So… How long have you been into Conspiracy, Baker?
Are you a student of History? Politics? Religion? Other?
And what book might that be?
It that some sort of insult, Baker?
You should know better!
Anons who have been here for any length of time should have pretty thick skin by now wouldn't you agree?
notable
Anon has an opinion probably given to them because of muh religion and I don't even like NDT although he did have a decent observation one day by saying that "as our knowledge grows so does our awareness of how much we do not know"….
Jesus is the only way!
and that is not dividing.
LUKE 14:26
“If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.
I do not believe they read books these kids!
Where are the REAL disciples of Christ?!
The Jews are self loathing so perhaps they are the real disciples of Christ?
The Catholics seem fairly happy most of the time.
The Christians hate life so maybe it is them?
put my quote in too please?
LUKE 14:26
“If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.
True… all of these "JEW HATERS" might not be here to help, huh?
Yeah, the God of the old testament just get's angry sometimes and kills everyone.
We all have mood swings…
But Save those virgins!
totally…
QAnon-Conspiracy Forum 8kun Back Online With Help From
Russian Internet Firm
Siladitya RayForbes Staff
Oct 19, 2020,07:25am EDT
Covering breaking news and tech policy stories at Forbes.
TOPLINE 8kun — the controversial online imageboard originally known as 8chan— which has been linked to the QAnon movement and multiple mass shootings, came back online on Monday following a brief disruption during the weekend, with help from a Russian internet firm called ‘ddos-guard’.
KEY FACTS
The platform was knocked offline on Sunday evening after the owner of Oregon-based CNServers which helped host 8kun found out that his company was helping keep QAnon online, cybersecurity journalist Brian Krebs reported.
CNServers helped prevent 8kun from being hit with distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, a type of cyber attack that seeks to overwhelm a website’s servers taking it down in the process.
After 8kun was briefly knocked offline, the imageboard switched over to using St. Petersburg, Russia-based ddos-guard.net to protect itself from cyber-attacks.
CRUCIAL QUOTE
Ireland-based Spartan Hoswhich helps host 8Kun— helped the platform come back online by connecting it to the Russian DDoS protection service. Spartan Host’s founder, Ryan McCully, told Krebs that while he doesn’t personally subscribe to the beliefs shared by QAnon or 8kun, he intends to keep them as a customer going forward. “We follow the ‘law of the land’ when deciding what we allow to be hosted with us… Just because we host something, it doesn’t say anything about who we do and don’t support, our opinions don’t come into hosted content decisions.”
KEY BACKGROUND
8kun, an anonymous forum, is home to the user ‘Q Clearance Patriot’ — known to followers as ‘Q’ — who is the progenitor of the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory. The user’s posts, known as ‘Q drops’ were first posted in late 2017 on the anonymous imageboard 4chan, and later moved to 8chan. 8chan, however, was forced offline in August 2019, after the website was linked to a mass shooting in El Paso. The El Paso gunman is thought to have published links to his manifesto on the site. 8chan was also used by the Christchurch, New Zealand, and Poway, California shooters to spread their messages. In November last year, 8chan came back online, after rebranding itself as 8kun.
SURPRISING FACT
According to Krebs, 8kun and a large number of QAnon-related sites are connected to the web by a single internet provider based in Vancouver, Washington called VanwaTech. VanwaTech’s owner Nick Lim has refused to stop supporting 8kun despite repeated requests and has reportedly been working with 8kun’s administrators to keep the sites online in the name of protecting free speech.
TANGENT
Apart from 8kun, the Russian DDoS protection service ddos-guard.net also helps shield the official website of the Palestinian militant group Hamas and the website HKLeaks, which has been used to dox pro-democracy politicians journalists and other activists in Hong Kong.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2020/10/19/qanon-conspiracy-forum-8kun-back-online-with-help-from-russian-internet-firm/#37db63fa3e90
Facebook and YouTube take action against QAnon — but
they’re fighting a losing battle
by THE CONVERSATION — 3 hours ago in SYNDICATION
Recent decisions by Facebook and YouTube to crack down on the far-right conspiracy theory movement known as QAnon will disrupt the ability of dangerous online communities to spread their radical messages, but it won’t stop them completely.
