That '70s Show star Danny Masterson appears in court to be arraigned on rape charges - as outspoken Scientology critic Leah Remini shows up to support his alleged victims

That '70s Show star Danny Masterson has appeared in Los Angeles Supreme Court to be arraigned on rape charges.

Masterson, a Scientologist, appeared in a blue suit and gray mask in the courtroom Friday where he stands accused of raping three women in separate incidents between 2001 and 2003.

The 44-year-old was arrested back in mid-June has been free on $3.3 million bail since. Masterson could face up to 45 years to life in state prison if convicted as charged.

Also at the arraignment was outspoken Scientology critic Leah Remini, who previously called Masterson's arrest 'just the beginning' of the Church of Scientology's demise.

Remini is one of the most outspoken critics of Scientology after leaving the religion and exposing the inner workings with a reality television show Scientology and the Aftermath.

It's unknown what Remini's part is in the case, but she is lending her support to accuser Chrissie Carnell Bixler, who previously dated Masterson.

Leah Remini and Danny Masterson in 2009. She has long spoken out against Scientology

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Leah Remini and Danny Masterson in 2009. She has long spoken out against Scientology

Remini is perhaps being brought in as a former Scientologist to speak on Masterson's character at the time of her affiliation with the church.

Masterson's lawyer filed a demurrer on the arraignment delaying it to October 19.

His alleged victims were awarded a protective order and Masterson was ordered to turn in his firearms.

It took about three hours for the arraignment to get going, as Masterson arrived with an entourage of about 20 people, according to LA Times reporter James Queally.

Masterson's attorney, Tom Mesereau, accused former LAPD Chief Charlie Beck and Distric Attorney Jackie Lacey of caving to pressure from victims in filing the charges and said they are purely political.

Masterson stands accused of raping a 23-year-old woman between January and December 2001, according to the complaint.

He is also accused of raping a 28-year-old woman in April 2003 and sometime between October and December of that year of raping a woman, 23, who officials say he had invited to his Hollywood Hills home.

Last year four women filed a lawsuit against Masterson in California claiming the actor drugged, raped and sexually assaulted them in the early 2000s.

The lawsuit also names the Church of Scientology and its leader David Miscavige as defendants, claiming the women were stalked in a 'conspiracy to cover up that Daniel Masterson sexually assaulted four young women'.

Two of the women named in the suit were Masterson's ex-girlfriends - Chrissie Bixler and Bobette Riales - while the other two are listed as Jane Does.

The lawsuit states: 'When those women came forward to report Masterson's crimes the Defendants conspired to and systematically stalked, harassed, invaded their and their family's privacy, and intentionally caused them emotional distress and silence and intimidate them.'

Masterson called the lawsuit against him and the Church of Scientology a 'shameful money grab'.

In statement to DailyMail.com, the Church of Scientology called the lawsuit 'baseless' and the claims 'ludicrous and a sham'.

'It's a dishonest and hallucinatory publicity stunt. Leah Remini is taking advantage of these people as pawns in her moneymaking scam.'

http://www.madnesshub.com/2020/09/that-70s-show-star-danny-masterson.html

Incredible life of the woman who became the Notorious RBG: How Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Brooklyn-born daughter of Russian Jewish migrants became a trailblazer, the second woman to serve as Supreme Court Justice and a feminist pop culture icon

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the second woman to serve as a Supreme Court Justice, a legal pioneer who broke barriers for women in law, a feminist icon to many, and the recent pop culture phenomenon known as the 'Notorious RBG' has died.

She passed away from complications of pancreatic cancer at the age of 87.

She served for 27 years on the highest court of the land and was the second woman to be appointed to the Supreme Court.

The collar-wearing octogenarian captured the public's imagination – especially for those on the left who offered everything from kale to protective bubbles to later on wearing masks on social media to safeguard her continued tenure on the highest court in the land. The list of things that Ginsburg inspired is long: two films, memes that range from the ribald to inspirational, mountains of memorabilia from t-shirts to totes, cocktails, a book on her workout, and even tattoos.

