Fox News makes huge payout to settle election fraud case

The conservative outlet agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems almost $800 million

Fox News has reached a settlement of almost $800 million with Dominion Voting Systems after some of the network’s hosts and guests accused the company, which manufactures voting machines, of enabling election fraud in 2020.

Fox and Dominion settled the case on Tuesday, moments before opening arguments in a defamation suit were set to begin. Speaking on the steps of the courthouse in Georgetown, Delaware, a lawyer for Dominion told reporters that Fox would pay the company $787.5 million, just under half of the mammoth $1.6 billion sum it was seeking in court.

Dominion sued Fox in 2021, alleging that hosts Tucker Carlson, Maria Bartiromo, Lou Dobbs, Sean Hannity and Jeanine Pirro aired false claims about its voting machines in the aftermath of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 US presidential election.

Dominion’s machines were used in 28 US states in 2020. Prior to the election, they were widely known for their unreliability. In 2019, a group of prominent Democrats, including Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, warned that they were “prone to security problems,” including “switching votes,” delivering results that “threaten the integrity of our elections,” and other “undisclosed vulnerabilities.”

When reports of crashing machines surfaced during the 2020 election, some conservative pundits and supporters of Donald Trump alleged that Dominion was attempting to rig the election in favor of Biden. Dominion responded by launching multiple lawsuits, including two $1.3 billion defamation suits targeting pro-Trump lawyer Sydney Powell and the ex-president’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani.

Fox did not dispute that some of its hosts’ claims about Dominion were false. Instead it argued that it was simply reporting newsworthy allegations from public figures like Powell and Guiliani, as was its “absolute right” under the US Constitution. Furthermore, the network argued that its hosts’ opinions were typical of the “rhetorical hyperbole normally associated with politics and public discourse in the United States.”

Responding to Tuesday’s settlement, Dominion CEO John Poulos said that Fox had “admitted to telling lies,” and that “nothing can ever make up for that.” Fox said that it was “pleased to have reached a settlement,” and called for “the country to move forward from these issues.”

https://www.rt.com/news/574968-fox-dominion-lawsuit-settlement/

648K Migrants Apprehended in Six Months in Texas-Based Border Sectors

Border Patrol agents apprehended nearly 650,000 migrants during the first six months of the current fiscal year in the five Texas-based sectors. This is up from the record-shattering pace set last year when agents apprehended nearly 627,000 migrants who crossed the border between ports of entry.

During the first six months of Fiscal Year 2023, which began on October 1, 2022, agents assigned to the El Paso, Big Bend, Del Rio, Laredo, and Rio Grande Valley Sectors apprehended 648,465 migrants who crossed the border between ports of entry, according to the March Southwest Land Border Encounters report. During the same period last year, agents apprehended 626,793 migrants. This year’s apprehensions represent an increase of nearly 3.5 percent over last year’s six-month total.

The El Paso Sector reported the largest increase of migrant apprehensions of any of the nine southwest border sectors with the arrest of 265,037 migrants. This is up by 134 percent over the same period last year. This was the largest percentage and number increase of any sector in the nation.

The Del Rio Sector also reported a significant increase in the number of migrants apprehended. So far this fiscal year, agents arrested 217,849 migrants compared to 195,299 during the same period last year.

The Rio Grande Valley, Laredo, and Big Bend Sectors all reported significant decreases in the number of migrants arrested.

The segmentation of the migrant apprehensions in the Texas-based border sectors breaks down as follows:

The numbers reported above do not include known migrant got-aways. These are migrants who are known to have crossed the border between ports of entry but who were not apprehended by Border Patrol agents.

During the first six months of this fiscal year, more than 223,000 migrants are classified as known got-aways, according to an unofficial Border Patrol report for the five Texas-based sectors reviewed by Breitbart Texas earlier this month. This is up from the more than 156,000 known got-aways in FY22 — an increase of approximately 43 percent.

This brings the total of known border crossers in the five Texas-based sectors for the first half of FY23 to nearly 872,000 migrants for the five Texas-based sectors. This compares to the city of Fort Worth which reports a population of just over 908,000 people.

https://www.breitbart.com/border/2023/04/19/648k-migrants-apprehended-in-six-months-in-texas-based-border-sectors/

Swedish broadcaster joins Twitter exodus

Sveriges Radio said CEO Elon Musk’s “publicly-funded” label was not the reason it quit the platform

Public broadcaster Sveriges Radio has announced it is leaving Twitter, explaining in a blog post on Tuesday that its listeners no longer use the platform.

“The audience has simply chosen other places to be. And, therefore, Sveriges Radio now chooses to deactivate or delete the last remaining accounts,” the company’s head of social media, Christian Gillinger, wrote.

“For a long time, Sveriges Radio has de-prioritized its presence on Twitter,” he explained, citing the Internet Foundation’s 2022 report ‘Swedes and the Internet’, which revealed only 7% of Swedes use Twitter daily, compared to 53% who use Facebook and 48% who use Instagram.

Gillinger pointed out that the company had also left Twitch and Snapchat and even reduced engagement on the more-popular Facebook, explaining that limited time and resources mean the broadcaster is forced to “opt in and out all the time.”

Indeed, for the last six years, many of its channels’ accounts have been inactive, though some activity is visible across the newsrooms. Going forward, “most accounts” belonging to the company will be deleted, while some will be listed as inactive, and individual employees can remain on the platform if they choose. Sveriges joined Twitter in 2009.

While Gillinger did not blame Twitter’s recent push to label Western public broadcasters as state-backed media for his company’s decision, he acknowledged the “recent turbulence” at the social media behemoth, suggesting that the dramatic reductions in Twitter’s staff could empower bad actors.

“We believe that in the long term it may affect the company’s ability to handle, for example, fake accounts, bots, and misinformation,” he said, explaining “these are factors that also weigh in when we now decide to be editorially inactive on the platform.”

Sweden’s largest radio company joins publicly-funded American news outlets PBS and National Public Radio, both of which announced their departure from Twitter in the past week, citing CEO Elon Musk’s decision to label their accounts as “government-funded media” or “state-backed media.” Canadian outlet CBC joined the exodus on Monday after receiving a similar label.

In Europe, however, affected accounts including the BBC are labeled as “publicly-funded,” rather than “government-funded,” and the designation did not seem to bother the Swedish broadcaster. “Based on the current definition, it’s a correct description of how Swedish Radio is financed,” Gillinger said.

https://www.rt.com/news/574954-sveriges-radio-leaves-twitter-label/

China Calls Its Illegal NYC Police Station a ‘Service Center,’ Accuses U.S. of Repressing Its Agents

The Chinese Communist Party responded with bombast on Tuesday to the news that New York prosecutors had arrested two people on charges of running an illegal “police station” in the city to persecute Chinese dissidents, claiming the arrests were “political manipulation” and denying the existence of the stations.

New York officials announced on Monday that an investigation into illicit law enforcement operations by Chinese government operatives in Manhattan had resulted in the arrests of two men, “Harry” Lu Jianwang and Chen Jinping, allegedly tasked with running Chinese law enforcement operations in the United States. U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Breon Peace accused the suspects of having “repeatedly and flagrantly violat[ing] our nation’s sovereignty by opening and operating a police station in the middle of New York City.”

The Chinese government used the illegal police station, American law enforcement officials assert, to target, threaten, and silence people in the United States who vocally criticized the Chinese government, most prominently dissidents in the Chinese-American community.

The Chinese Communist Party’s establishment of illegal law enforcement units in cities abroad first surfaced in a report published in September by the non-governmental organization Safeguard Defenders, which listed New York alongside a long list of other major Western cities in Canada, Brazil, the United Kingdom, and other states, as hosting these illicit operations. At the time, Chinese government officials responded to the report by confirming the existence of the “police stations,” but claiming they were innocuous outposts for activities such as helping Chinese nationals renew their driver’s licenses.

The director of Safeguard Defenders, Peter Dahlin, noted on Monday that his organization had identified over 100 such Chinese police operations around the world.