The announcement by Facebook on Oct. 6 to take down any “accounts representing QAnon, even if they contain no violent content,” followed earlier decisions by the social media platform to down-rank QAnon content in Facebook searches. YouTube followed on Oct. 15 with new rules about conspiracy videos, but it stopped short of a complete ban.
This month marks the third anniversary of the movement that started when someone known only as Q posted a series of conspiracy theories on the internet forum 4chan. Q warned of a deep state satanic ring of global elites involved in pedophilia and sex trafficking and asserted that U.S. President Donald Trump was working on a secret plan to take them all down.
QAnon now a global phenomenon
Until this year, most people had never heard of QAnon. But over the course of 2020, the fringe movement has gained widespread traction domestically in the United States and internationally — including a number of Republican politicians who openly campaigned as Q supporters.
I have been researching QAnon for more than two years and its recent evolution has shocked even me.
What most people don’t realize is that QAnon in July and August was a different movement than what QAnon has become in October. I have never seen a movement evolve or radicalize as fast as QAnon — and it’s happening at a time when the socio-political environment globally is much different now than it was in the summer.
All of these factors came into play when Facebook decided to take action against “militarized social movements and QAnon.”
In the weeks leading up to the ban, I had seen a trend in more violent content on Facebook, especially with the circulation of memes and videos promoting “vehicle ramming attacks” with the slogan “all lives splatter” and other racist messages against Black people.
In explaining its ban, Facebook noted while it had “removed QAnon content that celebrates and supports violence, we’ve seen other QAnon content tied to different forms of real-world harm, including recent claims that the (U.S.) West Coast wildfires were started by certain groups, which diverted the attention of local officials from fighting the fires and protecting the public.”
Prior action was ineffective
Prior to the outright ban, Facebook’s earlier attempts to disrupt QAnon groups from organizing on Facebook and Instagram were not enough to stop its fake messages from spreading.
One way Q supporters adapted was through lighter forms of propaganda — something I call Pastel QAnon. As a way to circumvent the initial Facebook sanctions, women who believe in the QAnon conspiracies were using warm and colorful images to spread QAnon theories through health and wellness communities and by infiltrating legitimate charitable campaigns against child trafficking.
MORE AT LINK:
https://thenextweb.com/syndication/2020/10/19/facebook-and-youtube-take-action-against-qanon-but-theyre-fighting-a-losing-battle/
QAnon has hijacked the name of a real organization trying to
save children
You might see people sharing the hashtag #SavetheChildren on social media. But much of this online activity has nothing to do with the respected and real Save the Children charity. Its name has been hijacked by followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory.
https://www.cnn.com/videos/tech/2020/10/19/save-the-children-qanon-conspiracy-gr-orig.cnn
kek @ hotwheels butterfly tat's
Oct 19, 2020,06:29am EDT
TikTok Is Banning Accounts That Spread QAnon Theories And
Disinformation
Isabel Togoh Forbes Staff
TOPLINE In an election cycle that has seen major social media firms seek to stop the spread of QAnon that has grown in popularity across the different platforms, TikTok is ramping up its existing restrictions and is banning content and accounts that spread the sprawling and unfounded conspiracy theory, NPR reports.
KEY FACTS
“Content and accounts that promote QAnon violate our disinformation policy and we remove them from our platform,” TikTok confirmed to Forbes in a statement.
The company added that it took “significant steps” to make QAnon content and hashtags harder to find, with the platform redirecting related terms to their community guidelines.
NPR reports that accounts sharing content related to the pro-Trump conspiracy theory, which has exploded in popularity in recent years, will be deleted.
TikTok told Forbes that the policy had been in place “for a while”, however, the move appears to have been “quietly” confirmed to Media Matters earlier this month, before being confirmed to NPR on Sunday.
BIG NUMBER
488 million. That’s how many combined views were racked up across 14 QAnon-related hashtags on TikTok as of June this year, according to Media Matters.
KEY BACKGROUND
TikTok’s latest move against QAnon builds on restrictions introduced in July, in which the platform removed related hashtags such as QAnonTruth, Fall Cabal and Out of Shadows from search results, but videos using those hashtags could still be viewed, the BBC reports. The Chinese-owned app joins the likes of Twitter, YouTube and Facebook in cracking down on the spread of the movement that was sparked in 2017 by an anonymous message on the 4Chan website, claiming to be from a U.S. government official with top security clearance. From a fringe corner of the internet, the wild and false claims that President Donald Trump is fighting a secret war against a Satan-worshipping pedophile ring involving high-profile figures has spread onto mainstream social media, and improbably become a talking point during presidential debates, while several of its supporters are running for Congress.
