Julian Assange requests pardon from President Trump
Julian Assange Has Formally Requested a Pardon From President Donald Trump
https://theduran.com/julian-assange-requests-pardon-from-president-trump/
Lawmakers ask whether massive hack amounted to act of war
Lawmakers are raising questions about whether the attack on the federal government widely attributed to Russia constitutes an act of war.
The hacking may represent the biggest cyberattack in U.S history, and officials are scrambling to respond.
The response is further complicated by the presidential transition — President Trump has yet to comment publicly on the attack — and the fact that the U.S. has no clear cyber warfare strategy.
“We can’t be buddies with Vladimir Putin and have him at the same time making this kind of cyberattack on America,” Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said of the attack during an interview Wednesday on CNN. “This is virtually a declaration of war by Russia on the United States and we should take that seriously.”
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) on Thursday compared the incident to Russian bombers "flying undetected over the entire country," and harshly criticized Trump for not doing enough to counter the attack.
"Our national security is extraordinarily vulnerable," Romney said on SiriusXM's "The Big Picture with Olivier Knox." "In this setting, not to have the White House aggressively speaking out and protesting and taking punitive action is really, really quite extraordinary."
Hackers believed to be part of a nation state have had access to federal networks since March after exploiting a vulnerability in updates to IT group SolarWinds’s Orion software. The hack has compromised the Treasury, State and Homeland Security departments and branches of the Pentagon, though it is expected to get worse. SolarWinds counts many more federal agencies as customers, along with the majority of U.S. Fortune 500 companies.
On Thursday, Politico reported that the Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration, which maintains the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile, was also compromised, further raising the stakes.
Lawmakers say the scope of the attack, widely presumed to be by Russia, which has denied responsibility, demands some kind of response.
“No response is not appropriate, and that’s been our national policy by and large for the past 10 or 15 years,” Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), the co-chair of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission (CSC), said during an event hosted by Defense One on Thursday. “I want somebody in the Kremlin, sitting around that table to say, ‘wait a minute boss, if we do this we are liable to get whacked in some way,’ and right now they are not making that calculus.”
It's not the first time the U.S. has been hit by a nation state.
https://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/530784-lawmakers-ask-whether-massive-hack-amounted-to-act-of-war
Microsoft says it identified 40+ victims of the SolarWinds hack
Microsoft says 80% of the victims it identified were located in the United States.
Microsoft said it identified more than 40 of its customers that installed trojanized versions of the SolarWinds Orion platform and where hackers escalated intrusions with additional, second-stage payloads.
The OS maker said it was able to discover these intrusions using data collected by Microsoft Defender antivirus product, a free antivirus product built into all Windows installations.
Microsoft President Brad Smith said his company is now in the process of notifying all the impacted organizations, 80% of which are located in the United States, with the rest being spread across seven other countries – namely Canada, Mexico, Belgium, Spain, the UK, Israel, and the UAE.
While the current list of known victims of the SolarWinds hack mostly includes US government agencies, Smith said the government sector is only a small portion of the victim list, with 44% being IT companies, such as software firms and equipment providers.
The Microsoft President also said the attack is ongoing, with the hackers trying to compromise new companies still, despite the incident being public and actively investigated.
"It's certain that the number and location of victims will keep growing," Smith said.
The latest victim on this list is Microsoft itself, which, hours before Smith's analysis, admitted to having installed trojanized version of the SolarWinds app inside its own infrastructure.
Reuters reported that hackers accessed Microsoft's internal network, but Microsoft denied that they were able to reach production systems and impact its business customers and end-users.
SolarWinds hack summary and fallout
Five days later, the breadth of the SolarWinds hack continues to grow.
This entire incident began last week when security firm FireEye said that a state-sponsored hacking group accessed its internal network, stole pen-testing tools and tried to access documents on its government contracts.
While investigating the breach, FireEye tracked down the intrusion to a malware-laced version of SolarWinds Orion, a network monitoring tool used inside large enterprise networks.
Notified by FireEye, SolarWinds admitted on Sunday to getting hacked, disclosing that several Orion app updates released between March and June contained a backdoor trojan.
A day later, SolarWinds admitted in SEC documents that around 18,000 customers had installed the trojanized updates, triggering a massive search inside enterprise networks, with IT personnel looking to see if they had installed the malware-laced Orion app version and if second-stage malware payloads were used to escalate attacks.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-says-it-identified-40-victims-of-the-solarwinds-hack/?ftag=TRE-03-10aaa6b&bhid=21735961543072688253262375158449&mid=13206382&cid=717936240
US Military Report Identifies China as Top Threat to Naval Power
Report calls for an emphasis on US 'sea control' to counter China, Russia
The US Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard released a new maritime strategy plan on Thursday that identifies China as the greatest threat to US naval power. The report titled “Advantage at Sea” identifies both Beijing and Moscow as the greatest threats to US naval control of the world’s waterways but makes it clear China is the priority.
“We prioritize competition with China due to its growing economic and military strength, increasing aggressiveness, and demonstrated intent to dominate its regional waters and remake the international order in its favor,” the report reads.
China is already a priority for the US military judging by the deployment of naval resources. According to the report, approximately 60 percent of the US Navy’s forces are in the Indo-Pacific. The Marine Corps is working on repositioning its forces in the Pacific to better engage China, and Coast Guard cutters were recently deployed to the Western Pacific to counter China.
The report says China has implemented a “strategy and revisionist approach that aims at the heart of the United States’ maritime power.” To counter China and Russia, the document offers several steps the US naval services must take, including working with allies, modernization, and focusing more on “sea control.”
“We must increase our emphasis on controlling the seas in conflict to provide joint and allied forces with the freedom of maneuver to attack adversary forces and impose costs globally,” the report reads.
In what became known as the “pivot” to Asia, the Obama administration began renewed US military focus on the Pacific, which the Trump administration greatly accelerated. The Asia pivot is illustrated by the increased number of US military planes and warships being deployed to the region.