Responding to the news during his regular press briefing on Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin insisted, “there are simply no so-called ‘overseas police stations,” though he had confirmed their existence in October.

“Due to [coronavirus], a large number of overseas Chinese nationals have been unable to return to China in time for services such as renewing their driving license. As a solution to these difficulties, relevant sub-national authorities have opened up an online licensing platform,” Wang said at the time.

Wang reiterated on Tuesday that the operations U.S. officials identified do exist, but referred to them as “overseas Chinese service centers.”

“The U.S. drew malignant association between overseas Chinese service centers and Chinese diplomatic and consular officials and made groundless accusations against China,” Wang told reporters. “This is clearly political manipulation. About the ‘overseas police stations,’ we have made it clear many times that the allegation has no factual basis.”

“There are simply no so-called ‘overseas police stations,'” Wang continued. “China adheres to the principle of non-interference in other countries’ internal affairs, strictly observes international laws and respects the judicial sovereignty of all countries. We hope relevant parties will not hype up or dramatize this.”

Wang also accused American officials of “slander” and “transnational repression,” the term U.S. prosecutors used for China’s threats and intimidation of dissidents in New York.

“China firmly opposes the U.S.’s slanders and smears, its political manipulation, the false narrative of ‘transnational repression,’ and blatant prosecution of Chinese law enforcement and cyber administration officials,” Wang said. “The U.S. has long suppressed dissent through secret surveillance, illegal wiretapping, global manhunts and behind-the-scenes deals,” he added, without providing examples or evidence.

“The ‘transnational repression’ is an allegation that best matches the U.S.’s own practices,” Wang claimed.

China’s state-run Global Times newspaper, its most aggressive English-language publication, also weighed in on the charges on Tuesday, calling the Department of Justice (DOJ) accusations “nonsense.”

“Washington’s approach to handling ties with China is shambolic with no clear main thrust, said Chinese analysts,” according to the government propaganda outlet. “They criticized US decision-makers for their refusal to correct their mistakes and for failure to remove the obstacles they set for the dialogues, while continuing to castigate China for its attitude toward the US.”

https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2023/04/19/china-calls-its-illegal-nyc-police-station-a-service-center-accuses-u-s-of-repressing-its-agents/

Suspect in Japan PM attack may have had election grudge

TOKYO (AP) — A 24-year-old man who allegedly threw an explosive at Prime Minister Fumio Kishida wanted to be a politician and believed that he was unfairly blocked from running for Japan’s parliament by an age requirement, according to media reports and social media posts that appeared to be his.

The suspect, Ryuji Kimura, was wrestled to the ground and arrested Saturday at a campaign event in the fishing port of Saikazaki, in the western Japanese city of Wakayama. The explosive, believed to be a pipe bomb, landed near Kishida, who escaped unhurt.

Kimura has refused to talk to police, but local media reports that he bore grievances about Japan’s election system might shed light on his motives.

In June last year Kimura, who police said is unemployed, filed a lawsuit with the Kobe District Court claiming that he should have been allowed to register for the July 2022 Upper House election, according to Japanese media including NHK public television and Kyodo News. A candidate must be aged 30 years or older and present a 3 million yen ($22,260) deposit to run for the upper house, the less powerful of Japan’s two-chamber parliament. He was 23 at the time.

He demanded the government pay 100,000 yen ($740) in compensation for his psychological anguish, according to the reports.

Violent crimes are rare in Japan. With its strict gun control laws, the country has only a handful of gun-related crimes annually, most of them gang related. But in recent years Japanese police have worried about “lone offender” attacks with homemade guns and explosives. Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated with a homemade gun at a campaign event on July 8, just two days before the upper house election.

In a document he submitted to the court, Kimura argued that the election system that blocked his candidacy was unconstitutional, the reports said.

Kimura argued that the election law violates constitutional guarantees of equality and other rights, according to media reports. The court dismissed his claim in a November 2022 ruling, and Kimura appealed the decision to the Osaka High Court, whose decision is expected in May, reports say.

Tweets posted to an account cited by local media as Kimura’s and seen by the Associated Press complained about Japan’s political system. The account does not carry his name, but identifies itself as representing the plaintiff in a lawsuit that matches the one filed by Kimura. The Associated Press was not able to contact the owner of the account. The account had only 23 posts since it began late June.

An Aug. 11, 2022 tweet said the deck is stacked against ordinary people who quit their job and pay the deposit to run in national elections. “There is an established system where ordinary people can never become politicians.”

Other tweets on the account criticized Kishida’s decision to hold a state funeral for Abe.

The man accused of shooting Abe, Tetsuya Yamagami, told authorities soon after his arrest that he killed Abe because of the former prime minister’s apparent links to a religious group that Yamagami hated. In statements and in social media posts attributed to him, Yamagami said his mother’s donations to the Unification Church bankrupted his family and ruined his life.

https://apnews.com/article/japan-kishida-explosion-suspect-motive-13382736b2532e8aaa54a7e5ec3bf636

French publisher asks UK police to cease investigation

LONDON (AP) — A French publisher called on British police Wednesday to cease their investigation of an employee who it said was arrested on his way to the London Book Fair and questioned for hours about French President Emmanuel Macron’s government and his pension reforms that sparked months of protests.

Ernest Moret, foreign rights manager at Editions La Fabrique, was freed Tuesday but had his phone and work computer seized by police and was told to return to the U.K. in four weeks, the publisher said.

Circumstances over his arrest remained unclear two days after Moret was detained and questioned after arriving at St. Pancras railway station on Monday night from Paris.

London’s Metropolitan Police wouldn’t name Moret or provide information about why he was stopped.

But a police spokesperson said a 28-year-old man stopped at the train station when Moret arrived was interviewed by port officers under a law that allows them to question someone who may be involved in terrorism. Under the law, an officer may stop and question someone without grounds for suspecting the person is or has been involved in terrorism.

The publishers said officers justified questioning Moret by claiming he participated in the turbulent protests against Macron’s decision to raise the age of retirement from 62 to 64.

The publisher, which said French authorities had been complicit in the matter, suggested they had “whispered” questions to their British counterparts. In addition to the “disturbing questions” about the French government, Moret was also asked to name anti-government authors the publisher worked with.

“Asking the representative of a publishing house, in an anti-terrorism context, questions about his authors’ opinions means pushing even further the logic of political censorship and repression of dissenting views,” La Fabrique said. “In a context of increasing authoritarianism of the French government, in the midst of a social movement, this element is chilling.”

Police said the man was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of willfully obstructing their examination.

The publisher said Moret was arrested for refusing to provide passwords to unlock his phone.

A person being questioned under the Terrorism Act of 2000 can be found in violation of the law if they don’t provide passwords or codes to unlock electronic devices, according to the law.

A Metropolitan Police spokesperson said the suspect had been been released on bail on Tuesday evening. No charges were filed, but the investigation continued.

The French Foreign Ministry said it had no information or comment on what led to the arrest. It said it had offered Moret consular protection.

Sylvie Corbet reported from Paris.

https://apnews.com/article/french-publisher-arrest-london-pensions-protests-201c8ff96e5c0dcf21ba39ab82837355

No ‘magic wand’ for Ukraine – UK

It is unlikely that the conflict with Russia will end this year, the British defense secretary has said

The conflict between Russia and Ukraine will likely continue into next year, UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said on Tuesday.

“I’m optimistic that between this year and next year, I think Ukraine will continue to have the momentum with it and a position of strength,” Wallace told reporters during a trip to Washington, DC, as quoted by the New York Times.

Wallace warned, however, that “there is not going to be a single magic-wand moment when Russia collapses.”

The UK has been one of Kiev’s main backers, supplying the country with heavy weapons, including Challenger 2 tanks. Britain has trained 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers, according to the Defence Ministry, and pledged to train 20,000 more this year.

For the past several months, Kiev has been outspoken about its planned counteroffensive, but has not publicly revealed the timetable. Ukrainian officials have said, however, that the schedule and success of the endeavor will heavily depend on the supply of Western tanks and other equipment.

