14 State AG's Sign Letter Threatening Media Outlets With Prosecution For Reporting On Hamas

foxnews  |  More than a dozen state attorneys general signed a letter to media outlets such as the New York Times and Reuters, putting them "on notice" that providing material support to terrorist organizations such as Hamas is illegal, Fox News Digital exclusively learned. 

"We will continue to follow your reporting to ensure that your organizations do not violate any federal or State laws by giving material support to terrorists abroad. Now your organizations are on notice. Follow the law," 14 state attorneys general stated in a letter to the chiefs of CNN, The New York Times, Reuters and The Associated Press on Monday afternoon. 

Republican Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird spearheaded the letter, which detailed concerns that journalists embedded with Hamas may actually have deep connections with the terrorist organization "and may have participated in the October 7 attack." 

"Reporting credibly alleges that some of the individuals that your outlets hire have deep and troubling ties to Hamas—and may have participated in the October 7 attack. In the wake of those alarming reports, some of you have cut ties with these so-called journalists whose connections to terror groups have become too obvious to hide. Good. But one factor in determining whether an organization has provided material support for terrorism is that it be ‘knowing,’" the letter states. 

The attorneys general said the four outlets have a responsibility to fully vet potential hires and ensure they have no connections to terrorist organizations before putting them on the payroll and embedding them during armed conflicts. 

"If your outlet’s current hiring practices led you to give material support to terrorists, you must change these policies going forward. Otherwise, we must assume any future support of terrorist organizations by your stringers, correspondents, contractors, and similar employees is knowing behavior," they wrote. 

The state AGs pointed to a recent letter sent by a bipartisan group of lawmakers to Reuters asking "how its journalist knew to be available for the October 7 attack," and called on the outlet to address whether it had prior knowledge of the attack or if one of the organization’s journalists had been in contact with Hamas before the attack. 

The letter went on to argue that the issue of providing material support to terrorist organizations is not new, pointing to a watchdog group telling the AP five years ago that "one of its journalists worked for the Hamas-affiliated Quds TV." While The New York Times, the AGs continued, published an op-ed in 2020 penned by Taliban deputy leader Sirajuddin Haqqani. 

"Mr. Haqqani himself is on the Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control Sanctions List. Did the Times pay for that piece? If so, whom did it pay? Was that payment consistent with federal and State laws? These questions are still unanswered," the letter stated.

When The "People In Charge" Have To Answer To THE PEOPLE IN CHARGE

leefang  |  As the Israel-Hamas war began to heat up in late October, Courtney Carey, a Dublin-based employee of the Israeli website building company Wix, posted the Irish words “SAOIRSE DON PHALAISTIN” -- “Freedom for Palestine” -- on her LinkedIn page.

Within 24 hours of Carey’s LinkedIn post appearing, Alon Ozer, a Miami-based investor, took a screenshot of the post and shared it with a WhatsApp group of more than 300 like-minded investors, tech executives, activists, and at least one senior Israeli government official. Ozer took care to note that Carey worked for Wix.

Oded Hermoni, a tech journalist-turned-venture capitalist, piped up to assure everyone that Batsheva Moshe, Wix’s general manager for Israel and a member of the group chat, had been “on it since Sat[urday] night.”

Moshe then chimed in to assure her peers that the issue with Carey had been “taken care of since it was published.”

“I believe there will be an announcement soon re our reaction,” she added.

Wix terminated Carey the following day.

Moshe was apparently aware of Carey’s LinkedIn comments, which also included a denunciation of the “Zionist ideology which promotes an exclusivist state,” before Ozer flagged them in the WhatsApp group. 

The interaction nonetheless reflects the heightened coordination among pro-Israel forces in Silicon Valley and the global tech sector.

Following Hamas’s terror attack on Oct. 7, a loose network of pro-Israel investors, tech executives, activists, and Israeli government officials have stepped up their efforts to combat the slightest deviations from the pro-Israel script.

The WhatsApp group where Carey’s case came up serves as a kind of switchboard where the various independent players in Silicon Valley’s pro-Israel community swap ideas, identify enemies, and collaborate on ways to defend Israel in the media, academia, and the business world. 

We have obtained access to thousands of the group’s WhatsApp messages dating back to mid-October, and an intricate spreadsheet where group participants request and claim tasks ranging from social media responses to IDF support shipments. Separately, we have viewed a number of video meetings charting best practices for “hasbara” – an Israeli term of art for “public diplomacy” whose detractors see it as a euphemism for propaganda -- that offer a window into Israel’s public-relations war that is not limited to the tech sector.

In addition to Moshe, the WhatsApp group includes prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalist Jeff Epstein – a former CFO of Oracle – and Andy David, a diplomat-cum-venture capitalist who also serves as the Israeli foreign ministry’s head of innovation, entrepreneurship, and tech.

The WhatsApp group, officially named the “J-Ventures Global Kibbutz Group,” is a project of J-Ventures, a U.S.-Israeli investment fund that calls itself a “capitalist kibbutz” -- a reference to Israel’s historically collectivist farming communities. Hermoni, the WhatsApp group’s founder, is a managing director of J-Ventures, and David, the foreign ministry official, is internally listed by J-Ventures as a member of the "PR/Political Team" that makes decisions on messaging and lobbying.

OK Kirby If You Say So...,

WH’s John Kirby:

“It is not the Israeli Defense Forces' strategy to kill innocent people.

"It's not like the Israelis are sitting around every morning and saying, 'Hey, how many more civilians can we kill today?'

“They are not doing that. They are trying to go after Hamas.” pic.twitter.com/M0uP2kVovx

— Jacob N. Kornbluh (@jacobkornbluh) December 7, 2023

timesofisrael  |  ‘Charbu Darbu’ by Ness Ve Stilla promises to rain fire on Israel’s enemies, capturing the righteous indignation felt by Israeli youth during the Israel-Hamas war.

A new song became a number-one hit in Israel over the last week, an angry hip-hop war anthem by the duo “Ness Ve Stilla,” whose real names are Nesia Levy and Dor Soroker.

The song’s title, “Charbu Darbu,” comes from Syrian Arabic and means literally “swords and strikes.” In Hebrew slang, it is a reference to raining hell on one’s opponent — which is what the rappers promise the IDF will do to Hamas. 

With a minimalist beat produced by Stilla (Soroker) and quick cuts of the rappers in various urban and desert landscapes, the two-and-a-half-minute video is in many ways typical of Israeli hip-hop.