In October, a Beijing-based think tank that monitors flights and naval maneuvers in the region outlined the increase in US military activity in comments to Newsweek. The South China Sea Probing Initiative (SCSPI) told Newsweek that the US has nearly doubled its number of spy plane missions near China since 2009. The US Air Force is now flying an average of 1,500 sorties to the South China Sea each year.
When it comes to naval activity, SCSPI said: “According to our observations, since 2009, the US military has significantly enhanced the frequency of activities in the region by boosting the presence of surface vessels by more than 60 percent, reaching about 1,000 ship-days a year.”
https://news.antiwar.com/2020/12/17/us-military-report-identifies-china-as-top-threat-to-naval-power/
900+ Abortion Clinics Have Lost Taxpayer Funding Thanks to President Trump
President Trump continues to be a trail blazer against abortion, and a new scathing repot shows that a massive amount of abortion clinics have been stripped of government funding under his leadership.
How many you ask? Well let’s take a look.
A new report indicates President Donald Trump has been responsible for de-funding almost 900 facilities that either perform or promote killing babies in abortions.
Last May, the Trump administration published a new proposal for Title X that would prohibit Planned Parenthood and other abortion businesses from receiving any of those tax dollars unless they completely separate their abortion businesses from their taxpayer-funded services. That mean housing their family planning services in separate buildings with separate staff from their abortion businesses and a denial of funds if they fail to do so.
Federal courts eventually let the defunding rules move forward and eventually Planned Parenthood and other abortion activists left the Title X program and gave up $60 million of taxpayer dollars.
It’s interesting that evangelicals and some conservative Christians haven’t backed the President as they should. He’s truly been fighting for the unborn since his inauguration.
https://thedcpatriot.com/wow-900-abortion-clinics-have-lost-taxpayer-funding-thanks-to-president-trump/
Hunter Biden, James Biden, Former Top DOJ Leaders and a China Billionaire Held a Last Minute Meeting in 2017 with New York Governor Cuomo – Why was That?
Hunter and James Biden set up a last minute meeting with top former DOJ members, a Chinese billionaire and New York’s governor Cuomo in New York in 2017. Why did they do this and what was discussed?
The Bidens continued to work on deals and relationships they had cultivated since VP Joe Biden’s time in office even after President Trump’s Inauguration in 2017.
On March 29, 2017 a strategic partnership was announced between CFCE (the Chinese Company) and a company by the name of Cowen Group. China’s CFCE agreed to purchase 19.9% of Cowen Group and agreed to provide financing of $175 million. Hunter Biden had a close relationship with CFCE.
At about the same time, James Biden forwarded a letter to Governor Cuomo in New York via his Director of Scheduling, Annabel Walsh. The purpose of the memo was to set up a meeting in early April with Cuomo, a Chinese billionaire and therefore top China leader, former Deep State actors and the Bidens.
Included in the memo were the following:
James Biden – Former VP Joe Biden’s brother who sent the email
Governor Cuomo of New York – a close friend to the Bidens
Hunter Biden – son of VP Biden and known practicing drug addict
Ye Jianming – Chairman of CEFC
Zang Jianjun – Executive Director of the Board, CEFC
(t) member of the Royal Family of Luxembourg – not sure who this is
James Gilliar – Chairman, J2CR
Rob Walker – President , J2CR
CEFC was a large Chinese conglomerate as noted above in the strategic announcement.
According to its website, J2CR is:
a legal, strategic advisory, government affairs, and communications consulting firm focused on homeland security and transnational trade, offers high-level expertise in international business development, and government affairs strategies. J2cR, along with its partners, also provides clients with professional and hands-on public relations, lobbying, strategic consulting, crisis management, political intelligence and management and advocacy services. J2cR consists of top-level former U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice officials.
http://www.domigood.com/2020/12/breaking-exclusive-hunter-biden-james.html
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Later in July 2017, China’s Ye, the President of CFCE sent Hunter an email thanking Hunter for his work in Oman and Romania:
CEFC went bankrupt in March of 2020. We now know CFCE used a complex web of affiliated companies to facilitate fake deals, inflate trade figures and obtain bank loans to fuel its aggressive expansion. Recent reports show emails that tie Hunter Biden, Jim Biden and Joe Biden (the Big Guy) to payouts from CEFC before it went bankrupt.
CFCE Chairman Ye disappeared in 2018 and has not been seen since:
What was discussed in New York with these characters and Governor Cuomo? Was Cuomo given a piece of the pie as well? How many other events like this occurred in New York involving Cuomo?
http://www.domigood.com/2020/12/breaking-exclusive-hunter-biden-james.html
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Recount Confirms Trump Won Michigan County That Reported Biden Win on Election Night
A hand recount on Wednesday confirmed that a Michigan county falsely reported on election night a win for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.
The recount in Antrim County found 9,759 votes for President Donald Trump, versus 5,959 for Biden.
On Nov. 3, county officials said Biden received over 3,000 more votes than Trump. Two days later, they said Trump won by about 2,500 votes. A third change took place on Nov. 21, with Trump being certified the winner by nearly 4,000 votes.
Officials blamed the skewed results on human error.
Antrim County uses Dominion Voting Systems machines and software.
An outside group that conducted an audit of the machines said they found Dominion’s voting system “intentionally generates an enormously high number of ballot errors,” causing the ballots to enter a process known as adjudication.
“The intentional errors lead to bulk adjudication of ballots with no oversight, no transparency, and no audit trail. This leads to voter or election fraud. Based on our study, we conclude that The Dominion Voting System should not be used in Michigan. We further conclude that the results of Antrim County should not have been certified,” Russell Ramsland Jr., co-founder of Allied Security Operations Group, said in the preliminary report on the audit.
Jonathan Brater, Michigan’s director of elections, who works out of Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s office, responded by alleging the audit report did not explain its allegations about the voting system’s “intentional” design.
