Nothing Scary About That: US Army Showcasing Robot Dogs With Rifles for Heads

So hey they’ve started mounting sniper rifles on robodogs, which is great news for anyone who was hoping they’d start mounting sniper rifles on robodogs.

At an exhibit booth in the Association of the United States Army’s annual meeting and exhibition, Ghost Robotics (the military-friendly competitor to the better-known Boston Dynamics) proudly showed off a weapon that is designed to attach to its quadruped bots made by a company called SWORD Defense Systems.

“The SWORD Defense Systems Special Purpose Unmanned Rifle (SPUR) was specifically designed to offer precision fire from unmanned platforms such as the Ghost Robotics Vision-60 quadruped,” SWORD proclaims on its website. “Chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor allows for precision fire out to 1200m, the SPUR can similarly utilize 7.62×51 NATO cartridge for ammunition availability. Due to its highly capable sensors the SPUR can operate in a magnitude of conditions, both day and night. The SWORD Defense Systems SPUR is the future of unmanned weapon systems, and that future is now.”

https://www.activistpost.com/2021/10/nothing-scary-about-that-us-army-showcasing-robot-dogs-with-rifles-for-heads.html

John Kerry, wife own $1 million stake in Chinese investment group involved in human rights abuses

The company the Kerrys are invested in has been blacklisted by the U.S. government since 2019

Special climate envoy John Kerry and his wife reportedly have at least $1 million invested with a group that is a major funder of the Chinese artificial intelligence sector.

The company with which the Kerrys are invested is called Hillhouse China Value Fund L.P., which is a top shareholder in YITU Technology, a firm that has been blacklisted by the United States for human rights abuses against the Uyghur people, according to the Washington Free Beacon.

YITU is involved with the project that helped develop a facial recognition and surveillance program for the Chinese government that identifies individuals by race and ethnicity.

As climate envoy, he has been involved in a number of diplomatic discussions with China – the world's foremost producer of greenhouse gases.

The Chinese government recently set a goal of becoming the global leader in artificial intelligence by the start of the next decade. U.S. military and national security experts have expressed concern that the country is using AI technology to exert control over dissidents and persecuted groups within their borders.

Several years ago, the Commerce Department under the Trump administration placed YITU on a blacklist of trade restricted companies for being "implicated in human rights violations and abuses in the implementation of China's campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention, and high-technology surveillance against Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other members of Muslim minority groups."

Kerry has previously said that discussing China's slave labor practices with the sometimes-hostile foreign government is "not my lane." Just last month, he said that "life is full of tough choices," when asked if the Biden administration was trading the advancement of climate change discussions with the Chinese government for a blind-eye toward flagrant human rights abuses against the Uyghurs.

"Yes we have a issues, a number of different issues, but first and foremost, this planet must be protected," Kerry said.

https://justthenews.com/accountability/political-ethics/john-kerry-and-wife-own-1-million-stake-chinese-investment-group

Babbitt shooting internal police docs reveal ‘no good reason for shooting,’ according to Judicial Watch

More than 500 pages of internal documents from DC Metropolitan Police concerning the fatal shooting of Ashli Babbitt in the Capitol on Jan. 6 reveal witness accounts stating she was not holding a weapon at the time of her death and how “upset” the officer was after shooting her.

https://www.judicialwatch.org/in-the-news/babbitt-internal-police-docs/

Docs

https://www.judicialwatch.org/documents/jw-v-dc-babbitt-october-2021-001710/

Goalpost Shift: Media Says Double-Vaxxed Catching Covid Is A Good Thing

Now that fully-vaxxed people are filling up hospitals in the US and catching covid at higher rates than the unvaccinated in the UK the media has decided to shift the narrative to embrace catching covid as a good thing.

From The Courier-Mail:

Don't freak out: Catching Covid after you are vaccinated improves immunity

If you are fully vaccinated against Covid the next step to improve your immunity may be to actually catch the virus.

Sue Dunlevy | October 10, 2021 - 4:00AM

For 20 months we’ve cowered behind masks, scrubbed ourselves with hand sanitiser and socially distanced to avoid Covid — now most people are vaccinated, experts are telling us we need to prepare to catch the virus.

It sounds counterintuitive but the argument is if you are vaccinated and catch Covid, you are unlikely to get seriously ill or go to hospital and getting the virus will further boost your immunity.

The same is true of the unvaccinated.