TANGENT
TikTok itself is still locked in a battle to remain active in the U.S., after President Trump, as part of his wider crackdown on Chinese tech firms over national security concerns, threatened to essentially ban the app unless it finds a U.S. buyer by November 12.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/isabeltogoh/2020/10/19/tiktok-is-banning-accounts-that-spread-qanon-theories-and-disinformation/#7464be982262
Would Q team put us right into the Lion's Den from day one? Right in the face of our enemy?
China controlled by the CIA?
Their last main stronghold?
Oh My!
TikTok Tightens Crackdown On QAnon, Will Ban Accounts That
Promote Disinformation
October 18, 2020
Bobby Allyn
TikTok is toughening its stance against the QAnon conspiracy theory, expanding its ban to all content or accounts that promote videos advancing baseless ideas from the far-right online movement.
The action hardens the video-sharing app's previous enforcement against QAnon that targeted specific hashtags on the app that QAnon supporters have used to spread unfounded theories. Now, users that share QAnon-related content on TikTok will have their accounts deleted from the app.
"Content and accounts that promote QAnon violate our disinformation policy and we remove them from our platform," a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement to NPR. "We've also taken significant steps to make this content harder to find across search and hashtags by redirecting associated terms to our Community Guidelines."
TikTok's sweeping action against QAnon comes just as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other technology giants have announced bans on content from the Trump-supporting conspiracy theory. QAnon started in October 2017 and has amassed an enormous following online thanks largely to social media companies.
"There should be recognition of a thing that is good and significant, even if it's long overdue," said Angelo Carusone, president of the liberal nonprofit watchdog group Media Matters for America. "TikTok is recognizing that by the nature of the QAnon movement, you can't just get rid of their communities, the content itself is the problem."
Earlier this month, Media Matters identified more than a dozen hashtags TikTokkers used to spread QAnon conspiracy theories about President Trump's positive coronavirus test, false beliefs about Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and videos questioning the reality of the pandemic.
"We're talking about hundreds of millions of video views just for a limited segment of QAnon communities that we identified," Carusone said.
TikTok, which has 100 million monthly active users in the U.S., made its expanded ban against QAnon quietly in a statement to Media Matters, where it garnered little attention. A TikTok spokesperson confirmed the policy to NPR on Saturday.
Hany Farid, a UC Berkeley computer science professor who is a member of TikTok's committee of outside content moderation experts, said there is tension within social networks over how to respond to misinformation without also amplifying the underlying theories.
"When you ban it, you give it credibility. You give it attention," Farid told NPR.
"But the movement got big enough and dangerous enough that people were looking at the landscape and saying, 'Yeah, this is completely out of control,' " he said. "Were they slow to do it? Probably. But platforms get criticized when they act too quickly. So there is a dilemma there."
TikTok uses a mix of artificial intelligence and thousands of human content moderators to try to curb troubling content. The Chinese-owned app is best-known for viral dance challenges and comedic performances.
According to TikTok's Community Guidelines, misinformation that "causes harm to individuals, our community or the larger public" is prohibited on the site, including medical misinformation, which QAnon has engaged in by pushing false notions about the deadly coronavirus.
Carusone of Media Matters said misinformation accounts on TikTok have been clever about avoiding detection by hijacking otherwise-benign hashtags, or creating new hashtags that are written slightly in code, among other strategies to evade efforts to curb the content.
"The test of this policy will be how much it affects the creation and germination of new QAnon content on TikTok," Carusone said. "If you know your video is going to be eliminated before it has a chance to spread, you're less likely to spend time polluting the TikTok pool."
The future of TikTok in the U.S. remains uncertain. A federal judge last month temporarily halted a Trump administration attempt to shut down the app. But a separate order from the White House for TikTok to divest from its Beijing owner or cease operations remains in place, with a deadline of Nov. 12 for TikTok to find an American buyer or close down its U.S. operations.
