Robinhood raked in $700 million by backstabbing users on behalf of hedge funds

After blocking retail investors from purchasing any more GameStop (GME) stock last week, the Robinhood trading app was caught funneling nearly $700 million into its coffers from the sale of private user data to wealthy hedge funds.

As GME share prices rose to nearly $500 a piece last week, Robinhood blatantly interfered with the markets on behalf of Melvin Capital Management to prevent a full-scale short squeeze. The partial squeeze that did occur resulted in Melvin losing more than half of its $12.5 billion portfolio in January.

Recognizing that Melvin and others had shorted 140 percent of GME’s existing shares based on the assumption that their value would eventually decrease, retail investors swooped in to buy up the stock in order to prevent that from happening – which is perfectly legal.

What Melvin and other hedge funds had done was questionable at best, and possibly even illegal since shorting more than the number of shares available constitutes market manipulation. And Robinhood was complicit in the scam, as it screwed over its own users to try to protect Melvin and the hedge funds.

In a statement, Robinhood claimed that it halted all further buying of GME shares to meet clearinghouse deposit requirements. The company rejects all allegations that it tried to stop users from trading, even though it just so happened to help Melvin and the other hedge funds.

Since that time, retail investors have filed a class action lawsuit against Robinhood alleging that the company’s “actions were done purposely and knowingly to manipulate the market for the benefit of people and financial institutions who were not Robinhood users.”

Robinhood is a scam and its executives are crooked

While there typically is not much good to say about him, CNN‘s Chris Cuomo grilled Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev over the matter, noting that the decision to block all further buying of GME shares came immediately after Melvin and the other hedge funds started to lose money from the short squeeze.

“This looks like a move by an outfit called Robinhood, which is supposed to be taking from the rich and giving to the poor, and doing exactly the opposite,” Cuomo is quoted as saying.

While Robinhood has long branded itself as an accessible platform that provides free financial services for the little guy, its entire business model is questionable. Rather than “democratize finance for all,” as its company mission claims, Robinhood appears to be a Trojan Horse that exists to screw over the little guy while making the wealthy even wealthier.

The latest quarterly revenue data provided by The Box reveals that Robinhood earned about $675 million in revenue from payments for order flow.

“Trades may be commission free for Robinhood users but they are actually sold to ‘market makers’ that often used their position as the middle man to generate profit,” reports the Daily Caller.

“Most of these ‘market makers’ are hedge funds or other institutional investors that financially benefit from more trade and market volatility.”

Back in December before the GME saga, Robinhood was fined $65 million by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for “misleading statements and omissions” regarding its payments for the order flow process.

“The SEC concluded that Robinhood ‘deprived’ users of $34.1 million after providing their order flow to clients that prioritized higher revenue over providing the best price for customers.”

As it turns out, Robinhood’s largest clients for order flow are all hedge funds and other institutional investors. More than half of the company’s market orders were purchased by Citadel Securities, an affiliate of the hedge fund Citadel LLC. Janet Yellen, the new secretary of the U.S. Treasury under Joe Xiden, was paid $810,000 by Citadel to speak at several events between Oct. 2019 and Oct. 2020.

http://www.yourdestinationnow.com/2021/02/robinhood-raked-in-700-million-by.html

68 Migrants Found in Four Stash Houses near Border in Texas

Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol agents apprehended 68 migrants in four separate human smuggling stash house operations. The agents carried out the four interdictions on Thursday at various locations in Hidalgo and Starr Counties.

RGV agents teamed up with Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office deputies to investigate a report from the public that a residence in Alamo, Texas, was being utilized as a human smuggling stash house, according to information obtained from U.S. Border Patrol officials in the Rio Grande Valley Sector.

During the investigation, the agents found 18 illegal aliens, including a pregnant woman. The woman was reported to be in her seventh month of pregnancy, officials stated. Agents identified the 18 migrants as foreign nationals from Central America and Mexico.

A short time later, Rio Grande City police officers contacted Border Patrol agents about a location housing another group of migrants. The officers said they received an anonymous tip about a suspected stash house in a Rio Grande City residence. An investigation led to the apprehension of 12 more migrants — also from Central America and Mexico.

Later in the day, Roma, Texas, police officers contacted agents regarding yet another residence being utilized to harbor illegal aliens, officials stated. After obtaining consent to search the home, agents found 14 more migrants. The agents placed the 14 people under arrest for illegally entering the U.S.

The Starr County Sheriff’s Office contacted Border Patrol agents about yet another human smuggling stash house being operated in Rio Grande City. The agents and deputies responded and found 24 more migrants including one unaccompanied child, officials stated.

In total, the agents arrested 68 migrants including a seven-month pregnant female and an unaccompanied alien child, the report revealed.

Officials did not disclose if the migrants were expelled under Title 42 coronavirus protection protocols put in place by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or if they were released into the community.

“Even with the spread of the COVID-19 virus, human smugglers continue to try these brazen attempts with zero regard for the lives they endanger nor to the health of the citizens of our great nation,” officials concluded.

https://www.breitbart.com/border/2021/02/13/68-migrants-found-in-four-stash-houses-near-border-in-texas/

Michigan State Police Officials Are Dodging Public Records Obligations By Using Encrypted Messaging Apps

There have been some very vocal calls for encryption backdoors by the heads of certain law enforcement agencies. And those making the most noise imply every other law enforcement agency that isn’t clamoring for worse security supports the clamoring loudmouths demanding mandated backdoors.

Maybe these other agencies do agree with “going dark” proselytizers like Chris Wray and Cy Vance. Maybe these agencies that never speak out are the silent majority. Then again, maybe they recognize the tradeoff for what it is and find other ways to obtain the evidence they need. But one thing is clear, cops are fans of encryption if it benefits them.

Admissions made in a lawsuit brought by a fired Michigan State Police inspector show police officials have been using an encrypted messaging app with a self-destruct feature to engage in official business.

Top officials at the Michigan State Police have been using text messaging encryption devices that can put their internal communications out of the reach of the Freedom of Information Act and legal discovery, according to admissions the MSP made in a civil lawsuit.

Among those who have downloaded the “end-to-end” encryption applications onto their state-issued phones are a lieutenant-colonel, two majors and two first lieutenants, according to court records obtained by the Free Press.

Former inspector Michael Hahn sued the Michigan State Police after he was allegedly fired in retaliation for his vocal opposition to “unlawful racial and gender hiring and promotion preference.” Hahn’s lawyer, James Fett, suspected something was amiss when his discovery request for text messages from officials involved in Hahn’s firing returned hardly any messages. The meager output was at odds with the four-month investigation of Hahn involving numerous MSP officials that occurred prior to his dismissal.

After a motion to compel, the Michigan State Police admitted its officials were using an encrypted app with self-destructing messages that leaves no permanent record on officials’ phones or MSP servers.

Fett asked the MSP to admit that Gasper, Hinkley, Lt. Col. Kyle Bowman, Maj. Emmitt McGowan, Maj. Beth Clark, 1st Lt. Brody Boucher, and 1st Lt. Jason Nemecek had each downloaded and used an instant messaging application with end-to-end encryption on their state-issued cellphones.

