“This Is A Shot Across The Bow, We Want The Machines Opened Up”, North Carolina House Members Request Inspection of Voting Machines

A group of North Carolina Republican lawmakers from the General Assembly want the State Board of Elections (SBOE) to give them some answers about the machines used to tabulate votes. The lawmakers want the machines opened and allow their own people investigate what happened in the 2020 Presidential election.

NC Rep. Jeff McNeely (Iredell) said about the SBOE, “We are just trying to see if there are any legs to the rumors we hear about ballots and machines, we want to know if there is anything that could have been changed by the machines, we gave them a deadline to get back to us.”

McNeely is a member of the NC House Freedom Caucus and spoke to The Gateway Pundit on Friday about his concerns with the 2020 Presidential election.

“I believe the information in what we call the ‘hand to eye audits’ needs to be public, and we need to make sure those tallies match what the machines came up with, currently they are not public and they should be,” McNeely said, asserting that North Carolina is a paper ballot state already, and if there was any major fraud it would show up with the ballot harvesting.

“We know that Mark Zuckerberg gave 5-6 Million dollars to counties in North Carolina, but we don’t have an accounting on that. We are working on a bill that would make it law to evenly distribute that money to our 100 counties. But as it is now, we do not know where that money went or what it went for,” McNeely said.

When asked if he was aware of strange food trucks at polling places during early voting and on election day, McNeely said yes, he had gotten the information that trucks were present in places like the Wake County polling area, North Carolina’s largest county.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/06/exclusive-shot-accross-bow-want-machines-opened-north-carolina-house-members-request-inspection-voting-machines/

Dr. Peter Daszak, Heavily Involved in the COVID Crisis and Only American on WHO Investigation, Now Picked to Lead Lancet’s COVID Investigation

Do you think there might be another coverup? If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck.

It was reported overnight that Dr. Daszak has done it again:

The cover-up started early and ran hard for months. Those who were supposed to be working to protect the American people from the pandemic had only one concern: Covering their butts. The list of people complicit in the cover-up continues to grow. That list includes Dr. Anthony Fauci, as we learned so vividly yesterday. And the person who was running much of the cover-up operations in public and behind the scenes was none other than EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak.

Scott Hounsell published a blockbuster investigative report at Red State revealing how Daszak worked to use The Lancet as a propaganda publication to cover-up malfeasance and corruption. The Lancet’s articles were tools for protecting both the Chinese Communist Party and the American parties that participated in the gain-of-function research that yielded Covid-19. At every turn, from blaming bat soup to trashing treatments like Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin, The Lancet was the primary mouthpiece for “scientists” to point people in the wrong direction.

Zerohedge reports it this way:

Revered scientific journal The Lancet has created a ‘task force’ to investigate the origins of the coronavirus that caused a global pandemic, yet it has decided to employ as it’s leader the very guy who funded the dangerous gain of function research at the Wuhan lab and subsequently allegedly ‘bullied’ other scientists into avoiding looking into the lab as a potential source of the outbreak.

Dr. Daszak should be under investigation. He shouldn’t be leading any investigation of the origins of COVID-19.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/06/insane-dr-peter-daszak-heavily-involved-covid-crisis-american-investigation-now-picked-lead-lancets-covid-investigation/

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/06/insane-dr-peter-daszak-heavily-involved-covid-crisis-american-investigation-now-picked-lead-lancets-covid-investigation/

Federal Judge Overturns California's Ban On Assult Weapons

Liberals are probably having a meltdown after a George W. Bush-appointed federal judge in California ruled the state's ban on assault weapons is unconstitutional.

U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez of San Diego released a 94-page ruling late Friday, indicating California's three-decade ban on assault weapons violates the Second Amendment's right to bear arms.

"Like the Swiss Army Knife, the popular AR-15 rifle is a perfect combination of home defense weapon and homeland defense equipment. Good for both home and battle, the AR-15 is the kind of versatile gun that lies at the intersection of the kinds of firearms protected under District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008) and the United States v Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939)," Benitez wrote.

"Yet, the State of California makes it a crime to have an AR15 type rifle," Benitez continued. "Therefore, this Court declares the California statutes to be unconstitutional."

On several pages of the ruling, the judge recommended the rifle should be protected under the Second Amendment for its "militia readiness."