Trump officials cite national security concerns with TikTok's China-based corporate owner, ByteDance, but TikTok has long dismissed the effort as an crusade to score political points. The company says U.S. user data is controlled by an American-led team and that the Chinese government has never requested access to the data.
https://www.wbur.org/npr/925144034/tiktok-tightens-crackdown-on-qanon-will-ban-accounts-that-promote-disinformation
QAnon child sex trafficking conspiracy is hurting the
anti-trafficking movement
by Carter Quinley | carterquinley | The Freedom Story
Monday, 19 October 2020 08:48 GMT
In an unprecedented move, this week YouTube and Facebook took a hardline stance against far-right conspiracy QAnon by committing to remove any group, page, or Instagram account openly identifying with the harmful movement. In recent months, QAnon rampantly spread disinformation about child trafficking to millions of Americans through social media and sparked hundreds of #SaveTheChildren rallies across the country with the aim of pushing a pro-Trump agenda.
Over the summer, thousands of maskless protestors in dozens of U.S. cities took to the streets, holding painted signs with grossly misguided statements and false statistics such as “Human trafficking is the real pandemic.”
The conspiracy claims that “deep state” Democrats, celebrities, and the media are running an international trafficking ring and plotting against President Trump and his supporters. As a result, ordinary Americans have become enraged about child trafficking, seemingly overnight. While Trump has claimed to make human trafficking a policy priority, in practice, his administration’s actions have raised a litany of serious human rights concerns, including locking migrant children in cages where several have died and cutting victim protection by rolling back “T” visas.
Political leadership is imperative to fighting child trafficking, and an intersectional, social justice approach is needed in order to effectively address the roots causes of the issue. The challenge in this present moment is for the public to redirect their efforts and engage the problem more carefully rather than spreading baseless conspiracies, which distract and divert valuable resources from legitimate efforts to stop trafficking.
Globally, human trafficking is a $150 billion dollar industry. It is a well-oiled machine, fueled by socio-economic inequality, class, race, and gender. In the United States, the majority of victims of trafficking are often homeless or runaway youth. Of the more than 23,500 endangered runaways reported last year, one in six were likely to be victims of child sex trafficking. Prevention of child trafficking in America requires boosting social services, strengthening education in low-income communities, and lobbying for healthcare reform to support those most at risk.
MORE AT LINK:
https://news.trust.org/item/20201019084900-nx08m/
The Regular Guy Who Almost Challenged Georgia’s QAnon
Candidate
With Kevin Van Ausdal bowing out, Marjorie Taylor Greene sees her congressional bid as her chance “to take this global cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles out.”
October 19, 2020
By Andrew Marantz
In our two-party system, both parties are big tents. The Democratic Party includes budget hawks and socialists, veterans and pacifists, scientists and Christian Scientists. There’s also ideological diversity within the Republican Party: some are relatively moderate; others believe that Donald Trump, Robert Mueller, and an anonymous intelligence agent known as Q are secretly working together to bust a global crime ring involving Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Tom Hanks, and hundreds of other prominent liberals, all of whom are actually pedophiles who routinely kidnap children, smuggle them across international borders, and harvest their adrenal glands for occult rituals. This, and much more, is the canon of QAnon, a bizarre, ever-expanding conspiracy theory that might be worth ignoring were it not for the fact that it has adherents in high places. “Q is a patriot, we know that for sure,” Marjorie Taylor Greene said, on a Facebook Live stream, in 2017. “There’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles out, and I think we have the President to do it.” Last year, Greene announced that she would run for Congress, as a Republican, in Georgia’s Fourteenth District, which was created about a decade ago. In every congressional election since, a Republican has either run unopposed there or has won more than seventy per cent of the vote.
politics
Greene co-owns a construction company; apart from posting pro-Trump blandishments on the Internet, she has no political experience. (She described the election of two Muslim women to Congress, in 2018, as “an Islamic invasion of our government.”) In one of her campaign ads, she sits cross-legged on the bed of a Jeep truck and uses a bipod-mounted assault rifle to blow up a placard labelled “Socialism.” She won the Republican nomination, in August, by double digits. “Congratulations to future Republican Star Marjorie Taylor Greene on a big Congressional primary win in Georgia,” President Trump tweeted. “Marjorie is strong on everything and never gives up—a real WINNER!” (Last week, during a town hall on NBC, the broadcaster Savannah Guthrie invited Trump to “disavow QAnon in its entirety.” He declined. She asked whether he believed conspiracy theories about “a satanic pedophile cult.” He responded, “I have no idea.”)
