2000 Mules Just “Tip of the Voter Fraud Iceberg” – Michigan Investigators Reveal Mountain of New Evidence of 2020 Election Fraud

With the release of 2,000 Mules, patriots around the country are seeing the truth about the obvious voter fraud that was caught on video at designated ballot boxes. The Mules are those who were dropping fraudulent ballots into drop boxes. We know about the ones that were recorded and who were sloppy enough to keep their phones with them as they committed systemic voter fraud.

What is overlooked by many, though, is that there is much more voter fraud evidence from the 2020 election emerging.

Patriot Joe Brandis, who has been investigating Michigan voter fraud since the 2020 election with Michigan Citizens for Election Integrity says, “this is just the tip of the iceberg of voter fraud evidence that is emerging every week, and what’s about to come.”

2000 MULES SHOWS ‘TIP OF THE ICEBERG’ OF VOTER FRAUD CRIMES IN 2020 ELECTION

The Gateway Pundit reported on a wide variety of eyewitnesses who observed fraud just in Michigan. Many of those observers mentioned a very suspicious 3:30AM Biden Ballot Dump of votes in Detroit at the TCF Center where absentees were being counted.

The Big Steal Deniers wasted no time in supposedly ‘debunking’ the white van that witnesses observed on election night.

The media Big Steal Deniers first said the van didn’t exist.

The Big Steal Deniers then said if it had happened, people would have objected!

Then they said it was delivering late-night chicken nuggets and food to workers.

Then the Big Steal deniers said it was just delivering camera equipment.

Then the Big Steal deniers said it was just late-arriving absentee ballots but otherwise totally legal!

The problem with the latest Big Steal Denier narrative is, it still doesn’t explain the math of the ballots that showed up in a suspicious late-night van.

With the video from Zuckerberg drop boxes reviewed, the 3:30AM TCF van is filled with ballots that can’t be explained according to investigator Brandis.

Much less can the media shills explain why there were TWO van deliveries, another one an hour later at 4:30AM to the TCF Center.

WHERE DID DETROIT’S 3:30AM AND 4:30AM BIDEN BALLOT DUMP VOTES COME FROM?

Courageous Detroit elections worker whistleblower Jessy Jacob testified that the Zuckerberg Drop Boxes were cleared out every hour.

Jacob also said that there were no ballots left to process at the Detroit Department of Elections by 8:30PM on election night.

Jacob said that she was instructed not to challenge any ballot, that every ballot was processed through the Detroit Department of Elections. This matches a well-documented controversy where Democrat Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson illegally eliminated the signature verification process for absentee ballots.

Every single witness the Gateway Pundit has spoken with said that there were no ballots left to count and tabulate by around 9:00PM on election night at the TCF Center. Many left the location because there was nothing left to do.

Every other county in Michigan other than Wayne County and three others that tilted heavily for Biden had already reported their totals on election night. Wayne County was suspiciously last to report their election totals.

The Edison data from Michigan was showing voter results in real-time, a service offered to media outlets. The Edison data for Michigan shows a major spike of late ballots in Wayne County/Detroit.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/05/2000-mules-just-tip-voter-fraud-iceberg-michigan-investigators-reveal-mountain-new-evidence-2020-election-fraud/

Not a Single Voting System Testing Lab Used in the 2020 Election Was Accredited According to the Law at That Time – One Lab Never Was Accredited (Part II)

We reported on the fact that no Voter System Testing Laboratories (VSTLs) used in the 2020 Election were accredited at the time of the election based on the law. One of these labs used to this day in some states has NEVER been accredited by the EAC based on the law.

We first addressed this issue when the Maricopa County leadership wanted a ‘certified auditor’ to perform an audit of their operations after the 2020 Election in Arizona. The County selected two firms and TGP pointed out that the two firms selected were not properly certified at the time. This was despite statements by Maricopa officials. Only hours after our report, the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) suspiciously certified the two firms we identified.