Assistant Attorney General Mark Donnelly, who is representing the state defendants in the lawsuit, admitted in an Oct. 29 response, obtained by the Free Press, that was true for each of the officials named. But in a corrected filing Thursday, Donnelly said use of the encryption app on state phones was not true for Gasper or Hinkley, though it was true for the others.

The app being used appears to be Signal, according to the fired MSP inspector bringing the lawsuit. Hahn noted that lots of MSP officials’ names disappeared from the app after the Detroit Free Press began asking MSP officials to comment on the filing.

While encryption is a great way to protect sensitive communications from malicious hackers and criminals, it’s not so great when it’s being used to shield public servants from transparency and accountability. By all means, these communications should be encrypted. But they should also be archived and stored somewhere the MSP can retrieve them when sought by public records requesters or court orders. This storage

https://thomasdishaw.com/michigan-state-police-officials-are-dodging-public-records-obligations-by-using-encrypted-messaging-apps/

Facebook, Google and eBay want the Supreme Court to make it harder to sue them and other big tech companies

Home / News / Facebook, Google and eBay want the Supreme Court to make it harder to sue them and other big tech companies

Facebook, Google and eBay want the Supreme Court to make it harder to sue them and other big tech companies

February 15, 2021 - News

Facebook, Google and eBay asked the Supreme Court to make it more difficult to sue them by raising the bar for acceptable evidence. They were supported by multiple trade groups that represent them and other big tech corporations.

In 2011, Sergio Ramirez and his wife were trying to buy a car. During the transaction, the dealership ran a credit check on the couple with TransUnion.

TransUnion found that Ramirez’s name matched a terrorist’s on a watchlist maintained by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). Because of this, the dealership refused to sell a car to him. His wife had to buy the car under her name.

Ramirez asked TransUnion for a copy of his credit report. He received one that didn’t contain the OFAC warning. The company later sent Ramirez a copy that contained the OFAC notice, but the two individuals on the watchlist had different middle initials and dates of birth.

TransUnion did not provide Ramirez a means with which to challenge the information in his credit report. So, he hired a lawyer to get the incorrect data expunged.

In 2012, Ramirez filed a potential class-action suit alleging that TransUnion violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The suit was later determined to include more than 8,200 members. A court ruled in favor of the class and ordered TransUnion to pay each person in the suit $984 in statutory damages and $6,350 in punitive damages.

TransUnion tried to appeal the case, arguing that Ramirez’s situation was “non-representative,” as most of the other members did not experience specific harm due to the behavior of the company. In Feb. 2020, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the lower court’s decision, but it did cut the punitive damages TransUnion was required to pay per member by roughly half.

TransUnion later tried to take the case to the Supreme Court. In its petition, the company argued that Article III of the Constitution and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure should bar a class from suing unless every single member could demonstrate an actual injury.

On Dec. 16, 2020, the Supreme Court agreed to review the case. Oral arguments are scheduled for Mar. 20.

Big tech companies file an amicus brief in TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez case

Facebook, Google and eBay, along with three trade associations – the Computer Communications Industry Association, the Internet Association and the Technology Network – filed a “friend-of-the-court” brief or an amicus brief in the TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez case.

In their brief, the big tech companies described themselves as “proven innovators that continue to generate valuable technology through significant investments in research and development,” and that are “especially susceptible to abusive, no-injury class action litigation similar to the matter before the Court.”

Big tech is interested in the case because they want the Supreme Court to rule that if a person couldn’t specifically prove how their violation of the law actually hurt them, then that person should not be allowed to join a class-action suit.

“Permitting these abusive no-injury class action lawsuits has a particularly negative effect on [big tech] due to the broad scale of their operations,” the brief stated.

The cases wherein people are allowed to join class-action suits against big tech are already very limited as it is. If the Supreme Court were to rule in big tech’s favor and raise the evidentiary bar, it would be almost impossible for people to be compensated if companies like Facebook and Google were to commit crimes.

There were instances where people have won in class-action suits against big tech.

In January, Facebook reached a settlement with around 1.6 million members of a class-action suit in Illinois over violating the state’s Biometric Information Privacy Act. This law makes it mandatory for firms that collect or use consumer data to provide clear disclosures and mechanisms for opting out. The 1.5 million members of the suit would receive around $340 each.

The amicus brief cited Facebook’s settlement with Illinois as an example of a lawsuit that should not have been allowed to happen.

“No plaintiff alleged that he or she had suffered any harm from Facebook’s technology,” the brief stated, arguing that Facebook’s tagging feature constituted as an opt-out mechanism since people could remove tags.

The Supreme Court’s decision, including its ruling on the amicus brief, is expected to come out in May or June.

http://www.cuzzblue.com/2021/02/facebook-google-and-ebay-want-supreme.html

Deutsche Bank quietly moves to bring crypto into play after producing numerous reports bashing its bubble nature

Following multiple surveys harshly criticizing bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, Deutsche Bank seems to finally see the condemned assets as an opportunity, getting into the game with plans for a cryptocurrency custody platform.

According to December’s report from the World Economic Forum, Germany’s biggest bank has already created a Deutsche Bank Digital Asset Custody prototype. The model is reportedly aimed at developing “a fully integrated custody platform for institutional clients and their digital assets, providing seamless connectivity to the broader cryptocurrency ecosystem.”

The report, which remained off the media radar until it was highlighted by CoinDesk on Saturday, reveals that Deutsche Bank is preparing a trading and token issuance platform. The step will reportedly combine digital assets with traditional banking services, and will help to manage an array of digital assets and fiat holdings in one simple-to-use platform.

The proposed platform will be launched on a step-by-step basis. First, the world’s 21st largest bank will provide custody to “institutional investors, such as asset managers, wealth managers/family offices, corporates and digital funds.” Then, the lender will add an opportunity for holding crypto to allow buying and selling via brokers and exchanges.

After that, Deutsche Bank is planning to add such services as tax accounting and staking tokens on blockchain platforms. At the final stage, the bank’s clientele will be introduced to services for trading and token issuance.

According to the report, Deutsche “has completed its proof of concept and is aiming for a minimum viable product in 2021 while exploring global client interest for a pilot initiative.”

Earlier this week, Bank of New York Mellon, the world’s largest custodian bank and the US’ oldest, announced plans for storing bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies for its clients. US asset manager BlackRock and payments company Square also voiced support for backing digital currencies, while credit card major Mastercard said it will back some cryptocurrencies on its network as earlier as this year.

Though Deutsche Bank hasn’t made an official announcement, the latest news pushed the recently rallying crypto markets further upward, since the lender is ranked as the sixth-largest bank in Europe and the 21st-largest in the world with assets of $1.5 trillion.

On Saturday, bitcoin’s price shot above a new record of $49,000 early on Sunday. The world’s first cryptocurrency was trading at $49,344 before bouncing back to $49,072 at 10:43am GMT.

https://www.rt.com/business/515530-deutsche-bank-custody-crypto-wef/

Top UK Defence Research Lab Gave Grants to Chinese Military-Tied Academics: Report

Academics with ties to the Chinese Communist Party’s military have reportedly secured research funding from Britain’s leading national security laboratory.

The Ministry of Defence’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), one of the UK’s most secretive military research facilities, has been found to have shelled out “substantial sums” of money to Chinese-tied researchers.

Projects at the University of Bristol, Imperial College London, and Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh have received financial support from the Ministry of Defence facility in Porton Down, The Times reported on Monday.