Aleksey Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, told AP on Monday that the push will start at an appropriate time when the country is ready. Prime Minister Denis Shmigal recently said that the offensive will start “in the nearest future.” Shmigal stated that the recent leaking of the Pentagon files, which included reports about how Western countries were training and equipping Ukrainian troops, will not change the plans for the counteroffensive. However, a source close to President Vladimir Zelensky told CNN that Kiev had altered some of its plans because of the leak.

Some Western leaders, including NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, warned that the conflict, which broke out in February 2022, could last for years. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said Washington is determined to support Kiev “for as long as it takes.”

The Kremlin said this month that the Russian military has been “meticulously monitoring” information regarding Ukraine’s plans. Moscow has also repeatedly stated that countries which send weapons to Kiev become de facto parties to the conflict.

https://www.rt.com/news/574987-ben-wallace-ukraine-assessment/

Mexico condemns US ‘interference’ in drug war

The DEA’s infiltration of the Sinaloa Cartel without state permission amounts to espionage, the Mexican president says

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, commonly known as AMLO, has excoriated the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) for infiltrating the Sinaloa Cartel without his permission, accusing Washington of “abusive interference” at a press conference on Monday.

“There can’t be foreign agents in our country, no,” AMLO insisted, explaining that while the US and Mexico could share information, Mexico alone will decide who can “intervene.” Anything else, he said, is an unacceptable violation of Mexican sovereignty.

Only after the safety of Mexicans – from both the ultraviolent cartels and DEA operatives – is guaranteed can the matter of assisting the US in its drug war be taken up, he said. “Cooperation yes, submission no.”

The DOJ announced last week the indictment of 28 senior figures in the Sinaloa Cartel on charges that include drug and weapons trafficking, money laundering, murder, extortion, kidnapping, and torture. Prosecutors boasted that the DEA had “proactively infiltrated” the cartel and its offshoot, the Chapitos (‘little Chapos’, named after the offspring of Sinaloa drug lord El Chapo), and had been following its movements for a year and a half, all without informing the Mexican government, which it continued to accuse of not doing enough to stop the flow of illicit fentanyl into America.

AMLO has repeatedly denied that Mexico is responsible for manufacturing fentanyl, pointing the finger at Asian chemical suppliers – plus the weaknesses in American society that have given rise to the demand for the synthetic opioid, which caused more than 100,000 fatal overdoses last year. On Monday, he added that the US is foolish to “blindly trust” its DEA agents when “it is proven that many of them… maintain, or maintained, links with organized crime.”

He was specifically referring to the DEA’s former chief for Mexico, Nicholas Palmieri, who quietly retired last year when it emerged that he had become too friendly with prominent cartel lawyers. Meanwhile, the DEA’s entire foreign operations are currently under an external review ordered in response to the conviction of former agent Jose Irizarry on money laundering charges. Irizarry named dozens of senior DEA agents as his partners in crime, describing an operation that spanned three continents and feasted on the fruits of the cartel millions it laundered.

https://www.rt.com/news/574974-mexico-condemns-us-interference-drug-war/

Muslims Tell Hindu Children to Convert to Islam or they Will Not ‘Survive Long

Hindu children in the UK have reportedly been threatened by Muslim classmates that they must convert to Islam or they will not “survive long” in school.

Research undertaken by an Anglo-America think tank has found that Hindu children in the UK have been put under pressure from Muslims to convert to Islam, with those who refuse told that they will face serious harassment and bullying in schools.

The threats mirror those behind recent sectarian riots between Hindus and Muslims in the UK, with some Islamic extremists said to have spread false stories of Hindus harassing Muslim girls on the streets of Leicester.

Such rumours eventually led to rioting in multiple UK cities, with hardcore Islamists organising patrols of UK streets as well as hostile protests outside of Hindu temples.

According to a report by The Telegraph, Hindu children also face serious persecution from Muslims in UK schools, with an investigation undertaken by the Henry Jackson Society finding children have been on the receiving end of sectarian pressure from fellow classmates.

“Some of the discrimination exhibited in the classroom showed similarities to the manifestations of hate witnessed during the unrest in Leicester between Hindus and Muslims,” the soon-to-be-published report is said to claim.

“There were numerous instances of derogatory references made towards Hindus, such as mocking their vegetarianism and belittling their deities, which were also made by Islamist extremists rallying against the Hindu community in Leicester,” it continued.

The report went on to note that Hindu children are regularly called “disbelievers” and “kaffir” — two largely synonymous terms meant as slurs — with one child being told “that if they convert to Islam, their life will become so much easier”.

“You aren’t going to survive very long,” another child was reportedly told. “If you want to go to paradise, you’ll have to come to Islam… Hindus are the herbivores at the bottom of the food chain, we will eat you up.”

With some Hindu children also facing discrimination from Christian students, the report ultimately calls for improvements to Religious Education in UK schools in the hopes of downplaying tensions.

How effective such a solution would actually be remains to be seen, with tensions between Muslims and Hindus being a regular feature of history throughout the Indian and South Asian subcontinents.

While by no means a constant — with Muslims and Hindus having previously been able to live beside each other peacefully in various historic Asian kingdoms — modern relations between the two religions are, on the whole, quite poor, with Hindu nationalists and traditionalist and separatist Muslims often coming to blows in modern India.

Such sectarian violence has now well and truly spread to the UK, with the minority-majority city of Leicester seeing serious rioting late last year over allegations that Hindu extremists had moved into the city.

These claims have been dismissed by an earlier report published by the Henry Jackson Society, claims of Hindu extremism in the city were largely conjured up by local Muslim radicals, some of whom have previously offered up prayers for known terror organisations.

How convincing the report has been for Muslims in the area though is up for debate, with claims of militant Hindu activities in Leicester being regularly uploaded onto social media to this day.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2023/04/19/muslims-tell-hindu-children-to-convert-to-islam-or-they-will-not-survive-long/

BREAKING: Fox News and Dominion Reach Settlement in Defamation Lawsuit

Fox News on Tuesday reached a settlement with Dominion Voting Systems on the first day of the trial.

“The parties have resolved their case,” Delaware Superior Court judge Eric Davis told the court Tuesday afternoon.

Dominion sued Fox News for $1.6 billion over ‘false election rigging claims.’

The terms of the settlement are not known.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/04/breaking-fox-news-and-dominion-reach-settlement-in-defamation-lawsuit/

Marjorie Taylor Greene Drops Bomb on Biden Crime Family – Oversight Committee Has Evidence of Biden Family Connections to Human Trafficking of Prositututes from US, Russia, Ukraine

Prior to the 2020 election, The Gateway Pundit released sordid details from the Hunter Biden laptop. The mainstream media and regime lapdogs refused to report on the criminal conduct of Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, and the Biden Crime Family, in order to protect them days before the 2020 election.

The Gateway Pundit reported in October 2020 on Hunter Biden’s Russian orgies, his many nights with Russian hookers, his father wiring him money for his prostitutes, and his fears of being blackmailed by the Putin regime.

Now there is more evidence that it was not just Hunter Biden who was linked to the Russian prostitutues. According to Marjorie Taylor Greene, the House Oversight Committee has evidence the entire Biden Crime Family was involved in human trafficking that involves prostitutes from Russia, Ukraine and the US.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene: We just finished reviewing the financial records in the treasury. What I saw was over 2000 pages of jaw dropping information. There’s basically an enterprise wrapped around Joe Biden involving not only multiple family members, more than we thought there were, but other people as well. Just a complete conglomerate of Lies. These shell companies where money was passing through from foreign countries. China, Ukraine, but many more countries than just those.

There’s a lot of information the American people deserve to know of the Biden family and the crimes they’ve been involved in. And the Oversight Committee has a much bigger investigation to do than we ever thought was possible.

I just saw evidence of human trafficking that involves prostitutes not only from here in the United States, but foreign countries like Russia and Ukraine. This is unbelievable that a President and a former Vice President, not only his son Hunter Biden, but many more family members extending past Hunter Biden and his immediate family.