Yesterday we shared that the EAC Voting System Test Laboratory (VSTL) Accreditation Program Manual says the Chair of the Commission must sign off on the VSTL’s accreditation and the accreditation shall not exceed 2 years.

Looking back at the accreditation process for the Voting System Test Labs (VSTL) used in Maricopa County noted a year ago, the two VSTLs selected were not accredited when selected by the county (Pro V&V and SLI) to perform audits of the county’s 2020 Results.

Today, per the EAC’s website, these are the only two accredited VSTLs.

The TGP shared this in our article on Sunday.

There is at least one other VSTL used as the accredited VSTL for the voting systems. This VSTL has actually never been accredited according to the law.

In the state of Missouri in at least one jurisdiction (St. Charles County), where there is a VSTL that has never been accredited that is claimed to have certified voting systems in the state.

Wyle Laboratories was accredited in May of 2010 for a two-year term effective through April 2012. There is no evidence that Wyle Labs was accredited at any time after that.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/05/exclusive-no-voting-system-testing-labs-used-2020-election-accredited-according-law-time-one-lab-never-accredited-part-ii/

Conflict Of Interest? Obama-Appointed Russiagate Judge Married To Lisa Page's Lawyer, Knew Sussmann

As the trial against Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann begins, questions have emerged over the judge's apparent conflicts of interest.

In a Wednesday Zoom call, Cooper told the parties in the case that he knew Sussmann in the 1990s when both of them worked at the DOJ.

"I worked in the '90s at the deputy attorney general’s office two years following law school. Mr. Sussmann also worked at the building at the same time in the criminal division. We did not work together or socialize, but I think it’s fair to say we were professional acquaintances," Cooper said, per the Washington Examiner. "I don’t believe that this creates a conflict, but my regular practice is to disclose these sorts of relationships with lawyers or with parties on the record. And I would advise you that I would be happy to entertain a motion if either side believes there is a conflict on that basis or any other."

Page, a former FBI lawyer, played a central role in the investigation of former President Donald Trump's alleged ties to Russia - a hoax created in part by the 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign and spread to the media by several operatives, including Sussmann. The FBI, meanwhile, was engaging in an alleged "media leak strategy" at the same time.

So - both the judge in the Sussmann case and his wife are deeply connected within the Democratic party, and have connections to key individuals involved in the attempt to take down Donald Trump. Interestingly, Cooper was also the judge in the Benghazi ringleader case, where his wife's ties to the DOJ posed another potential conflict of interest.

After graduating from Stanford Law School in 1993, Cooper clerked for Chief Judge Abner J. Mikva on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit from 1994 to 1996. He then went to work as a special assistant to Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick in the Clinton Justice Department. In 2001, he went into private practice for 17 years, working at the firms of Miller, Cassidy, Larroca & Lewin; then Baker Botts, and finally at Covington & Burling, where Holder was a partner before becoming Obama’s first attorney general.

…

In private practice, Cooper and his father-in-law William Jeffress successfully defended senior-level Saudi Arabian government officials in U.S. court against a lawsuit brought by the families of 9/11 victims.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/conflict-interest-obama-appointed-russiagate-judge-married-lisa-pages-lawyer-knew

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/conflict-interest-obama-appointed-russiagate-judge-married-lisa-pages-lawyer-knew

Buffalo shooter used same symbol as Ukraine’s Azov – Russian diplomat

The West will try to distract the public from this “awkward fact”, Russia’s deputy envoy to the UN says

Russia’s deputy ambassador to the UN, along with dozens of keen-eyed social media users, have pointed out that the suspect in Saturday’s deadly shooting in the US used the same Neo-Nazi symbol as Ukraine’s Azov Regiment.

Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russia’s First Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, noted that the ‘sonnenrad’, or ‘Black Sun’ symbol, which adorned the manifesto published by the Buffalo shooter, has for years featured on the insignia of Ukraine’s Azov regiment and is a commonly used image among white supremacists and neo-Nazi groups.