But beyond the persona of the 'Notorious RBG' and her groundbreaking law career, Ginsburg was a mother of two, had two grandchildren, and was married to her husband Martin D. Ginsburg for 56 years until his death in 2010. She blazed a path for women in the legal profession, and at five-foot-one had become a towering figure in Washington, D.C.

Ginsburg battled several bouts of cancer after being first diagnosed in 2009.

Born on March 15, 1933 in Brooklyn, Joan Ruth Bader was the second daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants, Celia and Nathan Bader. Her older sister, who would later die at aged six from meningitis, nicknamed her 'Kiki' for apparently being 'a kicky baby.' Her mother, Celia, a garment factory worker, would encourage Ruth – she went by her middle name to distinguish herself from the other Joans in her Brooklyn class – to attain a higher level of education than she did.

'My mother told me two things constantly. One was to be a lady, and the other was to be independent. The study of law was unusual for women of my generation. For most girls growing up in the '40s, the most important degree was not your BA, but your MRS,' she recalled to the ACLU, referring to the idea that women went to college to land a man, get married and become a missus - not to get a bachelor's degree.

Her mother died from cancer right before Ginsburg graduated from high school.

In 1950, Ginsburg started attending Cornell University where she would meet her husband, Martin D. Ginsburg, during a literature class taught by famous novelist Vladimir Nabokov, according to the biography called 'Ruth Bader Ginsburg: A Life' by Jane Sherron De Hart.

Martin was able to answer Nabokov's quiz question about Charles Dickens, and Ginsburg was smitten, later saying that Martin was the 'the only young man I dated who cared that I had a brain.'

'Meeting Marty was by far the most fortunate thing that ever happened to me,' Ginsburg said in one of the films about her, the documentary 'RBG.' 'Marty was a man blessed with a wonderful sense of humor. I tend to be rather sober.'

http://www.stationgossip.com/2020/09/incredible-life-of-woman-who-became.html

Disloyal Elements in Trump Administration Plan to Sneak Birthright Citizenship Activist onto Supreme Court

One source in the White House Counsel’s office and one source close to the Counsel’s office have told Revolver that various open borders agents have been promoting Federal Judge James C. Ho for the Supreme Court short list. What is disturbing about this development is that Judge Ho has an extensive public record as an activist on behalf of Birthright Citizenship, the current practice whereby any child born on American soil is automatically considered a US Citizen, even if both parents are here illegally.

Here is a representative passage from Judge Ho’s defense of Birthright Citizenship and anchor-baby policy titled “Defining ‘American.'”

These proposals raise serious constitutional questions, however. Birthright citizenship is guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. That birthright is protected no less for children of undocumented persons than for descendants of Mayflower passengers. [Gibson Dunn – PDF]

Here Judge Ho responds to many arguments questioning whether the anchor baby policy truly is mandated by the Constitution:

Of course, the interpretation of the Constitution proposed by Judge Ho is by no means a consensus position. Common sense might even cause us to doubt that the Framers of the 14th Amendment had in mind a principle that could be used to justify the outrageous abuse of American sovereignty that is our present Birthright Citizenship policy. Claremont Institute constitutional scholar John Eastman is just one of several jurists who have called the birthright citizenship practice into serious question:

In a nation such as the United States, which is rooted in the idea that governments are formed based on the consent of the governed, the notion that foreign nationals can unilaterally confer citizenship on their children as the result of illegal entry to the United States (and therefore entirely without our consent) is a bit bizarre.

It rewards lawlessness, undermining the rule of law. It deprives Congress of its constitutional authority to determine naturalization power.

And it essentially destroys the notion of sovereignty itself, since a “people” are not able to define what constitutes them as a “people” entitled, as the Declaration of Independence asserts, to “the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them.”

That the 14th Amendment settled the question without ever explicitly addressing it is even more bizarre.

The actual language of the 14th Amendment actually contains two requirements for automatic citizenship, not just one. “All persons born or naturalized in the United States” — that’s the birth-on-US- soil part — “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” It is that second requirement, “subject to the jurisdiction,” that is the source of much confusion today, because to our modern ear, that just means subject to our laws.

