Saturday, October 5, 2019

Republican offers consumers vast new privacy protections

ORIGINAL LINK

Law enforcement authorities increasingly are going to court over access to personal digital information

Is the information in a smartphone protected from searches? How about the data on a computer drive? Or the files in a PDA?

A Republican state lawmaker in Michigan is proposing to solve that with a state constitutional amendment that adds protections for “electronic data” and “electronic communications.”

It’s endorsed by the Pacific Legal Foundation, which wrote that the idea “would take guesswork from the hands of the judiciary and instead deliver to the courts a message that intrusion by the state into the emails, metadata, and phone records of its citizens will not be tolerated without a warrant supported by probable cause.”

The proposal is from state Sen. Jim Runestad, a Republican from Oakland County.

“While electronic data is produced by Americans and collected by internet and technology companies in larger and larger quantities, some questions remain as to whether this information is private from the government,” Pacific Legal explained.

“The first thing to understand is that Michigan, like every other state (and the federal government), has constitutional protections from unreasonable searches and seizures of persons, houses, papers, and effects. This means that the local police department or FBI cannot simply walk into your home, unplug your computer, and walk away with it.

“But what about data stored on the cloud? Or GPS information created by your social media post that Facebook shares with ad companies? How about your internet browsing history tracked by cookies uploaded to your computer by the websites you visited? Are these fair game for the government to seize and inspect?” it explained.

One of the problems concerns ownership of the data.

“After all, digital data is often created and stored by technology companies rather than individual users. And you can challenge a government search only if it was your property or privacy it invaded,” PLF said.

In a letter to Runestad, Pacific Legal said: “While the founders could not have predicted the technologies prevalent in America today, the language they drafted for the Bill of Rights nonetheless guarantees certain freedoms against their use in government hands. Just as freedom of the press extends to social media platforms, and the Second Amendment extends beyond black powder muskets, so too does the language of the Fourth Amendment and Michigan’s Article I, Section II extend beyond physical papers, possessions, and effects,” the foundation said.

But the courts “have been slow to adopt protections.”

Clandestine surveillance has been done for decades, but it took some 30 years after the widescale adoption of cell phones for the Supreme Court to require a warrant to hunt through such files without the owner’s consent.

GPS data was left unprotected for some 40 years, the letter said.

Mostly, the letter explained, a court weighs the expectation of privacy. But that’s a problem because  standards can change.

The new language would provide protections for consumers’ emails, social media messages and browser search histories unless there was a warrant.

The law, Pacific Legal said, would set the record straight on who “must get a warrant to access the vast troves of electronic data collected by service providers on Americans conducting their everyday lives.”

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Chinese Citizens Will Be Required To Scan Their Faces To Use The Internet

ORIGINAL LINK

By Aaron Kesel

The Chinese government continues its Orwellian practices with the announcement that citizens will have to use facial recognition technology to access the internet (which is already highly fire-walled.)

This is all a part of China’s social credit system that will take effect on Dec. 1st.  After the law is in effect, Chinese citizens who want to have the internet installed at their houses or on their smartphones will be required to undergo a facial recognition process by Chinese authority to prove their identities, according to the new regulation.

This is significant because now the Chinese government will use the internet to rate citizens based on their daily behavior online.

Since 2015, Chinese citizens have been required to show their ID cards while applying for a landline or the internet. This new law is put in place to verify that the ID belongs to the person applying for services.

The new law was published on the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) website and distributed to all Chinese telecom carriers on Sept. 27th, which includes three demands be met, Epoch Times reports.

First, all telecom carriers must use facial recognition to test whether an applicant who applies for internet connection is the owner of the ID that they use since Dec. 1. At the same time, the carriers must test that the ID is genuine and valid.

Second, all telecom carriers must upgrade their service’s terms and conditions and notify all their customers that they are not allowed to transfer or resell their cell phone SIM card to another person by the end of November 2019.

Third, telecom carriers should help their customers to check whether there are cell phone or landline numbers that don’t belong to them but registered under their names since Dec. 1. For unidentified numbers, the telecom carries must investigate and close the lines immediately.

This comes on the heels of another Chinese pilot program which allows citizens to pay for subway/train travel using just their facial biometrics as Activist Post reported. This new system also compensates elderly Chinese in the city of Shenzhen, China, with a free ride — if they pay with their face  — providing incentives for using facial recognition technology.

China is planning to merge its 170+ million security cameras with artificial intelligence and facial recognition technology to create a mega-surveillance state. This compounds with China’s “social credit system” that ranks citizens based on their behavior, and rewards or punishes depending on those scores.

According to the latest report of U.S.-based market research firm IDC, China had spent $10.6 billion on video surveillance equipment in 2018. The firm adds that China’s spending is believed to reach $20.1 billion in 2023. A massive 64.3 percent of China’s spending in 2018 was spent solely for surveillance cameras. A worrying figure for the future of China.

IDC reported on Jan. 30th that it predicted China would have 2.76 billion surveillance cameras installed in 2022.

Already, China’s cities, classrooms and even restrooms are inundated with facial recognition technology. Inside classrooms, facial recognition technology monitors students and reports their actions to the teachers and parents. While to access the basic need of using toilet paper in a public bathroom China requires citizens to scan their face just to wipe their butt.