“I wonder what our Western colleagues would invent to distract the public from this awkward fact,” Polyanskiy remarked on his Telegram channel, referring to the fact that the Azov Battalion has been actively funded and promoted by the West, despite Russia warning that it is a radical neo-Nazi paramilitary unit.

The main suspect in the Buffalo shooting, 18-year-old Payton Gendron, stands accused of killing 10 people and injuring three others in what police believe to be a racially motivated crime. He is reported to be a white supremacist inspired by the mass-shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand in 2019.

Just like the perpetrator of the Christchurch shooting, Gendron left an online manifesto explaining his ideology prior to launching his live-streamed killing spree. The manifesto prominently featured an alternate version of the Black Sun, and images circulating online showed him wearing it on his clothes.

There are several different versions of the Black Sun design, however the one that Gendron picked is the same as the one used by the Azov battalion for their original insignia, alongside a wolfsangel, another Nazi-linked symbol.

The connection between the Azov Battalion and neo-Nazi symbolysm was widely covered by Western media outlets including Time magazine and the New York Times before Russia attacked Ukraine.

Nevertheless, the unit was incorporated into Ukraine’s National Guard in 2014. Kiev claims that people adhering to neo-Nazi ideology have been expelled from its ranks, but critics have pointed to the group’s continued and prominent use of Nazi-linked imagery.

https://www.rt.com/news/555557-azov-nazi-symbol-buffalo/

Biden Laptop Emails

Here are the 128k emails from the Biden Laptop, which is a modern Rosetta Stone of white and blue collar crime under the patina of “the Delaware Way.” Prior to the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, a number of ancient languages were mere gibberish and hash marks. Similarly, the emails on the Biden Laptop illuminated previously convoluted webs of the people you see leading the charge for global governance; truly, the emails can be considered a translation tool for Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) gathering.

(Apple) Download ALL raw email files - 856 MB

(Windows) Download ALL raw email files - 844 MB

Biden Laptop Emails View online 128.755

https://bidenlaptopemails.com/biden-emails/email-list.php?page=1

>>16285793

https://bidenlaptopemails.com/

NATO starts drills near Russian border

Thousands of troops from 14 nations, including the US, Sweden, Finland and Ukraine, are taking part in huge exercises in Estonia

Large-scale NATO military drills started in Estonia on Monday. The exercise dubbed ‘Hedgehog 2022’ is one of the largest in the Baltic nation’s history, according to the military bloc. The drills will involve some 15,000 troops from 14 nations, including both military bloc members and their partners.

Soldiers from Finland, Sweden, Georgia and Ukraine are among those that will take part in the exercise, Finnish public broadcaster Yle reported. The drills will include all branches of the armed forces and will involve air, sea and land exercises, as well as cyber warfare training, according to the broadcaster.

According to a NATO statement, the drills will also see the US Navy Wasp-class landing ship ‘Kearsarge’ take part in the exercises. Both the military bloc and Estonian Defense Forces deputy commander, Major General Veiko-Vello Palm, have denied that the drills just over 60km from the Russian border have anything to do with Moscow’s ongoing military action in Ukraine.

The drills started just a day after Finland and Sweden officially announced their plans to join NATO, and were planned long before the conflict in Ukraine broke out, Western officials have said.

The exercises in Estonia are, however, just one part of NATO’s large-scale military activities near the Russian border. Another Baltic state, Lithuania, is hosting the ‘Iron Wolf’ exercise, which involves 3,000 NATO troops and 1,000 pieces of military equipment, including Germany’s Leopard 2 tanks.

Two of NATO’s biggest exercises – ‘Defender Europe’ and ‘Swift Response’ – are taking place in Poland and eight other countries, involving 18,000 troops from 20 nations, according to NATO’s statement on Friday.