Lyrically, though, the piece encapsulates a feeling of righteous fury that has been prevalent in Israel since the October 7 atrocities.

“Left, right, left, how is it that the whole country is in uniform from Galilee to Eilat… We’ve brought the entire army against you and we swear there won’t be forgiveness, sons of Amalek,” Stilla raps, comparing Hamas to the Biblical enemy of the Israelites who must be obliterated.

The chorus is a roll call of the IDF’s most storied combat units (“Golani, Givati, Air Force, Navy, Commandos!”) and ends with the phrase “All the IDF units are coming to ‘Charbu Darbu’ on your heads, oy oy.”

Ness lends a feminine counterpoint to Stilla’s bravado, but her verses are equally militant. After complimenting all the men in uniform for being handsome, she raps, “For mom and dad, all my friends are at the front, for grandma and grandma, let’s write names on the bombs, for the children of the Gaza envelope.”

The song ends with an up-tempo section where the rappers promise to “X out” their enemies. They call them out by name, including Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, and Mohammed Deif, head of Hamas’s military wing and one of the likely masterminds behind the October 7 massacres, saying in Arabic, “Every dog gets his day.”

The rappers also include in their list of enemies Bella Hadid, Dua Lipa and Mia Khalifa, prominent Western celebrities who expressed support for the Palestinian cause shortly after the war began.

Since its release about a week ago, “Charbu Darbu” has become the number-one song in Israel on YouTube, Spotify and other streaming platforms. The duo’s PR team told The Times of Israel that based on the feedback they have received, the song was currently the most popular song in the country.

The Deliberative Branch Of Congress Told Biden To "Go Fuck Yourself"

zerohedge  |   On Wednesday President Joe Biden suggested that if Congress doesn't send Ukraine more money, now, it may 'embolden' Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade a NATO ally, which would precipitate "American troops fighting Russian troops."

The threat was not persuasive.

In response, Senate Republicans channeled Elon Musk (G...F...Y...), blocking Biden's $111 emergency supplemental package that would also include aid for Israel, humanitarian aid for Gaza, and a smattering of border funding.

The Senate voted 49-51, failing to reach the 60-vote threshold required to allow the proposal to come up for consideration. Notably, Bernie Sanders (I-VT) voted against the measure, while Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) flipped his vote to 'no' to preserve the option of revisiting the bill at a later date.

President Joe Biden has raised the possibility of "American troops fighting Russian troops" in a speech urging Congress to put aside "petty, partisan, angry politics" which is holding up his multibillion-dollar aid package for Ukraine. He said that he's willing to make "significant compromises" with Republicans but that it's they who've been unwilling to back down from their "extreme" demands. 

"This cannot wait," Biden stressed in the televised remarks from the White House. “Congress needs to pass supplemental funding for Ukraine before they break for the holiday recess. Simple as that. Frankly, I think it’s stunning that we’ve gotten to this point in the first place. Republicans in Congress are willing to give Putin the greatest gift he can hope for and abandon our global leadership."

"I’m willing to make significant compromises on the border. We need to fix the broken border system. It is broken. And thus far I’ve gotten no response," Biden pleaded. He made the speech after speaking with G7 leaders, who are reportedly alarmed that US funding to Ukraine is set to run dry in a mere three weeks.

"If we walk away, how many of our European friends are going to continue to fund and at what rates are they going to continue to fund?" he posed.

And that's when the fear-mongering really kicked into overdrive. He went so far as to say that if Ukraine's defense isn't funded, this will lead to the country being steamrolled by the Russian military machine, and an emboldened Putin will then seek to gobble up more territory.

 

 

The U.S. House Of Representatives Equates Anti-Zionism With Anti-Semitism

yasha  |  It might sound like I’m describing a cult or something. But actually zionism was actually pretty normal by 19th-early 20th century European standards. It’s just nationalism — Jewish nationalism. It came out of Europe and the Russian Empire and gained popularity as one solution to the Jewish Question that was being debated there at the time: Are Jews a religious group? A race? Should Jews assimilate and become part of the societies in which they live — to become Russian or German? 

Why does antisemitism exist? 

Jewish nationalism offered an answer: Jews are a race. And because the only natural and healthy way to organize society is for every race to have its own state, the Jews need also need a state of their own where they can live and flourish and control their fate— like the English, the French, the Italians, the Germans. Without this Jewish state, Jews in Europe and all over the world are doomed. They’ll remain hated minorities and suffer bouts of violence. Or even worse, the race will continue to degrade spiritually and culturally and will eventually disappear altogether. To zionists, a Jewish state is the only path to survival of the Jewish race.

This wasn’t unique to zionism. Nationalism was a popular notion in Europe at the time — and it led to some horrible results, Nazi Germany being one example. One thing that made Jewish nationalism stand out was that it wasn’t about defending land that Jews currently occupied from inferior races. It was about transporting millions of Jews from Europe to a place called Palestine — and once there purging the land of the locals and restoring what zionists believed is their rightful ancient Jewish home.

Here’s how Vladimir Jabotinsky — a journalist originally from Odessa who played a big role in setting up the militant rightwing flank of zionism that ultimately produced Israel’s Likud — wrote about about European Jews and the Land of Israel. The two were one:

…the true kernel of our national uniqueness is the pure product of the Land of Israel. We did not exist before we came to the Land of Israel. The Hebrew people was created from the fragments of other peoples on the soil of the Land of Israel. We grew up in the Land of Israel; on it we became citizens; we strengthened the belief in one God; we breathed in the winds of the land, and in our struggles for independence and sovereignty, its air enwrapped us and the grain that its land produced sustained us. In the Land of Israel the ideas of our prophets were developed and in the Land of Israel the “Song of Songs” was first heard. Everything Hebrew in our midst was given to us by the Land of Israel. Anything else in us is not Hebrew. Israel and the Land of Israel are one. There we were born as a people and there we developed.³

The zionism had all sorts of rifts and fissures. But at its core, the movement believed in the same goal and sought to speak collectively for all Jews. It wasn’t about individuals. It was about the race.

So that’s been the main obsession of the movement ever since: the creation and protection of a Jewish state in Palestine. The existence of this state is linked to the survival of the Jewish people. Get rid of one and the other will follow. A Jewish state — a government of Jews, by Jews, for Jews — is the base on which all zionism rests.