"Government is not free to impose its own new policy choices on American citizens where constitutional rights are concerned," he added. "California may certainly conceive of a policy that a modern rifle is dangerous in the hands of a criminal, and that therefore it is good public policy to keep modern rifles out of the hands of every citizen. The Second Amendment stands as a shield from government imposition of that policy."

The office of Attorney General Rob Bonta released a statement after the ruling said it would immediately appeal the decision.

"Today's decision is fundamentally flawed, and we will be appealing it," Bonta said in a statement Friday night. "There is no sound basis in law, fact, or common sense for equating assault rifles with swiss army knives."

The Firearms Policy Coalition, which supported the suit, praised the judge's decision.

"We look forward to continuing this challenge at the Ninth Circuit and, should it be necessary, the Supreme Court," the group's president, Brandon Combs, said in a statement.

The outcome angered Gov. Gavin Newsom. He released a statement that read:

"The fact that this judge compared the AR-15 — a weapon of war that's used on the battlefield — to a Swiss Army Knife completely undermines the credibility of this decision and is a slap in the face to the families who've lost loved ones to this weapon," he said.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/federal-judge-overturns-californias-ban-assult-weapons

EVERY State Should Be Audited – In California 3,000 Votes Were Recorded from an Empty Dorm Building

Which state did not incur election fraud in the 2020 election?

We’ve received numerous emails from individuals around the country who say that their state did not go blue. Americans in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Virginia, Colorado, Minnesota, Rhode Island, California and more, all say their states were not blue.

As we reported, Virginia had five 300,000+ votes entries on election night in one county alone.

Numerous states are like Virginia. Colorado’s numbers make no sense. We presented our argument and the individual who rebutted us claimed to be a good Republican but we found out his wife worked for Dominion voting machines:

This past week we were introduced to an anomaly in California. Numerous individuals have told us California did not go to Biden. For one, millions of Californians loved President Trump. There were rallies all across the state before the election for President Trump but there were none for Biden. The other reason is that Californians hated their evil Governor whose actions related to COVID were insane

Approximately 3,000 mail-in ballots counted in the Nov. 3 election were supposedly cast by UCSB students residing in a voting precinct that, along with other dorm buildings, includes the Francisco Torres/Santa Catalina Residence Hall at 6850 El Colegio Road in Goleta.

Problem: Due to COVID-19, the Torres Building, which normally accommodates 1,300 students, was empty and locked down through most of 2020, as were all other UCSB dorms.

This means no students/voters were residing inside the Torres Building (nor any of the other dorms) during the election season.

It also means these ballots were fraudulent.

That’s because there’s a second problem: These ballots could not legally have been forwarded to students where they were actually living.

Why not?

Because forwarding ballots to alternative addresses is a felony.

When an individual went to the law to have this investigated he was basically given the runaround.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/06/every-state-audited-california-3000-votes-recorded-empty-dorm-building/

‘It’s happening & it’s probably spreading’: Canadian health officials baffled by MYSTERY deadly brain disease

A fresh outbreak of a mysterious illness has been making headlines in Canada. A neurological disease dubbed the New Brunswick Syndrome has affected dozens and killed six people in recent months in the region that gave it its name.

At least 48 people aged between 18 and 85, almost equally men and women, have been suffering from an inexplicable illness that has caused their health to swiftly deteriorate. Visual and auditory hallucinations, memory loss, difficulty walking and balance issues are among the symptoms of the mysterious condition, which is reported to have killed six patients thus far.

This week, the government of the mainly affected New Brunswick province, located on the Atlantic coast, stepped up its efforts to deal with the outbreak, which had, until recently, been overshadowed by the coronavirus pandemic. An expert committee has been set up to expedite the investigation into what is being referred to as the New Brunswick Cluster of Neurological Syndrome of Unknown Cause.

“The discovery of a potentially new and unknown syndrome is scary,” New Brunswick Health Minister Dorothy Shephard told a news conference on Thursday, adding that locals have been “concerned and confused” about the new disease.

While people in the province have been suffering from alarming symptoms that appear to stem from the same unknown brain-damaging illness for the past few years, no certain cause has yet been identified. Health officials have been looking into potential environmental and animal exposure, but uncertainty prevails.