“Exercises like these show that NATO stands strong and ready to protect our nations and defend against any threat,” the military bloc’s spokesperson, Oana Lungescu, said, adding that the drills “help to remove any room for miscalculation or misunderstanding about our resolve to protect and defend every inch of allied territory.”

The NATO Response Force is currently taking part in the 7,500-strong ‘Wettiner Heide’ drills in Germany. The Mediterranean Sea is about to witness ‘Neptune series’ naval drills involving the USS ‘Harry S. Truman’ carrier strike group that will be placed under NATO command. This will only be the second time since the end of the Cold War that a US carrier group has been transferred under the military bloc’s command, NATO has said.

https://www.rt.com/news/555579-estonia-nato-military-drills/

Luna Foundation Sold 80,000 Bitcoin Amid UST Crash

The non-profit organization said only 313 BTC are now left on the bitcoin reserves for Terra’s UST stablecoin.

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/markets/luna-foundation-sold-80000-bitcoin-amid-ust-crash

Meet the Foundation Council

LFG is advised and overseen by its founding members and a council of experts committed to advancing its mission by facilitating the growth and support of various community-driven activities through targeted grants and funding. They ensure the activities of the Foundation are aligned with promoting transparency, governance, advancing research and development in open and decentralized networks.

Founding members and council members act in their personal capacities and not on behalf of their respective organizations.

https://lfg.org/team/

Arrested! Ring Burwood POLICE

For exposing pedophiles the court is cover up

Police Chief Arrested, Jailed for Running a Meth Distribution Ring

Wetumka, OK — If we were to declare a winner in the War on Drugs today, there would be no question that drugs won. Despite tens of billions of dollars wasted, hundreds of thousands of innocent lives ruined or ended, and the construction of the largest prison population on the planet, the American drug problem is worse off now than it ever was before.

Nothing highlights this epic failure of the war on drugs quite like cops getting busted selling or using drugs. When the ones who are tasked with fighting this senseless war, choose the other side, this should be a red flag that it’s not working. And this happens all the time.

As the following example illustrates, even top cops have jumped ship and are choosing the side of drugs — shamelessly betraying the trust of the public they serve to use their badge to profit in this corrupt game.

A police chief in Oklahoma was arrested over the weekend for using his position to run a meth distribution operation. Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics officials said law enforcement arrested Calvin Police Chief Joe Don Chitwood at his home after an investigation began in April.

“This investigation began in mid-April after receiving information that Chitwood was both using and selling methamphetamine in Hughes County,” Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics spokesperson Mark Woodward said in the news release. “OBN and DEA worked a joint investigation that resulted in Chitwood’s arrest.”

Though police didn’t go into detail on the amount of meth found at Chitwood’s home, he was charged with multiple counts of distribution, meaning it wasn’t just a personal amount.

“Meth is the leading killer among drug-related deaths in Oklahoma,” OBN Director Donnie Anderson said in the release. “And for a peace officer to be responsible for putting more meth on the streets is a disgrace to the proud men and women in law enforcement who put their lives on the line every day to protect our citizens from the deadly consequences of substance abuse.”

“Dealers of illegal drugs come in many forms. Chief Chitwood used his authority to push drugs in Oklahoma disregarding the inherent harm they cause. DEA and our law enforcement partners will hold drug dealers accountable no matter who they are,” said Eduardo A. Chávez, Special Agent in Charge of DEA Dallas.

Chitwood’s arrest should serve as a red flag that the war on drugs has failed. Government should use this as an opportunity to learn that meth is a function of the war on drugs.

When the police state can’t even keep their own top officials from abusing and distributing meth, with the entire militarized anti-drug army at their disposal, it might be time to consider an alternative. Unfortunately, this isn’t happening.

