “so much more interesting to me and my family”. The remaining 50% were supposed to be held by the chairman, which may refer to CEFC Chairman Ye Jianming, who was arrested by the Chinese authorities back in 2018.
A photo, taken a day prior to the alleged email regarding the “lucrative arrangement” and which was also found on the MacBook laptop, purportedly shows the proposed structure of a company called Hudsonwest, which would be jointly owned by Hunter Biden and the “chairman” in equal parts. A company with a similar name, Hudson West III LLC, was mentioned in reports presented by two US Senate committees – on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, and on Finance – in regards to Hunter Biden’s business affairs in China, Russia, and Ukraine.
According to these reports, Hudson West III had a credit line with Cathay Bank that was opened by Hunter Biden and Gongwen Dong in September 2017. With this line of credit, the company issued several credit cards with collateral of $99,000. These cards were authorised to be used by Hunter Biden, his uncle James Biden, and the latter’s wife, Sara Biden. The Senate reports state that these cards were used to buy $101,291 worth of goods and services, including airline tickets, hotel bookings, as well as purchases made at pharmacies and Apple Stores. The company Hudson West III has since been dissolved, the Senate reports say.
Leak of Scandalous Laptop Emails
The new revelations come a day after a bombshell report by the NYP that suggested Hunter Biden had arranged a meeting between an adviser to the board of the Ukrainian gas firm Burisma, Vadym Pozharskyi, and his father, Joe Biden, in 2015 – when the latter was still serving as vice president. Almost a year after the purported meeting, Joe Biden convinced Ukrainian authorities to sack Prosecutor-General Viktor Shokin, who was allegedly investigating crimes by Burisma, by threatening to withhold a $1 billion US loan to Kiev.
Joe Biden has repeatedly claimed he did not discuss Hunter’s overseas business affairs with his son and insists he did not pressure Kiev into sacking Shokin, despite openly boasting of playing a role in getting him fired at the Council on Foreign Relations in 2018. The Biden campaign denies that the 2015 meeting between Pozharskyi and the former vice president took place, while Hunter Biden’s lawyer has refused to comment on the NYP report. The lawyer insisted that information received from Rudy Giuliani cannot be trusted and thus doesn’t deserve to be commented on.
Social Media Platforms Under Fire for Taking Down Hunter Biden Email Story
The bombshell NYP story about Joe Biden’s alleged meeting with Pozharskyi gained so much traction online that two social media platforms, Facebook and Twitter, limited its spread by forbidding users from sharing it. Apart from this, Twitter took the original post down for good and blocked several accounts that had reposted it, including those of the New York Post and White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany. The decision met with furious reactions from both netizens and Republican politicians, who accused the social media platforms of censoring the information, which is potentially damning to the Democratic presidential candidate that the platforms allegedly favour.
The move against the NY Post’s story was not immediately followed by an explanation from the two platforms, which only added to the outrage of netizens. Facebook later clarified that the spread of the story would be limited until third-party fact-checkers confirm its veracity. Twitter, in turn, justified its action by stating that the article violates its rules, as it contains personal data of the people involved in the story, as well as “hacked materials” – although all the information had been obtained without the need to bypass the security barriers on the laptop.
Iraq Forms Committee to Develop Timeline for Withdrawal of US Troops
Sputnik – 15.10.2020
The Iraqi authorities have formed a committee that will coordinate with the United States to develop the timeline for the withdrawal of US troops from the Middle Eastern country, the Iraqi Foreign Ministry said on Thursday.
“The meeting took place at the Foreign Ministry headquarters today, Thursday, October 15, 2020, in which a technical committee emerged to undertake the task of coordinating with the US side to schedule the redeployment of US forces outside Iraq,” the Iraqi Foreign Ministry wrote in a press release.
The decision was taken during a meeting involving Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein, National Security Adviser Qassem Al-Araji, and a range of other security officials.
The establishment of the committee follows a series of meetings between US and Iraqi officials over the summer. In August, Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhmi travelled to Washington for talks with US President Donald Trump, and a three-year timeline was established for the US withdrawal.
In early January, the Iraqi parliament voted to expel all foreign forces from the country following the US decision to launch a drone attack near Baghdad International Airport that killed top Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani.
Twitter, Biden and the New York Post – Social Media Censorship Kicks up a Gear
By Kit Knightly | OffGuardian | October 15, 2020
Yesterday, the New York Post published several articles claiming to show evidence of corruption on the part of Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
The charges are varied but not really surprising. One article claims Hunter introduced his father to a Ukrainian energy magnate who asked the family to use their influence to shut down an investigation into his company.