With lockdowns in three states due to ease in coming weeks Australian National University’s infectious diseases expert Professor Peter Collignon and University of Newcastle's Professor Nathan Bartlett said fully vaccinated people needed to change their attitude to the virus.

Prepare yourself to be infected and don't "freak out" if you do catch it when lockdowns end, they said.

"You might want to get it, you definitely want to get it. You definitely want to be vaccinated before you get it, because if you're vaccinated your risk of death goes down," said Prof. Collignon.

Prof. Bartlett said: "It's immunity you want supported by the vaccine but then sort of topped up, by circulation and that's really is what's going to ultimately lead to make this turn this virus into basically an endemic, common cold causing virus, and that's what you want it to be".

Coronaviruses have been classified as cold viruses for decades.

The head of the Australian Society of Infectious diseases (ASID) Allen Cheng said he expected “everyone will probably be exposed, eventually.”

“We want to be vaccinated, so we have the best defences against it when it happens that we meet the virus,” he said.

A study by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and another by one of Israel’s largest health providers found people who’d recovered from Covid and were later vaccinated had half the risk of reinfection compared with unvaccinated people who’d previously had Covid.

Another Israeli study found "vaccinated individuals had 27 times higher risk of symptomatic COVID infection compared to those with natural immunity from prior COVID disease," as epidemiologist Martin Kulldorff noted.

The Kaolinska Institute’s Charlotte Thalin told The Conversation combining natural infection with protection from a vaccine may work better because natural infection exposes our immune system to several viral proteins while vaccines introduce a single antigen: the spike protein.

But, like the other experts, she cautions you want to be vaccinated before getting infected because getting a natural infection first exposes you to the risks of death, blood clots and long Covid.

What happens to their neutralizing antibodies which give people more general protection against disease?

https://www.informationliberation.com/?id=62607

Former Brazilian CEO Sentenced to 20 Months for Bribery Conspiracy

Former Brazilian CEO Sentenced to 20 Months for Bribery Conspiracy

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Published: 14 October 2021

Written by Henry Pope

A former chief executive officer (CEO) of Braskem S.A., a Brazilian petrochemical company, was sentenced in a New York court on Tuesday to 20 months in prison for his role in a conspiracy to use US$250 million of his former company’s money to bribe government officials.

Jose Carlos Grubisich, 64, of Brazil, pleaded guilty in April to diverting the sum from Braskem into a secret slush fund from which he bribed Brazilian government officials and political parties into supporting Braskem’s financial and political interests, according to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

A slush fund is commonly known as a reserve of money used for illicit purposes, particularly political bribery. The one Grubisich managed in this case was known as Caixa dois (Caixa 2).

Between 2002 and 2014, Grubisich, who was simultaneously working as Braskem’s CEO and in various capacities for its parent company Odebrecht S.A., sourced the money for the slush fund via fraudulent commissions, contracts, and offshore shell companies secretly controlled by Braskem, according to court documents.

Odebrecht — now known as Novonor — is a Brazilian conglomerate which consists of multiple businesses specializing in engineering, construction, energy, and petrochemicals. The company is known for its involvement in what many call the one of the biggest corruption cases in history.

In entering his guilty plea, Grubisich confessed that while acting as Braskem’s CEO, he sanctioned the bribery of Brazilian government officials to ensure his company’s retention of a significant petrochemical contract from Petroleo Brasileiro S.A. (Petrobras), Brazil’s state-owned and state-controlled oil company.

“As CEO of a publicly traded company, Grubisich and other senior executives at Braskem engaged in a large-scale, sophisticated international bribery and fraud scheme and then lied to U.S. shareholders and authorities to conceal their criminal conduct,” said Nicholas L. McQuaid, Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.

In addition to his prison sentence, Grubisich has been ordered by the court to forfeit $2.2 million in restitution as well as pay a $1 million fine.

The Odebrecht corruption scandal costed the conglomerate billions of dollars in penalties and in one case in 2016, both Odebrecht and Braskem were fined by the DOJ a combined $3.5 billion for bribing government officials around the world with hundreds of millions of dollars, in what was then known as the Petrobras Scandal.

Odebrecht's involvement in the scandal originates back to 2001. By 2006, the intrinsic nature of their bribery operations necessitated its own corporate division, dubbed the “Division of Structured Operations,” according to a DOJ statement made at the time of the company’s guilty plea.