Cops kicking in doors and caging people for substances deemed illegal by the state is not only ineffective and futile, but it’s adding to the problem.

https://thefreethoughtproject.com/police-chief-arrested-jailed-for-running-a-meth-distribution-ring/

Sweden Ends Neutrality, Joins Finland in Seeking NATO Berth

STOCKHOLM—Sweden’s prime minister announced Monday that Sweden will join Finland in seeking NATO membership in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a historic shift that comes after more than 200 years of military nonalignment in the Nordic country.

The move, which is likely to upset the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin, came after neighboring Finland announced Sunday that it too would seek to join the 30-country military alliance.

Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson called it “a historic change in our country’s security policy” as she addressed lawmakers in the Swedish capital.

“We will inform NATO that we want to become a member of the alliance,” she said. “Sweden needs formal security guarantees that come with membership in NATO.”

Andersson adding that Sweden was acting together with Finland, whose government announced on Sunday it would seek to join the alliance.

The announcement came after a debate in the Riksdagen, or parliament, earlier Monday showed that there is a huge support for joining NATO. Out of Sweden’s eight parties, only two smaller left-leaning parties opposed it.

On Sunday, the Swedish Social Democrats broke with the party’s long-standing position that Sweden must remain nonaligned, paving the way for a clear majority for NATO membership in the parliament.

Public opinion in both Nordic countries was firmly against joining NATO before the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, but support for NATO membership surged quickly in both nations after that.

“The Swedish government’s intent is to apply for NATO membership. A historic day for Sweden,” Foreign Minister Ann Linde wrote on Twitter. “With a broad support from political parties in the parliament, the conclusion is that Sweden will stand stronger together with allies in NATO.”

Once a regional military power, Sweden has avoided military alliances since the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Like Finland it remained neutral throughout the Cold War, but formed closer relations with NATO after the 1991 Soviet collapse.

After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the governments in Finland and Sweden responded by initiating discussions across political parties about NATO membership and reaching out to the United States, Britain, Germany, and other NATO countries for their support.

The Kremlin, however, has repeatedly warned the move would have destabilizing consequences for security in Europe.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday that Moscow “does not have a problem” with Sweden or Finland as they apply for NATO membership, but that “the expansion of military infrastructure onto this territory will of course give rise to our reaction in response.”

In Helsinki, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said Monday that there is “very significant” support in the Congress and that he expects swift ratification. He said he hoped a vote could be held before the August recess.

In the Swedish Parliament, only the small Left and Green parties objected to seeking NATO membership.

https://www.ntd.com/sweden-ends-neutrality-joins-finland-in-seeking-nato-berth_780091.html

Microsoft hires up in China for secretive, ‘revolutionary’ real estate project

Microsoft is quietly doubling down on its controversial presence in China as it hires staff for a major real estate project that the company is advertising to locals as “revolutionary,” The Post has learned.

The tech giant co-founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen is looking to hire staffers in Suzhou to join a “big global team” that’s focused on helping people find their “dream house,” little-noticed job postings spotted by The Post show.

“We’re transforming the real estate industry into a revolutionary state where all of the rental tasks are done entirely online,” read more than a dozen job listings from March.

Despite the ambitious promises to Chinese job seekers, Microsoft has not published any press releases about their new real estate ambitions and did not respond to repeated requests for comment from The Post.

The listings, which are for software engineering and management roles, are for a role on a team called “Bing Rentals.” They appear to indicate the company could be building a rental listings app to compete with the likes of Zillow and Realtor.com.

“Leveraging the great eco-system Microsoft has been building such as feeds, search engine, browser, and app, this investment has great growth opportunity and will empower people with rental need to find their dream house efficiently,” the job postings read.

https://nypost.com/2022/05/16/microsoft-hires-up-in-china-for-secretive-revolutionary-real-estate-project/

Starbucks to Cover Travel Costs for Abortions, ‘Gender-Affirming’ Surgeries

Starbucks is the latest woke company to affirm it will facilitate abortions and “gender-affirming” surgeries by covering the travel expense of employees under its insurance program, joining a long list of others who have made a similar pledge.