Ideologies impose structure on the way people see the world. They condition reactions and assumption and interpretations. That’s why zionist Jews are so freaked out right now. For them October 7 was a shock. The surprise Hamas attack, the killing of innocents, the hostages dragged back to Gaza, the powerlessness of Israeli military — to them this had nothing to do with violence that the zionist quest for land foisted on Palestinians, it was a reminder of the atavistic horror that always plagued Jewish people: Jews are hated for just being Jewish. Existence is never guaranteed.

And as they looked around after the attack, they saw more sympathy for Palestinian suffering than they ever have before: pro-Palestinian protests and marches, college kids on Instagram and TikTok posting about Israel’s occupation and apartheid. All over the world, people were criticizing Israel. In their minds, they saw this as people going after the Jews. This only reaffirmed their fears and deepened their convictions: The ancient hatred is still there. Israel is our only refuge, the only thing that can protect us.

Survival of the Jews. That’s what they believe Israel is fighting for in Gaza. They think they’re warding off a mortal enemy, an enemy that seeks to destroy the Jewishness of Israel. And so nothing is off limits to them — no number of babies or children killed is too high, no destruction is too great. There are no innocents in a war of survival between competing races. The innocent baby of today will grow into a fierce enemy who will want to exterminate them tomorrow. It’s a zero-sum world. They really do believe it. The survival of the race is at stake.

Did Neocon Vermin Robert Kagan Call For The Assassination Of Donald Trump?

They’re obviously green-lighting assassination. pic.twitter.com/rSocx7WFKc

— Matt Gaetz (@mattgaetz) December 4, 2023

WaPo  |  This is the trajectory we are on now. Is descent into dictatorship inevitable? No. Nothing in history is inevitable. Unforeseen events change trajectories. Readers of this essay will no doubt list all the ways in which it is arguably too pessimistic and doesn’t take sufficient account of this or that alternative possibility. Maybe, despite everything, Trump won’t win. Maybe the coin flip will come up heads and we’ll all be safe. And maybe even if he does win, he won’t do any of the things he says he’s going to do. You may be comforted by this if you choose.

What is certain, however, is that the odds of the United States falling into dictatorship have grown considerably because so many of the obstacles to it have been cleared and only a few are left. If eight years ago it seemed literally inconceivable that a man like Trump could be elected, that obstacle was cleared in 2016. If it then seemed unimaginable that an American president would try to remain in office after losing an election, that obstacle was cleared in 2020. And if no one could believe that Trump, having tried and failed to invalidate the election and stop the counting of electoral college votes, would nevertheless reemerge as the unchallenged leader of the Republican Party and its nominee again in 2024, well, we are about to see that obstacle cleared as well. In just a few years, we have gone from being relatively secure in our democracy to being a few short steps, and a matter of months, away from the possibility of dictatorship.

Alexandra Petri: I’m starting to think Donald Trump is sounding like Hitler on purpose

Are we going to do anything about it? To shift metaphors, if we thought there was a 50 percent chance of an asteroid crashing into North America a year from now, would we be content to hope that it wouldn’t? Or would we be taking every conceivable measure to try to stop it, including many things that might not work but that, given the magnitude of the crisis, must be tried anyway?

Yes, I know that most people don’t think an asteroid is heading toward us and that’s part of the problem. But just as big a problem has been those who do see the risk but for a variety of reasons have not thought it necessary to make any sacrifices to prevent it. At each point along the way, our political leaders, and we as voters, have let opportunities to stop Trump pass on the assumption that he would eventually meet some obstacle he could not overcome. Republicans could have stopped Trump from winning the nomination in 2016, but they didn’t. The voters could have elected Hillary Clinton, but they didn’t. Republican senators could have voted to convict Trump in either of his impeachment trials, which might have made his run for president much more difficult, but they didn’t.

Throughout these years, an understandable if fatal psychology has been at work. At each stage, stopping Trump would have required extraordinary action by certain people, whether politicians or voters or donors, actions that did not align with their immediate interests or even merely their preferences. It would have been extraordinary for all the Republicans running against Trump in 2016 to decide to give up their hopes for the presidency and unite around one of them. Instead, they behaved normally, spending their time and money attacking each other, assuming that Trump was not their most serious challenge, or that someone else would bring him down, and thereby opened a clear path for Trump’s nomination. And they have, with just a few exceptions, done the same this election cycle. It would have been extraordinary had Mitch McConnell and many other Republican senators voted to convict a president of their own party. Instead, they assumed that after Jan. 6, 2021, Trump was finished and it was therefore safe not to convict him and thus avoid becoming pariahs among the vast throng of Trump supporters. In each instance, people believed they could go on pursuing their personal interests and ambitions as usual in the confidence that somewhere down the line, someone or something else, or simply fate, would stop him. Why should they be the ones to sacrifice their careers? Given the choice between a high-risk gamble and hoping for the best, people generally hope for the best. Given the choice between doing the dirty work yourself and letting others do it, people generally prefer the latter.

A paralyzing psychology of appeasement has also been at work. At each stage, the price of stopping Trump has risen higher and higher. In 2016, the price was forgoing a shot at the White House. Once Trump was elected, the price of opposition, or even the absence of obsequious loyalty, became the end of one’s political career, as Jeff Flake, Bob Corker, Paul D. Ryan and many others discovered. By 2020, the price had risen again. As Mitt Romney recounts in McKay Coppins’s recent biography, Republican members of Congress contemplating voting for Trump’s impeachment and conviction feared for their physical safety and that of their families. There is no reason that fear should be any less today. But wait until Trump returns to power and the price of opposing him becomes persecution, the loss of property and possibly the loss of freedom. Will those who balked at resisting Trump when the risk was merely political oblivion suddenly discover their courage when the cost might be the ruin of oneself and one’s family?

We are closer to that point today than we have ever been, yet we continue to drift toward dictatorship, still hoping for some intervention that will allow us to escape the consequences of our collective cowardice, our complacent, willful ignorance and, above all, our lack of any deep commitment to liberal democracy. As the man said, we are going out not with a bang but a whimper.

vacuum aerogel buoyant vehicles

 

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna...,

I wonder if @elonmusk has ever read The Book of Enoch.
God is real. 💡 https://t.co/sU6T0tCQS6

— Anna Paulina Luna (@realannapaulina) December 3, 2023

The Book of Enoch is an ancient text attributed to Enoch, the great-grandfather of Noah. It is divided into five main sections. The first section, the Book of the Watchers, describes the fall of a group of angels who descend to Earth and engage in sinful behavior, teaching forbidden knowledge to humanity. Enoch is appointed as a messenger to the fallen angels, warning them of their impending judgment.