If that wasn’t bad enough, Chinese scientists have recently developed an artificial intelligence (AI) enabled 500 megapixel cloud camera that’s capable of panoramic capture of an entire stadium with the ability to target a single individual in an instant, Global Times reported.

The upgrade to facial recognition technology is developed by Shanghai-based Fudan University and Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics of Chinese Academy of Sciences in Changchun, capital of Northeast China’s Jilin Province.

Fudan University and Changchun Institute of Optics aren’t the first researchers to advance facial recognition. There is also Shanghai-based YITU Technology which has evolved the facial recognition industry by being able to identify a person within a matter of seconds from a database of people, even if only their partial face is visible, CNBC reported.

The evolution of facial recognition technology is further documented by researchers at the University of Bradford have found that “facial recognition technology works even when only half a face is visible,” according to EurekAlert.

China is quickly becoming Orwell’s worst nightmare, advancing its requirement and use of facial recognition technology. In protests, Hong Kong activists have begun shining laser pointers at facial recognition cameras to disrupt their function. Protesters have also taken additional measures, like spray painting camera lenses on the street or around government offices as Activist Post has reported.

This latest crackdown now requiring internet users in China to register their faces if they want to use the service is a huge step in creating a dystopian society. The remaining obvious question is how long until this type of facial ID requirement spreads to the U.S. and UK? We do know that the U.S. has wanted an “Internet ID Act” for quite some time, according to Amie Stepanovich, national security counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington. The fact that this process could now include facial recognition thanks to China rolling it out first is a horrifying nightmarish thought — welcome to 1984.

Aaron Kesel writes for Activist Post. Support us at Patreon. Follow us on Minds, Steemit, SoMee, BitChute, Facebook and Twitter.

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Friday, October 4, 2019

Survey: Family Health Insurance Now Averages More Than $20,000 A Year

ORIGINAL LINK

Via The Federalist

The average family has spent tens of thousands of dollars in higher health insurance premiums because Obamacare has not met Obama’s pledges.

Survey: Family Health Insurance Now Averages More Than $20,000 A Year

According to a recently released report, extending employer-provided health coverage to the average American family equates to buying that family a moderately-priced car every single year. This provides further proof that Barack Obama “sold” a lemon to the American people in the form of Obamacare.

The inexorable rise in health care costs—a rise that candidate Obama pledged to reverse—shows how Obamacare has failed to deliver on its promise. Yet Democrats want to “solve” the problems Obamacare is making worse through even more government regulations, taxes, and spending. Struggling American families deserve relief from both the failed status quo, and Democrats’ desire to put that failed status quo on steroids.

Study of Employer Plans

Release of the annual survey of employer-provided health insurance revealed that, for the first time, the average premium for family coverage exceeded $20,000 in 2019—$20,576, to be exact. That figure compares to $12,680 in 2008, the year Barack Obama was elected to office. Recall that in that same year, candidate Obama repeatedly promised his health plan would lower the average family’s premium by $2,500 per year:

Obamacare has failed to deliver on that pledge, as premiums continue to rise higher and higher:

Obamacare’s failure to deliver on its promise has cost the American people trillions of dollars; the average family has spent tens of thousands of dollars in higher health insurance premiums because Obamacare has not met candidate Obama’s pledges.

Why has Obamacare failed to deliver? Several reasons stand out. First, its numerous regulatory requirements on insurance companies raised rates, in part by encouraging individuals to consume additional care.

The pre-existing condition provisions represent the prime driver of premium increases in the exchange market, according to a Heritage Foundation paper from last year. However, because employer-sponsored plans largely had to meet these requirements prior to Obamacare, they have less bearing on the increase in employer-sponsored premiums.

Second, Obamacare encouraged consolidation within the health care sector—hospitals buying hospitals, hospitals buying physician practices, physician practices merging, health insurers merging, and so on. While providers claim their mergers will provide better care to patients, they also represent a way for doctors and hospitals to demand higher payments from insurers. Reporting has shown how hospitals’ monopolistic practices drive up prices, raising rates for patients and employers alike.

Same Song, Different Verse

How do Democrats propose to remedy the problem of ever-rising health care costs and premiums? With the same “solutions” that failed to deliver under Obamacare.

More Regulations: On issues like “surprise” billing or drug pricing, Democrats’ favored proposals would impose price controls on some or all segments of the health care industry. These price controls would likely limit the supply of care provided, while also reducing its quality.

More Spending: Most Democratic proposals, whether by presidential candidates, liberal think-tanks, or members of Congress, include major amounts of new spending to make health care “affordable” for the American people—an implicit omission that Obamacare (a.k.a. the “Affordable Care Act”) has not delivered for struggling families.

More Taxes: Even though some don’t wish to admit it, the Democratic candidates for president have all proposed plans that would necessitate major tax increases, from the hundreds of billions to the tens of trillions of dollars—even though at least two of those candidates have failed to pay new taxes imposed by Obamacare itself.

More Government Control: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has famously proposed a single-payer health care plan that would make all private health coverage “unlawful.” And former representative Robert Francis O’Rourke (D-Texas) has endorsed a plan that would literally ban private health care—prohibiting doctors from accepting cash for any medical service covered by a government-run health plan, even if an individual wants to opt-out of the government system.