“At this point in time, we don’t know. Everything is on the table. We’re going to look at every possibility, and, hopefully, we’ll … develop a good understanding,” one of the committee co-chairs, Dr. Edouard Hendriks said. The other, Dr. Natalie Banville, admitted no advice can be given to people as to how – or whether – they can protect themselves from the disease, as the experts haven’t determined its derivation.

https://www.rt.com/news/525763-new-brunswick-mystery-disease/

Ephesians 6:10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.

German Study Finds Lockdown "Had No Effect" In Stopping Spread Of COVID

A major new study by German scientists at Munich University has found that lockdowns had no effect on reducing the country’s coronavirus infection rate.

Oh.

“Statisticians at Munich University found “no direct connection” between the German lockdown and falling infection rates in the country,” reports the Telegraph.

The study found that, on all three occasions before Germany imposed its lockdowns in November, December and April, infection rates had already begun to fall.

The R rate – the number that indicates how many other people an infected person passes the virus to – was already under 1 before the lockdown restrictions came into force.

As we highlighted last year, a leaked study from inside the German Ministry of the Interior revealed that the impact of the country’s lockdown could end up killing more people than the coronavirus due to victims of other serious illnesses not receiving treatment.

This is by no means the only study to have concluded that lockdowns are completely useless and don’t work.

A peer reviewed study published in January by Stanford researchers found that mandatory lockdowns do not provide more benefits to stopping the spread of COVID-19 than voluntary measures such as social distancing.

Back in March, Stanford medical professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya told Newsweek that COVID-19 lockdowns are “the single worst public health mistake in the last 100 years.”

Earlier this year, academics from Duke, Harvard, and Johns Hopkins concluded that there could be around a million excess deaths over the next two decades as a result of lockdowns.

Other research has concluded lockdowns will conservatively “destroy at least seven times more years of human life” than they save.

https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/german-study-finds-lockdown-had-no-effect-stopping-spread-covid

German Study Finds Lockdown "Had No Effect" In Stopping Spread Of COVID

A major new study by German scientists at Munich University has found that lockdowns had no effect on reducing the country’s coronavirus infection rate.

Oh.

“Statisticians at Munich University found “no direct connection” between the German lockdown and falling infection rates in the country,” reports the Telegraph.

The study found that, on all three occasions before Germany imposed its lockdowns in November, December and April, infection rates had already begun to fall.

The R rate – the number that indicates how many other people an infected person passes the virus to – was already under 1 before the lockdown restrictions came into force.

As we highlighted last year, a leaked study from inside the German Ministry of the Interior revealed that the impact of the country’s lockdown could end up killing more people than the coronavirus due to victims of other serious illnesses not receiving treatment.

This is by no means the only study to have concluded that lockdowns are completely useless and don’t work.

A peer reviewed study published in January by Stanford researchers found that mandatory lockdowns do not provide more benefits to stopping the spread of COVID-19 than voluntary measures such as social distancing.

Back in March, Stanford medical professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya told Newsweek that COVID-19 lockdowns are “the single worst public health mistake in the last 100 years.”

Earlier this year, academics from Duke, Harvard, and Johns Hopkins concluded that there could be around a million excess deaths over the next two decades as a result of lockdowns.

Other research has concluded lockdowns will conservatively “destroy at least seven times more years of human life” than they save.

https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/german-study-finds-lockdown-had-no-effect-stopping-spread-covid

Did China Stage the Videos of People Collapsing in Wuhan? SWISS POLICY RESEARCH

Already in mid-March 2020, SPR argued that the coronavirus situation appeared to show aspects of a possibly serious pandemic, a mass psychosis, and a psychological (i.e. propaganda) operation.

Since the early days of the pandemic, some people have been wondering if the notorious videos of “people collapsing in Wuhan”, which emerged in late January 2020 (see above), had in fact been staged by the Chinese government to frighten the West into lockdowns and self-destruction. After all, it is argued, such events haven’t been seen anywhere else later on during the pandemic.