We’re going to have to really get to work. This is an investigation that needs to be revealed to the American people. And not only do we have questions about Hunter Biden himself, but this is going to extend into developing a web of corruption, a web of fake companies that’s going to reveal money that came in from many foreign countries and went directly into the personal bank accounts of the Biden family where they have financially benefited directly from Joe Biden’s seats of power. We look forward to investigating, exposing for this for the American people and we’ll see where it goes from there.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/04/marjorie-taylor-greene-drops-bomb-on-biden-crime-family-oversight-committee-has-evidence-of-biden-crime-family-connections-to-human-trafficking-of-prositututes-from-us-russia-ukraine/

Ray Kelly: We Haven’t Done Enough to Stop Chinese Spying and We’ll Be Plagued with It

On Tuesday’s broadcast of the Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria,” former New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, who also served as Commissioner of the U.S. Customs Service and Under Secretary for enforcement at the U.S. Treasury Department under President Bill Clinton, commented on the arrest of individuals associated with a Chinese police station in New York City by saying that the issue of Chinese espionage in America is one that “we have not paid nearly enough attention to and we are going to be plagued with” and that China will keep spying “until we stop them, and it doesn’t look like we’re going to stop anytime soon.”

Kelly stated [relevant remarks begin around 4:15] that he believes the police station was there for some time, including during his tenure as Commissioner of the NYPD.

He added, “But think about this, we have about 250,000 students from China in this country now. Do we think some of them may be agents of the government? Of course. So, this is a huge problem that we have not paid nearly enough attention to and we are going to be plagued with this, because the nerve that they have. This is right in your face. I think the FBI put down another similar operation in Houston about a year ago. So, they’re doing it, and until we stop them, and it doesn’t look like we’re going to stop anytime soon.”

https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2023/04/18/ray-kelly-we-havent-done-enough-to-stop-chinese-spying-and-well-be-plagued-with-it/

Disney ‘destroying’ Florida governor – Trump

Ron DeSantis has fought to revoke the media giant's ‘self-governing status’ at its theme park

Former President Donald Trump has said that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is “being absolutely destroyed” in his months-long battle with Disney. He was speaking after the governor unveiled a new bill that would give state officials more authority over the company’s massive Disney World amusement park.

Trump took aim at DeSantis in a social media post on Tuesday, calling his feud with Disney unnecessary, while condemning the governor’s new legislative effort as a political stunt.

“DeSanctus is being absolutely destroyed by Disney. His original PR plan fizzled, so now he’s going back with a new one in order to save face,” he said, using a disparaging nickname for the governor.

The former leader went on to predict that Disney – one of the state’s largest employers – would cut off investments in Florida “because of the governor,” suggesting the company “could even announce a slow withdrawal or sale of certain properties, or the whole thing. Watch!”

While DeSantis has not announced a 2024 presidential campaign, he is expected to run for the White House and is widely considered Trump’s main Republican rival.

On Monday, DeSantis announced a bill that would rescind an agreement Disney struck with state officials earlier this year, which granted Disney free rein to develop the district that hosts its Walt Disney World theme park and its related resorts. While DeSantis previously appointed officials to head up a new state board to oversee the district, the deal with Disney was completed before they began their roles, effectively circumventing the board in giving the company full developmental powers.

“They negotiated with themselves, to give themselves the ability to maintain their self-governing status. Now that’s in direct defiance of the will of the people of Florida,” the governor told reporters on Monday.

“They thought that they could create some type of development agreements that would essentially render everything that we did null and void and put them in control in perpetuity for this. Well, that’s not going to work.”

https://www.rt.com/news/574972-trump-disney-destroy-desantis/

Hillary’s 2016 Campaign CFO and Current SEC Chairman Gary Gensler Claims He Wasn’t Aware of Payment for Steele Dossier (Yet He Was Hillary’s CFO?)

Gary Gensler was the CFO for Hillary Clinton’s failed 2016 Election campaign yet he claimed under oath today that he “wasn’t aware” of the payment from her campaign to pay for the Steele Dossier.

This is highly unlikely.

TGP wrote a year ago in February 2022:

When Hillary Clinton was putting together her 2016 Presidential campaign, she brought in Gary Gensler as her Chief Financial Officer. CNN reported in April 2015:

Hillary Clinton’s campaign will add to its top ranks a man who’s known for being tough on Wall Street.

Gary Gensler, the former chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, will serve as the Clinton campaign’s chief financial officer, Bloomberg reported.

Gensler would bring a wealth of knowledge about the financial industry, as well as the federal agencies that regulate it, to the newly launched campaign.

He was chairman of the CFTC, the government agency that oversees the derivatives markets, from 2009 to 2014. He previously served in senior Treasury Department roles under President Bill Clinton, and prior to joining the Clinton administration worked at Goldman Sachs for almost 20 years.

By early January of 2016, things had worn off and Hillary had some competition. Those supporting her only competitor, socialist Bernie Sanders, were not happy with Gensler, the former Goldman Sachs guy. The Intercept wrote at that time:

Hillary Clinton is using a prominent surrogate to attack Bernie Sanders’ emphatic proposals for reforming Wall Street: Gary Gensler, former chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Gensler, who is the Clinton campaign’s chief financial officer, has enormous credibility among financial reformers after his aggressive (and lonely) efforts to rein in banks during the early years of the Obama administration.

As a result, the Clinton campaign has tapped him to fend off Sanders and make the difficult case that Clinton is genuinely interested in cleaning up Wall Street.

It was also clear at this time that Gensler was running Hillary’s campaign finances. Gensler also worked with Hillary’s attorney Marc Elias in creating the Hillary Victory Fund, according to Bloomberg in a piece in June 2016:

Gensler’s portfolio stretches into other areas as well. He, along with campaign lawyer Marc Elias and national finance director Dennis Cheng, led the process last year to create the Hillary Victory Fund, which jointly raises money for the campaign, the DNC, and state Democratic parties.

Elias was Hillary’s general counsel at the time Gensler was CFO.

It was during this time when Gensler oversaw the Hillary campaign’s finances that Hillary’s campaign paid millions to law firm Perkins Coie. This was also the time that the Steele dossier was paid for.

We know that Gensler has hidden meetings he had with Hillary, Soros, Pelosi and others from his calendar.

Today Gensler was asked whether he facilitated the payment for the Steele dossier for the Hillary campaign. He claimed after much hesitation that he wasn’t aware of the payment for the Steele campaign.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/04/hillarys-2016-campaign-cfo-and-current-sec-chairman-gary-gensler-claims-he-wasnt-aware-of-payment-for-steele-dossier-yet-he-was-hillarys-cfo/

Swiss bank worked with WW2 Nazis until 2020 – US Senate

A fired auditor’s report shows the Swiss bank held “possible” Nazi accounts as late as 2020

The troubled Swiss bank Credit Suisse hampered the investigation into accounts possibly held by high-ranking German Nazis and SS officers, some of which turned out to be active for decades, the US Senate announced on Tuesday.

The Senate Budget Committee published the findings on Holocaust Remembrance Day, after issuing its first subpoena since 1991 to obtain the results of the bank’s internal investigation. While the reports are incomplete, they revealed “nearly 100” previously undisclosed accounts linked to the Nazis, and raised new questions about Credit Suisse’s potential support for the ‘ratlines’ the defeated Germans used to flee Europe after 1945.

“When it comes to investigating Nazi matters, righteous justice demands that we must leave no stone unturned. Credit Suisse has thus far failed to meet that standard,” Senator Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican and ranking member of the committee, said.

Credit Suisse launched the probe in March 2020, after the Simon Wiesenthal Center claimed to have credible information about accounts potentially holding money looted from Jews during the Holocaust.

The final reports showed Credit Suisse appears to have maintained accounts for “at least 99 individuals,” either senior officials in Nazi Germany or members of a Nazi-affiliated groups in Argentina. Seventy accounts “with plausible links” to Argentina-based Nazis were opened after 1945, and at least 14 remained open as recently as 2020. However, no current or dormant accounts were found.