The latest increase in employer-sponsored health premiums demonstrates that hard-working families deserve better than Obamacare. It also illustrates why the American people deserve better than the new Democratic plans to impose more big government “solutions” in the wake of Obamacare’s failure.



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VIDEO: Nancy Pelosi’s Son Also Board Member of Energy Company, Traveled to Ukraine and Nancy Featured Prominently in Company’s Ad

ORIGINAL LINK

Paul-Pelosi-600x399.jpg

The connections to Ukraine just keep on coming. Just check out what has just been uncovered by Gateway Pundit… Quid-Pro-Joe and his son Hunter are not the only Democrat family members cashing in on their prominent positions. Nancy Pelosi’s son Paul is also on the board of an energy company. Paul Pelosi Jr. also traveled […]

The post VIDEO: Nancy Pelosi’s Son Also Board Member of Energy Company, Traveled to Ukraine and Nancy Featured Prominently in Company’s Ad appeared first on The Most Important News.



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Wednesday, October 2, 2019

The Ukraine Impeachment Fiasco: Both Republicans and Democrats Being Manipulated by the Deep State

ORIGINAL LINK
Global Research, October 01, 2019

The problem with the current imbroglio over Ukraine is that the discussion does not begin where it should. Here is the timeline: the United States decided to make a serious effort to bring about regime change in Ukraine under the Obama Administration after that country’s election on June 2010 returned Viktor Yanukovych, who sought closer ties with Russia rather than Europe, as president. The White House claimed that the election results were fraudulent, even though international observers disagreed, and decided to intervene. The job was given to noted Democratic Party-linked neoconservative Victoria Nuland, who had been appointed Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs in May 2013. One might recall that she and other intense Russophobes like Senator John McCain would appear in Kyiv in late 2013 after the Maidan protests began, handing out cookies and giving advice to dissidents, suggesting that the United States would support a popular uprising. The uprising did indeed come in February 2014, to include still mysterious snipers who shot into a crowd of demonstrators, and Yanukovych was forced to step down.

Nuland immediately stepped into the void. On February 4, 2014, a Russian intercepted recording of a phone call between Nuland and U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, that took place a week earlier was published. In their phone conversation, Nuland and Pyatt considered how they would arrange for their candidate Arseniy Yatsenyuk to become the new prime minister after the government collapse. They discussed specifically what would have to be offered to other candidates to have them step aside and set up a meeting with a number of political leaders to make arrangements. Their conniving was successful and Yatsenyuk became prime minister of Ukraine on February 27, 2014. During the phone discussion, Nuland famously dismissed the European Union as a possible mediator for the Ukrainian government transition saying, “Fuck the EU.”

One might reasonably suggest that U.S. involvement with Ukraine, which amounted to an intervention that makes even the most toxic interpretations of so-called Russiagate pale in insignificance, began under Barack Obama and it was a neocon project. Ukraine, in a dramatic shift, became dependent on support from Washington while also turning its back on Moscow, a development that the Kremlin accurately saw as an existential security threat, leading to the annexation of Crimea and the simmering conflict between Kyiv and Moscow that continues to this day.

Joe Biden just happened to be Vice President while all of this was happening and, from the start, he reportedly took an interest in what was developing in Ukraine. Enter Joe’s son Hunter who somehow in early 2014 became a member of a “high profile international board” to oversee the largest natural gas producer in Ukraine, Burisma Holdings. Hunter received compensation of $50,000 a month, for a total of in excess of $3 million by the time he resigned in April 2019. As Hunter Biden contributed little or nothing but his name to Burisma there was even concern expressed among the Obamas that the whole thing smacked of a conflict of interest at a minimum.

Then the story gets murky. In March 2016 Joe Biden connived at the firing of the country’s top prosecutor Viktor Shokin, who was accused of blocking corruption investigations. President Trump and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, however, claim that the firing was instead motivated by a desire to protect Hunter by stopping any investigation into corruption at Burisma Holdings. There is a testimony that goes both ways, but there have been credible denials that the Vice President’s son was actually being investigated.

In mid-July 2019, Trump froze $391 million in military aid shortly before a July 25th telephone conversation with new Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in which Trump may have suggested to Zelensky that aggressively advancing investigations of corruption in his country would benefit the bilateral relationship. An intelligence community official, possibly CIA, serving in the White House subsequently turned whistleblower and went public with his or her largely hearsay account of the phone call, which led to demands that records of it be turned over to Congress. After a partial summary transcript of the conversation and associated documents were released by the White House, on September 24ththe U.S. House of Representatives initiated a formal impeachment inquiry against Trump over the issue of his possibly having used foreign aid to Ukraine to damage Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign.

First of all, it should be understood that the impeachment will likely be a replay of that of Bill Clinton. The House, where there is a solid Democratic majority, will recommend impeachment, but the Senate, which must vote by a two-thirds majority to actually carry out the expulsion from office, is unlikely to do so because it is controlled by the GOP.  That is, of course, only true as long as there are not fifteen plus Republican Senators willing to vote with the Democrats to get rid of Trump and have Vice President Mike Pence as president, which is unlikely but possible.