The report claimed that three academics at Bristol University’s Composites Institute have lectured at Zhejiang University in China and even went on to open a laboratory there. The professors are said to be experts in crafting novel materials for the use in extreme conditions such as jet engines, satellites, nuclear power stations, and other “stealth structures”.

The government-backed Australian defence and strategic policy think tank, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) classified Zhejiang University in 2019 as “high risk” for its “moderately high number of defence laboratories, relationship with defence industry, and links to economic and cyber espionage”.

Imperial College London and Heriot-Watt University’s links to the Chinese military were both laid out in a report this month from the think tank Civitas, entitled Arming China? The Chinese Military Complex and Its Potential Exploitation of Scientific Research at UK Universities.

Imperial College London — which signed a £5 million deal with CCP-linked tech giant Huawei last year— was found to have at least “four research centres sponsored by major Chinese weapons suppliers”, including the development of China’s next-generation stealth fighters.

Heriot-Watt University was also mentioned in the report for receiving money from UK defence groups to partner with the Chinese to develop radar jamming technology.

The university was found to have worked on another project with one of China’s top defence research universities, Harbin Engineering University, to create a password-breaking tool, which could potentially lead to “serious leaks of sensitive information”.

Imperial College claimed that the details in the Civitas report “completely mischaracterise the true nature of our sponsorship arrangements”. Heriot-Watt claimed that any research carried out by staff complies with national security and intellectual property laws.

Universities in Britain have seen increased scrutiny for pairing with the Beijing dictatorship, with MI6 reportedly investigating “some of the most prestigious universities in the country” for possibly violating national security laws by working with Chinese weapons developers.

Some 200 British academics are also reportedly under investigation for allegedly sharing military technology with the communist regime.

The author of the Civitas report, Radomir Tylecote, said: “British taxpayers are paying for research that might unintentionally help China’s military soon attain a potentially dominant position,” adding: “This is strategically incoherent – especially when UK spending on research for its own military needs is so anaemic.”

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2021/02/15/top-uk-military-research-laboratory-handed-out-grants-to-chinese-military-tied-academics-report/

Biden Policies Force Release of 200 Migrants into West Texas Border Community

Law Enforcement sources report the release of more than 200 mostly Central American family units into a West Texas border community. The Biden administration’s cancellation of swift removal policies for Central American migrants forced Border Patrol officials to begin the releases of certain migrants immediately.

The recent dismantling of international agreements by the Biden administration created a backlog of migrants being detained in Border Patrol facilities. Due to these changes, the Border Patrol will begin to release Central American family groups that cannot be removed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to their home countries, according to information obtained from sources with knowledge of the plans. The order to release the migrants comes with little notice to local humanitarian organizations.

Lack of bed space in ICE detention facilities designed to accommodate family units put Border Patrol officials in a quandary. The only option available to the Border Patrol is the immediate release of these migrants into humanitarian shelters. The non-governmental shelters will coordinate their travel to other destinations around the country.

In West Texas, migrants will be transported from the region surrounding Eagle Pass, Texas. Other cities within the area lack adequately staffed humanitarian shelters to handle the number of releases. In Eagle Pass, humanitarian shelters will work to accommodate the new arrivals.

As previously reported by Breitbart Texas, the shelters are currently providing humanitarian care for recently released Haitian Migrants. They are still receiving the population of released Haitians on Sunday, further complicating the situation.

The releases began on Saturday and will continue over the coming days. Border Patrol agents must complete the work to reprocess hundreds of Central American migrants and their release will be continuous until the task is complete.

Asylum case file amendments take several hours per migrant. This removes many Border Patrol agents from patrol duties. The timing of the move could not have been worse.

Texas Governor Greg Abbot declared a state of emergency for all Texas counties due to impending freezing weather. Many of the migrants travel lightly and lack cold weather apparel. With little advance notice, local humanitarian shelters will likely attempt to provide shelter, food, and clothing through donations.

In a recent tweet, a State Department spokesperson celebrated the end to Asylum Cooperation Agreements (ACA) with Central American countries that sped the removal process, thus preventing the overcrowding of Border Patrol Stations. These agreements also eased the strain on ICE managed detention facilities.

The border is in a state far from closed as thousands of migrants are being arrested by the Border Patrol weekly. Migrant releases, a rarity during the previous year, are now a frequent occurrence.

https://www.breitbart.com/border/2021/02/14/exclusive-biden-policies-force-release-of-200-migrants-into-west-texas-border-community/

Coronavirus Patients with Learning Disabilities Given ‘Do Not Resuscitate Orders’ in Britain

Britain’s socialised healthcare system has reportedly been issuing do not resuscitate orders for people with learning disabilities during the Chinese coronavirus pandemic.

The Royal Mencap Society, a top charity for people with learning disabilities, claimed that it had received reports in January from people with mental handicaps who said that they were told if they contracted the coronavirus, they would not be resuscitated.

Mencap’s chief executive, Edel Harris, told The Guardian: “Throughout the pandemic many people with a learning disability have faced shocking discrimination and obstacles to accessing healthcare, with inappropriate Do Not Attempt Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (DNACPR) notices put on their files and cuts made to their social care support.

“It’s unacceptable that within a group of people hit so hard by the pandemic, and who even before Covid died on average over 20 years younger than the general population, many are left feeling scared and wondering why they have been left out.

“The JCVI (Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation) and government must act now to help save the lives of some of society’s most vulnerable people by urgently prioritising all people with a learning disability for the vaccine,” Harris concluded.

According to Public Health England (PHE), young people between the ages of 18 and 34 with learning disabilities are 30 times more likely to die from the coronavirus than their non-disabled counterparts.

Last week, NHS figures showed that in the first five weeks of the third national lockdown, some 65 per cent of deaths of people with learning disabilities were caused by the coronavirus.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2021/02/14/coronavirus-patients-with-learning-disabilities-given-do-not-resuscitate-orders-in-uks-socialised-healthcare-system/

Sheila Jackson-Lee demands a national gun ownership database that would expose your home address to criminals nearby

Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Tex.) is proposing new legislation that would create a national database of who owns firearms and how many they own. The database would be made public, allowing local criminals to target firearms owners by simply looking up their home address in the government database.

House Resolution 127 was filed earlier this year as a placeholder, but was updated on Jan. 28 to outline how the Attorney General, through the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, would be tasked with establishing “a system for licensing the possession of firearms or ammunition in the United States, and for the registration with the Bureau of each firearm present in the United States.”

Entitled, “The Sabika Shiekh Firearm Licensing and Registration Act,” named after the foreign exchange student who was supposedly killed in a Texas mass shooting, Rep. Jackson-Lee’s proposal would advance the next stages of gun control in the U.S. by tracking everyone who owns them.

Not only would new firearm purchases get logged, but so would all others from the past. If you purchased a gun 10 years ago, for instance, the bill would require you to personally send in a registration form so the federal government knows what you have.

Commenting on the bill, National Shooting Sports Foundation Public Affairs Director Mark Oliva called it a “blunder,” warning that it is a serious affront to the Second Amendment.

“A national firearm registry is against federal law,” Oliva says, though it is important to note that Rep. Jackson-Lee’s bill would change that law.