Another story suggests Hunter Biden used his family name to secure a high-paid job and stock interests in a Chinese company.
The NYP evidence these claims with emails and documents allegedly retrieved from a laptop left at a computer repair store in Delaware. The owner of the store alerted the FBI to the computer’s existence when no one came forward to pay for the repairs and he could not contact the owner.
According to the NYP, both the hard drive and laptop were then seized by the FBI. They have a copy of the grand jury subpoena, which is certainly solid evidence, if genuine.
The owner of the store claims he, prior to it being seized, made a copy of the hard drive and sent it to Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump’s lawyer.
While this is potentially intriguing, if true, it’s not really “news”. Biden’s corruption in Ukraine has been evident since his son was appointed to the board of the largest energy company in Ukraine within weeks of the US-backed coup in 2014 (a decision so obviously dodgy even the Guardian made a joke out of it). Joe Biden himself has even admitted to applying financial pressure to get a Ukrainian State Prosecutor removed from office.
None of this is really “big news”. Corruption is rampant in the halls of power, that is as certain as death and taxes, and will continue to be so, whether or not these specific allegations are accurate.
The big news, the part of this story that should concern everyone, is that Twitter has completely blocked this material on their platform.
And we’re not talking a “soft block”, we at OffG are more than familiar with twitter’s use of “warnings”, no they literally made it impossible to share the links, even in DMs. If you try, you get his warning:
We can’t complete this request because this link has been identified by Twitter or our partners as being potentially harmful. Visit our Help Center to learn more.”
We’ve talked about twitter’s “partners” before, and they are suspect. As for being “potentially harmful”, well isn’t that subjective? Fire is vital at times, but certainly “potentially harmful” at others. Water, in sufficient quantity, is “potentially harmful”.
If you’re a liar, the truth is “potentially harmful”.
Facebook has followed suit, if in less sweeping fashion. The social media giant’s spokesperson Andy Stone announced that they would be:
“… reducing its distribution on our platform. This is part of our standard process to reduce the spread of misinformation.
This decision is pending approval by their “independent fact-checkers”, which we have also covered in detail before.
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So what are the social media companies’ excuses reasons for blocking this content?
Well, it depends who you ask.
Twitter claims that since the emails are potentially “hacked”, posting them violates their policy regarding illegally gathered material. (Interestingly this policy was never applied to Trump’s leaked tax returns.)
Facebook, on the other hand, claim to have blocked these stories because they might be “misinformation”. A truly ludicrous precedent to set. You can’t block something that might not be true, because that applies to literally almost everything.
You do have to admire the strategy though. The pincer movement is brilliant.
You see, one site is blocking them because they might not be real, the other because if they are real then they’re stolen. It’s a win-win situation.
Essentially, real or not, the tech giants have all the bases covered and there’s no way they are going to let people read those emails, or even stories about the emails. Twitter even blocked the account of the Whitehouse Spokesperson Kayleigh MacEnany for sharing the links.
Of course, moving forward this will not just apply to these emails, but anything they want.
More and more precedents are rolling out that social media companies can stop anyone from saying anything by applying their absurdly vague and subjective rules.
They have essentially given themselves license to block anything they want on a totally ad hoc basis, and because it’s being done in the name of “orange man bad” or combatting “hate speech”, an army of useful idiots are happy to go along with it. Even calling it a win for progressive values.
The mainstream cheered on twitter earlier this year when they started (incorrectly) “fact-checking” Donald Trump’s tweets concerning postal voting. We wrote then that it was a scary and potentially damaging idea. This is why.
We now have mega-corporations, who possess neither democratic mandate nor public accountability, controlling what elected officials can and cannot say in public. The political discourse of our society has become subject to the approval of “independent fact-checkers” created by billionaires and staffed by the Deep State.
Which is exactly what we’ve been warning about, for years.
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It all makes you wonder – what exactly is the point of this story?
Are we just witnessing surface tremors of the deeper internal conflict in the Deep State, just as we saw in 2016?
Or is it meant to distract everyone with salacious details of a corruption scandal we all already knew about, while ever-more of our online freedoms are taken away?
This story probably isn’t going away any time soon. For one thing, we can expect that someone is going to accuse Russia of somehow being involved in the very near future.
… oh, they already did. I guess we’re in for Russiagate II then. Fun times.