“Although a more detailed analysis of the report must be conducted with an individual with technical expertise, it is apparent to me that the report makes a series of unsupported conclusions, ascribes motives of fraud and obfuscation to processes that are easily explained as routine election procedures or error corrections, and suggests without explanation that elements of election software not used in Michigan are somehow responsible for tabulation or reporting errors that are either nonexistent or easily explained,” he wrote in a court filing.
Benson, a Democrat, announced earlier this month that a “zero-margin risk-limiting” would be performed in Antrim County.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/recount-confirms-trump-won-michigan-county-that-reported-biden-win-on-election-night_3624020.html?utm_source=newsnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2020-12-18-1
DNI Ratcliffe Refuses to Sign Off on Elections Report Until Intel Officials Include Damning info on China’s Attempts to Influence Election — Deep State Hiding the Facts
Newsmax correspondent Emerald Robinson on Thursday reported Ratcliffe is refusing to sign off on the report until the intel officials include the damning information on China and its attempt to influence the 2020 election.
Emerald Robinson, “We’ve heard from sources that there is raw intelligence that is pretty damning and much more expansive on the efforts of China implemented in order to counter a possibility that there would be a Trump second term… The fact that Ratcliffe is waiting for that to be included is that there is a portion of the intelligence community that is refusing to sign off or to conduct a detrimental assessment of China and its efforts.
http://www.stationgossip.com/2020/12/dni-ratcliffe-refuses-to-sign-off-on.html
Judicial Watch: New Obama State Department Emails Show Ukraine Prosecutor General Was Pitched ‘High-Level’ Access to Hillary Clinton’s Presidential Campaign
(Washington, DC) Judicial Watch announced today that it received 38 pages of records from the State Department revealing that then-United States Deputy Chief of Mission to Ukraine and current Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs George Kent sent an email to then-Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch stating that Ukraine Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko informed Kent that he was offered “high-level” access to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign by the same firm that represented Burisma Holdings.
The offer was made by Karen Tramontano, who was an assistant to President Clinton and deputy White House Chief of Staff. She is the CEO of Blue Star Strategies, a Democrat lobbying firm that was hired by Burisma Holdings to combat corruption allegations.
In the same 2016 email, Kent stated that he responded to Lutsenko by recommending that he not take the offer due to corruption concerns with Burisma and the Clinton Foundation.
Judicial Watch obtained these documents in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the State Department seeking documents related to a reported “untouchables list” given in late 2016 by former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch to Ukraine Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko (Judicial Watch vs. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:19-cv-03563)). The lawsuit requests:
All records of communication between the Department of State and any representative of the Ukrainian government regarding any actual or proposed investigation or prosecution of the AntAC; the International Renaissance Foundation [Open Society Foundations’ office in Ukraine]; and/or Transparency International.
All records concerning any meeting or telephonic conversation between former Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch and former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko.
All records related to the list of individuals and entities provided to Lutsenko by Yovanovitch in late 2016.
https://www.judicialwatch.org/press-releases/ukraine-hillary-clinton/
Judicial Watch Obtains Emails Showing Impeachment Star Witness Warning about Burisma Corruption!
udicial Watch announced recently that it received 210 pages of records from the State Department which show that former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie “Masha” Yovanovitch had specifically warned in 2017 about corruption allegations against Burisma Holdings.
During her November 2019 testimony in the impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump, Yovanovitch told lawmakers that she knew little about Burisma. The records were obtained by Judicial Watch in response to a FOIA lawsuit filed in January 2020 seeking records of communications from the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv mentioning Burisma (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:20-cv-00229)).
https://www.judicialwatch.org/videos/burisma-officials/
Dems Water Down China Provisions in Defense Bill
GOP accuses Pelosi of 'gutting' enforcement against Chinese influence on campus
House Democrats stripped down an anti-China bill that unanimously passed in the Senate by removing language reining in Chinese government influence on U.S. campuses.
The Senate's National Defense Authorization Act included a provision that authorized the Department of Education to withhold funding from U.S. universities that host Chinese government-backed Confucius Institutes on campus. House Democrats removed the measure from the final version of the bill following negotiations. Louisiana senator John Kennedy (R.), who helped write the anti-Confucius Institute measure, said Democrats led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) had "gutted" a key weapon to counter Chinese influence in academia.
"Communist China is still buying influence on U.S. campuses," Kennedy said. "Yet Democrats gutted an NDAA amendment that would protect academic freedom and give U.S. colleges control over what Confucius Institutes teach on our soil."
The NDAA provisions were originally part of the CONFUCIUS Act, which unanimously passed in the Senate in June. The House Democrats' decision to water down the provisions comes after Pelosi stonewalled action on the CONFUCIUS Act for months, pushing her caucus to vote down Republican attempts to put it on the House floor. The attitude is consistent with Democratic leadership's ambivalence when it comes to China-related issues: Pelosi and others have thus far ignored Republican requests to remove Rep. Eric Swalwell (D., Calif.) from the House Intelligence Committee after a report revealed that he unknowingly interacted with a Chinese spy.
Pelosi's office did not respond to a request for comment.
"Who could be surprised by Speaker Pelosi's refusal to crack down on China's infiltration of universities? She won't even crack down on Chinese Communist infiltration of the Democratic Party," said Indiana congressman Jim Banks, a Republican who has pressed for Swalwell's removal. "Speaker Pelosi only cares about national security if it furthers her narrow political interests, and again and again, those interests align with Chairman Xi's."
https://freebeacon.com/national-security/dems-water-down-china-provisions-in-defense-bill/
Fired Rochester police chief claims mayor asked him to lie in Daniel Prude's death investigation
'The Mayor wanted me to portray a story that just was not true,' La'Ron Singletary wrote
A former Rochester police chief who was fired in connection with the department’s response to the death of Daniel Prude revealed the city’s mayor pushed him to lie about her handling of the investigation – and claimed he was ousted when he refused to do so, recently filed court papers show.