Greene’s Democratic challenger, Kevin Van Ausdal, a thirty-five-year-old I.T. specialist, has never held elective office either. Not long ago, he hosted a Zoom town hall. “Glad to see everyone tonight,” he said. “I see a lot of familiar faces, which is great, and I see a lot of new ones, which is just as amazing.” There were eleven people, eight of whom had their cameras off. The three visible supporters were a woman named Amanda, who sat in front of a poster of a bald eagle; a woman named Wendy, whose couch had a pillow embroidered with a kicking donkey; and a man with a long white beard, identified only as “iPhone.” Van Ausdal, who plays a lot of video games, sat in front of an elaborate computer setup, including a flashing keyboard. He began with a spiel about why he was running (“We need someone who will represent our values”) and talked about growing up in Indiana. Then he opened the floor for questions.
“I am worried about your opponent,” a woman typed in the Zoom chat. “She is working hard to appeal to the very far right that I find a bit frightening.”
MOPRE AT LINK:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/10/26/the-regular-guy-who-almost-challenged-georgias-qanon-candidate
A rare interview with a recovering QAnon'er
THOM DUNN 7:15 PM SUN OCT 18, 2020
Jitarth Jadeja is an Australian who spent some time living in the US, and regretfully spent two years of his life down the QAnon wormhole.
Once Jadeja found QAnon he was quickly sucked in. He would spend time on websites that aggregated posts supposedly from Q, which often first appear on darker corners of the internet like 8kun. Then he'd move on to read the interpretations of those posts from other believers. These interpretations are popular among the QAnon community because posts from "Q" are often so vague that they can be read in any number of ways. The tactic tends to lure in supporters the way fraudulent psychics can — there's little solid information given, so almost anything can be taken as confirmation of a pronouncement by "Q.""There'd be a lot of Youtube and Reddit mini-celebrities within the community that would be like the anointed decrypter for that point in time," Jadeja noted.
QAnon was all he wanted to talk about. That made life offline increasingly difficult for him, and he pulled away from friends.
But cracks began to form when — of all things — he noticed that Trump was encouraging the extradition and legal punishment of Julian Assange, who was obviously instrumental in helping Trump win the election and also "exposing" Hillary Clinton. Jadeja began researching more and more discrepancies into the hole-riddled conspiracy, and eventually wrote a 700-word post on Reddit admitting he was fooled.
I wanted to believe that justice was coming, that all I had to do was sit back and enjoy the show, I trusted the plan, that where we went one, we went all, blah blah fucking blah. There we red flags everywhere, nothing Q said ever came true, time and time again he would be wrong and time and again we all made excuses for him. It was just disinformation yo, Q's tricking the black hats who for some fucking reason listen to what Q says and don't realise it's misinfo despite the fact that Q specifically says it's misinfo. LOL wtf?
I suppose I was a prime candidate, disaffected, vulnerable and insecure. Q gave me purpose, meaning and perhaps saddest of all, he gave me joy. I was happy that the world wasn't as actually as fucked up as it seemed, that there were good guys out there fighting the good fight, that we could genuinely build a better future for all of humanity. What a fucking joke.
In the video above, Jadeja talks to CNN about his experience in the QAnon cult, and how he escaped.
https://boingboing.net/2020/10/18/a-rare-interview-with-a-recovering-qanoner.html
Japan, Vietnam leaders affirm defense, economic cooperation
KYODO NEWS KYODO NEWS - 3 hours ago - 18:03 | All, Japan
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Xuan Phuc on Monday affirmed defense and economic cooperation between their countries, as China's growing influence continues to make its neighbors jittery.
Meeting the press after summit talks with Phuc in Hanoi, Suga called Vietnam a linchpin in efforts to realize a "free and open Indo-Pacific" and vowed Japan's "continued contribution to peace and prosperity in the region."
Suga, who is on his first overseas trip since becoming prime minister, criticized actions in the South China Sea that "go against the rule of law," a veiled reference to Beijing's increasing assertiveness in the disputed waters.