Imagine If MSM Consistently Applied The Evidentiary Standards It’s Applying To Hunter Biden’s Emails
By Caitlin Johnstone | October 14, 2020
Mainstream media and social media platforms are actively blacking out an October surprise published by The New York Post which purports to show “smoking gun” emails from the laptop of Hunter Biden, son of Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
Both Twitter and Facebook have censored the story on their platforms, the first time we’ve seen the powerful social media giants deplatform a mainstream news media article, both citing concerns about the origins of the emails and an uncertainty about the veracity of the claims.
“Facebook was limiting distribution of the story while its outside fact-checkers reviewed the story’s claims, spokesman Andy Stone said,” reports NPR, adding that “Twitter said it decided to block the story because it couldn’t be sure about the origins of the emails.”
Twitter claims it found the emails to be in violation of its policies banning content which contained private information and its rules against “hacked materials”, both of which would have forbidden all articles sharing the contents of the 2016 WikiLeaks drops if those rules had existed back then. As I warned could happen back in August, these rules have set the stage for the cross-platform censorship of a 2020 October surprise.
There’s a good thread going around Twitter compiling posts that mainstream media reporters have been making in objection to the circulation of Hunter Biden’s emails alongside posts made by those same reporters promoting far more ridiculous and insubstantial allegations, like MSNBC’s virulent Russia conspiracy theorist Kyle Griffin saying nobody should link to the New York Post report because if they do they’ll be “amplifying disinformation”.
A new Reason article discusses how the mass media are not just avoiding the story but actively discouraging it:
On Wednesday, The New York Post published an attention-catching original report: “Smoking-gun email reveals how Hunter Biden introduced Ukrainian businessman to VP dad.” In the previously unreleased email, which was allegedly sent on April 17, 2015, an executive with Burisma, the Ukrainian natural gas company, thanks Hunter Biden for “giving an opportunity” to meet Joe Biden, according to The NY Post.
It’s a story that merits the attention of other journalists, political operatives, national security experts, and also the public at large — not least of all because there are serious questions about its accuracy, reliability, and sourcing. And yet many in the media are choosing not just to ignore the story, but to actively encourage others to suppress any discussion of it.
Indeed, two mainstream reporters who acknowledged (and criticized) the Post’s scoop — The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman and Politico’s Jake Sherman — faced thunderous denunciation on Twitter from Democratic partisans simply for discussing the story. Center for American Progress President Neera Tanden accused Haberman of promoting disinformation, and New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg told Sherman that he was helping nefarious conservative activists “launder this bullshit into the news cycle.” Historian Kevin Kruse asked why they were “amplifying” the story.
Indeed a scroll through today’s mainstream news reporting does appear to show some consensus among most news media that the topic of the emails should be avoided, with most MSM articles on the matter covering the after-effects of the New York Post release or explaining why readers should be dubious about its contents. A new Washington Post article titled “Hunter Biden’s alleged laptop: an explainer” takes great pains to outline how important it is to be very, very certain that this story is everything it purports to be before investing any credulity in it.
“How do we know the email is authentic? We do not,” WaPo tells us. “The New York Post posted PDF print-outs of several emails allegedly from the laptop, but for the ‘smoking gun’ email, it shows only a photo made the day before the story was posted, according to Thomas Rid, author of Active Measures, a book on disinformation. ‘There is no header information, no metadata.’ The Washington Post has been unable to independently verify or authenticate these emails, as requests to make the laptop hard drive available for inspection have not been granted.”
This would be the same Washington Post that has been circulating disinformation about Russia for years due to its disinterest in verifying information before reporting, and has alongside the rest of the mass media been promoting the narrative that Russia interfered in the 2016 US election based solely on unproven assertions promoted by government agencies despite many gaping plot holes in that narrative. Where was the journalistic concern for seeing the data and inspecting the hard drives then?
In and of itself there is no problem at all with mainstream news media applying high evidentiary standards to its reporting and making sure readers are aware when political manipulators could be pulling the wool over their eyes. In and of itself this would be a good thing. The problem is that all this emphasis on verification and truth only comes up when it is politically convenient for these plutocratic media outlets, because only favoring truth when it’s convenient is the same as lying constantly.
Where were these high evidentiary standards when The Guardian reported without evidence and against all common sense that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange had been having secret meetings with Trump lackey Paul Manafort? That evidence never came out, because the story was ridiculous bullshit from the beginning, yet mass media outlets everywhere parroted it to their audiences like it was a fact. You can still post that bogus Guardian story on Twitter and Facebook to this very day without so much as a warning.
Where were these high evidentiary standards when Politico published the idiotic, nonsensical story that Iran was plotting to assassinate the American ambassador to South Africa? The report sparked many news reports and Twitter threats from the president, but when it was dismissed by the South African government itself there was barely a whisper about it. You are still free to share this bogus Politico article anywhere online you like.