"I repeatedly refused to lie for Mayor Warren."
— Former Rochester Police Chief La'Ron Singletary
La’Ron Singletary, who was fired from the Rochester Police Department (RPD) in September shortly after announcing his plans to retire, on Wednesday filed a notice of claim with the Monroe Court Clerk’s office announcing his intention to sue Mayor Lovely Warren and the city for defamation of character, the creation of a hostile work environment and his "wrongful and retaliatory termination," according to the documents.
Singletary alleged Warren and other city officials who were acting on her behalf "impugned my performance as Chief of Police of the City of Rochester by making false statements and material omissions about my performance and discharge of duties in the matter of the treatment of Daniel Prude in the custody of the Rochester Police, his subsequent death, the internal investigations conducted by the Rochester Police Department and my communication with Mayor Warren and other city officials."
"I repeatedly refused to lie for Mayor Warren," he wrote in the court papers.
Singletary alleged that Warren urged him to omit facts and give false information to back her claim that it wasn't until months later that she learned key details of the March 23 encounter that led to Prude's death.
He wrote that Warren was especially worried that his testimony before a city council panel investigating Prude’s death would undermine her repeated assertions that the then-chief hid information from her.
Singletary wrote that those assertions, which Warren made at news conferences and in TV interviews after news of Prude’s death became public in September, were false, defamed his character and harmed his reputation as an upstanding law enforcement official.
"[T]he Mayor wanted me to portray a story that just was not true and asking (sic) that I omit certain relevant facts when I testified before the City Council investigation of the Daniel Prude matter," the court filing states.
Singletary went on to explain that during a meeting with Warren on Sept. 7, the mayor told him she would "never" ask him to lie but then urged him not to mention her knowledge that police officers were physically involved with Prude.
"The Mayor further asked me to omit the specifies of our conversation when I discussed the details of the Medical Examiner's report and instead testify that the Medical Examiner's report was mentioned only in passing and to further testify that, in hindsight, I should not have told the Mayor ‘in passing by the elevator," court papers state. "The Mayor then asked me to recite what I would say in my testimony … I had text messages and emails indicating there have been conversations and communications with the Mayor and her administration. I repeated that my integrity means too much to me and that I would never lie for anyone."
https://www.foxnews.com/us/daniel-prude-former-rochester-police-chief-mayor-death-investigation
Left-Wing Activist Sets Himself Up to Profit From His Own Climate Plan
Founder of climate activist group calling for 'national mobilization' of economy against global warming is CEO of green infrastructure consulting firm
The leader of an activist group pushing for sweeping policy change to combat global warming has positioned himself to rake in money from those changes.
Bracken Hendricks is cofounder and senior adviser to Evergreen Action, an activist group formed in April by former staffers of Washington governor Jay Inslee’s (D.) failed 2020 presidential campaign.
Evergreen published an "Action Plan"—which echoes many of the policies put forward in the Green New Deal—in April pushing the Biden administration to adopt a "Zero-Carbon Building Standard" that would mandate that all new buildings meet climate change "resilience" standards. If enacted, the policy would also require substantial retrofitting to nearly every building in the country as part of Evergreen's "Rebuild America energy retrofit program."
Enacting such demands could be lucrative for Hendricks, who is also CEO of Urban Ingenuity, a Washington, D.C., consulting firm that, according to its website, "provides innovative solutions to develop and finance advanced energy projects, building retrofits, and state of the art clean energy infrastructure" to construction developers.
Hendricks did not respond to a request for comment on his company’s potential conflict of interest by the time of publication.
Hendricks has spent his career pushing radical climate policies. He coauthored a 2007 book with Inslee calling for a massive government overhaul of the economy to halt global warming and later advised Inslee's campaign on climate policy. Hendricks is also a former climate adviser to the Clinton Global Initiative. In 2009 he penned a report that called for a national retrofit of buildings to halt global warming from his perch as a Center for American Progress senior fellow.
A national reconstruction mandate similar to the one proposed by Evergreen and Hendricks was included in the Green New Deal proposed by socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) in 2019 to "retrofit every building in America." The conservative American Action Forum estimates the Green New Deal could cost between $52 and $93 trillion by 2030 and states that its national retrofitting scheme "would have no impact on [greenhouse gas] emissions."
InfluenceWatch identifies Evergreen Action as a front for the Sixteen Thirty Fund, part of a $715 million "dark money" network run by Arabella Advisors, a center-left consulting firm. Evergreen doesn't file IRS Form 990 reports or disclose its budget but the group's "sister organization," Evergreen Collaborative, has received at least $250,000 from the liberal Hewlett Foundation. In 2019, Sixteen Thirty Fund gave $3.5 million to the League of Conservation Voters (LCV), a Green New Deal advocacy group, and nearly $6.8 million to LCV's PAC, which spent over $60 million boosting Democrats in the 2020 election.
https://freebeacon.com/policy/left-wing-activist-sets-himself-up-to-profit-from-his-own-climate-plan/
Suspicious? Dominion warned memory cards might need to be prematurely removed from voting machines
Due to vote counting limits, at least 36 memory cards in voter tabulators had to be prematurely removed, raising new concerns about chain of custody and belatedly discovered memory cards.
Dominion Voting Systems issued a warning to Georgia officials prior to the 2020 election that memory cards might need to be removed from vote tabulation machines prior to the end of the election to deal with a limitation in its system, according to records obtained by Just the News through an open-records request.
Officials acknowledged Thursday at least 36 memory cards had to be prematurely removed from vote tabulating machines in the Atlanta area that had reached counting limits. The cards were stored in a locked cabinet until polls closed, officials said.
Dominion, which has fiercely defended its technology since Election Day, issued the "customer advisory" on Oct. 26, according to a "bulletin" sent to county election officials from Georgia Elections Division Director Chris Harvey. The memo was obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request from Just the News to Fulton County, home to Atlanta, Georgia's largest city.