The second section, the Book of Parables, contains apocalyptic visions given to Enoch. These visions include prophecies of the final judgment, the coming of the Messiah, and the establishment of a new and righteous kingdom.

The third section, the Book of Astronomy, presents a detailed account of the movements of the heavenly bodies and their significance in the ordering of the universe.

The fourth section, the Book of Dream Visions, features Enoch's visions of the future, including the fate of the righteous and the wicked.

The fifth section, the Epistle of Enoch, describes Enoch's teachings to his sons, emphasizing the importance of righteousness, repentance, and the fear of God.

Overall, The Book of Enoch provides insights into angelology, cosmology, and eschatology, and it is considered a valuable text for understanding ancient Jewish and Christian traditions.

There are a lot of books of the canonical Bible she could’ve used here, but she chose The Book of Enoch? I think she’s hunting at something.

The Simple Answer To Democrats Reality Censoring Desperation

Dana White to the liberal mob: "Go f*** yourself."

Tucker Carlson to the liberal mob: "F*** you."

Elon Musk to the liberal mob: "Go f*** yourself... Hi Bob!"

There are few men with real influence in this country who have the guts and are willing to raise the middle finger to… pic.twitter.com/wRKIRm4z2I

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) December 1, 2023

TheHill |  Across news sites, Democrats are warning of the imminent death of democracy. Hillary Clinton has warned that a Trump victory would be the end of democracy. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow is warning of “executions.” Even actors like Robert DeNiro are predicting that this may be our very last democratic election.

Yet these harbingers of tyranny are increasingly pursuing the very course that will make their predictions come true. The Democratic Party is actively seeking to deny voters choices in this election, supposedly to save democracy.

Henry Ford once promised customers any color so long as it is black. Democrats are adopting the same approach to the election: You can have any candidate on the ballot, as long as it’s Joe Biden.

This week, the Executive Committee of the Florida Democratic Democracy told voters that they would not be allowed to vote against Biden. Even though he has opponents in the primary, the party leadership has ordered that only Biden will appear on the primary ballot. 

And if you want to register your discontent with Biden with a write-in vote, forget about it. Under Florida law, if the party approves only one name, there will be no primary ballots at all. The party just called the election for Biden before a single vote has been cast.

This is not unprecedented. It happened with Barack Obama in 2012 and, on the Republican side, with George W. Bush in 2004. It was wrong then, and it is wrong now. 

As Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) noted, “Americans would expect the absence of democracy in Tehran, not Tallahassee. Our mission as Democrats is to defeat authoritarians, not become them.”

In Iran, the mullahs routinely bar opposition candidates from ballots as “Guardians” of the ballots.

There is good reason for the Biden White House to want the election called before it is held. A CNN poll found that two out of three Democrats believe that the party should nominate someone else. A Wall Street Journal poll that found 73 percent of voters say Biden is “too old to run for president.”

The party leadership is solving that problem by depriving Democratic voters of a choice. 

In other states, Democratic politicians and lawyers are pursuing a different strategy: “You can have any candidate, as long as it isn’t Trump.” 

They are seeking to bar Trump from ballots under a novel theory about the 14th Amendment. In states from Colorado to Michigan, Democratic operatives are arguing that Trump must be taken off the ballots because he gave “aid and comfort” to an “insurrection or rebellion.” Other Democrats have called for more than 120 other Republicans to be stripped from the ballots under the same claim tied to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. 

This effort is being supported by academics such as Laurence Tribe, who previously called for Trump to be charged with the attempted murder of former Vice President Mike Pence.

 

 

 

 

When Kissinger Said "We'll Kill Your Family" He Meant It - Biden/Blinken? Not So Much...,

pacemaker  |  I've been waiting for today, knowing it was pre-planned and coming. Today in Riyadh at the China-Arab Summit President Xi of China formally invited the Arab nations to trade oil and gas in yuan on the Shanghai Exchange. Now the way diplomacy works (because it seems to have been forgotten in the West) is that Xi would not have made the invitation unless all the Arab states gathered in Riyadh - and particularly Saudi Arabia as host - had already agreed as a matter of joint policy to take action accordingly. Oil and gas will price in Shanghai and in yuan, breaking the dollar monopoly the US has imposed and enforced since 1974. Since the dollar-for-oil monopoly was the lynchpin of Bretton Woods II stability, it follows Bretton Woods II ended today.

To refresh memories, President Nixon unilaterally repudiated the US treaty obligation under the 1944 Bretton Woods Agreement to redeem dollars for gold in 1972. The chaos in foreign exchange markets that followed led to instability, made worse with the inflationary OPEC oil embargo of 1973-74.

In July 1974 the US Treasury Secretary William Simon and US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger made a top-secret flight to Riyadh to meet King Fahd. They offered a deal: sell Saudi oil exclusively for US dollars and buy US Treasuries with the proceeds, or we kill you, your entire family, and occupy the oil fields with the US military. Unsurprisingly, they left with a secret agreement.

The same deal was more or less extended to all of OPEC. Leaders like Saddam Hussein of Iraq and Muammar Gaddafi of Libya who strayed from the US dollar were killed, their countries destroyed and destablilsed, as an example to others. Iran, Syria, and Venezuela have resisted more successfully, but have been badly destabilised by US occupation, oil theft, attempted coups, attempted assassinations, and economic sanctions.

So today marks a big and admirably brave shift. After sending all the weaponry it could spare to Ukraine all year, ending oil and gas trade with Russia under sanctions, weakening allies with surging inflation, and depleting the Strategic Petroleum Reserve of a record amount of oil to blunt inflation before the midterm elections, the US is not in an ideal position to launch wars in every Arab state at once. In fact, it probably can't launch a war or coup even in Saudi Arabia because Saudi Arabia will have prepared and provided for that risk. In any event, a new war in the Middle East would make the inflationary shock of the Ukraine war pale in comparison.

Signs of a shift have been in the wind all year. The fist bump and low-key reception of President Biden compares poorly to the lavish state reception of President Xi. Then Biden's attempt to get GCC states to sanction Russia was unanimously rejected.

And OPEC's outright refusal to defer oil production cuts until after the American midterm elections was a further sign Saudi and OPEC+ no longer take orders from Washington. Saudi took the unusual step of officially rejecting the US request in public.