Given that the impeachment will likely fail, it is interesting to note other aspects of the story, which are playing out currently. First of all, the drama began with the whistleblower complaint by a staffer from the intelligence community. Intelligence officers seconded to the NSA or White House are normally regarded as spies for their parent organizations with good reason. There are credible independent reports that the U.S. intelligence agencies recently modified their whistleblower procedures to permit complaints based on second hand rather that direct access to alleged illegal behavior. This is significant, as it appears that the White House whistleblower did not have any direct contact with the activity that was the source of the complaint and it further might lead one to believe that we are experiencing yet another Deep State coordinated assault on Donald Trump.

The Republicans are claiming that there was no actual quid pro quo in the phone conversation and that there is nothing actionable as illegal activity in terms of what was discussed. The Democrats claim, on the contrary, that the message regarding Biden was clear even if it was not explicit. Reading the partial text as presented in its clearly edited form, it is possible to support either side depending on one’s inclinations, but it is clear that the Democrats are already overplaying their hand. House Intelligence Committee head Adam Schiff is considering demanding all records on all Trump’s phone calls with foreign heads to state to determine if there was any damage to national security.

The real question will be how the impeachment product is sold and how the public will regard the activity. The emerging narrative will determine how Senators vote and also on the 2020 election. And it has to be noted, of course, that no matter what happens, Joe Biden and son will come out smelling bad, two more entitled wealthy men exploiting public office to become even richer even if they did not actually break any laws.

Students For Trump

✔@TrumpStudents

BREAKING: After Joe Biden claimed that he never discussed his son’s foreign business dealings with him,

A photo surfaced, from 2014, showing the former VP and his son golfing with a board member of the Ukrainian company that paid Hunter Biden $50k a month.

This. Is. Corruption.

View image on Twitter
1,610 people are talking about this

And there are other considerations. Foreign aid is, in fact, frequently used to compel other governments to act in ways that are considered desirable by Washington. So even if Trump suggested something about aid linked to other behavior it would not be unprecedented. What is unprecedented is that the target of the request may have been a senior politician of an opposition party, but Trump could plausibly argue that that is coincidental and that the real target was the pervasive corruption in Ukraine.

And there is also a problem with the whistleblowing itself. Paul Craig Roberts has observed that under the statute allowing intelligence agency whistleblowing, 50 USC sec. 3033, the complaint has to involve “intelligence activity,” which was not the case with the phone call. Also, under the statute the “whistleblowing must concern either a person or activity that is under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence. One cannot use this statute to whistle blow to the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, a subordinate official of the DNI, on anything that the DNI has no authority over….” Not included under DNI authority are the president’s phone calls to foreign heads of state.  So, the intelligence agency whistleblower was not even acting legally.

The involvement of the leadership of the intelligence community in certifying a whistleblower complaint that was not legitimate under its own statutory obligations again suggests a Deep State hand. And, of course, there is a long history of attempts to first vilify candidate Trump and then destroy his presidency from inside after he was elected and inaugurated. One need only cite the names of former Director of Central Intelligence John Brennan, former FBI Director James Comey and former Director of National Intelligence head James Clapper, all of whom conspired against Donald Trump.

Finally, even if we Americans are witnessing a Deep State operation to free itself of Trump, there is certainly plenty of blame to go around for how the president has been handling the issue. One wishes that he would keep his mouth shut and let the facts speak for themselves. Lashing out in the ubiquitous tweets and labeling opponents as “treasonous” or as “spies” while hinting at the death penalty for their sins and raising the specter of civil war in America is not likely to generate much broad-based support for an embattled leader. But this has been Donald Trump’s problem all along and if he persists, he might find that former friends have decided to keep their distance from him, which could very well lead to his downfall.

*

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The original source of this article is American Herald Tribune


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5 Unanswered Questions That Remain 2 Years After The Vegas Shooting

Tuesday, October 1, 2019

The Conspiracies are Broad and Deep

ORIGINAL LINK
By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

 

The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition

– Saul Alinsky, “Rules for Radicals”

 

Accuse your enemy of what you are doing, as you are doing it to create confusion.

– Marxist maxim

 

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.

– George Orwell, “1984”

 

I’m just a normal guy who started a blog three years ago, so I won’t claim to be officially credentialed for political commentary. I’m not a boots-on-the-ground reporter or even a writer, per se, although I was published nationally before my blogging career; just primarily pursuant to business and technical concerns.  Regardless, given our times, I feel I’d be remiss for not sharing my personal observations – even if that is all I have: observations.  Hence, the blog.

In past articles, such as “Breakfast Club: Dining with Friends”, and “The Persistence of Their Delusion is Despicable”, and “The Rants of the Libtards Ring Hollow then Echo”, I’ve written about my conversations with friends who are politically liberal; or, at least, more liberal than I.  This past weekend, another such conversation began during breakfast with a snide remark about the “deep state impeaching Trump”.  Of course, my democratic and Republican in Name Only (RINO) friends don’t believe in the deep state. But they do believe everything written in The New York Times and The Washington Post and that yours truly is an extreme right-wing, tinfoil-hat adorned, conspiracy theorist.

As I passionately decimated their arguments, they kept saying “let me speak…, let me speak” right up to the point a thirty-something young lady dining at an adjacent table with her husband and young children jumped to my defense and yelled at my friends:  “You are the ones who keep interrupting HIM!”

I had to laugh at that, because at that point I was discussing how San Fran Nan (Pelosi) may have inconsolably angered the silent majority with her latest impeachment gambit derived from “Operation Ukraine”. And, this, just as the “Socialist Clown Show” plays nationwide during the Democratic Presidential Primaries.