That is one meaning, of course, but not the only one, and not the one that the drafters of the 14th Amendment had in mind. For them, being merely subject to our laws meant that one was subject to our “partial” or “territorial” jurisdiction. It was a jurisdiction applicable to “temporary sojourners” — what we today call temporary visitors. It was not the kind of jurisdiction that was codified in the 14th Amendment. For that, a more complete, allegiance-owing jurisdiction was required. [NY Post]

Many serious constitutional scholars oppose birthright citizenship on constitutional grounds. President Trump himself agrees with this position—in fact, long ago, he even pledged to sign an Executive Order to repeal birthright citizenship.

https://youtu.be/wZGzbVrvoy4

https://www.revolver.news/2020/09/judge-ho-birthright-citizenship-activist-supreme-court/

The US Is Deploying More Troops to Syria

Increase in troop presence comes after US confrontations with Russian and Syrian forces

The US is sending additional forces into Syria after a series of incidents between US and Russian troops in the country, according to three unnamed Pentagon officials speaking to NBC News. The force will consist of six Bradley Fighting Vehicles and fewer than 100 soldiers, who will be operating in northeast Syria on a 90-day deployment.

The US-led anti-ISIS coalition Operation Inherent Resolve said that the Bradley Fighting Vehicles arrived in eastern Syria on Friday.

The unnamed officials told NBC that the additional soldiers and vehicles will serve as a “show of presence” to discourage Russia from entering the eastern security zone where US forces and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces operate.

US troops have had multiple encounters with the Syrian government and Russia inside Syria throughout the year. Some of the more serious confrontations occurred last month.

One incident took place on August 17th at a Syrian army checkpoint and resulted in US attack helicopters firing on the position, killing at least one Syrian soldier. A few days after the checkpoint incident, US and Russian military vehicles collided, injuring at least seven US soldiers.

US commanders blame the encounters on Moscow and Damascus, but while the US maintains its presence in the country against the will of the Syrian government, confrontations are bound to happen. These additional forces will only make similar incidents more likely.

https://news.antiwar.com/2020/09/18/us-deploying-more-troops-to-syria/

Pentagon’s Top Spy Agency Turns To AI for Targeting and Operations Planning

Reminiscent of the 1983 sci-fi classic WarGames, the DIA’s new MARS program aims to create a system that uses AI to scour volumes of foreign intelligence and make decisions on how to act on it.

The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is getting ready for the “next battlefield” and counting on the expertise of private concerns, like Booz Allen Hamilton, to implement what it calls Machine-assisted Analytic Rapid-repository System, or MARS for short. MARS is a critical data management system for “military targeting” and operation planning.

MARS is currently the DIA’s top priority, and according to DIA director Lt. Gen. Robert P. Ashley Jr., the aim is to replicate “the commercial Internet that everybody uses every day,” with the added functionality of providing a “foundational intelligence picture […] at speed and at scale.”

Terry Busch, chief of DIA’s integrated analysis and methodologies division, highlights the difference between the MARS program he manages and the old “stovepipe” data management technologies it is meant to replace: “What comes out of MARS at the end is not data, it’s analysis. It’s finished intelligence.”

Which kind of intelligence, specifically, will be assessed dynamically by the machine’s algorithms in a new kind of database management system using AI functionality. It will revolutionize the way data is received and acted-upon. As it scours and collects vast datasets and volumes of foreign intelligence that support U.S. military operations around the world, MARS will be equipped to handle both large amounts of data, like the storage-intensive images and videos collected by the National Reconnaissance Office and also analyze the information to produce actionable leads in the battlefield.

It is nothing less than the 1983 sci-fi classic “WarGames” come to life. A ‘machine’ that decides when to go to war based on the information it is fed. In the movie, a military drill of a surprise nuclear attack on the United States accidentally goes live after a hacker, played by Matthew Broderick, “unwittingly” puts the world on the brink of nuclear war.

MARS program manager Terry Busch doesn’t discount the possibility. “On the machine side,” Busch stated, “we have experienced confirmation bias in big data,” adding that it was a “real concern” given that they’ve had “the machine retrain itself to error”.