“Coronavirus has people keeling over in streets” (TomoNews US, February 3, 2020)

https://youtu.be/Uf4-Vzf1CyM

For instance, on January 31, 2020, British newspaper The Guardian titled: “A man lies dead in the street: the image that captures the Wuhan coronavirus crisis”. A week before, the British Express titled: “Coronavirus horror: Social media footage shows infected Wuhan residents ‘act like zombies’”.

https://www.thelibertybeacon.com/who-staged-the-videos-of-people-collapsing-in-wuhan/

India issues ‘last notice’ to Twitter urging it to comply with new digital information rules or face ‘unintended consequences’

New Delhi has issued “one last notice” to Twitter, accusing the social media giant of non-compliance with the country’s new information laws. Failure to comply would result in penalties for the company.

The notice was issued by India’s ministry of electronics and information technology on Saturday. The ministry told Twitter that it was “dismayed to note that your responses to the Ministry’s letters neither address the clarifications sought by this Ministry nor indicate full compliance with the Rules.”

The refusal to comply demonstrates Twitter’s lack of commitment and efforts towards providing a safe experience for the people of India on its platform.

The warning is the last one before the social media giant will be held accountable of its behavior and face penalties. The ministry also threatened to revoke Twitter’s indemnity as a social media platform. According to India’s laws, social media are considered to be intermediaries that are not held responsible for illegal content posted by users.

“As gesture of goodwill, Twitter is hereby given one last notice to immediately comply with the Rules, failing which the exemption from liability available… shall stand withdrawn and Twitter shall be liable for consequences as per the IT Act and other penal laws of India,” the ministry’s statement reads.

India has been wrestling with social media platforms for quite a time already, with the standoff getting even more heated after the new information technology rules came into force this February. As the rules came into force, Twitter got involved in a spat with New Delhi over posts concerning farmers’ protests in the country, which the government deemed to be illegal.

Over the past few weeks, the social media giant has repeatedly had run-ins with New Delhi. Late in May, the platform flagged tweets by several Indian politicians with the ruling party as “manipulated media.” The move angered the government which demanded the label to be removed, as it called Twitter’s reaction “an overreach and prejudicial.”

The new flashpoint also prompted police visits to Twitter’s offices in the country, with the social media platform saying it “was concerned by recent events regarding our employees in India and the potential threat to freedom of expression.” The government, in turn, accused the tech giant of seeking to “defame India” as well as to “undermine” its legal system altogether.

https://www.rt.com/news/525769-india-twitter-last-warning/

World's Two Most Aggressive Heads Of State To Meet At NATO Headquarters

The White House confirmed Thursday that US President Joe Biden and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will meet on the sidelines of the NATO summit on June 14. The trip that brings Biden to embrace the leader of Turkey, the second largest NATO member in terms of both population and size of its armed forces, will be Biden’s first jaunt outside the US since entering the Oval Office.

Although the two heads of state are arming and advising opposing groups of extremists in the war against Syria, they are firmly united in their Euroatlantic contempt for the world outside NATO. Biden will soon be presented with a $753 billion war budget by Congress as he escalates threats against his nation’s only real nuclear rival, Russia.

Turkey now permanently maintains troops in no fewer than five countries from North Africa to the South Caucasus (Libya, Nagorno-Karabakh, Cyprus, Iraq and Syria) as well as supplying arms and equipment to anti-government rebels in Yemen. It is also using its proxy in Afghanistan, Abdul Rashid Dostum, to defy the central government of President Ashraf Ghani while taking over the nation’s international airport outside the capital of Kabul in a deal with NATO.

In addition to demanding that Crimea be "liberated" from Russia while stirring up Tatar secessionist activities there, Turkey has also recently denounced Russia for alleged genocide against ethnic Circassians over a century and a half ago. President Erdoğan recently stated: "On the 157th anniversary of the deportation of our Circassian brothers from their homeland, I feel a great pain in my heart, and I wish Allah’s mercy to those who lost their lives."

His government is also forging ahead with the Istanbul Canal which it openly admits will circumvent the 1936 Montreux Convention limiting the number and size of warships allowed to enter the Black Sea. Erdoğan’s project will open that sea up to as many US and NATO warships as Washington and Brussels choose to deploy there against Russia.

Turkey is now the only nation in the world competing – or rather working in tandem – with the U.S. to achieve status as a global "indispensable nation."

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/worlds-two-most-aggressive-heads-state-meet-nato-headquarters

Sen. Josh Haley calls on Fauci to resign following email controversy, demands investigation into coronavirus origins

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) is calling for Dr. Anthony Fauci to resign from his post following the controversy ignited by the release of emails from the nation's top epidemiologist regarding the coronavirus pandemic. Hawley is also demanding an investigation into the origins of COVID-19.