I said:  “The Democrats have nothing. Absolutely nothing real to offer.”

The RINO kept trying to pin me down on the transcript of Trump’s July 25, 2019 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky with questions like:

“Did Trump, at first, financially hold up what Zelensky desired?”

“Did Trump request a favor from a foreign power that could be used against his U.S. political opponent, Joe Biden?”

“Was an agreement made?”

The main thrust being, according to the RINO, that these violated the U.S. Constitution, which the Democrat at our table claimed Pelosi was trying to protect.

Beyond the risibility of Pelosi’s concern for the Constitution, I refused to accept their premise that Trump was acting solely to benefit his 2020 election chances. He was, instead, I argued, on a mission to discover the origins of the now-debunked Russiagate Operation as well as rooting out the Obama Administration’s corrupt past involvement in Ukrainian affairs.

And this really goes to the heart of the American divide on Operation Ukraine.  For those on the Political Left, who view Trump as a self-seeking traitor, this latest effort is merely the continuation of Operation Russiagate.  For Trump supporters, however, the transcript of Trump’s phone call revealed a seemingly earnest effort to fulfill his 2016 campaign promises of draining the swamp and making America great again.

The American rift is, indeed, very real and the breach is growing wider.  In fact, it now appears to be a matter of survival for those on both sides of the political aisle and Trump’s mere single mention of the word “CrowdStrike” to the Ukrainian President is akin to the first shot being fired at Fort Sumter during the beginning of America’s first civil war.  For those unaware, CrowdStrike is the cybersecurity firm located dead center within the U.S. Intelligence Agencies’ Russiagate Operation which has maliciously undermined Donald Trump’s presidency for the last three years. The phony Russian “golden shower” dossier and unsubstantiated reports from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) contractor, CrowdStrike, represent what one might call razor thin or hanging by a thread “proof” of Russia’s alleged hacking of the U.S. 2016 Presidential Election.

Yet, exactly like Russiagate, the psychological defense mechanisms of Projection and Displacement are being utilized in this latest initiative, with the whistleblower in Operation Ukraine being the new “dirty dossier” of Operation Russiagate’s former glory days.

Furthermore, there is no doubt  that Operation Ukraine’s Whistleblower’s Complaint was quite carefully crafted with the vague legal objective of forcing Attorney William Barr to recuse himself from any ongoing investigations; or perhaps only from those inquiries regarding the involvement of U.S. intelligence officials colluding with foreign nations toward the goal of overturning a U.S. Presidential Election.  Or, it could be said that Operation Ukraine, at the very least, is meant to simultaneously defang Attorney General Barr both legally and in the eyes of the American public prior to any forthcoming Russiagate disclosures by Inspector General Michael Horowitz and U.S. Attorney John Durham.

In any event, like Russiagate’s dirty dossier, the carefully constructed CIA Whistleblower’s Complaint within Operation Ukraine is evidence of collusion and, in fact, meets the threshold for the text-book definition of “conspiracy”.

Still, most Americans remain fooled.

At a get together in a church on Sunday, I listened to an elderly gentleman and “youngish” female boomer lament the “toxicity” in Washington D.C.  Although no specific names were mentioned, it seemed to me they both blamed Trump – the woman in particular because she commented on how “diversity was a good thing” because, after all, her son-in-law worked at a plant that employed many people from India.  Nice people.  Good people.

Of course, so many Americans, including my breakfast friends, believe unity is obtained through diversity. Yet, at the same time, they eschew ideological diversity in favor of psychological conformity; even taken to the extremes whereupon melanin and genitalia supercede disparate thoughts and perspectives. Just as many people today seek salvation through their tiny houses and smart cars, the Unity via Diversity crowd are self-justified by their virtue signaling. It really is like a religion. But a new religion that makes national borders immoral, parochial, and out of style.

And this is why Trump is considered to be a selfish pig by those who currently desire a new president.  Trump is a divider; a xenophobic racist. He builds walls instead of bridges.

Indeed, this last weekend was a reminder regarding the logic of the mob, as well as the difference between propaganda and conspiracy.  Most people don’t want to believe in conspiracy. Or, dare I say: “critical thinking”.  It’s just another reason why the intelligence of the American Body Politic should never be overestimated.

For many years now, Joe Biden’s maleficence in Ukraine has been known by anyone with a computer, an internet connection, and a modicum of curiosity; including, yours truly, a genuine nobody who wrote about it near 2.5 years ago in a piece entitled “Dogs of War: Fight to the Death”.  That article was posted just hours before the nation of Syria was bombed by Trump for the first time and my main point, now, is this:  If I (and others) knew about these events so many years ago, then that should remove any doubt in anyone’s mind as to the continuing complicity of the Orwellian Media in these odious international affairs (then and now):

In November of 2013 when, Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych abandoned an agreement on closer trade ties with the European Union and, instead, sought closer co-operation with Russia, it began a series of events which then transitioned into the natural gas wars of 2014, and the Ukrainian coup in February, 2014 during the winter Olympics of that year.

This all, in turn, caused Russia to make the decision to annex Crimea in March 2014. Then, Russia signed a $400 billion “Holy Grail” gas deal with China in May and this gave the Petrodollar a nice kick in the nuts.