Where were these high evidentiary standards when leaks by anonymous spooks dominated headlines for days with their evidence-free allegation that the Russian government had been paying Taliban-linked fighters bounties on western occupying forces? We now know that story was completely baseless and would have been dismissed by news reporters who were actually doing their due diligence, yet it’s still being cited as fact on Twitter by sitting US senators and in a recent vice presidential debate by Kamala Harris. If news reporters had spent anywhere near as much energy cautioning their audiences to be skeptical about this story and educating them about its plot holes as they’re spending on Hunter Biden’s emails, this would not be happening.
The problem is not that there are high evidentiary standards for Hunter Biden’s emails, the problem is that there are virtually no evidentiary standards when the plutocratic media want to sell the world on a narrative which benefits the establishment upon which the media-owning class has built its kingdom. News reports will be waved through on a vague assertion by some anonymous government operative if they are damaging to Russia, Iran, China, North Korea, Syria or any other US-targeted nation, and they are on a pretty much daily basis to greater or lesser degrees.
If a news report facilitates the national security state, all journalistic protocol goes out the window and nobody knows the meaning of the word evidence. As soon as a report becomes inconvenient for a friend of the national security state like Joe Biden, suddenly strict evidentiary standards and warnings against potential disinformation are of paramount importance. This is the same as lying all the time.
They lie because the mass media within the US-centralized empire are the propaganda engine for that empire. The drivers of empire understand that whoever controls the narrative controls the world, so they ensure that all points of narrative influence are tightly controlled by them.
A world where all news stories are held to the same evidentiary standards as Hunter Biden’s emails are currently being held would be a world without empire. People would never consent to the insanity of imperialism and endless war if their consent wasn’t manufactured, and depriving them of the information that is inconvenient for that empire is essential in that manufacturing.
FBI Informant Was ‘One Of The Most Active Leaders’ Pushing ‘Crackpot’ Whitmer Kidnapping Plot: Defense
By Chris Menahan | InformationLiberation | October 13, 2020
An FBI informant was “one of the most active leaders” in the alleged plot to kidnap Michigan Gov Gretchen Whitmer, according to a defense attorney for one of the accused.
From the Detroit Free Press :
There was no real plan to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, but only “military wannabes” who engaged in “big talk” and played with guns in the woods, defense lawyers argued in court Tuesday.
As one defense lawyer suggested, the case appears to be one of “big talk between crackpots,” or “people who talk a lot … but are never going to do anything.”
“Have you ever dealt with big talkers?” defense attorney Scott Graham asked an FBI agent on cross examination, adding: “There’s kind of a military-wanna-be theme that runs between the militias.”
[…] Defense lawyers contend that there was no probable cause to arrest and charge the suspect, arguing, among other things, that the suspects had no operational plan to do anything, were engaged in all legal activities — including talking in encrypted group chats and practicing military exercises with lawfully owned guns — and that it was the informants and undercover agents who “pushed” others to do illegal things.
“One of the most active leaders was your informant,” Graham said.
If this was another FBI frame-up job certainly it wouldn’t be the first and it won’t be the last.
The FBI’s affidavit revealed they had multiple informants and undercover agents involved in this operation going all the way back to June.
They could have arrested these saps months ago but likely chose to wait until right before the election for maximum political impact.
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From the Archives
Examples of hate speech by Israel against Palestine
1. “There is a huge gap between us (Jews) and our enemies, not just in ability but in morality, culture, sanctity of life, and conscience. They are our neighbors here, but it seems as if at a distance of a few hundred meters away, there are people who do not belong to our continent, to our world, but actually belong to a different galaxy.” Israeli president Moshe Katsav. The Jerusalem Post, May 10, 2001
2. “The Palestinians are like crocodiles, the more you give them meat, they want more”…. Ehud Barak, Prime Minister of Israel at the time – August 28, 2000. Reported in the Jerusalem Post, August 30, 2000
3. ” [The Palestinians are] beasts walking on two legs.” Menahim Begin, speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, “Begin and the Beasts”. New Statesman, 25 June 1982.
4. “The Palestinians” would be crushed like grasshoppers … heads smashed against the boulders and walls.” Isreali Prime Minister (at the time) in a speech to Jewish settlers New York Times April 1, 1988
5. “When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle.” Raphael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defence Forces, New York Times, 14 April 1983.
6. “How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to.” Golda Maier, March 8, 1969.
… Continue
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