While Starbucks is no stranger to left-wing causes — openly supporting Black Lives Matter, shutting down thousands of locations to force employees to undergo “racial bias training,” and once pledging to hire thousands of refugees in response to former President Trump’s actions on immigration — it is the latest to jump into the current political fray.

Transgender surgeries as well as abortion have quickly become topics of controversy in the U.S. — the latter, particularly, following the leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade. That decision would kick abortion rules back to the states. Hypothetically, this could mean that a pro-abortion woman living in a red state with restrictions would have to travel to a blue state with looser rules in order to end the life of her child. As a result, woke companies are stepping up and pledging to cover the travel expenses for such employees.

According to CNBC, any of the roughly 240,000 U.S. Starbucks employees who are vying to get an abortion or “gender-affirming procedure and under the company’s insurance program “will be eligible for reimbursement of travel costs if those services aren’t available within 100 miles of their home.”

“The benefit will also extend to any dependents enrolled in Starbucks health care.” CNBC reported. “A representative for Starbucks said the company is still working on additional details, such as when the benefit kicks in.”

Starbucks is hardly the only company making such promises. Amazon, Citigroup, Yelp, Uber, Lyft, Bumble, Match Group, and Salesforce have made similar announcements. Amazon, specifically, said it will pay up to $4,000 for travel costs per year for procedures, including abortion.

Levi Strauss & Co. also jumped into the debate this month, making its position crystal clear by calling “reproductive rights” a “business imperative.”

“Business leaders are responsible for protecting the health and well-being of our employees, and that includes protecting reproductive rights and abortion access,” the company said in a statement, telling employees under the benefits plan that they are “eligible for reimbursement for healthcare-related travel expenses for services not available in their home state, including those related to reproductive health care and abortion.”

A Fox News poll released this month revealed most Americans believe abortion should be “mostly” or “always” illegal.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/05/16/starbucks-to-cover-travel-costs-for-abortions-gender-affirming-surgeries/

Governor: Florida Secretary of State Laurel M. Lee to resign

Florida Secretary of State Laurel M. Lee is resigning her post as the state's top election official, Gov. Ron DeSantis' office said Thursday.

In a resignation letter, Lee, a Republican, said she would step down Monday and thanked the governor, who appointed her in 2019. Her letter did not specify a reason for leaving but news outlets have reported that she is considering a run for Congress.

"I am grateful for your support throughout my tenure, and I am honored to have been part of your vision for our state," she wrote in her resignation letter to DeSantis. “I will continue to seek what's best for the citizens of Florida and will always be proud of what we accomplished together.”

DeSantis' office said it would soon have an announcement on Lee's replacement.

“Over the past 20 years, Florida has become one of the best states in the nation at administering elections, and Secretary Lee built on that tradition,” said DeSantis spokeswoman Taryn Fenske. “As Secretary of State, she helped ensure Florida had an efficient election in 2020, with accurate results.”

Prior to becoming secretary of state, Lee was a judge in Hillsborough County, a former federal prosecutor and federal public defender. DeSantis appointed Lee in early 2019. Her predecessor, Michael Ertel, abruptly stepped down after a newspaper obtained photos of him in blackface at a party in 2005. Ertel later apologized.

https://news.yahoo.com/governor-florida-secretary-state-laurel-192536959.html

Marburg Will Be Activated via 5G, Quarantine Camps & Shots for the Unvaxxed

https://www.bitchute.com/video/lUWvnUPxc6O4/

Biden Removing 5 Organizations from Terror Blacklist, Despite Thousands of Deaths

The United States is poised to remove five extremist groups, all believed to be defunct, from its list of foreign terrorist organizations — including several that once posed significant threats, killing hundreds if not thousands of people across Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

Although the groups are inactive, the decision is politically sensitive for the Biden administration and the countries in which the organizations operated and could draw criticism from victims and their families still dealing with the losses of loved ones.