"Anthony Fauci's recently released emails and investigative reporting about #COVID19 origins are shocking," Hawley stated on Friday, and called for him to step down as the director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. "The time has come for Fauci to resign and for a full congressional investigation into the origins of #COVID19 - and into any and all efforts to prevent a full accounting."

"The public deserves to know if persons within the US govt tried to stop a full investigation into #COVID origins, as recently reported," the Republican Senator of Missouri said. "And Congress must also find out to what extent Fauci's NIAID was involved in financing research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology."

The public deserves to know if persons within the US govt tried to stop a full investigation into #COVID origins, a… https://t.co/oh4Wxcp8rU

— Josh Hawley (@Josh Hawley)1622814507.0

More than 3,200 pages of Fauci's emails were made public via a Freedom of Information Act request from BuzzFeed News and the Washington Post. There are numerous concerns regarding Fauci's emails, including his opposition to wearing face masks at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. There are also questions whether Fauci colluded with other top health officials to bury the theory that coronavirus was created in a lab and escaped.

Hawley is demanding a full congressional investigation into the origins of coronavirus. Fauci had been saying that the coronavirus naturally evolved, and dismissed the lab leak theory. But then in late May, Fauci reversed course and called for an investigation into COVID-19's origins and acknowledged the coronavirus pandemic was leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Fauci was asked if he still believed that coronavirus developed naturally, to which he responded, "No, I'm not convinced about that. I think that we should continue to investigate what went on in China until we find out to the best of our ability exactly what happened."

Others have called for an investigation into the origins of coronavirus, including 18 high-profile scientists who published a letter calling for an inquiry to "determine the origin of the pandemic," noting that "theories of accidental release from a lab and zoonotic spillover both remain viable."

"Knowing how COVID-19 emerged is critical for informing global strategies to mitigate the risk of future outbreaks," the scientists proclaimed.

There are also 209 House Republicans demanding a congressional investigation into the origin of coronavirus, and to see if the Chinese Communist Party attempted to cover it up. Minority Whip Steve Scalise (La.), the top Republican on the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) demanding a probe.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/fauci-resign-emails-hawley-covid-origins

FBI demands info on readers of USA Today story about agents killed in child porn raid

The FBI is demanding that newspaper giant Gannett hand over identifying information on readers of a USA Today story about a suspect in a child porn case who killed two agents in February.

Federal investigators served the company with a subpoena in April seeking the IP addresses and phone numbers of the people who accessed a news article, between 8:03 a.m. and 8:38 a.m. on Feb. 2, about the Florida shooting that left two FBI agents dead and three others wounded.

The information sought by the feds, “relates to a federal criminal investigation being conducted by the FBI,” according to the subpoena.

Gannett, the publisher of the paper, fought back against the order in federal court on May 27, claiming the demand is unconstitutional and in violation of the Department of Justice’s policy for subpoenaing information from the press.

“A government demand for records that would identify specific individuals who read specific expressive materials, like the Subpoena at issue here, invades the First Amendment rights of both publisher and reader, and must be quashed accordingly,” Garnett lawyers wrote in the motion, made public Wednesday.

The lawyers cited a Supreme Court ruling that read: “once the government can demand of a publisher the names of the purchasers of his publications, the free press as we know it disappears.”

The claim that DOJ guidelines were violated comes amid reports the department obtained personal information from journalists at major media outlets under the Trump administration, according to Politico, which first reported on the subpoena.

It is unclear why the FBI was seeking information about the USA Today story in particular.

The article detailed the Feb. 2 shooting, in which David Lee Huber, 55, ambushed agents who were serving a search warrant in a child pornography case before turning the gun on himself.

Maribel Perez Wadsworth, the publisher of USA Today and president of the USA Today Network, said it’s unconstitutional for the feds to force the news organization to hand over “private information” about its readers.

“We intend to fight the subpoena’s demand for identifying information about individuals who viewed the USA Today news report,” Wadsworth said in a statement. “Being forced to tell the government who reads what on our websites is a clear violation of the First Amendment.”

https://nypost.com/2021/06/04/fbi-wants-info-on-readers-of-usa-today-story-about-agents-killed-in-raid/

NYT’s Ezra Klein: ‘Not The Worst Thing’ To Make Americans ‘Like China’.