The bank held accounts for at least 21 “notorious high-level Nazis” from a list provided by the Wiesenthal Center, including an SS officer sentenced by the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal. The probe found accounts for a German executive acquitted by the tribunal and a Nazi scientist, neither disclosed in previous probes. Credit Suisse was part of a $1.25 billion settlement with Holocaust survivors in 1998.

The reports were only obtained after the Senate Budget Committee issued a subpoena, citing its role in approving the budget for the State Department’s Office of the Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues.

Credit Suisse had hired the forensic research firm AlixPartners Ltd to run the review, and US lawyer Neil Barofsky – a former federal prosecutor in New York – to act as an independent ombudsman AlixPartners. In June 2022, Credit Suisse’s newly hired General Counsel Markus Diethelm “temporarily paused” the probe.

While AlixPartners was allowed to resume work in October, Barofsky was dismissed in November. Although Barofsky’s contract required him to produce a public report, Credit Suisse insisted on certain redactions, and it was only provided to the Senate under subpoena.

The bank “established an unnecessarily rigid and narrow scope, and refused to follow new leads uncovered during the course of the review,” Grassley said, citing the reports by both Barofsky and AlixPartners.

For example, the bank’s search parameters did not allow the review of legal entities, as well as an account belonging to a Nazi living in Bolivia, citing geographical restrictions. Credit Suisse also refused to look into 366 names that Barofsky and AlixPartners identified in historical books on the ratlines.

As a result of pressure from the US Senate, Credit Suisse has agreed to investigate its potential role in the ratlines. The bank almost failed last month, but the Swiss central bank and regulator FINMA declared it to be of “systemic importance” and brokered a takeover by rival UBS worth 3 billion Swiss francs ($3.3 billion).

https://www.rt.com/news/574969-credit-suisse-nazi-ties-senate/

Musk changes CBC’s label to ‘69% government-funded’

The apparent attempt at trolling the broadcaster came after it quit Twitter in protest at being labeled under the platform's policy

Twitter CEO Elon Musk has labeled the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as “69% government-funded,” after a report surfaced showing 70% of the network’s financing comes from the state. Musk has angered multiple Western state media outlets by insisting all media agencies are subject to the platform's labelling rules.

“Canadian Broadcasting Corp said they’re 'less than 70% government-funded,’ so we corrected the label,” Musk tweeted on Monday, posting a screenshot of the CBC’s main Twitter account, complete with its new designation.

Last week, the broadcaster was simply labeled “government-funded media,” a tag that Twitter says applies to outlets that “may have varying degrees of government involvement over editorial content.” The CBC announced on Monday that it would suspend its activity on Twitter in protest, arguing that the tag “undermines the accuracy and professionalism” of its journalists’ work.

According to figures from last year, the CBC receives 70% of its funding from the Canadian government. While the organization insists that it is editorially independent, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau boasted in 2019 that the media lets his government “off the hook … because we pay them.”

Responding to a Twitter thread highlighting the CBC’s government funding, Musk announced on Monday that he had changed the outlet’s tag to “70% government-funded,” quipping that he was “just trying to be accurate.” The Twitter tycoon then said that “generosity is always the right move,” and switched the label to “69%.”

It is unclear whether Musk made the change as a joke, or whether the CBC quibbled over the figure of 70%. The billionaire is known for his juvenile sense of humor, and often mentions the numbers 69 and 420 in his Twitter posts, referring to oral sex and smoking cannabis respectively.

Before Musk took charge of Twitter, the platform only applied “state-affiliated media” tags to non-Western outlets like RT or China’s CGTN. Although Twitter has applied the “government-funded” tag to outlets like the BBC in the UK, ABC in Australia, and NPR in the US, Russian, Chinese, and other non-Western news sources remain labeled as “state-affiliated media.”

https://www.rt.com/news/574953-twitter-canada-state-media/

US-made kamikaze drone hits Russia – media

A Switchblade UAV has reportedly been used in an attack on Belgorod Region

Ukrainian forces have allegedly used a US-made unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in an attack on Russian territory for the first time, the Mash and SHOT outlets reported on Tuesday.

A Switchblade drone, produced by the American AeroVironment company, reportedly flew into Russian airspace from Ukraine before downing in Russia's Belgorod Region, bordering Ukrainian territory. The UAV fell just around 500 meters away from the border without inflicting any damage or casualties, local news outlets said.

Neither Mash, nor SHOT provided any photos or video from the alleged drone crash site and the Russian military has not yet commented on the incident.

The Switchblade is a miniature kamikaze drone capable of dive-bombing targets. It can weigh up to 15 kilograms and has a length of between 49 and 130 centimeters depending on the modification. The US has supplied Kiev with some 700 Switchblade drones, as well as 1,800 Phoenix Ghost kamikaze drones.

Russia has repeatedly witnessed Ukrainian drone attacks, particularly in its regions bordering Ukraine, amid the ongoing conflict between Moscow and Kiev. Some Ukrainian attacks also targeted regions deeper inside Russia. In March, one of three people as an explosives-laden UAV hit a town in Tula Region located south of Moscow, some 250km away from the nearest border with Ukraine.

In December 2022, Ukrainian UAVs attacked Dyagilevo and Engels military airfields located 500km (310.6 miles) and 700km (435 miles) from Ukrainian-held territory, respectively. Three servicemen were killed and two aircraft received minor damage, the Russian Ministry of Defense said at the time.

Ukrainian forces usually used locally-produced or Soviet-made drones like revamped Tu-141 Strizh (‘Swift’) reconnaissance UAVs in such attacks, according to media reports. In February, Mash reported that a Ukrainian drone that crashed in an apartment block in the Russian city of Belgorod was carrying a “British-made plastic explosive device containing metallic shrapnel.”

Moscow has repeatedly accused the collective West of enabling Ukraine to strike deeper into Russian territory. In his annual address to the Federal Assembly in February, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Kiev’s handlers had been directly involved in drone attacks on the country’s facilities housing strategic, nuclear-capable aviation.

The US and its allies have been supplying Kiev with all sorts of weapons ranging from portable anti-tank missiles to infantry fighting vehicles, tanks and artillery pieces. Yet, Washington has repeatedly refused to provide the Ukrainian troops with longer-range weapons like the ATACMS surface-to-surface missiles, citing a risk of an all-out war between Russia and NATO if such weapons were used to target Russian territory.

https://www.rt.com/russia/574966-ukraine-hit-russia-us-drone/

Crusading J6 Attorney: Spooks Deployed By Homeland Security Investigation Were A MAJOR Player On J6, ‘The Judges Keep Denying Inquiry Into These Informants’

As a jury deliberates a verdict in J6 political prisoner Chris Albert’s case, his attorney, Roger Roots, fired shots at the litany of unprecedented Constitutional abuses arbitrated by the government and facilitated by judges presiding over J6 trials.

In every single January 6 case the judges allow the government to withhold information about the Confidential Human Sources that were embedded in the crowd on January 6 and months prior among the Proud Boys, The Oath Keepers and other Trump-supporting conservative groups, Roots told The Gateway Pundit in an exclusive interview.

“The judges keep denying inquiry into these informants and CHS issues. They’ve denied all my motions,” Roots said. “The Alberts trial does not really involve a lot of issues with CHSs, but when an FBI agent was on the stand, I did ask the FBI agent anything about CHSs and there was an objection by the government and the judge immediately sustained the objections so that we couldn’t ask any questions.”

“And it seems to be that way, from what I can tell, in every single January 6 case,” he continued. “These judges are not allowing anyone to ask those questions.”

Roots also represents Dominic Pezolla, a member of the Proud Boys, who faces seditious conspiracy charges. Pezolla took the stand for the first time on Tuesday afternoon.

Evidence exhibited in both the Proud Boys trial and the Alberts case overwhelmingly confirms government informants infiltrated the group with the intent to incriminate its members.

The Homeland Security Investigation primarily recruits, deploys and embeds the CHSs and the magnitude of Big Brothers’ scheme against its political opposition is far-reaching and the judiciary is playing a major role in the coverup, Roots explained.