“Even Rep. Jackson-Lee’s home state of Texas refuses to consider a registry because of the Orwellian gun control incursions on Second Amendment rights. An examination of the bloated and expensive failure of Canada’s attempt at a national registry demonstrates the tremendous blunder this would be.”

Nobody even mildly right of center would be allowed to own guns under this bill

If passed, the bill’s registry would be made publicly available, meaning your neighbors would know exactly how many guns you have and when you purchased or received them.

All federal, state and local law enforcement authorities, along with all branches of the United States Armed Forces and all state and local governments, as defined by the Bureau, would also be given these insights.

No longer would gun ownership be a private affair, in other words. If you own firearms, everyone would know about it, making you a potential target for gun confiscation.

“But really, comrade, we’re not planning to send the Marines to take your guns, or gin up a mob to run you out of town, or just get the local Karens on your HOA to force you out of your home,” jokes Patrick Richardson, writing for Bearing Arms.

Richardson notes that under the bill, a person would have to be at least 21 years old, pass a background check, pass a psychological examination, and have liability insurance in order to purchase a firearm. The liability insurance portion would cost about $800.

“You would even have to have a license to display an antique firearm,” he further notes. “There’s even a separate license for owning a ‘military-style firearm’ that would require jumping through even more hoops.”

As for the psychological evaluation, it would be up to the Attorney General to determine which standards are required to pass. A psychologist would then have the option to evaluate your home, your family and your friends to determine whether or not you are “safe” to own firearms.

“Naturally this is all about public safety and would never be abused, but does anyone honestly think the ‘standards’ set by the AG would allow anyone with a mildly-right-of-center bent to pass the check?” Richardson writes.

http://www.stationgossip.com/2021/02/sheila-jackson-lee-demands-national-gun.html

When Corporations Become More Powerful Than The Government, Our Definition Of "Big Brother" Needs To Change

Throughout human history, our God-given liberties and freedoms have often been brutally crushed by oppressive governments, and that is still happening all over the world today. But in our time, an additional threat to our liberties and freedoms has emerged.

Global corporations just continue to get larger and more powerful, and in recent years they have been increasingly using that power to shape society. This is a very dangerous trend, because in the western world many of the constraints that our national governments are forced to operate under simply do not apply to corporations.

This gives them an enormous amount of leverage, and they are using it.

Here in the United States, the federal government still has a monopoly on power in areas such as border security, national defense and foreign policy.

But when it comes to the things that matter the most in the day to day lives of most Americans, it could be argued that the giant corporations have now become more powerful than the federal government.

For example, our politicians like to brag about how many jobs that they have “created”, but the truth is that they don’t actually create any jobs unless you want to count useless government desk jobs.

Our politicians can help to foster an environment that will be favorable for economic growth, but it is the corporations that really determine whether the economy will grow or not.

In fact, it could be argued that the corporations are the economy at this point.

Over time, it has become increasingly difficult for any American to become truly independent of the corporate system. Even if you own a small business or you work for yourself, there is a good chance that you depend on the big corporations in many ways.

If you doubt this, just try to “go it on your own” without ever using any corporate products, without ever dealing with a big tech company, and without ever bringing in any income from any corporate source whatsoever.

These days, most of our lives are defined by our corporate overlords. They decide what job you will have, what your pay will be, what hours you will work and what your health plan will look like.

Beyond that, now many large corporations have decided that there are certain beliefs, opinions and values that their employees are not permitted to have.

By now, you have probably heard that a certain actress was fired by Disney for having opinions that were not acceptable. That was a very high profile case, but the truth is that this sort of thing is constantly happening all over the country at this point.

As we move into the future, being guilty of “thought crime” is going to eliminate large blocks of people from ever having certain types of jobs. If you do not pledge fealty to the current version of political correctness, you simply will not be permitted to hold a prominent position in society.

If your beliefs are considered to be “offensive”, you may get to mop the floors for the elite if you are lucky.

https://www.blacklistednews.com/article/79276/when-corporations-become-more-powerful-than-the-government-our-definition-of-big-brother-needs-to.html

German parliament ratifies Agenda ID2020 and Bill Gates’ “vaccination package” for global depopulation

On Jan. 29, the German parliament ratified the implementation of Agenda ID2020, the next phase of the global Mark of the Beast rollout being ushered in on the back of the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) “pandemic.”

This centralized general electronic data collection program will profile every citizen in Germany and grant access to every government agency, police department, and three-letter agency, as well as to the private sector.

Up to 200 points of information, and possibly more as time goes on, will be included in the program. These include people’s bank accounts, shopping habits, health records, including vaccination records, political inclinations, and probably even dating habits.

If the government can use it against you, Germany wants to house it in the Agenda ID2020 database, which was designed by none other than billionaire eugenicist Bill Gates as part of his “vaccination package.”

Backed by the Rockefeller Foundation, Accenture, the World Economic Forum (WEF), and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), the program aims to inject every human being with microchips that can be remote-accessed using 5G and subsequent 6G technologies.

The program’s private partners include many Big Pharma names such as Johnson & Johnson (J&J), GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Merck & Co., and of course the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

According to Peter Koenig, writing for Global Research (Canada), ID2020 is shaping up to be “vaccine-implanted” and “remote-accessible by EM-geared computers, robots or algorithms.”

“The adoption of Agenda ID2020 still has to be approved by the German Federal Council, but there is little chance the Council will reject it,” Koenig explains.

Switzerland’s Agenda ID2020 mark of the beast to be voted on in early March

In nearby Switzerland, voters will have the chance on Mar. 7 to approve that country’s version of Agenda ID2020, an all-electronic identification system that will link “everything to everything of each individual citizen.”

Should the measure pass, the Swiss government plans to outsource management of the program to the private sector, meaning drug companies, big banks, and insurance companies will be buying and selling people’s private data for profit.

In the future, the program will likely include an implantable chip with built-in radiofrequency (RF) transmitters that will be used to track people, as well as manage their finances and allot them payment credits for the work they do so they can continue to buy and sell.

Early trials of such technology have already taken place in remote villages of Bangladesh, where poor people were injected with microchips under the guise of being “vaccinated.”

This is exactly the type of thing that Bill Gates and other genocidal maniacs want to see implemented around the world. Every person will eventually have to be ID-chipped and “vaccinated,” and the 5G / 6G systems being installed on every church rooftop and corner lamppost will be used to program and control this global herd of new world order beings.

All of this is for the purpose of keeping people “safe” against Chinese germs, of course. There is simply no other way to keep the “virus” at bay, the elite insist.

“With an electromagnetic field and with 5G / 6G EM-waves allowing inputs and access of data in your body – the control of each individual is almost complete,” Koenig warns. “The ‘almost’ refers to the planned access to your brainwaves.”

“This is supposed to be happening through a Brain Computer Interface (BCI), called Neurolink – developed by Elon Musk. It presents an interface of electronic waves with the human brain which, by then, will have been converted into an electromagnetic field (EMF), so that it can receive digital commands that will influence our behavior, or can be turned off – RIP – as maybe is most convenient for the Global Cabal.”

http://www.madnesshub.com/2021/02/german-parliament-ratifies-agenda.html

Recovered Covid patients have been reinfected with new virus strains, WHO says

Preliminary reports from South Africa show people who have recovered from Covid-19 have been reinfected with a new, more contagious variant of the virus, World Health Organization officials said at a press briefing Friday.