In June of that year, Ukraine, at the behest of the Western globalists, refused to pay its gas bill to Moscow’s Gazprom, so Russia cut off their gas. Soon after that MH17 was shot out of the sky and Joe Biden’s son’s company began preparing to drill for shale gas in eastern Ukraine.

The “memory hole” in George Orwell’s 1984 was a chute connected to an incinerator and served as the mechanism by which the Ministry of Truth would abolish historical archives.  With Operation Ukraine, today’s Ministry of Truth needed to accomplish two primary goals:  First, to magnify Trump’s guilt while, secondly, whitewashing former Vice President Joe Biden (and son’s) previous “involvement” in Ukraine.

And this is exactly what has happened.  Trump has, once again, been slandered as guilty by the Orwellian Media just as Biden & Son were concurrently vindicated via articles such as these:

 

The gas tycoon and the vice president’s son: The story of Hunter Biden’s foray into Ukraine

 

‘Enough’: Trump’s ex-homeland security adviser ‘disturbed,’ ‘frustrated’ by Ukraine allegations, says president must let 2016 go

 

Former Ukraine prosecutor says he saw no evidence of wrongdoing by Biden

 

All of these headlines emerge on hundreds of millions of cell phones and devices, as the spin machines ceaselessly cycle.  At the time of this writing, stories are being generated about how Adam Schiff (D-CA), the ranking member of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee, plans to hold President Trump “accountable”:

“The president used that opportunity to try to coerce that leader to manufacture dirt on his opponent and interfere in our election,” Schiff told ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos, referring to Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy. “I can’t imagine a series of facts more damning than that.”

But, paradoxically, in 2018, Schiff was caught red-handed colluding with a foreign-power in order to undermine the President of the United States. The fact the congressman was pranked by Russian comedians is beside the point.  Schiff clearly cooperated with whom he perceived as foreign assets.  Why is this not considered relevant by the Orwellian Media? Obviously, some questions answer themselves.

Orwell’s memory-hole works overtime in America today, as propaganda reigns. These are, in fact, a double-whammy.  A one-two punch.

And most people don’t stand a chance.

Even if desktop reporters and internet sleuths wanted to discover the truth today, they would find it quite difficult. One reason, in the example of Operation Ukraine, is because search engines answering queries for “Biden’s Son” or “Hunter Biden” favor the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, which states the following about the gas company, “Bursima Holdings”, that previously employed Hunter Biden:

There is no evidence that Hunter Biden was ever under investigation by the government of Ukraine, or that Vice President Biden sought the removal of [prosecutor Viktor] Shokin to protect Hunter Biden or Burisma Holdings.

Now, if you research the online link-attribution listed at the end of that Wikipedia statement, you will see articles sourced to a think-tank identified as The Annenberg Public Policy Center as well as other Orwellian Media outlets.   The Annenberg Public Policy Center is subsidized by the University of Pennsylvania, and the Annenberg Foundation, with an office in Washington DC – and describes FactCheck.org as one of its “most notable initiatives”.

Fair and balanced? Probably not.

Furthermore, it is interesting that on Wikipedia’s “Hunter Biden/Bursima Holdings” section, the online encyclopedia very conveniently posts a “more information” link to their “Trump–Ukraine controversy” page – which has been growing every day, even now to the point of addressing various “conspiracy theories”.  These conspiracies include speculations regarding the leftist mogul George Soros, the CIA “whistleblower”, and the DNC cyber-security contractor Crowdstrike.  Accordingly, it appears very determined digital fingers are pointed at Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani as well as “right-wing discussion forums on the Internet” engaging in “disorganized speculation, racism and misogyny”; all the while very cautiously minimizing the Ukrainian shenanigans of the Biden boys.  Of course, the page is rife with many additional citations from The Washington Post and The New York Times as well.

No matter where one stands today in regards to American politics, one thing is very clear:  We are in the midst of a narrative war.

On September 27, 2019 Fox News host Tucker Carlson discussed Operation Ukraine in a direct way.  But if one searches Google or YouTube, it appears they have scrubbed it from their internet pages.  Here is the episode linked on another site, but if you search “Tucker Carlson tonight 9/27/19” you will see many disconnected clips all shortened to between 1 to 42 seconds; even if Tucker’s 9/27/18 full show (on the Kavanaugh affair!), past episodes, and tonight’s episode, all remain available on YouTube in their entirety.

It is possible the entire Operation Ukraine, also known as Russiagate Part Deux, could be the result of panic on behalf of The Establishment?  Could this be because Team Trump is about to go on offense?  Is Trump playing for real this time? Or, will the president just tweet away while the nation burns?

Projection and hypocrisy are, indeed, the standard modi operandi of both deep state operatives and wild-eyed collectivists. But one wonders how much of the silent majority actually understands what is happening now. Some recent polls showing Trump hovering around 50% could be indicating sympathy for the ever-harassed president among the great unwashed; even as CNBC has reported support for Trump’s impeachment inquiry rising.

And now it appears the stakes are higher than ever before as recent revelations seemingly illustrate Team Trump’s diligence in discrediting Operation Russiagate and the bogus investigation of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

One also wonders if these new Operation Ukraine allegations against Trump could be just another scene from the ongoing, never-ending, reality TV series that has, once again, been taken off “pause”.

Regardless, the plot thickens as things are just beginning to really heat up.