“HSI looks like it was a major player on January 6,” he said. “The more we learn, the more we find that the agency that’s called Homeland Security Investigations — that’s the agency that tried to recruit Jeremy Brown, down in Tampa — the more it seems that that agency was a major player in these informants.”

According to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, “HSI investigates, disrupts, and dismantles transnational criminal organizations and terrorist networks that threaten or seek to exploit the customs and immigration laws of the United States.”

The government obfuscates evidence that would expose the HSI during cross-examination by insisting that its CHSs are not FBI informants, Roots continued.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/04/crusading-j6-attorney-homeland-security-investigation-spooks-were-a-major-player-on-j6-the-judges-keep-denying-inquiry-into-these-informants/

Pentagon doesn’t know how many documents were leaked – spokeswoman

As new revelations hit the media every day, the Department of Defense told the public to brace for more

The US Department of Defense is still trying to “understand the scope and scale” of a document leak that saw a trove of classified information posted online, a spokeswoman told reporters on Monday.

“We’re going to continue to find documents online,” Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said at a briefing. Singh added that the Pentagon does not “have a specific number” of leaked documents identified, and that the “scope and scale” of the leak “is something we’re still assessing.”

The documents in question appeared on a Discord server at some point in the last month, before spreading to the wider internet and catching the attention of the mainstream media. The alleged leaker, a 21-year-old airman in the Massachusetts Air National Guard named Jack Teixeira, was arrested by the FBI on Thursday after the New York Times published his identity.

Files allegedly leaked by the suspect revealed that US and NATO special forces were active in Ukraine, that Ukrainian casualties were higher than publicly acknowledged by US officials, that Kiev’s forces were low on ammunition, and that the US has spied on its allies throughout the conflict. US officials have dismissed many of the leaked files as fake or doctored.

The same media outlets – the New York Times and the Washington Post – that printed the leaker’s identity have continued to publish information from the documents following his arrest. Files from the leak cited by Newsweek on Sunday revealed the purported start date of Ukraine’s forthcoming spring offensive against Russian forces.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has responded to the leak by announcing an internal security review in order to “prevent this kind of incident from happening again,” the closest a top defense official has come to confirming the documents’ authenticity. Previously, the Pentagon would only say that some of the files “appear … similar in format” to its intelligence briefings.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Friday that Moscow had looked into the leaked documents. Earlier, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov suggested that some of the files could have been leaked as part of a Western “deception” campaign aimed at downplaying Ukraine’s military capabilities ahead of Kiev’s rumored offensive.

https://www.rt.com/news/574905-pentagon-leaked-documents-number/

US sees jump in illegal border crossings

Officials expect an even greater surge in immigration after a Covid-related border restriction is phased out next month

The US has recorded a major spike in illegal border crossings, with the number of migrants apprehended by the authorities increasing by nearly 25% over the last month. The US government is preparing new measures to address a historic influx of immigration.

Recently updated federal statistics show that more than 168,000 migrants were taken into custody after crossing the border in March, a significant increase compared to the 135,000 reported in February. More than 257,000 migrant encounters of any kind were recorded in the same month, outpacing the 213,000 in February, as well as the 250,000 in March 2022.

Though the warmer spring months typically see an uptick in migration, border crossings have been on the rise in recent years, with Border Patrol apprehensions jumping from 885,000 in 2021 to more than 1.6 million in 2022. This year is on track to dwarf the previous figures, with over 1 million already reported as of March.

Border restrictions were tightened following the Covid-19 outbreak, but have been gradually relaxed as the pandemic continues to subside. One rule used to expel millions of undocumented migrants throughout the health crisis, known as Title 42, is set to end next month, prompting concerns of an even greater surge in migration at the southern border.

According to internal Department of Homeland Security projections cited by CBS, officials are preparing for 400,000 migrants to cross the border per month – or around 13,000 each day – after Title 42 phases out on May 11, far exceeding the already high levels reported this year.

To deal with the expected influx, the White House is reportedly working to finalize a regulation that would allow border agencies to turn away asylum seekers who pass through other countries before arriving in the US, requiring them to seek protections there instead.

Though President Joe Biden has been critical of the border policies of his predecessor, Donald Trump, his administration expanded the Title 42 program in January to include Nicaraguans, Haitians, and Cubans who crossed the border illegally. It previously applied only to migrants from Mexico, Venezuela, and parts of Central America.

However, even while increasing the number of expulsions, Biden has also worked to open new avenues for legal migration, agreeing to accept 30,000 people per month from Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Haiti for a period of two years under certain conditions.

https://www.rt.com/news/574908-jump-illegal-border-crossings/

Bombshell Senate GOP report: COVID leaked from Wuhan lab where US funded gain-of-function research

Even as U.S. continues to provide funding to China for viral research, there are still no U.S. scientists in Chinese labs overseeing such U.S.-backed research, according to Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.).

Kansas Republican Sen. Roger Marshall is warning that a new virus could break out of China and cause another worldwide pandemic as he releases "Muddy Waters," a comprehensive new report on the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and staff reviewed more than 50,000 documents for the report, which found that the COVID-19 virus was created in a lab and the outbreak was likely the result of two unintentional lab leaks.

"This report concludes most likely this was two leaks," Marshall said during a briefing with reporters ahead of the release of the report. "The possibility of a lab leak in the September-October [2019] time frame, even as early as July or August, was followed by vaccine development in November 2019. And then another lab leak seems to be the most sensible explanation in this retrospective review."

The report determined that the U.S. government was funding gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

"I think we're in no better shape today than we were a year ago, three years ago, as far as I'm concerned," Marshall said in response to a question from Just the News.

"There's nothing proving to me that they're doing this type of research in BSL-4 labs," he continued. "Their own documents continue to show that they're understaffed, that they don't have the right facilities to do it in, a huge concern. That's why we've been calling for a halt in all viral gain-of-function research until we get the guardrails around it."

The NIH has "manipulated gain-of-function to be what they say it is and what it isn't, and then they get all lawyered up," alleged Marshall, an obstetrician.

Marshall said viral research should never be done outside of a BSL-4 lab. According to the National Institutes of Health, BSL-4 labs have "the most stringent safety and security requirements."

Marshall said the U.S. government continues to provide funding to China for viral research but to date there are no U.S. scientists in Chinese labs overseeing such U.S.-backed research.

"If we're funding it, then they need to conform to our rules, and we need American boots on the ground," he said, referring to China.

When asked if he plans to introduce legislation that requires the Chinese government to allow U.S. scientists to be present in the labs that receive U.S. government funding, Marshall said this is something that's currently in the works.

Marshall's report concluded that the Chinese government tried to cover up the initial outbreak of the COVID-19 virus before the World Health Organization declared it a pandemic in March 2020.

Marshall told reporters that U.S. government agencies, including the NIH, as well as the Chinese government, are still withholding from Congress key information about the origins of the virus. There is information Marshall said he could not access, which he is confident would prove two lab leaks occurred in China in the lead-up to the outbreak.

"There are key data points that are being held back that could help us prove that, but we can't get that data," he said.

Marshall said that his office will continue its investigation into the origins of COVID, but he reiterated his call for the formation of an independent 9/11-style commission to investigate the origins of the virus.

https://justthenews.com/government/congress/sen-marshall-warns-another-pandemic-could-originate-china-he-drops-new-covid

CIA recruited at least two 9/11 hijackers: Court filing

A recent court filing reveals that contact between two 9/11 hijackers and a CIA unit allegedly created to track Osama bin Laden and his associates was covered up at the highest levels of the FBI.

A new court filing dropped a bombshell unmasking one of the CIA's most atrocious scandals in decades: At least two 9/11 hijackers had been recruited into a highly covert CIA-Saudi intelligence operation.

The filing which has recently been publicized revealed that the contact between two 9/11 hijackers and Alec Station, a CIA unit allegedly created to track Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his associates, was covered up at the highest levels of the FBI.