The good news, however, is that the vaccines developed to guard against the virus appear to reduce the severity of illness in those who do develop Covid-19, even if it doesn’t completely protect them from infection, said the WHO’s chief scientist, Dr. Soumya Swaminathan.

“The [vaccine] trials that have been done so far in South Africa as well as in Brazil with different candidates have shown complete protection against severe disease and hospitalization and death. There hasn’t been a single case reported in any of the trials,” she said.

Vaccination may also decrease the spread of new Covid variants, according to the WHO.

“There are reports now that if you have the vaccine and you get infected, the viral load is much lower. So the chances of infecting others may be lower,” said Swaminathan.

Prior Covid infection produces antibodies and cell mediated immunity that are thought to prevent reinfection, scientists have found. Vaccination also helps individuals build protection against the virus.

But researchers continue to study the extent to which prior infection and vaccination protect against the new, more infectious variants of the coronavirus.

Increased vaccination efforts alone are likely insufficient in managing the spread of the coronavirus strain originating in the U.K., Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, told CNBC on Thursday. Gottlieb said a combination of incoming warmer weather and ramped up vaccinations could help contain the variant.

Swaminathan at the WHO briefing Friday stressed the importance of vaccinated people continuing to take precautions such as mask wearing, hand washing and social distancing to control the spread of the virus.

http://www.yourdestinationnow.com/2021/02/recovered-covid-patients-have-been.html

7 Virus Variants Found in U.S. Carrying the Same Mutation - The New York Times

As Americans anxiously watch variants first identified in the United Kingdom and South Africa spread in the United States, scientists are finding a number of new variants that originated here. More concerning, many of these variants seem to be evolving in the same direction — potentially becoming contagious threats of their own. In a study posted Sunday, a team of researchers reported seven growing lineages of the novel coronavirus, spotted in states across the country. All of them have evolved a mutation in the same genetic letter.

"There’s clearly something going on with this mutation," said Jeremy Kamil, a virologist at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center Shreveport and a co-author of the new study. It’s unclear whether it makes the variants more contagious. But because the mutation appears in a gene that influences how the virus enters human cells, the scientists are highly suspicious. "I think there’s a clear signature of an evolutionary benefit," Kamil said.

The history of life is full of examples of so-called convergent evolution, in which different lineages follow the same path. Birds gained wings as they evolved from feathered dinosaurs, for example, just as bats did when they evolved from furry, shrew-like mammals. In both cases, natural selection gave rise to a pair of flat surfaces that could be flapped to generate lift — enabling bats and birds alike to take to the sky and fill an ecological niche that other animals could not.

Charles Darwin first recognized convergent evolution by studying living animals. In recent years, virologists have found that viruses can evolve convergently, too. HIV, for example, arose when several species of viruses shifted from monkeys and apes to humans. Many of those lineages of HIV gained the same mutations as they adapted to our species.

As the coronavirus now branches into new variants, researchers are observing Darwin’s theory of evolution in action, day in and day out.

Kamil stumbled across some of the new variants while he was sequencing samples from coronavirus tests in Louisiana. At the end of January, he observed an unfamiliar mutation in a number of samples.

The mutation altered the proteins that stud the surface of the coronavirus. Known as spike proteins, they are folded chains of more than 1,200 molecular building blocks called amino acids. Kamil’s viruses all shared a mutation that changed the 677th amino acid.

Investigating these mutant viruses, Kamil realized they all belonged to the same lineage. The earliest virus in the lineage dated to 1 Dec. In later weeks, it grew more common.

http://www.cuzzblue.com/2021/02/7-virus-variants-found-in-us-carrying.html

Dutch Police Bust Multi-Million Euro Carousel Fraud

Authorities in The Netherlands have dismantled an alleged criminal syndicate suspected of a complex multi-year, multi-million euro ‘carousel’ VAT-fraud scheme involving the online sale of electronic devices.

The Dutch criminal scheme allegedly used fraudulent online sales of memory cards to claim illicit tax rebates from authorities in several countries (Credit: Multicherry, CC SA-BY 3.0)The Dutch criminal scheme allegedly used fraudulent online sales of memory cards to claim illicit tax rebates from authorities in several countries (Credit: Multicherry, CC SA-BY 3.0)VAT-fraud is thought to cost the European Union as much as 170 billion euros (US$206 billion) every year.

By far the most popular version of such schemes, carousel fraud involves the dissolution of companies in the course of cross-border sales in order to claim falsified rebates from respective tax authorities in different countries.

Europol, the European law enforcement cooperation network, said on Friday the recent sting was made possible with collaboration from further agencies in Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland.

A series of thirteen house searches were carried out earlier in the week as part of the operation, resulting in the seizure of communications equipment and documents related to the purported criminal scheme.

The alleged perpetrators are understood to have stolen nine million euros ($11 million) in illicit tax claims pursuant to falsified online sales of SD memory cards between 2017 and 2019.

Authorities have not yet disclosed whether any arrests have been made.

Previous efforts to effectively investigate and prosecute cross-border VAT schemes such as this have been seriously hindered by the fact that, under the present arrangement, national authorities only have jurisdiction to pursue these crimes as they occur within their borders.

Advocates hope that a new EU body, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, will make enforcement more efficient by streamlining cooperation between authorities in member states, reducing the average timeline for these investigations from several months to a matter of days.

OCCRP recently sat down with the nascent organization’s new head, Laura Kövesi, to discuss some of the challenges she believes they are facing.

https://www.occrp.org/en/daily/13867-dutch-police-bust-multi-million-euro-carousel-fraud

Republicans have written a letter to Speaker Pelosi demanding answers as to why she denied a request to activate the NG ahead of Jan. 6, and why it took her over an hour while the attack was on-going to approve a request to authorize the NG

https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1361369725817782284

Taliban Warns NATO Not to Scrap Planned Withdrawal From Afghanistan

Staying would lead to 'continuation of war'

Over the weekend, the Taliban issued a statement to the upcoming NATO ministerial meeting urging them not to abandon a planned withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan.

NATO has been expected to keep its troops in Afghanistan, and is trying to push the US to stay as well. The Taliban warns that this will amount to a “continuation of war” after the February 29 peace deal, which mandated the pullout.

While the US had all but finished the pullout, the Biden Administration was said to be preparing to hold off on the final withdrawal. The Taliban has warned that part of the deal was important, and not something that they could scrap and still expect peace.

The Taliban’s warning is a fairly obvious result of trying to stay in Afghanistan. In being open about it, they are likely hoping that NATO debate will not be able to ignore the consequences of keeping the war going.

https://news.antiwar.com/2021/02/14/taliban-warns-nato-not-to-scrap-planned-withdrawal-from-afghanistan/

Dr. Anthony Fauci wins Israel’s prestigious $1m. Dan David Prize for 2021

America’s top official on the coronavirus pandemic recognized by Tel Aviv University foundation for ‘extraordinary contribution to humanity’

Dr. Anthony Fauci has won the $1 million Dan David Prize for “defending science” and advocating for vaccines now being administered worldwide to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

The Israel-based Dan David Foundation on Monday named President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser as the winner of one of three prizes. It said he had earned the recognition over a lifetime of leadership on HIV research and AIDS relief, as well as his advocacy for the vaccines against COVID-19.