In January 2019, Nancy Pelosi’s strategic new rules for the 116th Congress  created “her own mini DOJ inside the legislative branch” in order to ease congressional impeachment efforts against President Trump.  But also interesting, was how fast Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell fast-tracked Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s resolution to hand the CIA Whistleblower’s complaint to congressional intelligence committees:

One of the most pressing questions of the hectic Tuesday involved why Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell chose to counter his block-everything legacy and fast-track the resolution. (McConnell chose to “hotline” the motion, meaning he bypassed normal Senate procedures to move Schumer’s request to a vote without floor debate.)

It has also been reported that the U.S. Intelligence community “eliminated a requirement that whistleblowers must provide first-hand knowledge of alleged wrongdoings” just weeks after Trump’s July 25, 2019 “Crowdstrike” phone call to the Ukrainian President.  Although, Wikipedia, and The Washington Post, and the Office of the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community has since labeled the alleged form change as a fake news conspiracy theory. This is because Operation Ukraine’s CIA Whistleblower used a “new form” utilized since May 24, 2018 that did “not require whistleblowers to possess first-hand information in order to file a complaint or information with respect to an urgent concern” and that the CIA Whistleblower also claimed to possess “both  first-hand  and  other  information”.

Seems legit, right?

Nevertheless, is it possible Operation Ukraine is a trap? Obviously, but for whom?  Because if impeachment efforts fail, then the optics will be very bad for the Deep State and the Democrats – which could, very likely, result in Trump winning the 2020 Presidential Election.

Or it could all just be another Red vs. Blue cage fight as the exit doors are locked before the arena burns.

Stay frosty.



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Top climate scientist breaks ranks with 'consensus'

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An MIT-trained scientist who has specialized for nearly 25 years in abnormal weather and climate change has published a book explaining why he believes the data underpinning global-warming science are unreliable.

Mototaka Nakamura

Mototaka Nakamura, who earned a doctorate of science from MIT, has conducted his work at prestigious institutions such as MIT, Georgia Institute of Technology, NASA, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology and Duke University, reports the website Electroverse.

In his book “The Global Warming Hypothesis is an Unproven Hypothesis,” Nakamura explains why global mean temperatures before 1980 are based on “untrustworthy data.”

“Before full planet surface observation by satellite began in 1980, only a small part of the Earth had been observed for temperatures with only a certain amount of accuracy and frequency,” he says. “Across the globe, only North America and Western Europe have trustworthy temperature data dating back to the 19th century.”

Last week, a group of 500 scientists and professionals in climate science wrote a letter to the United Nations contending there is no climate crisis and that spending trillions on the issue is “cruel and imprudent.”

They got right to the point in their letter, leading with, “There is no climate emergency.”

They attached their European Climate Declaration, which, according to the letter, argues that “general-circulation models of climate on which international policy is at present founded are unfit for their purpose.”

“Therefore, it is cruel as well as imprudent to advocate the squandering of trillions on the basis of results from such immature models,” the scientists wrote. “Current climate policies pointlessly, grievously undermine the economic system, putting lives at risk in countries denied access to affordable, continuous electrical power.”

They urge the U.N. to “follow a climate policy based on sound science, realistic economics and genuine concern for those harmed by costly but unnecessary attempts at mitigation.”

Testing ‘regarded as heresy’

Electroverse noted that today’s “global warming science” is built on the work of a few climate modelers who claim to have demonstrated that human-derived CO2 emissions are the cause of recently rising temperatures “and have then simply projected that warming forward.”

“Every climate researcher thereafter has taken the results of these original models as a given, and we’re even at the stage now where merely testing their validity is regarded as heresy.”

Richard Lindzen, an emeritus professor of atmospheric sciences at MIT who has published more than 200 scientific papers, says in a video produced by PragerU “it seems that the less the climate changes, the louder the voices of the climate alarmists get.”

He pointed out that the United Nations International Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, admitted in its 2007 paper that the “long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.”

The truth is, the professor said, that climate-change scientists and “skeptics” in the scientific community agree that the climate is always changing and that over the past two centuries, the global mean temperature has increased slightly and erratically by about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit.

So, why are so many people panic-stricken, including some who are warning the world has only 12 years left to save itself?

He points to politicians, activists and media.

“Global warming provides them, more than any other issue, with the things they most want,” he said.

For politicians, it’s power and money. For activists, it’s money for their organizations and “confirmation of their near-religious devotion to the idea that man is a destructive force acting upon nature.”

For the media, Lindzen says, it’s ideology, money and headlines.

“Doomsday scenarios sell.”

See the PragerU video:

wnd-donation-graphic-2-2019

The post Top climate scientist breaks ranks with 'consensus' appeared first on WND.



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Monday, September 30, 2019

General McInerney: The Deep State Unraveling

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US Air Force General Tom McInerney joins Dr Dave Janda to discuss the latest impeachment hijinks. He asks, “Why are they doing all these bizarre things that we’ve never seen in the history of this great nation, Dave?