"Dominion Voting released a customer advisory yesterday stating that when an ImageCast Precinct (ICP) Tabulator reaches approximately 10,000 ballots cast for a single election, a message will appear that reads, 'Maximum Ballot Capacity Reached'," Harvey wrote in the memo.
File
GABulletinDominionVotingMemCards.pdf
Harvey directed officials to follow one of two policies outlined by Dominion "if [they] believe that a single ICP will reach 10,000 ballots cast." One of those was a directive to "remove the original memory cards from the tabulator that has reached or is nearing maximum capacity" and install new memory cards into it.
Harvey's memo directed officials to refrain from closing the polls on the cards "until 7:00 p.m. on Election Night" and to "store the memory cards securely."
In attached instructions coming directly from Dominion, the company as part of that protocol directed workers to "remove the original memory cards and for store [sic] tabulation at the appropriate time." Those instructions do not mention anything about secure storage.
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/dominion-procedure-included-possible-removal-memory-cards-voting-machines
China-Based Executive at U.S. Telecommunications Company Charged with Disrupting Video Meetings Commemorating Tiananmen Square Massacre
Defendant Coordinated with the People’s Republic of China to Target Dissidents and Disrupt Meetings
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/china-based-executive-us-telecommunications-company-charged-disrupting-video-meetings
ICE, CBP and LAPD seize counterfeit Viagra pills, footwear, belts, car emblems and headphones worth more than $32 million at the Los Angeles/Long Beach Seaport
LOS ANGELES — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), in coordination with The Los Angeles Police Department’s (LAPD) Commercial Crimes Division, Illicit Pharmaceutical and Counterfeit Unit (IPCU) seized counterfeit products arriving in three containerized cargo shipments from China.
The counterfeit items included more than one million erectile dysfunction pills, footwear, belts, purses and headphones in violation of registered and recorded trademarks. If genuine, the seized merchandise would have had an estimated manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP) of $32,161,194.00.
“Commercial piracy and product counterfeiting undermine the U.S. economy, rob Americans of jobs, stifle American innovation and promote other types of crimes,” said David A. Prince, Special Agent in Charge for ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Los Angeles. “Intellectual property theft amounts to economic sabotage, which is why HSI will aggressively pursue product counterfeiters and those who sell counterfeit products.”
“Criminals are exploiting e-commerce platforms to sell counterfeit and often dangerous goods to unwitting holiday shoppers,” said Carlos C. Martel, CBP director of field operations in Los Angeles. “CBP’s strategic partnership with HSI and LAPD’s IPCU is critical in disrupting the transnational criminal organizations behind these smuggling operations.”
"The primary mission of the LAPD's IPCU is to aggressively target the manufacture, sales and distribution of counterfeit pharmaceuticals and merchandise," said Captain III Lillian Carranza, Commanding Officer of the LAPD's Commercial Crimes Division. "It is vital to maintain partnerships with CBP and HSI to weaken the supply networks and disrupt the businesses of criminal gangs, organized crime and terrorism groups."
Every year, CBP seizes millions of counterfeit goods from countries around the world as part of its mission to protect U.S. businesses and consumers. These goods include fake versions of popular products, such as smartphones and related accessories, electronics, apparel, shoes, cosmetics and high-end luxury goods, as well as goods posing significant health and safety concerns, such as counterfeit pharmaceuticals, bicycle and motorcycle helmets, medical devices, supplements and other consumables. Sold online and in stores, counterfeit goods hurt the U.S. economy, cost Americans their jobs, threaten consumer health and safety, and fund criminal activity.
“Counterfeiters are focused on making a profit; they are not focused on consumer safety,” said Donald R. Kusser, CBP Port Director of the LA/Long Beach Seaport. “Buying counterfeit goods can expose you and your family to health and safety risks while the proceeds support criminal enterprises.”
Nationwide in FY 2020, CBP seized 26,503 shipments containing goods that violated intellectual property rights. The total estimated value of the seized goods, had they been genuine, was nearly $1.3 billion.
As the largest investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security, HSI plays a leading role in targeting criminal organizations responsible for producing, smuggling and distributing counterfeit products. HSI focuses not only on keeping counterfeit products off our nation’s streets, but also on dismantling the criminal organizations behind this activity.
https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ice-cbp-and-lapd-seize-counterfeit-viagra-pills-footwear-belts-car-emblems-and
Dep HHS Sec: Early COVID-19 Data ‘probably long gone’
Department of Health and Human Services Deputy Secretary Eric Hargan joined “The Sara Carter Show” on Thursday to discuss COVID-19 and Operation Warp Speed. During his interview with host Sara A. Carter, Hargan addressed China’s handling of the virus and said that there’s still so much we don’t know about the origins of its strain.
Hargan explained that although China “did give us the viral sequence in January”, there was still “a lot of dragging of heels on the part of China to be able to allow international observers and researchers to figure out exactly what was going on here.”
“So there’s still there are still a lot of mysteries about the origin of this viral strain, and exactly how it appeared when it appeared,” Hargan said. “And so I think that that’s going to be something that we’re going to be digging into, really, for a long time in the future. But a lot of it, I’m afraid, a lot of the data on the early outbreak is probably long gone.”
The World Health Organization is readying to soon be able to send a team of experts to Wuhan after reportedly months of negotiations with the Chinese government.
Early in the outbreak, many international health experts were barred from entering Wuhan. Additionally, many journalists were also sent out of China and whistleblowers warning about the virus were disappeared.
Despite the Chinese government’s efforts to control information about COVID-19, the Trump administration has been able to successfully move forward with Operation Warp Speed to develop a vaccine. Now, three different vaccines, each with over 90% efficacy, have been approved by the FDA.