The organizations include the Basque separatist group ETA, the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo, the radical Jewish group Kahane Kach and two Islamic groups that have been active in Israel, the Palestinian territories and Egypt.

The U.S. State Department notified Congress on Friday of the decision, which comes at the same time as an increasingly divisive but unrelated debate in Washington and elsewhere about whether Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard should or can be legally removed from the U.S. list as part of efforts to salvage the languishing Iran nuclear deal.

That designation, which was imposed by the Trump administration, was not mentioned in Friday’s notifications.

In separate notices to lawmakers, the State Department said the terrorism designations for the five groups will be formally removed when the determinations are published in the Federal Register, which is expected this coming week.

Copies of the notifications, all of which were signed by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday, were obtained by The Associated Press.

The general reason for the removals is identical in each of the cases: Blinken asserted that they were based on an administrative review of the designations, which by law is required every five years.

The reviews take into account whether designated groups are still active, whether they have committed terrorist acts within the previous five years and whether removal from or retention of the list would be in U.S. national security interests. Under the law that created the list, the secretary of state can remove groups that he or she deems no longer to fit the criteria.

“Based on a review of the Administrative Record assembled in this matter and in consultation with the Attorney General and the Secretary of the Treasury, I determine that the circumstances that were the basis for the designation … have changed in such a manner to warrant revocation of the designation,” Blinken wrote in each notice.

Removing the groups from the list has the immediate effect of rescinding a range of sanctions that the designations had entailed. Those include asset freezes and travel bans, as well as a prohibition on any Americans providing the groups or their members with any material support. In the past the material support provision has been broadly defined to encompass money or in-kind assistance, in some cases even medical care.

All but one of the five groups was first designated a foreign terrorist organization in 1997 and have remained on the list for the past 25 years.

U.S. officials familiar with the matter said the decisions were made only after consulting lawmakers several months ago about whether the latest five-year reviews should proceed. Before now, only 15 groups have been removed from the list.

The specific reasons for each the removals are included only in classified sections that accompanied the notifications, which are not classified on their own. These sections are labeled “SECRET/NOFORN,” which means their contents can only be shared among U.S. officials with proper clearances and not with foreign governments.

http://www.stationgossip.com/2022/05/biden-removing-5-organizations-from.html

US provided $219 million military aid to Iraq, Syria in 2022

The US Central Command on Saturday announced that they had provided around $219 million in the first quarter of the 2022 fiscal year in aid to their allies in Iraq and Syria through the Global Coalition against Islamic State (ISIS).

“Combined Joint Task Force - Operation Inherent Resolve provided approximately $219 million in assistance to Iraq partner forces and vetted Syrian partner forces in the first quarter of the fiscal year 2022 through the Counter-ISIS Train and Equip Fund, or CTEF,” read the statement from the US Central Command.

The statement added that since its inception in 2014, the CTEF has provided over $8.9 billion in assistance to its allies in Iraq in Syria, and the aid has included military vehicles, forklifts, ambulances, wreckers, fuel and water tankers, and communication assets ranging from radios to air traffic control systems and weapons packages.

The global coalition against ISIS was formally established in October 2014, after ISIS took control of vast swathes of territories in Iraq and Syria. Consisting of 79 nations and five international organizations, the US-led coalition’s mission has been “degrading and ensuring Daesh’s enduring defeat,” it says on its website, using the Arabic acronym for the extremist group.

The terror group was territorially defeated in 2017, but it remains a serious security threat, especially in areas where there is a security vacuum between Erbil and Baghdad.