In its statement, the private foundation did not mention former president Donald Trump, who undermined Fauci’s follow-the-science approach to the pandemic. But it credited Fauci with “courageously defending science in the face of uninformed opposition during the challenging COVID crisis.”

Fauci, 80, has served seven presidents and has been the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984.

In recent interviews, Fauci has acknowledged that it was difficult at times to work for Trump, who repeatedly played down the severity of the pandemic, dismissed the need for mask-wearing and often touted unproven scientific remedies, including injecting disinfectant.

Trump resented Fauci’s flattering press coverage and reveled in calls to “Fire Fauci!” at some of his rallies. But Fauci outlasted Trump, who lost the November election.

“It was very clear that there were things that were said, be it regarding things like hydroxychloroquine and other things, that really was uncomfortable because they were not based in scientific fact,” Fauci said at a recent White House briefing. He added that he took “no pleasure” in having to contradict the president.

Biden’s election, Fauci said, was “liberating.”

https://www.timesofisrael.com/dr-anthony-fauci-wins-israels-prestigious-1m-dan-david-prize-for-2021/

Drug overdose crisis worsens in shadow of COVID-19 pandemic

President Biden and Congress are coming under pressure from advocates to address a public health crisis that has been overshadowed by the coronavirus pandemic: rising drug overdose deaths.

While most attention and government resources have been focused on COVID-19, the overdose crisis has worsened as people struggle with job losses, isolation and the deaths of family and friends brought on by the pandemic.

More than 83,000 people in the U.S. are thought to have died of drug overdoses in the 12-month period ending June, according to the most recent data available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a record-breaking number.

“We’re going to solve COVID in the near term, and hopefully we’re on the path to doing that. But this addiction crisis was grave and gathering before that, and it’s only gotten worse,” said Kevin Roy, chief policy officer for Shatterproof, a nonprofit organization focused on the addiction crisis.

“A recognition that we had an existing public health crisis before COVID is really, really critical because we have to address it.”

Advocacy groups are sounding the alarm about the persistent lack of access to substance use disorder treatment across the country.

Three years after former President Trump declared the opioid epidemic a national emergency, and two years after Congress passed a multibillion-dollar bill responding to the crisis, a substantial portion of the country still lacks access to medication assisted treatment, considered by experts to be the gold standard for addiction care.

Three drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat opioid use disorder can suppress cravings, reduce or eliminate withdrawal symptoms and have been found in clinical trials to curb illicit drug use and reduce the risk of overdose deaths.

But among the 1.6 million people in 2019 who had an opioid use disorder, only 18 percent received medication assisted treatment, according to a survey by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

This is partly because such treatment can be hard to find in many parts of the country, few providers are licensed to provide it and a stigma persists around addiction treatment, both among health professionals and the public.

“It’s not really up for debate, medication assisted treatment should be a part of every treatment plan for opiate use disorder, period,” said Shawn Ryan, chair of legislative advocacy for the American Society of Addiction Medicine.

But 40 percent of counties in the U.S. have no providers who can prescribe buprenorphine, one of the FDA-approved drugs.

Even at specialty substance use treatment facilities, medication assisted treatment can be hard to find.

Only 42 percent of substance use treatment facilities offered at least one of the three FDA-approved treatments in 2018, according to a Government Accountability Office report released in December.

Of those that offered at least one treatment, 33 percent offered buprenorphine, 28 percent offered naltrexone and 10 percent offered methadone.

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/538706-drug-overdose-crisis-worsens-in-shadow-of-covid-19-pandemic

IDF launches surprise IAF exercise to prepare for war with Hezbollah

"Vered Hagalil" drill focused on improving the IAF's readiness for combat in the North.

The IAF is conducting a training exercise to prepare for the possibility of war in the North, the IDF announced Monday.

The drill, called Vered Hagalil, began on Sunday, it said in a press release. It is being carried out under the direction of OC IAF Maj.-Gen. Amikam Norkin and is designed to improve the air force’s readiness for combat in the North, it said.

During the exercise, a greater amount of IAF aircraft, jets and helicopters will be noticeable across the country, and a number of explosions may be heard in the North. The exercise is expected to end on Wednesday.

The exercise simulates combat scenarios on the northern front and will test all components of the IAF’s core missions, including maintaining aerial superiority, protecting the country’s skies, attacking and gathering intelligence, the IDF said.

The exercise will examine the planning, control and execution processes of these missions, as well as end-to-end logistics and technological capabilities, with an emphasis on maintaining aerial freedom of action and full functional continuity, the press release said.

https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/aif-launches-exercise-to-stimulate-warfare-in-israels-northern-fronts-659000

The Guardian Revealed Itself in Sacking Columnist for Criticizing US Military Aid to Israel

The revelation that a leftwing journalist, Nathan J. Robinson, has been sacked as a Guardian U.S. columnist for criticizing Israel on Twitter — and that he was pressured to keep quiet about it by Guardian editors — should come as no surprise. He is only the latest in a long line of journalists, myself included, who have run afoul of The Guardian’s unwritten but tightly policed constraints on what can be said about Israel.

In the tweet below, I have listed a few of the more prominent — and public — examples of journalists who have suffered at The Guardian’s hands over their coverage of Israel. The thread can opened by clicking on the tweet:

The unspoken Guardian rule we broke was to suggest one of the following: that there might be inherent contradictions between Israel’s claim to be a democracy and its self-definition in exclusivist, chauvinist, ethnic terms; or that Israel’s self-declared status as a militaristic, ethnic, rather than civic, state might be connected to its continuing abuses and crimes against Palestinians; or that, because Israel wishes to conceal its ugly, anachronistic ethnic project, it and its defenders might act in bad faith; or that the U.S. might be actively complicit in this ethnically inspired, colonial project to dispossess Palestinians.

Equivocating Editorial

Paradoxically, The Guardian is widely seen as the “mainstream” English-language publication most critical of Israel. It has long shored up its reputation with the left by publishing seemingly forthright, uncompromising material on Israeli-Palestinian issues.

Part of that is a historic credit it earnt. There was a time, long ago, when The Guardian’s pages were, for example, the only place in the mainstream to host —if rarely — the late, great Palestinian intellectual Edward Said. The paper even once allowed its former South Africa correspondent, who had transferred to Israel, to compare in detail the two countries’ systems of apartheid. It caused a furor — much of it instigated by the Israeli embassy in London — that made the paper even more shy of taking on the Israel lobby.

That is reflected in the perverse fact that today Israeli human rights groups are far more courageous in speaking plainly about Israel than The Guardian. When B’Tselem recently published a report stating that Israel operated an apartheid system oppressing Palestinians not just in the occupied territories but in the whole area under its rule — including inside Israel where officials falsely claim 1.8 million Palestinian citizens have equal rights with Jewish citizens — the paper published a mealy-mouthed editorial with equivocations that contrasted starkly with B’Tselem’s passionate and clear critique of a racist system of separate rights.

Even then, The Guardian would never have conceded what it reluctantly did in the editorial had B’Tselem not forced its hand.

https://consortiumnews.com/2021/02/12/the-guardian-revealed-itself-in-sacking-columnist-for-criticizing-us-military-aid-to-israel/

Biden regime: If corporations hire Americans instead of non-citizens, they will be criminally investigated by the DOJ

Dementia Joe is standing by as the Department of Justice (DoJ) launches a “discrimination” investigation into Elon Musk’s SpaceX company for allegedly hiring American citizens over non-citizens.