COVID-19, however, has given the top military intelligence department the opportunity to “prove [its] ability to deliver the capabilities of MARS”, as DIA chief of Staff, John Sawyer, said at a National Security Summit that concluded Friday. The “assumptions about the nature of our work,” he claims were challenged during the pandemic, were especially fruitful in regards to the MARS program, which can now benefit from a new modality of military intelligence propagation that will be “the future of how we are going to understand fighting”.

Privatizing war

The massive scope of the DIA’s database retooling can be glimpsed by the size of the multiple-award contract it announced in August of last year, totaling over $17 Billion in contracts to 16 different companies, from large and established military contractors to startups. The largest “individual task orders” went to companies like Booz Allen Hamilton, the long-time private military intelligence-gathering operation that once employed Edward Snowden, and the far less known – but far more significant – Harold Thomas Martin III, who pled guilty in 2019 of stealing classified material pertaining to NSA “source code to break into computer systems of adversaries like Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.”

https://www.mintpressnews.com/mars-dia-artificial-intelligence-targeting/271352/

AG Barr digs in on law & order. SEDITION for violent protestors

For those who have been hearing mysterious “bangs” and “booms,” no worries, that is just the sounds of tens of thousands liberal heads exploding, as Attorney General William Barr drops truth bomb after truth bomb and Democrats, liberals, and the media ( all the same at this point), just can’t deal.

From telling prosecutors that violent rioters can be charged with “sedition,” to taking aim at some in the DOJ, to calling the lockdowns by governors across the nation, “The greatest intrusion of civil liberties” in history aside from slavery, while taking on the Black Lives Matter movement, stating “They’re not interested in black lives,” Barr has been on a truth bombing run.

On September 11, 2020, Townhall was able to get an exclusive interview with AG Barr, where he let loose some hard truths about the MSM, using the example of their coverage of the violent riots that have been seen over the last few months, in liberal cities like NYC, Portland, Minneapolis and Lancaster.

https://theduran.com/ag-barr-digs-in-on-law-order-sedition-for-violent-protestors-2/

CA Dem Abstains from Voting on Controversial Bills Amid Congressional Run

Christy Smith declined to vote on bill easing punishment for statutory rape, among others

California state legislator Christy Smith (D.) has made a habit of abstaining from controversial votes as she campaigns to unseat GOP congressman Mike Garcia.

The Democrat on August 31 refused to vote on Senate Bill 145 (SB145), which eases criminal penalties for adults who have sexual relations with minors. When confronted over the abstention by a constituent on Facebook, Smith claimed that "in the CA Legislature ‘not voting' counts as a no." California legislative records show Smith was not counted as voting "no" and was instead marked as "no vote recorded."

Smith also abstained from voting on an August 24 amendment that would have repealed Assembly Bill 5 (AB5), a 2019 labor law that experts say impedes the state's economy by limiting employers' ability to classify workers as independent contractors. Roughly two months prior, the Democrat abstained from voting on Assembly Bill 2501 (AB2501), which aims to provide mortgage and rent relief during coronavirus.

State records show that Smith was present during all three legislative sessions in question and voted on dozens of other pieces of legislation, including a "menstrual equality" bill that requires companies to disclose ingredients found in tampons, pads, and other period products. While that legislation passed the state assembly unanimously on June 15, the bills Smith refused to take a position on likely would have opened her up to criticism amid her race against Garcia.

SB145 allows judges to decide whether to place someone on the sex offenders' list who engages in anal and/or oral sex with a minor within a 10-year age difference. Proponents of the bill argue that it ends discrimination against LGBTQ youth, as such discretion was already granted to those who have vaginal intercourse in the state. The bill was supported by California LGBTQ groups, including Equality California, which praised the bill for treating "all Californians fairly and equally—regardless of who they are, what they look like, or whom they love." Smith has received $20,000 from Equality PAC since December 2019.