The mission has over the years aided the Kurdistan Region’s Peshmerga forces, the Iraqi army, and their Kurdish-led Syrian ally, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

The combat mission of the coalition ended in Iraq at the end of the last year but it continues in Syria. The coalition continues advising Iraqi forces and Peshmerga.

https://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeast/15052022

Eric T. Olson

Eric Thor Olson (born January 24, 1952) is a retired United States Navy admiral who last served as the eighth Commander, U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) from July 2, 2007 to August 8, 2011. He previously served as Deputy Commander, U.S. Special Operations Command from 2003 to July 2007. Olson was the first Navy SEAL ever to be appointed to three-star and four-star flag rank, as well as the first naval officer to be USSOCOM's combatant commander.[1] He took command from Army General Bryan D. Brown in 2007.[1] Brown and Olson had served together at the SOCOM headquarters in Tampa for four years.[1] He retired from active duty on August 22, 2011 after over 38 years of service. He relinquished command of SOCOM to Admiral William H. McRaven the same day.[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_T._Olson

President Biden Orders Redeployment of Troops to Somalia

Biden also gave the Pentagon the authority to target about a dozen suspected al-Shabaab leaders

President Biden will deploy up to 500 US troops to Somalia, reversing a withdrawal of most US forces from the country that was carried out at the end of the Trump administration.

“President Biden has approved a request from the Secretary of Defense to reestablish a persistent US military presence in Somalia to enable a more effective fight against al-Shabaab,” a senior Biden administration official told The Hill.

The Trump administration withdrew about 700 troops from Somalia, but most were redeployed elsewhere in East Africa, including in neighboring Djibouti and Kenya. “This is a repositioning of forces already in theater who have traveled in and out of Somalia on an episodic basis since the previous administration made the decision to withdraw in January 2021,” the Biden administration official said.

Biden is sending troops to Somalia to help the Mogadishu-based government, which has little control over the country, fight al-Shabaab. According to The New York Times, Biden also signed off on giving the Pentagon the authority to target about a dozen suspected al-Shabaab leaders, which signals US airstrikes in Somalia might ramp up.

US airstrikes against al-Shabaab had significantly declined under the Biden administration. US Africa Command (AFRICOM) has announced five airstrikes against al-Shabaab since Biden came into office, compared with 52 airstrikes in 2020.

President Trump significantly escalated the US war against al-Shabaab by sending regular troops to Somalia in 2017 for the first time in decades and ramped up the air war by loosening the rules of engagement.

The US hypes up the threat of al-Shabaab due to its size and al-Qaeda affiliation. But the group did not declare loyalty to al-Qaeda until 2012, after years of fighting against the US and its proxies, including a US-backed Ethiopian invasion in 2006.

https://news.antiwar.com/2022/05/16/president-biden-approves-redeployment-of-troops-to-somalia/

Video shows cops storming hospital before reporter’s funeral, hitting people inside

Security camera footage shows officers with batons out in Jerusalem Saint Joseph’s Hospital before heavily criticized intervention at procession for Shireen Abu Akleh

Footage released Monday from last week’s funeral for slain Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh showed dozens of Israel Police officers rushing into a hospital before the procession began, hitting and shoving people inside, including patients, and firing from the grounds of the medical center.

The video clips — security footage from inside East Jerusalem’s Saint Joseph’s Hospital — were presented by local Christian leaders at a press conference during which they tore into police conduct during Abu Akleh’s funeral.

Police have already been under immense international scrutiny for other scenes captured at the Friday funeral, namely of officers rushing at and beating mourners as they carried Abu Akleh’s casket outside the hospital, nearly causing it to fall to the ground, and the firing of stun grenades.

Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American and a 25-year veteran of the Al Jazeera satellite channel, was killed last Wednesday while covering an Israeli military raid in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank. The Palestinians insist that she was killed by army fire, while Israel has said there is not yet conclusive evidence that would determine whether she was shot by IDF soldiers or by Palestinian gunmen.

The footage released at Monday’s press conference showed dozens of officers — wearing helmets, protective vests and batons — rushing into the hospital before her funeral procession began.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/video-shows-cops-storming-hospital-before-reporters-funeral-firing-shots/