The Xiden regime is apparently concerned that people who are not from the United States are being overlooked for hiring at SpaceX, which seeing as how it is an American company is dedicated to hiring actual American citizens.

A man reportedly filed a complaint with the DoJ’s Immigrant and Employee Rights Section alleging he was discriminated against based on his citizenship status. The DoJ says Musk is stonewalling a subpoena for information about the claims, this according to court documents revealed on Feb. 4.

“The charge alleges that on or about March 10, 2020, during the Charging Party’s interview for the position of Technology Strategy Associate, SpaceX made inquiries about his citizenship status and ultimately failed to hire him for the position because he is not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident,” DoJ attorney Lisa Sandoval wrote in a court document.

This document contains a petition to a judge to order SpaceX to comply with an administrative subpoena for documents related to how the company hires.

According to Musk, he would like to hire more non-citizens because they will typically work for far less pay, aka slave wages, compared to American workers. The only problem is that government regulations prevent him from doing so because rocket technology is a form of “advanced weapons technology.”

https://www.dcclothesline.com/2021/02/15/biden-regime-if-corporations-hire-americans-instead-of-non-citizens-they-will-be-criminally-investigated-by-the-doj/

European Union Destroyed All Cooperation Mechanisms With Russia By Itself: Lavrov

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov provided an additional context to his recent remarks that Russia is ready to break off relations with the European Union in response to the meddling and sanction efforts by it.

Then, he said the following answering to the question about the possible halt of relations with the EU:

“Our starting point is that we are ready,” he said answering to the question about this possibility. “If we see again, as we have seen several times before, that sanctions are being imposed in areas that create risks for our economy.”

“Of course, we do not want to isolate ourselves from living in the world, but we must be ready for this. If you want peace, prepare for war,” he emphasized.

On February 15, Lavrov added that in fact the European Union has been consistently breaking off relations with Russi, this began a long time ago and Brussels was the initiator.

“In principle, anyone who is more or less interested in the situation in Europe has long known that for many years, when this break occurs, the EU has been consistently breaking relations,” he said at a press conference in St. Petersburg following talks with his Finnish colleague Pekka Haavisto.

According to Lavrov, “2014 was a kind of turning point, when then coup d’etat took place in Ukraine, and the European Union showed its largely helplessness regarding the agreement that was reached right on the eve of the coup d’etat between the government and the opposition, under which Germany, France and Poland put their signatures”.

“Then the real humiliation of the European Union took place,” Lavrov emphasized.

After this, Lavrov added “the EU destroyed all mechanisms without exception”. This included the de-facto suspension of regular summits at the highest level, meetings of members of the Russian government with European Commissioners and the President of the European Commission, more than 20 sectoral dialogues, and annual meetings of the Russian Foreign Minister with the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs.

“All this has been destroyed, and not by us,” Lavrov summed up.

He noted that only sporadic contacts on key international questions like the conflict in Syria or the Iranian nuclear program have survived.

However, Russia is not going to leave Europe. Instead, Moscow will develop its relations with European states rather than the union itself.

“Don’t confuse the European Union with Europe. We are not leaving Europe anywhere. We have many friends in Europe, many like-minded people. We will continue to develop mutually beneficial relations with them,” Lavrov said.

https://southfront.org/european-union-destroyed-all-cooperation-mechanisms-with-russia-by-itself-lavrov/

NYT Retracts Claim That 'Pro-Trump Rioters' Smashed Officer Sicknick In The Head With A Fire Extinguisher

The New York Times on Sunday finally admitted that Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick was not killed by "pro-Trump rioters" who "struck him in the head with a fire extinguisher" – long after they spread the false claim to millions.

"UPDATE: New information has emerged regarding the death of the Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick that questions the initial cause of his death provided by officials close to the Capitol Police," The New York Times said in a correction.

The article, which still carries the original headline "He Dreamed of Being a Police Officer, Then Was Killed by a Pro-Trump Mob," previously claimed that "pro-Trump rioters attacked that citadel of democracy, overpowered Mr. Sicknick, 42, and struck him in the head with a fire extinguisher, according to two law enforcement officials."

"With a bloody gash in his head, Mr. Sicknick was rushed to the hospital and placed on life support," the article continued. "He died on Thursday evening."

The false claim was repeated in multiple articles, some of which are still uncorrected.

In their article "Capitol Police Officer Dies From Injuries in Pro-Trump Rampage," the Times now says:

Law enforcement officials initially said Mr. Sicknick was struck with a fire extinguisher, but weeks later, police sources and investigators were at odds over whether he was hit. Medical experts have said he did not die of blunt force trauma, according to one law enforcement official.

CNN reported around two weeks ago that medical examiners found no evidence Sicknick sustained any blunt force trauma.

From CNN:

Authorities have reviewed video and photographs that show Sicknick engaging with rioters amid the siege but have yet to identify a moment in which he suffered his fatal injuries, law enforcement officials familiar with the matter said.

[…] According to one law enforcement official, medical examiners did not find signs that the officer sustained any blunt force trauma, so investigators believe that early reports that he was fatally struck by a fire extinguisher are not true.

ProPublica reported last month that "the family got word that Brian Sicknick had a blood clot and had had a stroke; a ventilator was keeping him alive."

Is it just a coincidence that the Times waited until after the impeachment sham was over to correct the record?

The New York Post revealed last month that Sicknick was a Trump supporter who was disgusted with our corrupt ruling class and had previously called for "regime change" in Washington.

For all we know, Sicknick was hit with pepper-spray by his fellow police officers and that is what contributed to his untimely death.

Former Delaware Republican U.S. Senate candidate Lauren Witzke said last week that she witnessed the death of 55-year-old Trump supporter Kevin Greeson and believes his heart attack was triggered as a result of Capitol police shooting flashbangs and pepper-spray into their crowd.

As she reported at VDARE:

By the time I got to the Capitol, people had already made their way up to the steps. Trump supporters were waving flags and trying to talk to the Capitol Police. Every rally-goer at that point was extremely peaceful. I then saw Capitol Police Officers with rifles appear on the balcony looking down on us. Almost immediately, the Capitol Police on the ground started throwing flash grenades into the crowds, teargassing us all.

I moved about 40 feet away from the steps, and just stood there, yet the tear gas and flash grenades continued. After being flash bombed and tear-gassed for the third time, I looked down beside me to see that a middle-aged man—Kevin Greeson—on the ground, blue in the face.

https://www.informationliberation.com/?id=62048

Hershey, Nestlé, Mars and Other Chocolate Makers Named in Child Slavery Class Action Lawsuit

Child workers carry sacks of cocoa to a truck on June 28, 2001 in Petit Tieme, Ivory Coast. Tyler Hicks / Getty Images

Many people give chocolates as a symbol of love on Valentine's Day, but for some the popular candy is more bitter than sweet.

A human rights group filed a lawsuit Friday on behalf of eight Malian men who say they were trafficked across the border to the Cote D'Ivoire and forced to harvest cocoa for one or more of seven popular companies, including Mars, Nestlé and Hershey.