Opponents of the bill argue that the legislation aids sexual predators. Democratic assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez railed against the bill during its August 31 floor debate, saying "give me a situation where a 24-year-old had sex with a 14-year-old, any kind of sex, and it wasn't predatory."

https://freebeacon.com/2020-election/ca-dem-abstains-from-voting-on-controversial-bills-amid-congressional-run/

Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Statement About the Situation in Belarus

Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Statement About the Situation in Belarus

1399 Views September 19, 2020 12 Comments

SVR RF Press Bureau – September 16, 2020

(Italics and bolding added for emphasis.)

The Director of the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation, Sergey Naryshkin stated:

“The events in Belarus show clearly visible Western traces. The protest actions from the very beginning carry a well organized character and is coordinated from abroad.

It’s remarkable that the West began preparing the protests long before the elections. In 2019 – early 2020 alone, the United States allocated about $20 million through various NGOs to organize anti-government protests. This money was used to form a network of ‘independent bloggers’ and informational accounts in social networks, to prepare activists for street actions. The most promising of them were trained abroad, in particular in Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine, where they were trained by experienced American instructors in ‘non-violent protest’.

According to information available to the SVR, the United States plays a key role in the current events in Belarus. Although Washington is trying to stay ‘in the shadows’ in the public space, after the start of mass street protests, the Americans have multiplied their funding of Belarusian anti-government forces. Its volumes are estimated in tens of millions of dollars. The United States has taken under close guardianship the former presidential candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya and other opposition activists who are being promoted as ‘people’s leaders’ and future leaders of ‘democratic Belarus’.

In our contacts with European allies, Washington insists on the need to increase pressure on Minsk to induce the legitimate leadership of Belarus to launch a dialogue with the so-called Coordination Council on the ‘transfer of power’. In fact, we are talking about a poorly veiled attempt to organize another ‘color revolution’ and an anti-constitutional coup, the goals and objectives of which have nothing to do with the interests of Belarusian citizens.”

S.N. Ivanov

Head of the SVR Press Bureau

https://thesaker.is/russian-foreign-intelligence-service-svr-statement-about-the-situation-in-belarus/

Another Commander Of Russian-Backed 5th Corps Survived Assassination Attempt In Daraa

On September 18, another commander of the Russian-backed 8th Brigade, a unit of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) 5th Corps dedicated for former rebels, survived an assassination attempt in the eastern Daraa countryside.

Unidentified gunmen reportedly opened fire at the commander, “Yasser Hamed al-Zoubi,” as he was passing on a road linking the towns of al-Jeezah and Elemtaih. The commander survived the gunmen’s attack without sustaining serious wounds.

Al-Zoubi was a fighter in the al-Sunnah Youth Forces, a Free Syrian Army faction, before the 2018 Daraa reconciliation agreement.

According to local sources, al-Zoubi was among the first fighters to join the reconciliation process. Later, he enlisted in the 8th Brigade and became a field commander in the Russian-backed unit.

A day earlier, an attack with an explosive device targeted Ali Ahmed al-Sabah al-Miqdad, Deputy-Commander of the 8th Brigade and Qassem al-Sabah al-Miqdad, a financial director of the unit, in eastern Daraa. The attack failed.

No group has claimed responsibility for the recent attacks on the 8th Brigade commanders, yet. ISIS, however, remains the main suspect. The terrorist group’s cells are active in the eastern Daraa countryside.

https://southfront.org/another-commander-of-russian-backed-5th-corps-survived-assassination-attempt-in-daraa/

Military Situation In Syria On September 19, 2020 (Map Update)

Recent military developments in Syria:

Large explosion targeted SDF checkpoint in the town of Dahlah, east of Deir Ezzor;

SDF military convoy entered the town of Shuhail;

The US military sent new military vehicles, advanced radar to northeastern Syria through the Rabia border crossing;

Two SDF members were killed in an IED explosion near the sugar factory, north of Raqqa;

Large Turkish military convoy entered Greater Idlib through the Kafr Lusin crossing;

SAA artillery shelled Turkish-backed militants’ positions in the villages of Baylun and al-Barah and Kansafra.

https://southfront.org/military-situation-in-syria-on-september-19-2020-map-update/