Journalist Ezra Klein – who’s been exposed by the National Pulse for accepting trips from Chinese Communist Party-linked groups in exchange for “favorable coverage” of the regime – asserted it “is not even the worst thing” for China to use TikTok to make Americans “like China more.”

The Vox co-founder and New York Times columnist made the remarks while speaking on his personal podcast about TikTok, an app whose founder pledged to use the platform to promote “socialist core values” and devotion to the Chinese Communist Party.

They follow The National Pulse exposing Klein for taking a trip from the China United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF), which is part of the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department. This effort aims to “co-opt and neutralize sources of potential opposition to the policies and authority” of the Chinese government according to the U.S. government.

Klein visited China in 2010 as part of the program which seeks to garner “favorable coverage” and to “disseminate positive messages” in Western media outlets, according to Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) filings with the Department of Justice.

Beyond praising TikTok, Klein asserts it’s “not even the worst thing” if the app is used to make Americans like China more on his show’s June 4th episode:

“Now, you imagine — I mean, China is making tremendous, tremendous investments in AI. Now, you imagine that some of those actually pay off. You build some of that into TikTok. And just on the margin, they’re trying to make you like China more, which maybe is not even the worst thing. We’ve had propaganda efforts in this country forever trying to make people like America more. Why not use your algorithm on your free video app to serve up things that improve cross-cultural communication?”

Klein also praises TikTok as “remarkable” and “amazing”:

So we’ve been in a debate over the past year or two in this country over TikTok, which is this remarkable social networking app that is owned by a Chinese company, ByteDance. And there’s been a lot of worries that maybe TikTok is spyware or what is it really doing.

But something very central about TikTok is its underlying algorithm is amazing. If you look at analysis of why TikTok does so well, its ability to intuit what you like through machine learning and feed it to you, it’s absolutely best of class. It needs a lot less information about you than a Facebook or some of these other players do.

https://thenationalpulse.com/breaking/nyt-klein-okay-with-ccp-propaganda/

LinkedIn Blocks Some China Critics on Eve of Tiananmen Anniversary, Including Epoch Times Staff

LinkedIn is censoring some China critics—including some staff members at The Epoch Times—by wiping out their presence in China.

On the morning of June 3, a number of people within The Epoch Times network, including some staff members based in the United States, Sweden, and Turkey, received notifications alerting them to the decision.

The message, titled “Official Message from LinkedIn Member Safety and Recovery,” began by thanking the users for “using your LinkedIn profile to represent yourself professionally.”

“We want to make you aware that due to legal requirements impacting the accessibility within China of some publishing organizations, your profile and your activity, such as items you share with your network, are not visible to those accessing LinkedIn from within China at this time,” it stated. It added that the profile and activity “remain visible throughout the rest of the world where LinkedIn is available.”

The exact number of people impacted in The Epoch Times network remains unclear.

In a statement to The Epoch Times, the Microsoft-owned LinkedIn said the company “is a global platform with an obligation to respect the laws that apply to us, including Chinese government regulations for our localized version of LinkedIn in China.”

“Due to local legal requirements within China, the profiles and activity of some LinkedIn members associated with certain publishing organizations are not visible within China at this time,” the company said.

Two days earlier, LinkedIn took a similar action on China critic J Michael Cole. In a similar but more elaborate version of the message, they offered to work with Cole to “minimize the impact” and said they “can review your profile’s accessibility within China if you update the Publication section of your profile.”

The blockage came on the eve of the 32nd anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, a bloody crackdown that saw the Chinese regime opening fire on activists who called for democratic and economic reforms in China, killing hundreds if not thousands of them.

The Epoch Times is one among a range of international sites that remain inaccessible to users inside the Great Firewall, the online censorship machine that allows the regime to filter out unwanted voices.

https://www.ntd.com/linkedin-blocks-some-china-critics-on-eve-of-tiananmen-anniversary-including-epoch-times-staff_623456.html

US Government Announces $266 Million in Aid to Afghanistan

The U.S. government on Friday announced more than $266 million in new humanitarian aid for Afghanistan while urging allies to contribute more generously to address the conflict-stricken country’s immediate humanitarian needs.