"Enough is enough!" IRAdvocates Executive Director Terry Collingsworth said in a statement announcing the lawsuit. "Allowing the enslavement of African children in 2021 to harvest cocoa for major multinational companies is outrageous and must end."

The class action lawsuit was filed with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. In addition to Nestlé, Hershey and Mars, the lawsuit also names Cargill, Mondelēz, Barry Callebaut and Olam. It marks the first time that a class action lawsuit of this type has been brought against cocoa companies in a U.S. court, The Guardian reported. The eight men, who are now young adults, seek damages for forced labor and compensation for the fact that the companies inflicted emotional harm and improper supervision while getting rich at their expense.

Child labor is a major and ongoing problem for cocoa production in West Africa. NORC at the University of Chicago found that 1.56 million children were harvesting cocoa in Cote D'Ivoire and Ghana during the 2018 and 2019 growing season, up 14 percent from 2015, IRAdvocates said. At the same time, 1.48 million children undertook dangerous tasks while working.

The defendant companies have long pledged to end the use of child slavery in their supply chains, but continually extend their deadlines for meeting this goal. In 2001, they signed the "Harkin-Engle Protocol" promising to end child labor by 2005; more than 15 years later, they are now promising to reduce the use of child labor by 70 percent by 2025.

"By giving themselves this series of extensions, these companies are admitting they ARE using child slaves and will continue to do so until they decide it's in their interests to stop," Collingsworth said. "Based on the objective record of twenty years of the failed Harkin-Engle Protocol, these companies will continue to profit from child slavery until they are forced to stop. The purpose of this lawsuit is to force them to stop."

The plaintiffs tell stories of being recruited in Mali under false pretenses; being trafficked across the border; and then being forced to work on cocoa farms without pay, travel documents or any knowledge of when they would be allowed to leave, The Guardian explained. While the companies named in the lawsuit do not directly own the farms where the children worked, the lawsuit contends that they knowingly benefited from their labor because they chose to contract from growers who could offer lower prices because they did not pay adult wages or provide adequate safety equipment.

The World Cocoa Foundation, to which all of the defendants belong, spoke out against child labor but argued that the responsibility for ending it fell to the government of the Côte d'Ivoir.

"The cocoa and chocolate industry has zero tolerance for any instances of forced labor in the supply chain," World Cocoa Foundation President Richard Scobey said in a statement reported by Business Insider. "The government of Côte d'Ivoire has a comprehensive legal framework in place to pursue, arrest and bring to justice those who traffic children or adults."

The individual companies gave similar statements decrying child labor but arguing that the solution involved multiple stakeholders acting together, and not targeted lawsuits. But IRAdvocates sees the lawsuits as a means of forcing companies to actually be a part of the solution.

This is the second lawsuit that IRAdvocates has filed against major chocolate brands over child labor issues. Another, filed against Nestlé and Cargill under the Alien Tort Statute, was argued before the Supreme Court in December of 2020. During the arguments, the companies said they were not liable for child slavery under international law, IRAdvocates said.

"[I]n filing this new case we want these companies to know we will use every possible legal tool available to make them stop abusing child slaves," Collingsworth said in a statement. "We call upon the companies to work with us [to] solve this problem, rather than spend millions in legal fees to fight an uncontestable fact – the cocoa industry is dependent upon child labor."

https://www.blacklistednews.com/article/79288/hershey-nestl%C3%A9-mars-and-other-chocolate-makers-named-in-child-slavery-class-action.html

German Nursing Home Whistleblower: ‘Elderly Dying After COVID Vaccine’

For the first time, there is an eyewitness report from a Berlin nursing home on the situation after the vaccination. It comes from the AGAPLESION Bethanien Havelgarten retirement home in Berlin-Spandau. There, within four weeks after the first vaccination with the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine Comirnaty, eight of 31 seniors, who suffered from dementia but were in good physical condition according to their age before the vaccination, died. The first death occurred after only six days, and five other seniors died approximately 14 days after vaccination. The first symptoms of the disease had already appeared shortly after the vaccination.

https://www.blacklistednews.com/article/79286/german-nursing-home-whistleblower-elderly-dying-after-covid.html

270 addresses are responsible for 55% of all cryptocurrency money laundering

Most cryptocurrency money laundering is concentrated in a few online services, opening the door for law enforcement actions.

Criminals who keep their funds in cryptocurrency tend to launder funds through a small cluster of online services, blockchain investigations firm Chainalysis said in a report last week.

This includes services like high-risk (low-reputation) crypto-exchange portals, online gambling platforms, cryptocurrency mixing services, and financial services that support cryptocurrency operations headquartered in high-risk jurisdictions.

Criminal activity studied in this report included cryptocurrency addresses linked to online scams, ransomware attacks, terrorist funding, hacks, transactions linked to child abuse materials, and funds linked to payments made to dark web marketplaces offering illegal services like drugs, weapons, and stolen data.

But while you'd expect that the money laundering resulting from such a broad spectrum of illegal activity to have taken place across a large number of services, Chainalysis reports that just a small group of 270 blockchain addresses have laundered around 55% of cryptocurrency associated with criminal activity.

Furthermore, expanding this group further, Chainalysis says that 1,867 addresses received 75% of all criminally-linked cryptocurrency funds in 2020, a sum estimated at around $1.7 billion.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/270-addresses-are-responsible-for-55-of-all-cryptocurrency-money-laundering/

Florida Man Uses Stimulus Check to Start Thriving Home Garden to Feed His Community

When millions of people across the United States received their federal stimulus checks to help them cope with the devastating economic repercussions of the novel coronavirus pandemic and resulting lockdown, most people spent their checks on basic necessities like food, rent, mortgage, utilities, and other basic necessities

However, one man from East Tampa, Florida, decided to use his funds to invest in a much more long-term project: building his own garden at home and using it to help provide food for himself. He’s now teaching his community about the massive benefits of food independence.

Michael Chaney, who goes by the nickname “Spirit Mike,” has long been interested in gardening. It wasn’t until the pandemic struck and local supermarkets were struck by the crisis that he was able to muster the self-motivation and time to fully pursue what began as a hobby and now has turned into his passion.

When he received his first stimulus check, he immediately used the funds to purchase some pots and start growing his first tomato plant. He also spoke to seasoned gardeners at the nearby A Land of Delight Natural Farm to pick up some materials and advice that would enable him to begin growing his own food, he told local radio station WMNF.

Now, Chaney is growing not only tomatoes but also collard greens, ghost peppers, mustard greens, strawberry guava, eggplants, onions, papaya, cashew apples, sugar cane, lemon, yucca, and lettuce, among other plants on his .3 acres of land.

I do biointensive gardening, which means planting as much as you can in a small space,” Chaney told Atlanta Black Star. “I specifically picked these types of fruits [dwarf plants] because they grow fruit fast.”

Chaney derives the most pride from his moringa trees, which he values for its high vitamin C content and celebrated medicinal properties as well as its antifungal, antiviral, anti-inflammatory and antidepressant qualities.

https://www.naturalblaze.com/2021/02/florida-man-uses-stimulus-check-to-start-thriving-home-garden-to-feed-his-community.html

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>>12934517 Hershey, Nestlé, Mars and Other Chocolate Makers Named in Child Slavery Class Action Lawsuit

PRAY FOR EACH OTHER