"It is important that all nations involved work toward a peaceful resolution of conflicts in the South China Sea without resorting to force or coercion," Suga said in a speech at the Vietnam Japan University.
Following the one-hour meeting with Phuc, Suga said the countries had agreed in principle on a pact that would enable Japan to export defense equipment and technology to Vietnam.
Such equipment, likely including patrol planes and radar, would help improve the surveillance capabilities of Vietnam, which is one of the claimants in territorial disputes in the South China Sea including over the Spratly Islands, where China is building up a military presence.
MORE AT LINK:
https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2020/10/f8536e95c87d-update2-japan-vietnam-leaders-affirm-cooperation-in-s-china-sea.html
arrrr!!
US carrier strike group resumes South China Sea operations
(Philstar.com) - October 19, 2020 - 4:50pm
MANILA, Philippines — For the third time this year, the US Navy deployed its Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group for maritime security operations in the South China Sea.
The carrier strike group comprises forward-deployed aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76), embarked Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 5 and Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser USS Antietam (CG 54).
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Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers USS Halsey (DDG 97) and USS John S. McCain (DDG 56) are also part of the group, according to an October 15 report from the US Pacific Fleet.
"While in the South China Sea, the strike group is conducting maritime security operations, which include flight operations with fixed and rotary wing aircraft, maritime strike exercises, and coordinated tactical training between surface and air units," the report read.
Read. Adm. George Wikoff, commander of the Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group, said their deployment demonstrates Washington's commitment to the lawful use of the seas.
"The focus of our operations has always been, and will continue to be, cooperation alongside our Indo-Pacific allies and partners in promoting regional stability," Wikoff said.
Meanwhile, the US Navy's 7th Fleet also deployed its destroyer squadrons (DESRON) in the South China Sea to practice operations in a tactical environment.
Personnel of DESRON 7 and DESRON 15 went aboard USS Ronald Reagan for the activity during the exercise Valiant Shield, according to another US Pacific Fleet report also dated October 15.
Capt. Tom Ogden, deputy commodore of DESRON 7, said his team looks for all opportunities to improve warfighting skills.
"Sitting next to DESRON 15 in high-level live training while underway as they executed sea combat commander provided a second to none training opportunity to refine our operational skills; a critically important task as we operate in the dynamic U.S. 7th Fleet area of responsibility," Ogden said.
DESRON 7 serves as the US 7th Fleet's primary tactical and operational commander of littoral combat ships deployed to Singapore. DESRON 15, on the other hand, is the US Navy's largest forward-deployed destroyer squadron.
In July, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared that Washington would be strengthening its maritime claims in the South China Sea, countering China's "bullying" in the contested waterway.
"[China] has no legal grounds to impose its will on the region and claims resources off the coasts of Southeast Asian states," Pompeo earlier said.
More than a month after Pompeo's declaration, the US Commerce Department placed 24 Chinese state-owned firms in its "entity list", blocking exports of US goods and materials.
The sanctions were given to companies involved in building artificial islands in the South China Sea, including the West Philippine Sea.
https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2020/10/19/2050750/us-carrier-strike-group-resumes-south-china-sea-operations
arrrrr!!!
Japan PM slams S. China Sea actions in contravention of rule
of law
October 19, 2020 (Mainichi Japan)
Japan's Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga speaks during a press briefing with his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Xuan Phuc, following an exchange of documents ceremony at the Government Office in Hanoi on Oct. 19, 2020. (Nhac Nguyen/Pool Photo via AP)
HANOI (Kyodo) – Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga on Monday criticized actions in the South China Sea that "go against the rule of law," a veiled reference to China's increasing assertiveness in the disputed waters.
"It is important that all nations involved work toward a peaceful resolution of conflict in the South China Sea without resorting to force or coercion," Suga said in a speech at a university in Hanoi during his first overseas trip since taking office.
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20201019/p2g/00m/0in/091000c
arrrrr!!
Biden would revamp fraying intel community
Intelligence has become a political weapon under Trump, the Democratic nominee's advisers say.
By NATASHA BERTRAND and KYLE CHENEY
10/19/2020 04:30 AM EDT
President Donald Trump was in the middle of receiving a highly classified briefing on Afghanistan at his New Jersey golf club when he suddenly craved a malted milkshake.