With that ongoing success, Hargan predicts that 20 million doses will be given by the end of December, another 30 million by the end of January, and then another 50 million by the end of February. That would mean by February, 100 million Americans will be vaccinated.
https://saraacarter.com/dep-hhs-sec-early-covid-19-data-probably-long-gone/
Corporations Accused of Crimes Get More Rights Than People
The U.S. Labor Department guarantees privacy rights to corporations under investigation, a reasonable precaution not afforded to regular Americans, say Sarah Esther Lageson and Elizabeth Chiarello.
Corporations increasingly receive the same rights as people. Now, it seems, they have privileges even people don’t.
Case in point: The Labor Department recently urged regulators to stop issuing press releases about companies that may have violated laws on discrimination, worker safety or minimum wage requirements. The concern is that doing so could cause reputational damage from mere accusations, even if the case is eventually dismissed.
In a nutshell, the Labor Department’s action guarantees privacy rights to corporations under investigation. Unfortunately, this reasonable precaution is not afforded regular Americans.
And as we know from our work on criminal justice and surveillance, an arrest without a conviction or an allegation of wrongdoing can become a scarlet letter that scares off employers and landlords as people look for a new job or home.
A Flood of Data
Citizens typically know little about the amount or kind of data collected on them, including data concerning arrests and criminal complaints, which are particularly problematic when made public on the internet.
Many people arrested for a crime are eventually released without charges, but that doesn’t stop U.S. criminal justice agencies from releasing floods of preconviction data on innocent people. These data – once stored in paper files deep in the recesses of local courthouses – are now available to anyone with access to the internet. A recent study found that over 10 million arrests, 4.5 million mugshots and 14.7 million criminal court proceedings are digitally released before a criminal conviction each year, regardless of whether the person is ultimately found guilty or innocent.
The release of these records has spurred a cottage industry in collecting these data and disseminating them – for a fee – to interested parties like landlords, employers and nosy neighbors. Public accusations operate as a type of tantalizing clickbait on the internet, elevating websites that report arrests and criminal charges to the top of a person’s search results.
This hamstrings innocent people trying to get their lives back on track.
The American Internet Never Forgets
There is a cascade of consequences for people publicly marked as criminal well before their day in court.
They face tarnished reputations paired with diminished housing, employment and even dating prospects. The information these websites purvey is not only enduring but often inaccurate. Arrest records are rife with data errors, including mismatched identities and outdated information, particularly because of automated data aggregation systems.
Those who are harmed also lack recourse. Once the government makes an accusation public through statements, social media posts or website archives, it is ensconced in the public record and available for companies to use and share for profit.
Unlike many European citizens whose countries have countered these potential harms by adopting a “right to be forgotten” – which allows for outdated search results to be delinked from a persons’ name – American citizens lack basic internet privacy and reputational rights.
And research shows that publicly exposing individuals results in more crime – rather than serving as a deterrent – as people who have been marked by public accusation are shut out of stable employment, housing and social life.
https://consortiumnews.com/2020/12/18/corporations-accused-of-crimes-get-more-rights-than-people/
UK man dubbed ‘Papa Smurf’ sentenced to 16 years for child rape
A British man dubbed “Papa Smurf” who visited schools and nurseries to show off his vast collection of the blue dolls has been exposed as a child rapist — and was slapped with a 16-year prison sentence for his vile crime, according to a report.
Robin White, 65, of Derbyshire, was known for driving around in a distinctive van, claiming in 2017 to possess a collection of over 10,000 Smurfs as he embarked on a world record attempt, Derbyshire Live reported.
But under the innocent façade lay a perverted monster who preyed on a young girl and sexually abused her, officials said.
The sicko even used a sex toy on the girl, whom he raped in a shed, according to the news outlet.
Even when the victim, who is now an adult, bravely reported his heinous attack, White denied everything as he forced her to relive her nightmare at his trial.
Prosecutor Julia King described how White’s actions left the woman with “severe psychological harm.”
“She kept things to herself because she did not know who to trust. She says she is unable to trust anyone fully and that this has had an impact on every aspect of her life,” King said.
“She says she does not want to go to certain places in case she bumps into him,” she continued. “But she also says what gives her happiness is being able to look after herself and that she feels she has closed a chapter in her life now.”
A jury found White guilty of multiple counts of rape, indecent assault on a child and causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, Derbyshire Live reported.
Derby Crown Court Judge Nirmal Shant said: “As she said in her victim personal statement, everything you did has blighted her for the rest of her life.
“It has affected her personal relationships and has affected her personal and private persona,” she added. “To say you have blighted her life in every way is an understatement.”
White’s attorney Raglan Ashton said his client’s wife stands by him despite the horrific crimes.
https://nypost.com/2020/12/18/uk-man-dubbed-papa-smurf-gets-16-years-for-child-rape/
All The People Who Should Be Embarrassed About The Latest Hunter Biden News, Ranked
Two months after the New York Post published its series of exposés on Hunter Biden, new information has revealed a lot of people with a lot to be embarrassed about.
A lot of powerful people have a lot to be embarrassed about.
Last week, President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team released a statement acknowledging the existence of an investigation under the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office probing Hunter Biden’s tax affairs. The investigation joins a broader probe examining Hunter’s finances underway by the securities fraud unit in the Southern District of New York, reported by Politico, and another targeting James Biden, Joe Biden’s brother, in Pennsylvania related to a series of hospital deals.
The existence of ongoing federal investigations targeting Hunter Biden was first reported in October, days before the November election. Content surfaced on an abandoned Delaware laptop implicating Joe Biden in his son’s potentially criminal overseas business dealings.
Democrats dismissed the revelations as pure Russian disinformation, offering their allies in the corporate media an excuse to ignore the news they’re responsible for reporting when not delegitimizing the idea of Biden family corruption altogether.
The irony of the Hunter Biden saga is rich, considering the same media perpetuated a four-year conspiracy with no end indicting President Donald Trump in the press as a Kremlin agent, laying the roots for a baseless narrative to attack any reporting they simply don’t like, including the blockbuster revelations on Hunter Biden.
