His attorney, Marc Agnifilo, said earlier Monday that they were "disappointed with the decision to pursue what we believe is an unjust prosecution," calling the entertainment star "an imperfect person but is not criminal."
The former music executive has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
Agents with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) carried out the arrest in Manhattan on Monday, sources familiar with the matter told NBC New York. Combs was arrested in the lobby of a hotel, a representative told NBC News.
"To his credit Mr. Combs has been nothing but cooperative with this investigation and he voluntarily relocated to New York last week in anticipation of these charges. Please reserve your judgment until you have all the facts," the statement from Agnifilo read. "These are the acts of an innocent man with nothing to hide, and he looks forward to clearing his name in court."
judiciary.house.gov |The House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Administrative State, Regulatory Reform, and Antitrust will hold a hearing
on Wednesday, June 26, 2024, at 10:00 a.m. ET. The hearing, "Follow the
Science?: Oversight of the Biden Covid-19 Administrative State
Response," will discuss the Subcommittee's oversight that found how the
Biden Administration pressured the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to
"cut corners" and lower agency standards to approve the Pfizer COVID-19
vaccine and authorize boosters. This approval enabled the Biden
administration to mandate the vaccine, despite concerns that the vaccine
was causing injury among otherwise healthy young Americans. Congress
needs to address reforms to the administrative state to bring
accountability to its agencies, particularly when it comes to the
process of approving vaccines.
WITNESSES:
Dr. Philip Krause, MD, former Deputy Director, FDA Office of Vaccines Research & Review - testimony
Jordan Vaughn, MD, Birmingham, Founder and President of Microvascular Research Foundation- testimony
Andrew
Tobias Pavia MD, FAAP, FACP, FIDSA, FSHEA, Chief, Division of Pediatric
Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine George and Esther Gross
Presidential Professor, Department of Pediatrics University of Utah
School of Medicine - testimony
Jeffrey Epstein was a fake billionaire set up by intelligence services. His private island functioned as a massive child sex trafficking ring that was used to collect blackmail on the global elite (billionaires, celebrities and politicians, etc) pic.twitter.com/P4YjQF7Kzb
With the war claiming many U.S. aircraft, the military wanted to
increase the armor protection of their bombers to increase their
survivability, but they were unsure of the best places to put this armor
and were frankly unqualified to find out themselves.
Where do you go with such a specific issue? The Statistical Research Group, of course!
The group was given the task of analyzing the damage received by
Allied aircraft from enemy fire, and recommending the best way to
increase their chances of survival. It was here that Wald made massive
bounds in “survivorship bias.”
When bombers returned from missions, they’d often come home covered
with bullet holes. However, these bullet holes were not evenly
distributed around the aircraft, but were actually concentrated on the
wings and fuselage, almost twice as much as places like the engines.
Why were bullets concentrating on the fuselage and wings? Were German
pilots trained to aim there? Were they firing futuristic homing
bullets? Military officers came to the seemingly obvious conclusion that
the armor should be added in these areas, as after all, they were
taking the most fire, right?
Not quite. Wald quickly realized what was happening, and the solution was simple.
Bullets holes weren’t found on areas like the engines because aircraft that had been shot here didn’t come home! Wald believed
bullets were actually hitting the aircraft equally all over, but
because the ones hit in the most vulnerable areas didn’t come home, the
data incorrectly suggested that these areas weren’t being hit at all.
The only aircraft that could be examined were those that came home —
the survivors. The aircraft that were being brought down weren’t
available for inspection, thus creating the survivorship bias.
The massive amount of damage on bombers’ fuselages and wings was
actually evidence that these areas did not need reinforcing, as they
were clearly able to take a large amount of punishment. Therefore, as
Wald concluded, the armor should be placed on the areas that seemingly
received the least damage.
kansascity | Under federal law, Burlison is not permitted to reveal classified information to the public. But after the classified briefing, he still appeared frustrated with how little the federal government is revealing about what it knows.
“Regardless of what it is – aliens, angels, or just us, right?” Burlison said. “Regardless of what it is, I think that Grusch, what he said in the public hearing, that we are being blocked from information, that the information is being specifically compartmentalized, that’s violating federal law.”
He’s not alone. Earlier this year, a bipartisan group of representatives including Burlison and Moskowitz formed the Congressional UAP Caucus. The caucus wrote a letter to Monheim in August seeking more answers about the government’s UAP program.
In the Senate, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, attempted to get a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act allowing the National Archives to collect information on UAPs and reveal it to the public after a certain period of time – similar to how the government handled information about former President John F. Kennedy’s assassination.
But the provision was weakened in the final version of the NDAA. The National Archives can still collect the information, but there will be no committee to go through the papers and authorize what can and can’t be revealed.
“It is really an outrage the House didn’t work with us on adopting our proposal for a review board, which of course by definition here is bipartisan in the Senate,” Schumer said in December. “Now it means that declassification of UAP records will be largely up to the same entities that have blocked and obfuscated their disclosure for decades.”