>>10711087

Your spelling outs youCLOWN

ASSANGE HEARING DAY NINE—US Again Insists Journalists are Not Precluded From Prosecution Under the Espionage Act

US Again Insists Journalists are Not Precluded

From Prosecution Under the Espionage Act

Under resumed cross examination of defense witness Carey Shenkman, a civil rights and constitutional lawyer, the prosecution sought to clearly establish that Section 793 E of the Espionage Act does not preclude a journalist being prosecuted for possession and dissemination of national defense information. In numerous attempts by the prosecutor, Clair Dobbin, to elicit a simple affirmative response to this assertion, Shenkman instead unleashed a barrage of legal cases and scholarly opinion which amounted to “it’s not that simple.” “

“You ask, is there a law precluding prosecution of journalists, but there is a combination of statues and also the U.S. Constitution,” Shenkman said. “The Constitution is the law of the land.” Dobbin then led Shenkman into the deep weeds of three important Espionage Act cases involving the media. Shenkman added several of his own.

Dobbin first tried to get Shenkman to simply agree that dissenting opinion in The New York Times vs U.S. Pentagon Papers case left open the possibility that the Times could be prosecuted after the fact of publication. The Supreme Court decided that the government could not exercise prior restraint, that is, ordering a newspaper not to publish something in advance, as the Nixon Department of Justice had done.

Dissenting opinion in that case held that the Times could be prosecuted after the fact for violating the Espionage Act. Shenkman responded that since that issue was never argued in the prior restraint case that he couldn’t conclude that it meant journalists can be prosecuted post-publication.

Shenkman brought up the related Beacon Press case, and compared it to WikiLeaks. Daniel Ellsberg had leaked the Papers to Senator Mike Gravel, who put them into the Congressional Record by reading hundreds of papers at a committee meeting (Public Buildings and Grounds) and putting the rest into the record.

Gravel was protected by the Speech and Debate clause of the U.S. Constitution, which forbids any member of Congress from being questioned about anything they say in the midst of a legislative act. But Gravel then went to Beacon Press in Boston with the Papers to be published as a four-volume book.

For that he would not be protected and Nixon could have gone after him under the Espionage Act. Instead Nixon sent the FBI to Beacon Press offices and threatened to prosecute. This Shenkman said was an example of how the mere threat of prosecution and the legal cost incurred almost bankrupted Beacon Press was an example of how an actual prosecution was not necessary to cast a chill over the free press.

Shenkman said this in response to a somewhat astonishing assertion by Dobbin that because the government had never actually prosecuted a publisher or journalist (before Assange) it meant the government was exercising restraint on its powers.

Shenkman drew a comparison between Beacon Press and WikiLeaks in response to Dobbin’s equally astonishing statement that the government had only threatened to prosecute large media in the past. He said that like WikiLeaks, Beacon Press wanted to create a library of classified documents.

“Do you understand the nature of the charges against Mr. Assange,” Dobbin asked. “Do you accept they bear no comparison to the examples you give?”

“I don’t agree,” Shenkman said. “In Beacon Press similar allegations were made about the entire set of the Pentagon Papers.”

“That is a frivolous and nonsensical statement in the face of the charges against Mr, Assange.”

https://consortiumnews.com/2020/09/18/assange-hearing-day-nine-el-masris-story-is-told-in-court/

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>>10711130

Robinson Tells Court of Congressman’s

Offer to Julian Assange in 2017

7:24 am EDT: Jennifer Robinson, a member of Assange’s legal team, had a statement read out in court on her behalf in which she recounted a visit by then U.S. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher to Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy in London on Aug. 15, 2017 where Robison was present.

Robinson said in her statement that Rohrabacher claimed to be representing President Donald Trump on a mission in which the president would look favorably on preventing an indictment of Assange in return for the WikiLeaks publisher naming his source for the Democratic National Committee emails.

Rohrabacher. (Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia)

The leaks before the 2016 U.S. presidential election had led to a firestorm of allegations that Russia had provided those documents and that Trump was somehow in league with Russia and WikiLeaks to hurt his Democratic challenger, Hilary Clinton.