When a presidential state visit by Xi to Saudi began leaking in the fall I began to watch for confirmatory signs of OPEC moving East. There were quite a few, but nothing as momentous as the extravagant welcome for President Xi to Riyadh and the China-Arab Summit. President Xi and King Salman signed a 30-year Strategic Partnership Agreement for cooperation on virtually all forward economic plans yesterday: energy,  telecoms, investment, trade, infrastructure, regional development, Belt & Road Initiative, etc. Significantly, the Agreement bars interference in domestic affairs by either nation, a principle China has urged widely for many years. 

Nixon Didn't Even Understand The New Economic Policy - But He Believed Kissinger

cointribune  |  Henry Kissinger became Secretary of State under President Richard Nixon in 1973. That is, just two years after the end of the gold standard.

The collapse of the international monetary system established in 1944 at Bretton Woods should have dug the grave of the dollar. But that was without counting on Henry Kissinger and his brilliant geopolitical poker move: the petrodollar…

Indeed, the beginnings of the petrodollar date back to 1945, when American President Roosevelt, returning from the Yalta Conference with Stalin and Churchill, met with King Abdul Aziz aboard the USS Quincy.

This meeting was later called the Quincy Pact. Kranklin Roosevelt secured a guarantee from Saudi Arabia to supply American energy needs for 60 years.

Owing to current events, it is worth noting that the American president had to promise not to allow the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on one’s view, Roosevelt died two months later and his successor Harry Truman, hand in hand with the British, recognized the State of Israel immediately after its creation.

Despite this betrayal, Saudi Arabia did not sever ties. It needed Washington to counter the growing popularity of Nasser in Egypt. His pan-Arab socialist policy was indeed an existential threat to the Saudi monarchy. The United States saw an opportunity to counter the USSR, which was then allied with Cairo.

But let’s focus on H. Kissinger.

The Masterstroke

His poker move took place in June 1974 during a meeting with King Faisal bin Abdul Aziz in Saudi Arabia. It was the climax of a Machiavellian plan rooted in the Israeli-Arab War of Yom Kippur (1973).

At the time, Kissinger convinced President Nixon to intervene in favor of Israel. Henry Kissinger was indeed Jewish. In retaliation, Saudi Arabia raised the price of a barrel of oil from $3 to $12.

This is exactly what Henry Kissinger wanted, who ended up simply threatening Saudi Arabia to use force to address what he then called the “strangulation of the industrialized world”. It wasn’t a bluff. The London Sunday Times revealed in February 1975 the existence of operation “Dhahran Option Four” which envisioned invading Saudi Arabia.

King Faisal heard these drumbeats loud and clear and, by the end of 1974, reached an agreement with Kissinger, who promised unlimited arms sales and a return of Israel to its 1948 borders.

In exchange, the kingdom had to commit to two things:

    To sell its oil EXCLUSIVELY in dollars,
    To invest its dollar surpluses in US debt.

The petrodollar was born, thanks to H. Kissinger, who was undoubtedly a key player in the special relationship that the United States maintains with Israel.

The European nations that had the audacity to exchange their dollars for gold were forced to accumulate dollars again to buy the oil essential to any industrialized nation. Checkmate.

As for the agreement on Israel’s borders, it was quickly forgotten after the assassination of King Faisal a few months later…

 

Chuck Schumer Laments The Global Disdain For Zionist Apartheid

epochtimes  |  Mr. Schumer warned that the rise in anti-Semitism is "a five-alarm fire that must be extinguished." This comes amid the latest conflict between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas, which started on Oct. 7 when Hamas terrorists killed 1,200 in Israel, the largest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, when 6 million Jews were killed.

He lamented anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment in the United States ranging from protests on college campuses to coverage in the media to boycotting and vandalism of Jewish businesses. He also cited examples of Jews being persecuted throughout history, from the Crusades to pogroms to expulsions from countries including England and Spain.

In the United States, there was a 388 percent increase in anti-Semitic incidents between Oct. 7 and Oct. 23, according to the Anti-Defamation League. Additionally, Jews are the leading target for religious-related hate crimes in the United States, according to the FBI.

Mr. Schumer emphasized that there is a difference between criticizing Israeli government policies and demonizing Israel.

"This speech is not an attempt to label most criticism of Israel and the Israeli government, generally, as anti-Semitic," he said. "I don't believe that criticism is."

Double Standard Applied to Jews

He also criticized double standards regarding Israel compared with other countries, such as people celebrating when a new country is founded but being against the formation of the Jewish state, which occurred in 1948. He even referenced the 1947 United Nations partition plan that would have created a Jewish state and an Arab state in what was the British mandate of Palestine—which the Jews accepted and the Arabs rejected.

 

"The double standard has been ever present and is at the root of anti-Semitism," Mr. Schumer said.

"The double standard is very simple. What is good for everybody is never good for the Jew, and when it comes time to assign blame for some problem, the Jew is always the first target. And in recent decades, this double standard has manifested itself in the way much of the world treats Israel differently than anybody else."

"The double standard has been ever present and is at the root of anti-Semitism," Mr. Schumer said.

"The double standard is very simple. What is good for everybody is never good for the Jew, and when it comes time to assign blame for some problem, the Jew is always the first target. And in recent decades, this double standard has manifested itself in the way much of the world treats Israel differently than anybody else."

"The double standard has been ever present and is at the root of anti-Semitism," Mr. Schumer said.

"The double standard is very simple. What is good for everybody is never good for the Jew, and when it comes time to assign blame for some problem, the Jew is always the first target. And in recent decades, this double standard has manifested itself in the way much of the world treats Israel differently than anybody else."                  

 

 

 

 

Depopulation Is America's Top Foreign Policy Priority For Africa

Bill Gates Is An Expression Of Official American Foreign Policy Toward Africa

Best ever video to explain the elemental evil of Bill Gates and his infernal foundation. No need to thank me: pic.twitter.com/KRDBnLV7D7

— Ivor Cummins (@FatEmperor) November 28, 2023

 

CIA's Role In Collecting UFO's

CIA Removed Its Unclassified Org Chart That Mentioned The Office Of Global Access

 

CIA Office Of Global Access Is The Crash Retrieval Portfolio Manager

dailymail  |  Sources who spoke to DailyMail.com shed light on how the CIA has allegedly coordinated the secret recovery and storage of these alleged crashed or landed UFOs.

Late CIA expert Jeffrey Richelson wrote in his 2016 book, The US Intelligence Community, that the Office of Global Access helped provide 'worldwide collection capability' 

'There's at least nine vehicles. There were different circumstances for different ones,' one source briefed by UFO program insiders told DailyMail.com. 'It has to do with the physical condition they're in. If it crashes, there's a lot of damage done. Others, two of them, are completely intact.'