The paper, which was obtained by SpyTalk, is a 21-page declaration written by Don Canestraro, the Chief Investigator for the Office of Military Commissions, the court that is in charge of handling cases involving 9/11 suspects. It includes summaries of unnamed, senior CIA and FBI officers' private interviews and disclosures of classified government information. Canestraro spoke with numerous agents who worked on Operation Encore, the Bureau's aborted investigation into possible links between the Saudi government and the 9/11 attacks.

Operation Encore was abruptly discontinued in 2016 despite the numerous extensive interviews conducted with a variety of witnesses that produced hundreds of pages of evidence, formally questioning several Saudi officials, and starting a grand jury investigation into a Riyadh-run US-based support network for the hijackers. This was allegedly caused by "a byzantine intra-FBI bust-up over investigative methods."

Every element of the document was redacted when it was first published in 2021 on the Office's public court docket, with the exception of an "unclassified" marking.

Today, it is not difficult to understand why given its shocking content: as Canestraro's inquiry found, at least two 9/11 hijackers had been enlisted, intentionally or unknowingly, into a combined CIA-Saudi intelligence operation.

"I would be gone": Alec Station threatened agents to hide information

Unit Alec Station was established in 1996 under CIA supervision. The original plan was to conduct a joint investigation with the FBI.

The FBI agents assigned to the unit quickly learned, however, that they were strictly forbidden from providing any material to the Bureau's headquarters without the CIA's consent and that doing so would result in severe consequences. In further detail, the I-49 squad, based in New York, was regularly barred from receiving intelligence.

https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/cia-recruited-at-least-two-911-hijackers:-court-filing

North Korea touts new spy satellite

Pyongyang says it will be ready for launch by the end of the month

North Korea says it has completed work on its first reconnaissance satellite and is preparing for its maiden launch, stressing the need to bolster its military capabilities amid continued threats from the US and South Korea.

After visiting the country’s space development agency one day prior, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un unveiled the new military satellite on Tuesday, saying the tech would enhance Pyongyang’s “war deterrence” given Washington and Seoul’s “anti-DPRK military posture.”

“Under these circumstances, it is only natural for our state to develop military deterrence commensurate with the current… security environment, and acquiring and operating military reconnaissance means is essential in enhancing our military effectiveness,” Kim said, as cited by the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

The leader said successfully launching the spy satellite – which he simply dubbed “military reconnaissance satellite No. 1” – is currently the “most crucial primary task” for the military, noting that its first voyage into space is scheduled for later this month.

Last December, Kim said North Korea had carried out an “important final-stage” test for putting a recon satellite into orbit, suggesting the military has made gradual progress on the new technology.

Pyongyang has carried out a flurry of weapons tests over the last year in response to joint US-South Korean military drills, which it considers rehearsal for an invasion, and touted several new weapons in recent months. In March, the DPRK showed off an underwater drone which it said was capable of producing “radioactive tsunamis,” while last week it claimed to have successfully tested its new Hwasong-18 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

Washington and Seoul have repeatedly condemned the North’s weapons tests, but have refused to scale back military operations around the Korean Peninsula, insisting the live-fire war drills are purely defensive in nature.

https://www.rt.com/news/574973-north-korea-spy-satellite/

Arizona Border Sector Warns Large Migrant Groups as Desert Temps Approach 100 Degrees

Tucson Sector Border Patrol officials warned the increasing number of migrants crossing the border of the dangers they face as desert temperatures approach 100 degrees. The sector reports a large increase in the number of migrant apprehensions this year, including a near-400 percent increase in migrant families.

Tucson Sector Chief Patrol Agent John R. Modlin tweeted a video warning migrants of the dangers of crossing the border into the Arizona desert as temperatures approach the 100-degree Fahrenheit mark (nearly 38 degrees Celsius). The video warns of the extreme remoteness and distances migrants face as they attempt their trans-desert trek.

Migrants crossing near Lukeville, Arizona, for instance, face a five-day foot march through rugged terrain to make the 101-mile (162KM) crossing to Interstate 8. The trip from the border to Casa Grande would take approximately six days for the 132-mile (32KM) journey.

The video also includes headlines from articles detailing the record number of migrant deaths in the region. “As temperatures rise, crossing into the U.S. will become even more deadly,” the video warns. “Crossing the border means risking your life.”

The warning comes as the Tucson Sector climbed the rankings to become the second-busiest of the nine southwest Border Patrol sectors. In March, Tucson Sector agents apprehended nearly 34,000 migrants who crossed the border between ports of entry. This is up nearly 25 percent from the previous year and is second behind the El Paso Sector which reported nearly 40,000 apprehensions in March.

Perhaps most disturbingly, as temperatures rise, the sector’s March report reveals a nearly 505 percent increase in the number of family unit migrants apprehended crossing the border.

The number of large migrant groups crossing the border into the Tucson Sector is rising as well. Chief Modlin tweeted a report indicating the apprehension of two large migrant groups totaling 476 migrants crossed over the weekend near Lukeville — the very region warned about in the video above.

“These groups often spread out across a large rural area, increasing risk of separation and abandonment,” Modlin tweeted. “Especially troubling as temperatures approach 100° throughout the area.”

In addition to the nearly 34,000 migrant apprehensions reported in March, another 16,000 migrants are reported as known got aways, according to an unofficial Border Patrol report reviewed by Breitbart Texas. These are an estimated number of migrants who are detected crossing the border but are not apprehended by agents. This brings the number of known border crossers in the Tucson Sector to approximately 50,000.

So far this fiscal year, which began on October 1, 2022, Tucson Sector agents apprehended 146,301 migrants (up 19 percent from the same period last year). Migrant got-aways for the six-month period reached more than 96,000 bringing the total known border crossers for the sector to more than 242,000 migrants.

https://www.breitbart.com/border/2023/04/19/arizona-border-sector-warns-large-migrant-groups-as-desert-temps-approach-100-degrees/

Taxpayer-Funded Castration: Trans Murderer Wants Sex Change Surgery

A jailed murderer who identifies as trans wants to have a male-to-female sex change surgery, and funded by the UK taxpayer.

Trans murderer Paris Green — born Peter Laing — is reportedly requesting to have a sex change surgery performed by the UK’s socialised healthcare service, the NHS, while serving time in HMP Edinburgh.

Convicted alongside two others of brutally torturing and killing 46-year-old Robert Shankland in 2013, Green is being held in the women’s section of the Scottish prison, despite being a biological male.

According to a report by the Daily Record, the murderer wants to undergo surgery that will remove their male genitalia.

“I want to feel comfortable in the shower rather than feeling repulsed,” the convict reportedly told the paper. “Having male genitalia feels wrong.”

Green also expressed an understanding that there would be backlash over the request for the surgery, but emphasised that it would aid in their rehabilitation, linking their participation in the murder to “anger” held over being transgender.

“I was carrying a lot of anger inside me even before I realised I should have been a woman and that made me more angry,” Green said regarding the murder, though emphasised that their crime remained “inexcusable”.

“I’m not going to make excuses because there are none,” Green added. “I regret what I did and I’m sorry for it every day of my life.”

The case has indeed prompted some backlash, with Dr Kate Coleman of the Keep Prisons Single Sex group describing sex change surgery as being dangerous, and that prisoners should not be able to access it.

She also pointed out that recent changes made in England and Wales to the prison system would mean that Green would be being held in a male facility if they were jailed south of the border.

“Green, who is serving a sentence for torture and murder, would, under the new Ministry of Justice policy, be held in the male estate,” she said, adding that she hoped the Scottish government would “place the safety of women at the centre” of a revised policy on the housing of so-called transgender prisoners.

The England and Wales ban was first introduced earlier this year in response to the case of Isla Bryson, a convicted male rapist who began their transition after being charged with their crimes.

Bryson was initially to be allowed to serve their time in a women’s prison, before public backlash forced the Scottish government to step in and rehouse the criminal in a male facility.