“Does anyone want a malt?” he asked the senior defense and intelligence officials gathered around him, an august group that included the head of the CIA’s Special Activities Center, which is responsible for covert operations and paramilitary operations. “We have the best malts, you have to try them,” Trump insisted, as he beckoned a waiter into the room where code-word classified intelligence was being discussed.
The malt episode, which took place a few months after Trump took office in 2017, became legendary inside the CIA, said three former officials. It was seen as an early harbinger of Trump’s disinterest in intelligence, which would later be borne out by the new president’s notorious resistance to reading his classified daily briefing, known as the PDB, and his impatience with the briefers, current and former officials said.
But what initially seemed like mere boredom — which demoralized intelligence officials but could potentially be managed by including pictures and charts in briefings to hold the president’s attention — later morphed into something the officials saw as more sinister: an interest in wielding intelligence as a political cudgel. Whether selectively declassified by spy chiefs he installed for their loyalty, or obscured from congressional and public scrutiny if it conflicted with his preferred narrative, intelligence became just another weapon in the president’s arsenal.
Trump’s actions, and the endless partisan battles over the Russia probe and impeachment, have left the intelligence community bruised and battered. Former Vice President Joe Biden’s advisers and allies in Congress are already thinking about what a heavy lift it will be to restore morale inside the agencies, legitimacy on Capitol Hill and public trust in the intelligence community’s leadership should Biden defeat Trump in November, according to more than a dozen people close to the candidate.
“This will be among the most important things a President Biden would need to do—and that he’ll want to do—immediately,” said Tony Blinken, who served as deputy secretary of state and deputy national security adviser under Barack Obama and is a top adviser to the Biden campaign. “I know from several conversations with him about this that he has deep concern about what has been done to the IC these last several years in terms of the politicization, and repairing that starts at the top with the president.”
Blinken recalled Biden telling him in February 2017, shortly after leaving office, that the thing he missed most about being vice president was receiving the PDB every morning.
“He said he felt so connected to what was going on around the world thanks to the PDB, and that losing that connection felt like a real void,” Blinken said. “I think that is evidence of the basic value he placed on the work of the intelligence community, because the PDB is of course their most important product.”
One approach Biden is considering, others said: placing people in charge who are experienced and who are already familiar faces to the intelligence community and its oversight bodies.
There’s precedent for holding over senior national security officials from one administration to the next — George Tenet, for instance, served as CIA director under both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, while Bob Gates became Obama’s defense secretary after several years with Bush.
But there appears to be little appetite for that kind of bipartisan gesture now. When Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe canceled in-person election security briefings for lawmakers over the summer, Biden accused the Trump administration of hoping Russian President Vladimir Putin would “once more boost” Trump’s candidacy.
"This is not how democracy works," Biden said at the time. "But it is how American national security and sovereignty are violated."
“A couple of people at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence would have to go, absolutely,” said former CIA and NSA Director Gen. Michael Hayden, referring to Trump’s stocking the office with loyalists, like Ratcliffe, over the last few months. The former Texas lawmaker’s scant intelligence experience — fewer than two years on the House Intelligence Committee — was among the issues that scuttled his confirmation prospects when he was first nominated by Trump last year.
“Probably Gina Haspel would have to go, too,” Hayden said.
MORE AT LINK:
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/19/biden-revamp-fraying-intel-community-430090
Yes it is yet no surprise…
What about all these people who somehow hate Jews yet love Jesus?
How about all of these anons who somehow do not understand that the Left was PROGRAMMED to think like they do just like all of the "REPUBLICANS" who voted and supported George Bush were PROGRAMMED to think as they did?
I find it more than ODD that many "Anons" do not seem to understand.
>>>For any newfags lurking and getting a bit confused by retards, the reason for including all Q related news whether positive or negative is that all news paints the picture of where we are today.
News articles about Q were rare and the first one was very exciting.
Hit pieces can show you how the enemy is panicking or it may even confirm that something is indeed happening.
Remember their propaganda has purpose, it is not so much what they are trying to say but what is actually happening in the stories they put out.
You cannot dish out 100% false stories 100% of the time, there will be nuggets of truth wherever you go.
They are fucking Karens and I have no idea why they are here.
Muh Anon! Muh Knows!
That media is not trustworthy! whaaaa!
Wikipedia what!?
I only trust websters and funk and wagnals! kek!
:D