The source said the CIA has a 'system in place that can discern UFOs while they're still cloaked,' and that if the 'non-human' craft land, crash or are brought down to earth, special military units are sent to try to salvage the wreckage.

Another source with knowledge of the OGA's role said that they specialize in allowing the US military to secretly access areas around the world where they would usually be 'denied' – for example behind enemy lines.

'They are basically a facilitator for people to get in and out of countries,' the source said. 'They are very clever at being able to get anywhere in the world they want to.'

Multiple sources briefed on the OGA's activities told DailyMail.com that most of its operations involve more conventional retrieval missions, such as stray nuclear weapons, downed satellites or adversaries' technology.

But they claimed some missions coordinated by the OGA have involved retrieval of UFOs.

'The task at hand is simply to get it into custody and protect the secrecy of it,' one source said. 'The actual physical retrieval is by the military. But it's not kept under military control, because they have to keep too many records. So they start moving it out fairly quickly into private hands.'

Documents published by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in December 2016 showed that the OGA was one of 56 offices in the CIA, with its chief and deputy making up two of a total 286 director-level officials in the spy agency.

An unclassified organizational chart published by the CIA in October 2015 lists the OGA among nine offices in the 'Science and Technology' wing of the agency.

Late CIA expert Jeffrey Richelson wrote in a 2016 book on the agency that the OGA was established in 2003, and cited a CIA description that it 'integrate[s] analysis, technology, and tradecraft to attack the most difficult targets, and to provide worldwide collection capability.'

A 255-word biography of former OGA deputy director Doug Wolfe, published by an aerospace conference in 2017, says that he 'helped start the Office of Global Access'.

Wolfe's bio cryptically adds that he 'was responsible for leading and managing strategic, unwarned access programs that deliver intelligence from the most challenging denied areas' and 'served as program manager with responsibility for the end-to-end system acquisition of an innovative new source and method for the IC [Intelligence Community].'

Two sources told DailyMail.com that the OGA coordinates with Special Operations Forces such as SEAL teams or Delta Force under the Pentagon's Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), or nuclear weapons experts such as the Nuclear Emergency Support Team (NEST), to collect the crashed or landed craft.

But another source, who has briefed members of Congress on alleged crash retrievals, said that NEST had not been involved in any of these operations.

A spokesperson for the agency also denied involvement.

'[NEST] personnel encounter materials from unknown origins on a regular basis,' a spokesperson said. 'In fact, one of NEST's missions is to help determine the origin of nuclear material interdicted outside of regulatory control or used in a nuclear device.

'During its operations, NEST has never encountered any material related to UAP.'

In a written statement, a JSOC spokesperson told DailyMail.com: 'We have nothing for you on this.'

A former SEAL team member told DailyMail.com that they had been on operations coordinated by the CIA to retrieve high-value stray enemy weapons, and that they knew of colleagues who had been on similar operations where they recovered technology that appeared highly advanced – though not necessarily out-of-this-world.

'Absolutely that happens,' the ex-SEAL said. 'Even ordinance or a weapon that we've never seen, we recover and bring it back.'

One source said that the Air Force Special Operations Command's 24th Special Tactics Squadron, based at Pope Field Army Airbase in North Carolina, has also been involved in securing areas for UFO crash retrievals.

Sources said the CIA office then often hands the wreckage or material over to private aerospace contractors for analysis, where it is not subject to rigorous government audits and can be shielded with protections for trade secrets.

'The CIA is the portfolio manager or owner of the UAP [Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena] crash retrieval operation,' one source, who has shared their information with Congress, told DailyMail.com.

'The Department of Energy national labs are materials analysis contractors whenever recovered radioisotopes are involved but not always just radioisotope materials. The aerospace-defense industry are also contractors that specifically do not handle any recovered radioisotopes, but they handle the other non-radioactive material – and intact craft.'

Chuck - Don't Let Turtle McConnell And His Pwned Bitch Boys Destroy Your Last Gasp At Manhood!!!

Today, I sent my colleagues my plan for the final work period of the first session of the 118th Congress—including negotiations on long-term government funding, the national security supplemental, the NDAA and other bipartisan legislation. pic.twitter.com/o78jRJTvpe

— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) November 26, 2023

 

It Takes 5 Minutes To Contact Your Senators About The Schumer Amendment

Apparently the NDAA wasn't being voted on yesterday as congress wasn't in session. The staffer for Turner hasn't heard of any discussions about the bill so that is curious.

I am now going to be calling the republicans but would appreciate more help in doing so. Be respectful with the people taking the calls. You can find the numbers for both Republicans and Democrats here: https://www.uapcaucus.com/call#call

Four Republicans are colluding to block this amendment from passing: Mike Turner of Ohio, Mike Rogers of Alabama, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and Mike Johnson of Louisiana:

• Rep Mike Turner: (202) 225-6465

• Rep Mike Rogers: (202) 224-3261

• Sen Mitch McConnell: (202) 224-3135

• Rep Mike Johnson: (202) 225-2777

My call notes:

• I’m calling about the UAP Disclosure Act, which enables Americans to get transparency and accountability on matters related to UAPs. I've been closely following the developments in this area, especially after the July 26 UAP Hearing, where credible witnesses provided testimony under oath.

• I’ve heard that X is not in favor of the UAP Disclosure Act amendment to the NDAA because AARO is still funded, and they say this will be duplicative funding, but it is not. Without AARO, there is no centralized place that will handle these programs; its entire purpose is funding authorization for UAP programs. At the same time, AARO is currently toothless without the UAP Disclosure Act amendment. All pieces of this amendment are critical to its functionality, including a civilian review board to help ensure accountability.

• This is a bipartisan issue; the number of people who care about this issue are growing, and know that it is the number one most important issue. The DOD can never pass their audits and these SAPs could be the reason why. If X cares about appropriate fiscal spending, then it’s imperative to support this amendment (while keeping funding for AARO intact).

 

Omega Level Talents Carrying On The Vital Work Of The Hon.Bro.Sir.Roger Penrose

math.columbia.edu  |  Last month I recorded a podcast with Curt Jaimungal for his Theories of Everything site, and it’s now available with audio here, on Youtube here. There are quite a few other programs on the site well worth watching.

Much of the discussion in this program is about the general ideas I’m trying to pursue about spinors, twistors and unification. For more about the details of these, see arXiv preprints here and here, as well as blog entries here.