Now that Hunter Biden has acknowledged an ongoing investigation probing his finances from the Department of Justice, legacy outlets finally offering coverage after forgoing any attention to a story that became even more important following the election. But don’t hold your breath for coverage to be fair.
If it wasn’t clear before — and it was given statements from the FBI, the Department of Justice, the director of national intelligence, and the Department of State — it’s undeniably clear now that stories unearthing incriminating details on Hunter Biden did not stem from some Russian plot to interfere in the November election. Public knowledge of not one, but three federal investigations targeting the Biden family with an on-the-record whistleblower and a laptop hard drive authenticated with forensic analysis also obtained by federal authorities help make that clear.
Yet two months after legacy media declined to take the Hunter Biden story seriously for potentially undermining their preferred presidential candidate, there’s a lot of people who engaged in interference with no shame and no accountability. The stories that surfaced in October ought to embarrass a lot of people. Here’s a short list.
Joe Biden
Above all, former Vice President Biden remains at the heart of the controversy, caught in a web of lies covering for his son’s overseas business ventures that emails show sought to enrich the entire family, including the president-elect himself.
The first bombshell to drop in the New York Post’s series of October exposés caught Joe Biden lying throughout the entire campaign when repeatedly denying ever discussing business with his son, “or with anyone else.” Indeed, 2015 emails show Joe Biden personally met with a senior advisor for Burisma, the Ukrainian energy firm showering the vice president’s son with upwards of $50,000 a month in excess compensation while Joe Biden served as the “public face” of Obama administration policy on Ukraine.
More
https://thefederalist.com/2020/12/18/all-the-people-who-should-be-embarrassed-about-the-latest-hunter-biden-news-ranked/
Chief charged with trying to record female servicemembers in private area in Bahrain
A U.S. Navy chief faces criminal charges for allegedly attempting to record female service members earlier this year in Bahrain, according to a charge sheet obtained by Navy Times.
Chief Boatswain’s Mate Douglas R. Lusk, of Maritime Expeditionary Squadron 3, is accused of attempting to record the women in a private area without their consent from March to June at Naval Support Activity Bahrain.
Lusk was scheduled for a special court-martial arraignment Thursday in San Diego, according to the Navy Region Southwest docket.
His Navy defense attorney declined to comment, according to Lt. Cmdr. Amber Lewis, a spokeswoman with Navy Expeditionary Combat Command.
A California native, Lusk enlisted in 1996 and made chief in 2009, according to his service record.
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2020/12/18/chief-charged-with-trying-to-record-female-servicemembers-in-private-area-in-bahrain/
WHO (finally) admits PCR tests create false positives
Warnings concerning high CT value of tests are months too late…so why are they appearing now? The potential explanation is shockingly cynical.
The World Health Organization released a guidance memo on December 14th, warning that high cycle thresholds on PCR tests will result in false positives.
While this information is accurate, it has also been available for months, so we must ask: why are they reporting it now? Is it to make it appear the vaccine works?
The “gold standard” Sars-Cov-2 tests are based on polymerase chain reaction (PCR). PCR works by taking nucleotides – tiny fragments of DNA or RNA – and replicating them until they become something large enough to identify. The replication is done in cycles, with each cycle doubling the amount of genetic material. The number of cycles it takes to produce something identifiable is known as the “cycle threshold” or “CT value”. The higher the CT value, the less likely you are to be detecting anything significant.
This new WHO memo states that using a high CT value to test for the presence of Sars-Cov-2 will result in false-positive results.
To quote their own words [our emphasis]:
Users of RT-PCR reagents should read the IFU carefully to determine if manual adjustment of the PCR positivity threshold is necessary to account for any background noise which may lead to a specimen with a high cycle threshold (Ct) value result being interpreted as a positive result.
They go on to explain [again, our emphasis]:
The design principle of RT-PCR means that for patients with high levels of circulating virus (viral load), relatively few cycles will be needed to detect virus and so the Ct value will be low. Conversely, when specimens return a high Ct value, it means that many cycles were required to detect virus. In some circumstances, the distinction between background noise and actual presence of the target virus is difficult to ascertain.
Of course, none of this is news to anyone who has been paying attention. That PCR tests were easily manipulated and potentially highly inaccurate has been one of the oft-repeated battle cries of those of us opposing the “pandemic” narrative, and the policies it’s being used to sell.
Many articles have been written about it, by many experts in the field, medical journalists and other researchers. It’s been commonly available knowledge, for months now, that any test using a CT value over 35 is potentially meaningless.
Dr Kary Mullis, who won the Nobel Prize for inventing the PCR process, was clear that it wasn’t meant as a diagnostic tool, saying:
with PCR, if you do it well, you can find almost anything in anybody.”
And, commenting on cycle thresholds, once said:
If you have to go more than 40 cycles to amplify a single-copy gene, there is something seriously wrong with your PCR.”
https://off-guardian.org/2020/12/18/who-finally-admits-pcr-tests-create-false-positives/
John Roberts Accused on Tape of Getting HACKED By Brennan and Clapper. Adoption Scandal?
Is Roberts Compromised?
With Vice President Mike Pence calling Supreme Court chief justice John Roberts a “disappointment” for conservatives, Roberts faces widespread scrutiny over the possibility that he is compromised. I reported in 2018:
Obama administration intelligence officials John Brennan and James Clapper must answer to the allegations that they blackmailed Supreme Court Justice John Roberts to get his vote for Obamacare in 2012.
Roberts, who reportedly was investigated at one time for illegally adopting his children, betrayed the Republican base when he confirmed the supposed constitutionality of Obamacare during Obama’s re-election campaign.
Evidence shows that John Roberts, chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, was “hacked” by a Deep State surveillance operation overseen by Obama administration CIA director John Brennan and Obama director of national intelligence James Clapper.
Roberts, the Bush appointee, was allegedly the victim of the same Deep State surveillance program that spied on President Donald Trump.