The investigation, conducted by a Federal Police of Brazil task force, was humorously dubbed ‘Operation Car Wash’ because authorities first caught on to the scandal while conducting a money-laundering investigation into a car wash in Brasília.

https://www.occrp.org/en/daily/15333-former-brazilian-ceo-sentenced-to-20-months-for-bribery-conspiracy

Spanish Police arrests 5 jihadists on suspicion of preparing a terrorist attack

With the active support of Europol’s European Counter Terrorism Centre, the Spanish National Police (Policía Nacional) has arrested in Barcelona and Madrid five suspected members of an Islamic State cell. The suspects – all Algerian nationals, are believed to have been preparing a terrorist attack. The police swooped on the members of this terrorist cell after it became known that they were trying to acquire a Kalashnikov rifle. Several rounds of ammunition were seized at their homes, alongside several large machetes.

Known as Operation ARBAC, this investigation began in December 2020 after the Spanish Police detected the entry into Spain of a member of the Islamic State. He and two accomplices were arrested in Barcelona in January of this year on suspicion on preparing a terrorist attack.

The investigators were able to link these three suspects to an individual in Algeria known as “Sheikh” who was believed to be leading this terrorist cell. This individual was already known to law enforcement: he had been arrested in Turkey in 2016 while trying to join the Islamic State terrorist group. Once released, this individual toured several countries, such as Malaysia, Tanzania and Algeria where he allegedly recruited members for the Islamic State.

In March 2021, he was detected entering into Spain. Special surveillance measures were put in place which allowed for the identification in Barcelona of a group of young, highly-radicalised Algerian nationals surrounding him.

All these individuals, including the one known as “Sheikh” were arrested after trying to acquire a Kalashnikov rifle. The evidence seized during the course of the action day is now being analysed to identify further investigative leads across Europe.

Europol’s support

Europol’s European Counter Terrorism Centre has provided continuous intelligence development and analysis to support the Spanish investigators

Two of its experts was deployed to Spain to assist the investigators with the cross-checking of operational information gathered during the action day.

https://www.europol.europa.eu/newsroom/news/spanish-police-arrests-5-jihadists-suspicion-of-preparing-terrorist-attack

Sinaloa Cartel Money Launderer Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/sinaloa-cartel-money-launderer-sentenced-10-years-prison

PEDO BUN 14 October 21

FBI arrests Pittsburgh man at Station Square in online child sex sting

https://www.post-gazette.com/news/crime-courts/2021/10/14/FBI-arrests-Pittsburgh-man-at-Station-Square-in-online-child-sex-sting/stories/202110140154

Vermont Man Pleads Guilty to Hiring A Person to Kidnap and Kill an Individual in a Foreign Country and Child Pornography Charges

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/vermont-man-pleads-guilty-hiring-person-kidnap-and-kill-individual-foreign-country-and-child

3 Randolph County men charged in child sex crimes

https://www.wxii12.com/article/randolph-county-child-sex-crime-arrests/37963870

Former Nurse Pleads Guilty to Murder for Hire, Conspiracy to Kidnap and Murder Person Overseas, and Child Pornography Offenses

https://www.justice.gov/usao-vt/pr/former-nurse-pleads-guilty-murder-hire-conspiracy-kidnap-and-murder-person-overseas-and

Alto father, son accused in California child sex assaults dating back 60 years

https://www.kltv.com/2021/10/14/alto-father-son-accused-california-child-sex-assaults-dating-back-60-years/

Laredo Sector Border Patrol Arrest Convicted Sex Offender

https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/local-media-release/laredo-sector-border-patrol-arrest-convicted-sex-offender

Queensland man charged with possessing child abuse material

https://www.afp.gov.au/news-media/media-releases/queensland-man-charged-possessing-child-abuse-material-3

Rhode Island Man Sentenced to 33 years in Federal Prison for His Leadership Role in a Large-Scale International Fentanyl Trafficking Operation, Investigated Under “Operation Denial”

https://www.justice.gov/usao-nd/pr/rhode-island-man-sentenced-33-years-federal-prison-his-leadership-role-large-scale

Bronx Judge Orders Trump to Give Videotaped Deposition in Protest Lawsuit

President Trump was ordered to give a videotaped deposition on October 18 in a lawsuit filed by a group of Mexican protesters who claim they were attacked outside of Trump Tower New York over Trump’s comments about illegal aliens.

Recall, President Trump said some of the illegal aliens pouring over the border from Mexico are rapists.

The media lied and claimed Trump said all Mexicans are rapists.

A group of Mexicans sued Trump and claimed his comments about illegal aliens from Mexico were behind the assault at Trump Tower in 2015.