“They are doing it for one reason: they have got to cover up the most corrupt administration in the history of the United States, the Obama Administration…

“They also had to cover up Uranium One, they had to cover up the IRS scandal, they had to cover up Fast and Furious with the Department of Justice and Holder – so, there are a whole host of things that they are trying to cover up…

“The same team that created the Russian hoax is the same team that is creating the Ukraine hoax. The “whistleblower” is not a whistleblower. He’s a treasonous leaker and he is in cohorts with the group of people from WhistleblowerAid.org…

“His attorney worked for Hillary Clinton and Schumer before, so he’s a dyed-in-the-wool, in-party, Democratic hack who is advising this whistleblower and from very responsible sources, it is evident that the whistleblower complaint was written by a legal firm; lawyers, probably WhistleblowerAid.org and sent in…

“I think I’ve got to agree with Stephen Miller and you, that Trump is the real whistleblower. He is blowing wide open the Joe Biden-Hunter Biden corruptness that they did against the Ukraine government, as well as the Chinese, $1.5 billion dollars from China, fifty grand a month to be it on a board – are you kidding me? And he knows nothing about energy. Look, I’ve been on seven boards. I know what the pay goes and it’s nothing like that. So, it was very corrupt and the American people must know it…”

The two note that the US has a treaty with the Ukraine on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters. This treaty went into effect in 1999 under Bill Clinton, to investigate such matters as Biden’s corruption and how the 30,000 emails that Hillary Clinton deleted after these were subpoenaed by the FBI are saved on the CrowdStrike server, which is located in Ukraine.

Nancy Pelosi and the Deep State want to impeach Donald Trump for enforcing this treaty, without even looking at any evidence against him.

Adam Schiff has had access to the “Whistleblower Report” since early August. As Gen. McInerney says, “John Brennan selected the lawyer that wrote this; he’s intimately involved with it. Why? Because he doesn’t want the Durham Report ever get out; that shows what he did to corrupt the IC and the CIA and he left a lot of moles in there…

“The Deep State team is the team that created the Russian hoax is now creating the Ukraine hoax. They created and were involved, deeply with the Uranium One sale, they were involved with the guns-for-hire – all these areas of corruptness came out through these same people that were in there…

“It’s all the Democratic Party, which is so corrupt. And it’s obvious now, that they have the House and what those chairmen are doing is all corrupt. They’re not doing anything for the American people. This is consuming all their energies and it’s not helping on healthcare, not helping on infrastructure, it’s not helping on the Mexican Canada-US Treaty. None of this is it helping anyone, because they are trying to cover up their corruptness.”

Dr Janda agrees but points out that there’s plenty of corruption on the Republican side. He asks, “Why don’t we have the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Lindsey Graham calling for Hunter Biden and Joe Biden to testify in front of the Senate Committee?…Everybody’s pointing at the House…where are the players in the Senate holding similar hearings? Pulling people that are actually involved in this quid pro quo issue with a foreign government such as Biden, Obama, Hunter Biden? Where are they, Tom?”

“Great question, Dave. Where is the Senate Intel Committee? Where are they right now? Why are they looking into this matter? Why is Lindsey Graham not doing it? He’s speaking out forcefully but what is his committee doing?

“They need to be getting Joe Biden and Hunter Biden up there and ask Hunter Biden, ‘Why did you get $1.5 billion from China and $50,000 a month as a board rep?’ Go around and look at all the board members and see what board members get fifty grand a month for being on the board.”

Dr Janda points out, “These guys have information to take down this whole Ukrainian Hoax thing, the impeachment reason du jour and it’s not happening. Why? I’ll tell you why. I think and it all goes back to The Hammer and the leverage the Deep State has on these guys through illegal surveillance.”

Alexandra Bruce

Contributed by Alexandra Bruce

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'Retail Apocalypse' Continues: Forever 21 Files For Bankruptcy, 30,000 Jobs At Risk

'Retail Apocalypse' Continues: Forever 21 Files For Bankruptcy, 30,000 Jobs At Risk 

9/11 Truth: World Trade Center Building Seven Was A ‘Controlled Implosion’. CNBC Anchor Ron Insana

https://www.globalresearch.ca/911-truth-world-trade-center-building-seven-was-a-controlled-implosion-cnbc-anchor-ron-insana/5690245

Oops! Nature magazine yanks global-warming study for 'systematic errors'

https://www.wnd.com/2019/09/oops-nature-magazine-yanks-global-warming-study-systematic-errors/

Sleepers Present Problems

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Rumor has it that Trump wants to be impeached and is more than happy to let the House pass articles of impeachment to take to the Senate for trial.

During the trial, the President’s attorneys would for the first time have the right to subpoena and question anyone they wanted, unlike with the Special Counsel investigation, which was one-sided.

Trump’s lawyers would determine what testimony is allowed, including: DNC collusion with the Clinton campaign to fix the election in favor of Hillary Clinton, the creation of the fake Trump dossier, the cover-up and destruction of emails that included incriminating information.

During the impeachment trial, our favorite coup-plotters would testify. A lot of dirt would be dug up. They would incriminate each other for lying to the FISA Court, for spying on the Trump campaign and for colluding with foreign political actors, including China, Qatar and George Soros.

The Senate will not convict the President, particularly because he committed no crime.

After the Senate acquits the President, there will be an election and Trump will win. It will be a backlash against Democrat hypocrisy and dishonesty. Many more Liberals will #WalkAway, many more Blacks will #Blexit, many more Latinos will #Lexit.

Nancy Pelosi probably knows this and will probably try to stop it from happening. Enjoy the show!

Alexandra Bruce

Contributed by Alexandra Bruce

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