“This funding will allow our partners to provide lifesaving protection, shelter, livelihoods opportunities, essential health care, emergency food aid, water, sanitation, and hygiene services to respond to the needs generated by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic,” the State Department said in a release.

The State Department added that the aid would help address protection needs for the most vulnerable Afghans, including “women and girls facing particular risks, including gender-based violence, as a result of the pandemic and decades of conflict.”

The announcement comes as the United States continues to wind down its military presence in Afghanistan to meet the Sept. 11 deadline for a full withdrawal, which has sparked fears of renewed conflict and a Taliban return to power.

Michael Johns, a former White House speechwriter and Heritage Foundation foreign policy analyst called for the United States to maintain an active role as a peace broker in the region.

“The greatest threat to peace and stability in Afghanistan is the Taliban seeing the departure of U.S. troops as an invitation to utilize military force in ways that undermine power-sharing and contradict the commitments it has made,” Johns told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement. “That threat would be amplified considerably should any regional power assist the Taliban in such a pursuit.”

“The U.S. must reinforce that any effort to undermine the peace and stability of Afghanistan by Russia, China, Iran, or any other force would be viewed as an act of immense hostility against the U.S. and would be met with punitive measures,” he added.

In its announcement, the State Department signaled its continued engagement in a non-military capacity.

“As the United States withdraws military forces from Afghanistan, our enduring commitment is clear,” the State Department said. “We remain engaged through our full diplomatic, economic, and assistance toolkit to support the peaceful, stable future the Afghan people want and deserve.”

At the same time, the State Department renewed its call for Afghan leaders and the Taliban to negotiate a political settlement and permanent ceasefire that would bring an end to over forty years of conflict that has led to the internal displacement of over 4.8 million Afghans.

“This year alone, more than 115,000 persons have been displaced by conflict inside Afghanistan, and nearly 500,000 have returned to Afghanistan in need of assistance,” the State Department said.

https://www.ntd.com/us-government-announces-266-million-in-aid-to-afghanistan_623386.html

DOJ Announces That It Will No Longer Seek Records Of Media Organizations After NYT Scandal

The Department of Justice (DOJ) will no longer go to court to identify media sources in leak investigations, a spokesman announced Saturday.

“Going forward, consistent with the President’s direction, this Department of Justice, in a change to its longstanding practice, will not seek compulsory legal process in leak investigations to obtain source information from members of the news media doing their jobs. The Department strongly values a free press, protecting First Amendment values, and is committed to taking all appropriate steps to ensure the independence of journalists,” DOJ Spokesman Anthony Coley said.

The New York Times revealed on Friday that both the Trump and Biden administrations attempted to subpoena its reporters’ emails to identify sources. The Biden administration employed a gag order to prevent the Times and Google, which operates the Times’ email servers, from publicly discussing the subpoena attempts.

The investigation reportedly involved former FBI Director James Comey, who admitted in 2017 to leaking a memo about a meeting he had with then-President Donald Trump to the Times. The Times believes that, due to timing, the subpoena and gag order targeted an article written by reporters Matt Apuzzo, Michael S. Schmidt, Adam Goldman, and Eric Lichtblau about the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server.

“The Justice Department relentlessly pursued the identity of sources for coverage that was clearly in the public interest in the final 15 days of the Trump administration. And the Biden administration continued to pursue it. As I said before, it profoundly undermines press freedom,” New York Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet said.

The DOJ has targeted reporters in leak investigations since at least the Kennedy administration. President John F. Kennedy used the DOJ, FBI, and CIA to investigate reporters who published articles on the Soviet Union’s missile systems. President Richard Nixon employed a team of “plumbers” to “patch leaks” involving the Pentagon Papers and Watergate scandal.

In recent years, the DOJ has used gag orders to prevent media organizations from even talking about subpoenas. U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara subpoenaed the IP addresses of commenters on a 2015 Reason magazine article, claiming that they threatened a federal judge. He also requested and received a gag order preventing Reason from disclosing the subpoena.

USA Today received a subpoena in April from the FBI. The bureau is seeking the IP addresses of readers of a February article about the death of two FBI agents.

https://dailycaller.com/2021/06/05/doj-no-longer-seek-records-media-organizations-new-york-times/