Tapes released by Federal Judge G. Murray Snow — preserved on a Whistleblower Soundcloud page managed by citizen journalist Mary Fanning — show real estate billionaire Timothy Blixseth explaining Brennan and Clapper’s surveillance program to Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and detective Mike Zullo. The existence of this surveillance program has been corroborated by Wikileaks’ “Vault 7” release and by the public comments of former CIA and NSA contractor Dennis Montgomery, who says he worked on the program for Brennan and Clapper.
Montgomery has gone public with his claims exposing how the program was used to spy on President Donald Trump when he was a private citizen. Montgomery has gained immunity and desperately wants House Intelligence Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes or other lawmakers to call him to testify about what he knows.
On the explosive tapes, Blixseth walks Arpaio and Zullo through the details of the program on a computer screen. At one point, the three begin pulling up specific names of targeted individuals.
“You know who that guy is? That’s the head of the FISA court they hacked into, Reggie Walton,” Blixseth tells the investigators.
“John Roberts, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, was hacked,” Blixseth tells Arpaio and Zullo.
https://nationalfile.com/john-roberts-accused-on-tape-of-getting-hacked-by-brennan-and-clapper-adoption-scandal/
Former Trump Adviser Says POTUS Could Use Troops to Force Election Redos in Swing States
Since receiving a pardon from President Donald Trump, former National Security Adviser Flynn has repeatedly condemned the way the presidential election was held in 2020, repeating the accusations of voter fraud expressed by some in the GOP and POTUS over the last month.
Former National Security Adviser to the US president, General Michael Flynn has suggested in an interview with Newsmax that Donald Trump could utilise his powers to invoke martial law and use the country's military in order to force several battleground states into conducting a do-over presidential election. He argued that such a move might be necessary for the US to move on after such an "unsatisfactory" election.
"There is no way in the world we are going to be able to move forward as a nation […] Within the swing states, if [Trump] wanted to, he could take military capabilities, and he could place those in states and basically rerun an election in each of those states", Flynn stated.
The former Trump adviser noted that using martial law would not be "unprecedented", recalling that it had been imposed 64 times in the past, on various occasions: from earthquakes and fires to major civil unrest. However, on none of these occasions was martial law or the military used to force a redo election. In addition, legal scholars still argue if a do-over is even possible for the presidential elections with no precedent in US history for such a procedure.
https://sputniknews.com/us-elections-2020-news/202012181081501823-former-trump-adviser-says-potus-could-use-troops-to-force-election-redos-in-swing-states/
ABC was ‘horrified’ by High Court’s unanimous acquittal of Cardinal Pell
Cardinal George Pell had his share of enemies among the progressive commentariat, particularly at the ABC which was “horrified” by the High Court’s unanimous seven-nil acquittal of the cardinal, says Sky News host Chris Kenny.
“One of the most high-profile prosecutions in Australian history, and in April this year it culminated in the High Court’s unanimous seven-nil acquittal of Cardinal George Pell,” Mr Kenny said.
“The face of the church in this country and an outspoken and staunch conservative, Pell had his fair share of enemies among the progressive commentariat – particularly at the ABC which ran a series of stories accusing him of these appalling crimes.
“And wasn’t the national broadcaster horrified at the final High Court ruling.
“The question we should be asking is not so much how you maintain faith in the criminal justice system – which in the end worked - … but rather how you maintain faith in the national broadcaster.”
https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6217073633001
'Modern Slavery': With Little Enforcement, Israeli Trafficking in Foreign Workers Continues
Despite victories against sex trafficking, workers are suffering in farming, construction and caregiving, but the police and other agencies have come up short in both identification and enforcement
On August 20, Thai workers employed on a moshav agricultural community in the south phoned a rights group and described their working conditions: toil from dawn to midnight, sometimes in the extreme heat.
Workers who were “too slow” were fined by their Israeli employer. Medical problems, some of them probably caused by the work, weren’t treated. Other complaints were almost routine – like repeated late payment, pay less than minimum wage, and work with pesticides with no protection.
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-modern-slavery-with-little-enforcement-israeli-trafficking-in-workers-continues-1.9383567
2020 - The Year Illuminati Cancelled Humanity
2020 was the year when the global capitalist ruling classes did away with the illusion of democracy and reminded everyone who is actually in charge, and exactly what happens when anyone challenges them.
Even if one accepts the official "science," you do not transform the entire planet into a pathologized-totalitarian nightmare in response to a health threat of this nature.
In the relatively short span of the last ten months, societies throughout the world have been transformed beyond recognition. Constitutional rights have been suspended. Protest has been banned. Dissent is being censored.
Government officials are issuing edicts restricting the most basic aspects of our lives … where we can go, when we can go there, how long we are allowed to spend there, how many friends we are allowed to meet there, whether and when we can spend time with our families, what we are allowed to say to each other, who we can have sex with, where we have to stand, how we are allowed to eat and drink, etc. The list goes on and on.
The authorities have assumed control of the most intimate aspects of our daily lives. We are being managed like inmates in a prison, told when to eat, sleep, exercise, granted privileges for good behavior, punished for the slightest infractions of an ever-changing set of arbitrary rules, forced to wear identical, demeaning uniforms (albeit only on our faces), and otherwise relentlessly bullied, abused, and humiliated to keep us compliant.
None of which is accidental, or has anything to do with any actual virus, or any other type of public health threat. Yes, before some of you go ballistic, I do believe there is an actual virus, which a number of people have actually died from, or which at least has contributed to their deaths … but there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever of any authentic public health threat that remotely justifies the totalitarian emergency measures we are being subjected to or the damage that is being done to society.
Whatever you believe about the so-called "pandemic," it really is as simple as that. Even if one accepts the official "science," you do not transform the entire planet into a pathologized-totalitarian nightmare in response to a health threat of this nature.
https://henrymakow.com/2020/12/illuminati-cancelled-humanity.html