Rohrabacher told Assange, according to Robinson’s statement, that Assange could help Trump politically as well as to end the dangerous escalation of Cold War-like tensions between Russia and the United States if he could provide evidence of who the actual leaker of the Democratic emails was. “Rohrabacher proposed a ‘win-win’ situation, Mr. Assange can get ‘get on with his life’ – a pardon in exchange for information about the source,” Robinson’s statement said. “Information from Mr. Assange about the source of the DNC leaks would be of value to Mr. Trump.”

Assange refused, Robinson’s statement said.

James Lewis QC for the prosecution rose after the statement was read to say the U.S. government did not contest that Robinson was telling the truth but that it did not accept that Rohrabacher was.

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Chinese drones swarming Australian skies raises security concerns

From the beach you can hear the buzz. It’s the middle of summer and a drone is hovering over the water in Byron Bay. There’s a shark in the water being tracked remotely by four blades spinning furiously around a hovering camera.

In Paris, the small unmanned helicopters are monitoring the rebuild of the Notre Dame cathedral. In Melbourne, they are making sure people are staying at home during the coronavirus lockdown, while delivering COVID-19 medical supplies to remote communities in Rwanda.

One company, China’s Da-Jiang Innovations, more commonly known as DJI, controls 70 per cent of the world’s supply of drones. The market worldwide is forecast to expand by 380 per cent over the next four years.

Experts in the US are warning that this growing market domination makes the drones vulnerable to hacking as the Chinese Communist Party escalates its controls over the private sector. Further, a consultation paper released this month by Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack's transport and infrastructure department expressed concerns that there were deficiencies in Australia's current security system against "the malicious use of drones”.

The paper warned that government, defence and business sites, critical infrastructure and crowded places were vulnerable to drones used as both kinetic and cyber weapons for image and signals gathering, espionage, data exfiltration or physical attack.

"Both recreational and commercial operators are at risk of unauthorised access of sensitive information, intellectual property and other data if they operate drones on unsecure networks or using unencrypted communication links,” the paper said.

In July researchers at France-based Synacktiv and US-based GRIMM reported that one of DJI’s Android applications contained features that could allow attackers to install malware and gain full control of users’ phones. In 2018, security firm Check Point found hackers could gain access to an individual DJI user's flight data through a malicious link.

The Shenzhen-based company has repeatedly rejected security concerns over its products and maintains there has never been evidence of unexpected data transmission connections from DJI’s apps.

The company said there is no evidence that any of the hypothetical vulnerabilities have ever been exploited.

Adam Welsh, DJI's Asia-Pacific policy director, said the company builds data security into its drones.

"DJI customers can fly their drones without any internet connection, and they always have control of how their photos, videos and flight information is collected, stored and transmitted," he said.

"This information is never automatically transmitted to DJI or anywhere else. Even if we are presented with a lawful request for data from a government agency, DJI cannot provide information that we don’t have."

In July, the company signed a strategic partnership with the University of NSW to collaborate on research projects in a move backed by Austrade and the NSW Trade and Investment Office.

The Australian government has conducted a cyber vulnerability review on the usage DJI drones for defence and concluded that it was “comfortable’ with the resumption of using them in non-classified situations. Defence now has more than 400 DJI drones in operation.

“Defence is satisfied that the use of the DJI Multi-Rotor UAS is safe, secure and does not compromise operational security for the purposes for which they are used,” a Defence spokesperson said this week.

However, Colonel John Venable, a retired US Air Force Fighter pilot now a senior research fellow for defence policy at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington DC, says the defence assessments missed the wider implications of one company dominating the drone market in aerial photography, infrared imaging and terrain mapping.

https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/chinese-drones-swarming-australian-skies-raises-security-concerns-20200907-p55t38.html

Walmart, Amazon among donors to QAnon-promoting lawmaker

Walmart, Amazon and other corporate giants donated money to the reelection campaign of a Tennessee state lawmaker who had used social media to amplify and promote the QAnon conspiracy theory, according to an Associated Press review of campaign finance records and the candidate’s posts.