About the state of string theory, that’s a topic I find more and more disturbing, with little new though to say about it. It’s been dead now for a long time and most of the scientific community and the public at large are now aware of this. The ongoing publicity campaign from some of the most respected figures in theoretical physics to deny reality and claim that all is well with string theory is what is disturbing. Just in the last week or so, you can watch Cumrun Vafa and Brian Greene promoting string theory on Brian Keating’s channel, with Vafa explaining how string theory computes the mass of the electron. At the World Science Festival site there’s Juan Maldacena, with an upcoming program featuring Greene, Strominger, Vafa and Witten.

On Twitter, there’s now stringking42069, who is producing a torrent of well-informed cutting invective about what is going on in the string theory research community, supposedly from a true believer. It’s unclear whether this is a parody account trying to discredit string theory, or an extreme example of how far gone some string theorists now are.

To all those celebrating Thanksgiving tomorrow, may your travel problems be minimal and your get-togethers with friends and family a pleasure.

Update: If you don’t want to listen to the whole thing and don’t want to hear about spinors and twistors, Curt Jaimungal has put up a shorter clip where we discuss among other things the lack of any significant public technical debate between string theory skeptics and optimists. He offers his site as a venue. Is there anyone who continues to work on string theory and is optimistic about its prospects willing to participate?

Tesla Planned To Use The Earth For Wireless Power Transmission

Forbes  |  Serbian-American physicist engineer and inventor Nikola Tesla is nowadays famous for his work on electricity and energy. He developed the alternating current system, making it possible to transmit electricity over vast distances, and worked on wireless communication and energy transfer. He was a brilliant, but also very eccentric thinker, claiming to get visions and displaying odd behaviour in public like an obsession with personal hygiene and pigeons. Maybe the more enigmatic parts of his personality make him such an interesting subject for conspiracy theories. Tesla is credited to have worked on unknown energy-sources, caused the Tunguska explosion with his "death-ray" prototype, and supposedly worked on an earthquake-generator.

In 1896 Tesla was working on oscillations for wireless energy transfer. The idea was to build a steam-powered oscillator, able to create various changing frequencies. If the frequency matched the resonance frequency of a receiving device, this device should transform the mechanical oscillations back into an electric current.

In 1897 the device was ready and in 1898 Tesla supposedly managed to oscillate his laboratory at 48 E. Houston St., New York, enough, that alarmed neighbors called the police, fearing an earthquake happening. Tesla later explained the principle to reporter Allan L. Besnson, who in February 1912 published an article about Tesla's resonator in The World Today magazine:

"He put his little vibrator in his coat-pocket and went out to hunt a half-erected steel building. Down in the Wall Street district, he found one, ten stories of steel framework without a brick or a stone laid around it. He clamped the vibrator to one of the beams, and fussed with the adjustment until he got it. Tesla said finally the structure began to creak and weave and the steel-workers came to the ground panic-stricken, believing that there had been an earthquake. Police was called out. Tesla put the vibrator in his pocket and went away. Ten minutes more and he could have laid the building in the street. And, with the same vibrator, he could have dropped the Brooklyn Bridge into the East River in less than an hour."

The "earthquake-generator" could also be used for more peaceful applications. Tesla imagined an array of smaller devices distributed all over the planet to relieve energy from Earth and also to send energy from one spot to another. A transmitter, a device consisting of a piston vibrating inside a cylinder, transforms electric energy into vibrations. Using the rocks in the underground as sort of conductor, the vibrations are sent to a receiving device and the oscillations transformed back into electricity, to be used locally. However, the "telegeodynamics" system by Tesla never managed to get beyond the prototype. In reality, the device was not powerful enough to send energy through Earth. Dampening of the oscillations by structures and the underground was far too strong.

Another vision by Tesla was more successful. He imagined using the oscillations generated by his device to study Earth. Seismic waves generated by an oscillator and projected into the underground are reflected back to a receiver by faults or different layers of rocks. Studying the reflected waves, geologists may be able to X-ray Earth (Tesla also made important contributions to modern X-ray technology). Modern seismologists still use this principle. Pulses of energy, generated by electromagnetic devices, controlled explosions or mechanical pistons, are sent deep into the underground. Geophones record the reflected signals and geologists use the collected data to generate a model of the geological structures hidden beneath the surface.

 

Did Elohim Use Electron Harvesting Pyramids?

grahamhancock  |  Gods of the Bible is just my last attempt to bring some light to our ancient past through the narrative found in the Bible. I aim to narrate, understand, and describe in detail the reasons and habits of that group of individuals called “Elohim,” of whom Yahweh was part, one of many. Yahweh was the Elohim of the family of Israel — and only of them and their descendants. I deny the universality of the Bible. The Old Testament records Israel’s covenant and relationship with Yahweh. Other Elohim, as we have seen above, had inherited other peoples, families, and nations.

The Elohim of other peoples are mentioned and addressed several times in the Old Testament. These passages suggest that these “foreign Elohim” were similar to Yahweh and had identical abilities and habits. The Elohim had advanced technology unavailable to our ancestors; lived longer than humans but were mortal; had weapons and tools that could do wonders; they were more powerful and knowledgeable, and yet they could be abandoned, betrayed, and deceived, just like humans, because they knew a lot but were not omniscient.

The space of a short article would only allow for briefly summarizing some of the aspects of the Elohim that I have detailed in this new book and all my previous works.⁸

Still, perhaps it is not superfluous to end by mentioning something about the fascinating biblical term “ruach.” This term has always been translated as “spirit” through the influence of the Greek culture and the so-called Septuagint version of the Bible, which renders it with “pneuma.” The Ancient Hebrew term “ruach” actually had a very definite and concrete meaning as it stood for “wind,” “breath,” “moving air,” “storm wind,” and, in a broader sense, “that which moves quickly through the air space.” In modern biblical translations, the term “ruach” is always rendered as “spirit” because it responds to monotheistic theology’s spiritualist needs.

In the Old Testament, however, this “ruach” appears to be flying through the air, making noise, and taking people from one place to another, with a loud clangor and visible manifestations, taking off and landing in specific geographical locations — in very concrete ways.

The two following passages illustrate what has just been said.