ABC News reported:

Former President Donald Trump must sit for a videotaped deposition next week as part of a lawsuit involving his anti-immigrant rhetoric, a judge in the Bronx ordered.

A group of Mexican protesters said they were assaulted during a rally outside Trump Tower in September 2015 over the then-candidate’s comments that Mexican immigrants were criminals and rapists.

The lawsuit named Trump, his campaign, his former head of security Keith Schiller, and others.

“Donald J. Trump shall appear for a deposition October 18, 2021 at 10 a.m. … or, in the event of illness or emergency, on another mutually agreed to date on or before October 31, 2021,” Judge Doris Gonzalez’s order said.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/10/bronx-judge-orders-trump-give-videotaped-deposition-protest-lawsuit/

US Asks Russia to Remove Missiles ‘Violating’ Treaty Which Washington Unilaterally Scrapped

The United States unilaterally pulled out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in 2019 after accusing Moscow of breaching its terms. Moscow dismissed the allegations, and took the unprecedented step of declassifying the characteristics of the alleged Russian ‘INF-violating missile’. The US pulled out of the agreement anyway.

Russia should remove missiles which violate the terms of the INF Treaty from Europe, US special envoy for nuclear nonproliferation Jeffrey Eberhardt has said.

“Russia has already violated the INF by deploying the missiles. Therefore the solution is for Russia to remove them,” Eberhardt told Sputnik, after being asked to clarify the Biden administration’s position on the Russian initiative to introduce a moratorium on the deployment of medium- and shorter-range missiles in Europe.

Earlier, speaking at a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly’s First Committee on Disarmament and International Security, the diplomat suggested that the US wanted to “move away from costly arms races” with its potential adversaries and “restore confidence in the United States as a leader in arms control.”

Eberhardt was appointed as a special envoy on nuclear nonproliferation in 2019, the same year that the Trump administration unilaterally scrapped the INF Treaty with Russia. The US pulled out of the agreement – which limited the production and deployment of ground-based ballistic missiles in the 500-5,500 km range, after accusing Russia of violating its terms with one of its missiles.

Russia attempted to save the agreement by declassifying the missile’s capabilities to military attaches and reporters at a military warehouse outside Moscow. Washington scrapped the treaty anyway, and almost immediately began the testing of INF-violating missiles. Lockheed Martin tested one such a missile on Thursday.

https://sputniknews.com/20211014/us-asks-russia-to-remove-missiles-violating-treaty-which-washington-unilaterally-scrapped-1089929896.html

US returns to UN rights council after 3-year absence, says it will defend Israel

Ambassador says Washington will continue to oppose Human Rights Council’s singular focus on Jewish state; panel panned for giving spots to abusive regimes like Eritrea, UAE

GENEVA, Switzerland — The United States is returning to the United Nations Human Rights Council three-and-a-half years after its dramatic walk-out — time seized upon by China to assert wider influence in the world body.

The UN General Assembly elected new members to its top rights body on Thursday, with countries kicking off their three-year council term from January 1.

Aside from the US, the UN also elected Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Cameroon, Eritrea, Kazakhstan and Somalia to the rights body, despite the fact that they are regularly criticized by activists for their poor human right records.

Also securing membership were Benin, Gambia, Honduras, India, Paraguay, Malaysia and Montenegro.

China, Cuba, Russia, Pakistan, Libya, Mauritania and Venezuela will remain on as members.

The executive director of UN Watch, an NGO that monitors anti-Israel bias and other ills at Turtle Bay, said the elections were designed to weed out the world’s worst rights abusers.

But “oppressive regimes like China, Cuba, Libya, Russia and Eritrea routinely win election, and the stamp of international legitimacy,” said Hillel Neuer.

The Geneva director of Human Rights Watch, John Fisher, told AFP that the regional blocs which nominate candidates had a “responsibility” to make sure those countries met the minimum standards, pointing the finger at nominees like Eritrea, Cameroon and the United Arab Emirates.

Argentina, Finland, Lithuania, Luxembourg and the US are the only members the UN Watch NGO deemed qualified to sit on the council.

Though member states are chosen in a secret ballot, the election is a non-contest, with 18 candidate countries standing for 18 seats.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-returns-to-un-rights-council-after-3-year-absence-says-it-will-defend-israel/

FDA panel recommends authorizing Moderna booster shot

A key Food and Drug Administration panel on Thursday voted in favor of recommending booster doses of Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine for a large swath of the population.

Members of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) voted unanimously, 19-0.