The corporate support for a QAnon-promoting politician is another example of how the conspiracy theory has penetrated mainstream politics, spreading beyond its origins on internet message boards popular with right-wing extremists.

Dozens of QAnon-promoting candidates have run for federal or state offices during this election cycle. Collectively, they have raised millions of dollars from thousands of donors. Individually, however, most of them have run poorly financed campaigns with little or no corporate or party backing. Unlike state Rep. Susan Lynn, who chairs the Tennessee House finance committee, few are incumbents who can attract corporate PAC money.

Though she repeatedly posted a well-known QAnon slogan on her Twitter and Facebook accounts, Lynn told the AP in an interview Friday that she does not support the conspiracy theory.

Walmart did not respond to repeated requests for comment made by email and through its website. An Amazon spokeswoman declined to comment. A spokeswoman for another donor to Lynn’s campaign, Kentucky-based distillery company Brown-Forman, which has a facility in Tennessee, said the company didn’t know about Lynn’s QAnon posts and wouldn’t have donated to her campaign through its Jack Daniel’s PAC if it had.

“Now that our awareness is raised, we will reevaluate our criteria for giving to help identify affiliations like this in the future,” Elizabeth Conway said in a statement.

Corporate PAC managers typically decide which candidates to support on the basis of narrow, pragmatic policy issues rather than broader political concerns, said Anthony Corrado, a Colby College government professor and campaign finance expert.

“In many instances, you don’t have any kind of corporate board oversight or any kind of accountability in terms of review of contributions before they’re made,” Corrado said. “Some corporations now have adopted policies about the supervision of PAC contributions because of the reputational risks involved in this.”

At least 81 current or former congressional candidates have supported the conspiracy theory or promoted QAnon content, with at least 24 qualifying for November’s general election ballot, according to the liberal watchdog Media Matters for America.

https://apnews.com/11f7e4fc9aa49e4e4dfb7affcd9302eb

China And Russia to Join Forces in Space, Set up a New Satellite Internet Network

BEIJING/MOSCOW – China and Russia have started the realization of a joint space program aiming to set up a network of low-orbit satellites for the purpose of making high-speed Internet available to as many users as possible, Maksim Akimov, Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, said in a statement.

“Our two countries (Russia and China) are launching a very interesting project to deploy a group of satellites in order to ensure that anyone can have access to a high-speed Internet connection. The details of the project are currently being finalized,” Deputy Prime Minister explained.

In earlier statements, it was announced that the satellite network will most likely be set up in a similar manner as used in the OneWeb and Starlink systems.

Akimov also stated that the cooperation between Russia and China in the matter of space projects will also be broadened and that it would include cooperation on navigation systems in the near future. He added that the two countries will also sign an agreement on the joint deployment of stations for Russia’s GLONASS and China’s BeiDou space-based navigation systems.

https://fort-russ.com/2020/09/china-and-russia-to-join-forces-in-space-set-up-a-new-satellite-internet-network/

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>>10711392

fuck off bitch stop making shit up

Secret Service Intercepts 'Highly Toxic' Poison Ricin Mailed To White House

Just as the presidential race has been upended by the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Secret Service has intercepted a piece of mail addressed to the White House containing the lethal poison ricin, according to media reports.

It's not clear where or when the mail was intercepted, though authorites are saying the letter may have been sent from Canada, per the NYT.

Ricin is made from the by-products of producing castor oil, which is made from the castor oil plant, otherwise known as Ricinus communis. It's a highly potent toxin, and it has no known antidote. The poison gained renewed notoriety after being featured in a notable plot arch from the TV show "Breaking Bad".

The White House hasn't yet commented on the news, which was first reported by the NYT and a handful of other media organizations citing unidentified sources who have reportedly been briefed on the matter.

Though the identity of whoever sent this substance has yet to be ascertained, some on the right couldn't help but note the timing, coming so soon after the death of Justice Ginsburg, and amid an outpouring of hysteria accusing Trump of 'destroying American Democracy.'

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/secret-service-intercepts-highly-toxic-ricin-sent-white-house