“The [ruach] lifted me and brought me to the gate of the house of Yahweh that faces East. There at the entrance of the gate were twenty-five men, and I saw among them Jaazaniah, son of Azzur, and Pelatiah, son of Benaiah.” (Ezekiel 11:1)

 

“Look,” they said, “we, your servants, have fifty able men. Let them go and look for your master. Perhaps, the [ruach] of Yahweh has picked him up and set him down on some mountain or valley.” “No,” Elisha replied, “do not send them.” But they persisted until he was too embarrassed to refuse. So he said, “Send them.” And they sent fifty men, who searched for three days but did not find him. (2 Kings 2:16-17)

I left the word “ruach” untranslated, as the reader can see. If you follow monotheistic exegesis and replace “ruach” with “spirit,” the passages become incomprehensible. But it is difficult to interpret the term “ruach” spiritually without distorting the text’s meaning. I give countless similar examples about “ruach” and other words and biblical passages in Gods of the Bible, always underlining the concreteness and realism of the Ancient Hebrew language and the ancient Semitic culture, which was the culture of a pastoral people that Yahweh had found in the desert, landless.

I began and ended Gods of the Bible with the same spirit that moved me twenty-five years ago when I first picked up my pink notebook and then discovered the little mistake that began my professional career as a translator of the Old Testament with Edizioni San Paolo. Since then, I have found many more errors in the Bible — and not all were done in good faith. The list is long and cannot be continued here. But I hope at least to have been able to open a dialog with all those who, with an open mind, are interested in learning more about humankind.

I am not looking for absolute truths but for a glimmer of reality. As I gaze into the impending sunset, the peaks of the Alps, silhouetted against the evening sky, glow pink. A mountain peak is all I hope for. I leave the climb to heaven to others.

I take Gods of the Bible from its stack and open it in the last light of day. I find the best summary of what has been said on the page that opens before me. It is good never to ignore the authoritative voices of the past whose intentions are free from the controversies of the present. I find the voice of a great historian of antiquity who had no reason to lie or embellish. And I realize it is not for heretics like me to explain the meaning of such words, but for the “guardians of the discourse” that exclude apriori hypotheses they cannot accept. I pretend what I read is true.

“Armies clashed in the sky, swords blazed, and the temple shone with sudden flashes. The doors of the sanctuary were suddenly torn open, and a superhuman voice cried out that the gods were fleeing, and at the same time, there was a great uproar as if men were fleeing.” (C. Tacitus, Histories, V 13)

Pyramids: The Precision Screams Machine - Solid State Electron Harvester Sounds About Right

archive  |  Did a highly advanced civilization exist in prehistory? Is the Giza Pyramid a remnant of their technology? Then, what was the power source that fueled such a civilization? The technology of harmonic resonance, claims renowned master craftsman and engineer Christopher Dunn. In a brilliant piece of reverse engineering based on twenty years of research, Dunn reveals that the Great Pyramid of Giza was actually a large acoustical device! By its size and dimensions, this crystal edifice created a harmonic resonance with the Earth and converted Earth's vibrational energies to microwave radiation. The author shows how the pyramid's numerous chambers and passageways were positioned with the deliberate precision to maximize its acoustical qualities. This may be the same technology discovered by Nikola Tesla and the solution to our own clean energy needs.

David Grusch Meets Thomas Townsend Brown

ttbrown  |  First Joe Rogan, now David Grusch.  Ol’ TTB does seem to be getting around these days…

By now you have probably heard of David Grusch, the former military intelligence officer who testified before Congress on the U.S. Government’s secret UFO – oh, excuse me, we’re supposed to call them unidentified aerial phenomena now – initiatives.  His appearance and subsequent notoriety has caused quite a stir, though it’s not clear the testimony shed any really clear, fresh light on what’s been happening off the public record for the past 80 years.

The centerpiece of this production is a series of conversations with David Grusch, the military/intelligence veteran who testified before Congress in July about what the U.S. has been keeping under wraps about UFOs, crash retrievals and recovered (i.e. dead) alien ‘biologics.’ 

I really don’t know what to make of Grusch. I don’t doubt the veracity of his testimony, but it seems to me he goes right the edge of new revelations without really getting there.  He is billed as a “whistleblower” but I keep getting the impression of guy who puts the whistle in his mouth but for whatever reason doesn’t quite blow on it.  I get that he is constrained by external forces and NDA commitments, but too much of the discussion between he and Jesse (and Jesse’s crew) dwells on pure speculation. 

On the other hand, that speculation is quite comprehensive. In the course of two hours they manage to cover just about every possibility re: what the hell is really going on out-and-up there.  Extraterrestrial visitors?  Top secret domestic (or foreign) military research?  Time travelers?  Take your pick – or maybe it’s all of the above.

About 46 minutes in, Jesse neatly segues into a discussion of Townsend Brown and how his story dovetails into the mysteries David Grusch has exposed.  Jesse has graciously given me permission to extract that portion of the documentary, so here’s that segment:

 

T.T. Brown: Electrogravitics

theguardian  |  On January 31 2003, less than 24 hours before the Columbia space shuttle broke up, Nasa announced that it would no longer be funding its Breakthrough Physics Propulsion Programme - the world's largest visible antigravity project.

A working antigravity technology is still decades away at least, but the origins of one of the most promising branches of research can be found in an Ohio garage, almost 100 years ago.

Thomas Townsend Brown was born in Ohio in1905, two years after the Wright brothers took off. By his teens he was already dreaming about space travel, tinkering in his parents' garage with the ideas that would obsess him for the rest of his life. One day, while experimenting with X-ray tubes, he applied a high voltage electrical charge to a capacitor (a device for storing electricity) attached to a glass tube suspended from the ceiling. To Brown's astonishment, the tube began to rotate, apparently propelled by electricity itself.

Aged 18, Brown was taken under the wing of Dr Paul Biefield, a close friend and colleague of Albert Einstein. Biefield was deeply impressed with Brown's discoveries and together they proposed the Biefield-Brown effect. This states that when an electrical current is applied to a capacitor, it will move in the direction of the flow of current - towards its positive pole. And so the fledgling field of electrogravitics was born.

By the early 1950s, Brown had developed platforms, three feet in diameter, which he is said to have demonstrated hovering and rotating. The American military classified the results, but they neglected to support Brown's research. This proved to be the story of his life. Brown never got the funding he wanted, but he continued to develop his ideas until his death in 1985.

But the story continues in the research of groups exploring electrogravitics, among them Boeing, Nasa and BAe Systems. Closest to Brown's original vision are the "Lifters" being built by American Antigravity and others - skeletal metal frames that can lift a pound in weight, propelled by electric currents. Thomas Townsend Brown's name may be forgotten, but his dream lives on.