The agency's vaccine advisory committee said boosters should be recommended for people over 65, people between the ages of 18 and 64 who are at high risk of severe COVID-19, as well as people who are at risk of serious COVID-19 because of their jobs, or living situation.

The population recommended for Moderna's booster is the same population that Pfizer's booster was authorized for last month. About 60 million Americans are now eligible for Pfizer's booster.

The Biden administration has made boosters for all Americans a priority, even though experts are divided on whether the general population will really benefit. Ultimately, the way to end the COVID-19 pandemic is by getting shots to the unvaccinated, rather than boosting those who are already protected.

Unlike Pfizer, Moderna is proposing to use a half-dose of the vaccine for a booster given at least six months after the prime dose, rather than an additional full dose.

That difference may make Moderna boosters less likely to trigger side effects than the first two doses in its series.

The company presented data showing its current two-shot regimen delivers robust protection more than five months after the initial vaccination. The vaccine remained 93 percent effective in preventing all virus-related illness, and 98 percent protective against severe cases of COVID-19.

Moderna argued that the potency of its vaccine wanes over time, with neutralizing antibody levels dropping six to eight months after a second dose. FDA reviewers found that while a booster did increase antibody levels, it wasn't clear whether the protection of the initial vaccination had dropped substantially.

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/576812-fda-panel-recommends-authorizing-moderna-booster-shot

Instagram Censors Evolutionary Biologist For Post Pointing Out Men Are Physically Stronger Than Women

Facebook owned Instagram has censored Evolutionary biologist Colin Wright after he posted a chart that proves men are biologically stronger than women in a range of sports, even if they have undergone gender transitioning treatment.

Instagram removed Wright’s post which contained a chart from a scientific study titled Transgender Women in the Female Category of Sport: Perspectives on Testosterone Suppression and Performance Advantage.

The peer-reviewed study was published in the journal Medicine & Sports, which has been in wide circulation since 1969.

The study by researchers at the University of Manchester in the UK and Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm found that biological males categorically have performance advantages over biological females across sports that are contested in the Olympics.

https://summit.news/2021/10/14/instagram-censors-evolutionary-biologist-for-post-pointing-out-men-are-physically-stronger-than-women/

Jordan Brand chairman, ex-NBA exec admits to killing teen in 1965

A Nike executive and former Portland Trail Blazers president has admitted killing a teen more than 50 years ago – a secret he kept from powerful friends like Michael Jordan and NBA commissioner Adam Silver.

Larry Miller, who rejoined the Jordan Brand in 2012 after serving in the Blazers’ front office for five years, revealed his long-guarded secret in an exclusive cover story with Sports Illustrated.

The 72-year-old exec now serving as Jordan Brand’s chairman told SI of the 1965 slaying in his corner suite on Nike’s campus in Beaverton, Oregon, where he keeps notes signed by Jordan, as well as autographed boxing gloves from Muhammad Ali and a basketball signed by President Obama.

There’s no sign of Miller’s troubled past, however, which he kept from Nike and NBA officials until just the last few months, confiding in Silver and Jordan that he gunned down an 18-year-old in Philadelphia when he was just 16.

“This was a really difficult decision for me,” Miller said of revealing his criminal past. “Because for 40 years, I ran from this. I tried to hide this and hope that people didn’t find out about it.”

Miller decided to go public ahead of his forthcoming book, “Jump: My Secret Journey From the Streets to the Boardroom,” which is set for release early next year.

Miller said he didn’t know his victim, identified in news reports at the time as Edward White, whom he admitted fatally shooting on Sept. 30, 1965, with a .38-caliber gun in West Philadelphia. He was arrested soon after the slaying, the Daily News reported days later.

Miller — who said he was a “straight-up gangbanger” by 16 — claimed the slaying was retribution for a previous killing. His troubles began three years earlier when he joined the Cedar Avenue gang in West Philly.

Miller told SI he grabbed a gun he previously got from his girlfriend and downed a bottle of wine before heading out with three friends to hunt down anyone affiliated with the rival gang, shooting the first person they saw.

Miller admitted he didn’t know the victim or even if he had anything to do with the earlier stabbing or had ties to the rival gang.

“We were all drunk,” Miller said during a 90-minute interview. “I was in a haze. Once it kind of set in, I was like, ‘Oh, sh-t, what have I done?’ It took years for me to understand the real impact of what I had done.”

https://nypost.com/2021/10/14/jordan-brand-chairman-larry-miller-admits-to-killing-teen-in-1965/