Authorities in Westminster then went on to ban violent transgender males from being housed in women’s prisons in England and Wales in an apparent attempt to prevent a repeat of the scandal, with Scotland’s pro-trans government yet to finalise any rework of its prison system.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2023/04/19/taxpayer-funded-castration-trans-murderer-wants-sex-change-surgery/

Power, Water: Russian Hackers Trying to Take Out Our Critical Infrastructure, UK Warns

LONDON (AP) – Russian hackers are seeking to “disrupt or destroy” Britain´s critical infrastructure and not enough is being done to stop them, U.K. government officials said Wednesday.

Britain´s National Cyber Security Centre issued an official threat notice to operators of Britain´s electricity, water and other critical systems, telling them to boost their defenses.

“I don´t think we are yet doing enough to protect our infrastructure from the cyber threats emerging from Russia-aligning groups,” the center´s chief, Lindy Cameron, said.

Cabinet Minister Oliver Dowden said the threat comes from hackers sympathetic to Russia though not necessarily directed by the Russian state. He described them as the cyber equivalent of the Wagner Group, the private Russian company with mercenaries fighting in Ukraine.

He said that while the alleged hackers currently lack the capacity to do widespread damage to U.K. systems, the threat is growing.

“Disclosing this threat is not something we do lightly,” but it´s necessary for “companies to understand the current risk they face, and take action to defend themselves and the country,” Dowden said at a cybersecurity conference in Belfast.

“These are the companies in charge of keeping our country running. Of keeping the lights on,” he said. “Our shared prosperity depends on them taking their own security seriously.”

The National Cyber Security Centre, a branch of U.K. cyber intelligence agency GCHQ, said cyber attackers could begin to broaden their focus from Ukraine to the wider West as the war drags on.

Cameron also sounded a warning about the “dramatic rise of China as a technology superpower.”

“What I´m saying about China is that China is, as we say in the integrated review, an epoch-defining threat,” she told British broadcaster Sky News. “The scale and pace of their ambition and technology is something that all of the people here at the conference need to take seriously and think about how it is that we build security into our future technology to keep our people safe.”

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2023/04/19/power-water-russian-hackers-trying-to-take-out-our-critical-infrastructure-uk-warns/

The Many Times the MSM Warned About Risks with Voting Machines Used in Elections

FOX News is not the only media outlet to report on voting machines used in elections. Numerous Mainstream Media outlets have warned about voting machines for years.

Kanekoa the Great listed numerous media outlets that reported on the risks of voting machines over the years. FOX News was not the first media outlet to do so.

Here are some of the tweets from Kanekoa starting with the NYT and CBS.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/04/the-many-times-the-msm-warned-about-risks-with-voting-machines-used-in-elections/

Seattle Mayor Wants to Solve Drug Crisis by Giving Homeless Addicts ‘Gift Cards’ for Treatment Services

Homelessness and drug addiction are a growing problem in cities all over the country, but perhaps most visibly in the northwest, where progressive leaders have allowed the problem to flourish.

In Seattle, the Democrat mayor is proposing to give homeless drug addicts ‘gift cards’ they can use to access treatment services.

This is what passes for solution policy in blue America.

Mayor of Seattle wants to solve drug crisis with gift cards

Seattle Democratic Mayor Bruce Harrell unveiled his fentanyl and downtown activation plan on Monday to combat the massive drug crisis plaguing the city and even included a pilot research program to offer gift cards to encourage drug addicts to accept treatment services.

589 people died due to overdoses in Seattle in 2022, the majority attributed to fentanyl and meth, according to city data. 708 people in King County died from fentanyl in 2022, an average of 1.94 a day.

As of March 15, 172 people in King County have already died of an overdose involving fentanyl, an average of 2.32 a day…

Seattle residents and business owners have said the drug crisis on the streets is scaring people and businesses away from the downtown core. Addicts regularly refuse to accept offers of shelter or services so Harrell’s plan also includes providing low-dollar gift cards to incentivize addicts to get treatment.

The plan also called for creating more resources for people dealing with addiction such as a “contingency management” program to keep overdose survivors clean and increase access to overdose prevention medication like Narcan, which is being distributed through new methods including vending machines in King County.

It’s amazing that this is an American city.

Gift cards are not going to solve this problem.

It’s completely out of control.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/04/seattle-mayor-wants-to-solve-drug-crisis-by-giving-homeless-addicts-gift-cards-for-treatment-services/

Researchers expose Pegasus' methods of hacking newest iPhones: Report

Citizen Lab researchers reveal three undiscovered ways Israeli spyware Pegasus can breach Apple's new operating system.

A new report published on Tuesday by the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto revealed several advanced and complicated hacking techniques used by Pegasus spyware, developed by the Israeli NSO Group for attacks against Apple devices in 2022.

The Citizen Lab found that a month after iPhone's iOS 16 operating system was officially released, the Israeli firm carried out attacks against phones with the updated version.

"NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware remains a threat, and their attack techniques continue to evolve," warned the Citizen Lab researchers.

Citizen Lab researchers Bill Marczak, John Scott-Railton, Bahr Abdul Razzak, and Ron Deibert, revealed three undiscovered ways for hacking Apple's new operating system.

According to the report, these are Zero-Click exploit chains, where hackers may break into the phones without the user clicking on a link or downloading any malware. which enables a covert, quiet infection that is undetectable.

The Citizen Lab report delves further into the techniques employed by NSO to circumvent iPhone protections.

The researchers found that PWNYOURHOME and FINDMYPWN are the first Zero-Click exploits that capitalize on various points in the software environment where an iPhone device may be prone to cyberattacks, including physical connections such as USB ports, internet connections, and other routes hackers can use to try to breach the device.

These techniques allowed the Israeli spyware to infect even the most up-to-date iPhones with the most recent versions of Apple's operating system.

The Citizen Lab researchers also pointed out that for a brief period of time, users who activated iOS 16's Lockdown Mode - an increased level of protection - encountered real-time notifications of attempted device infection.

In mid-July 2022, Apple unveiled the Lockdown Mode to block or disable some features and capabilities to prevent them from being taken advantage of by spyware.

The extreme, optional mode "hardens device defenses and strictly limits certain functionalities, sharply reducing the attack surface that potentially could be exploited by highly targeted mercenary spyware," Apple explained.

"Although NSO Group may have later devised a workaround for this real-time warning, we have not seen PWNYOURHOME successfully used against any devices on which Lockdown Mode is enabled," the Citizen Lab report confirmed, adding that "it is encouraging to see that Apple’s Lockdown Mode notified targets of in-the-wild attacks."

"While any one security measure is unlikely to blunt all targeted spyware attacks, and security is a multi-faceted problem, we believe this case highlights the value of enabling this feature for high-risk users that may be targeted because of who they are or what they do," it suggested.

It is noteworthy that Apple is suing NSO Group in a US federal court, saying the Israeli firm's spyware was used to attack iPhone users worldwide.

In 2021, the US blacklisted the firm, stating that it had sold software that had been used to "maliciously attack" government officials, journalists, businesses, activists, academics, and diplomatic personnel.

https://english.almayadeen.net/news/technology/researchers-expose-pegasus-methods-of-hacking-newest-iphones

Biden Official: Pollution Falling During Lockdowns Helped Life Quality, Many People Enjoyed Being in Environment Instead of Being at Work

During an interview with ABC News on Monday, outgoing Assistant Secretary for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs at the Department of State Monica Medina stated that during the lockdowns that took place during the coronavirus pandemic, many people “really appreciated how much they enjoyed getting to be in the environment more days than they would” if they had been at work and that “we saw pollution levels go down and people went, huh, my quality of life is a little bit better now” because they didn’t have to worry as much about air pollution as they did before.

Medina said that “a lot of people during the pandemic” discovered a greater appreciation for the environment, “because they were at home, and when they went outside, they really appreciated how much they enjoyed getting to be in the environment more days than they would if they would have been in the office. And in fact, we saw pollution levels go down and people went, huh, my quality of life is a little bit better now that I don’t have to worry about whether it’s code red day for smog or air pollution. So, people did become more aware.”

https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2023/04/18/biden-official-pollution-falling-during-lockdowns-helped-life-quality-many-people-enjoyed-being-in-environment-instead-of-being-at-work/

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