Burlison said he believes the public has a right to know more about UAPs – or at the very least the representative the public elected to Congress has a right to know. He compared it to the development of the nuclear bomb during World War II, saying some information should be private, but the basic information should be available to the public.
“You can go study nuclear physics, you can go study how power plants operate, but at the end of the day if you are interested in making a bomb, that is top secret information and we should hold that information to the highest level of security,” Burlison said. “But I think the same thing should apply to any of this UAP technology.”
In the meantime, he plans to push to get stronger language in next year’s NDAA and to keep pushing for briefings from people with better knowledge of the UAP program.But he was tight lipped as to whether people will soon learn whether aliens exist and have visited Earth.
“If you believe that aliens existed, there’s nothing that I’ve seen or heard that proves that,” Burlison said. “Also, I’ve not seen anything that proves that it’s not.”
alt-market | When I think back to the first days of the covid pandemic lockdowns, I
suspect the majority of people, even many conservatives and liberty
movement types, had a healthy concern about the effects of the virus and
the potential for structural upheaval if it turned out to be as deadly
as the World Health Organization initially claimed. If covid had an
Infection Fatality Rate of 3% or more as global health officials warned,
then the damage would be substantial enough to change our world for
many years to come.
Anyone who was not at least partially
concerned about a biological disaster (or biological warfare) was
probably an idiot. Anyone who was smart was prepared. However, after a
few months of the spread of the virus and after the first flurry of
scientific data, several facts became evident:
2) The masks were useless and did nothing to prevent transmission of the virus.
3) The IFR of covid was a tiny 0.23%, and that’s not accounting for all the co-morbidity deaths that were falsely labeled as covid deaths.
4) The vaccines did not prevent transmission for millions of people. They did not prevent infection in many cases and numerous vaccinated people have died from the virus. Not only that, but unvaccinated people with natural immunity were better protected than those that took the vaccine and boosters.
5) Studies show that the vaccines cause dangerous side effects at a much greater rate than the CDC admitted.
Everything
government officials told us during the pandemic was a lie. It was not a
mistake, it was not bureaucratic confusion, it was a lie. Even after
this information became available, they KEPT GOING – They kept people
locked down, kept them masked and they even tried to force-vaccinate the
population. There were some Republican politicians that also went along
with the panic, many of them Neocons (fake conservatives). However,
the majority of red states quickly ended the restrictions once the
contradictory data was made public. In the meantime, the blue states
looked ridiculous and paranoid as they desperately clung to the
mandates.
I believe the only reason Biden, the Democrats and
globalist institutions eventually stopped was not because they realized
their science was incorrect; it was because they realized millions of
conservatives and independents were ready start a shooting war over the
mandates and they knew they would lose.
Even today, months after
Biden was forced to finally end the national emergency status on covid,
there are still a lot of people out there running around with masks,
still isolating in their homes and still complaining all over social
media that the public has moved on from the pandemic hysteria. Where
does this behavior originate? And why did so many Americans (mainly
leftists) jump on the authoritarian bandwagon when it comes to lockdowns
and forced vaccination?
I want to explore the psychology of such
people here, because I think it’s the natural inclination of the public
today to move on quickly from the discomfort of terrible events and
ignore the deeper implications. We cannot move on from this, because the
ultimate problem was never solved. These same leftists and globalists
were never admonished for their behavior, they never had to admit they
were wrong and they WILL attempt the same draconian measures again in
the future if left unchecked.
Here is what I think happened during the covid cult frenzy…
A Useful Weapon Against The Constitution
Leftists
are quick these days to change the subject or outright deny their
authoritarian activities during covid. It makes sense, they view the
next election as a defining election and they want people to forget that
we almost lost what remains of our constitutional rights because of
their policies. But again, we can’t allow these things to fade into the
ether. Here’s a list of the worst trespasses on the part of leftists and
globalists during the pandemic:
They lied about the effectiveness of the lockdowns.
They lied about the effectiveness of the masks.
They lied about the effectiveness of the vaccines.
They lied about how extensive the testing was for the covid vaccines.
They lied about the “pandemic of the unvaccinated.”
They enforced lockdowns OUTSIDE where it is nearly impossible to contract a virus.
They tried to put the population under house arrest.
They put legislation in motion in some states to build “covid camps” in the US.
In some countries, they did build covid camps, not just for travelers, but for everyone.
They conspired to suppress ample evidence linking the Wuhan Lab in China with the outbreak.
They (Government and Big Tech) conspired to use social media as a tool for mass censorship of conflicting data.
They exploited algorithms through search engines to bury any and all contrary information.
As
many leftists openly admitted, the goal was to make life so difficult
for the unvaccinated that they would eventually comply in order to
survive. In this way, establishment elites and leftists could claim that
people “volunteered” for the vaccines and no one was forced. What they
really meant was, no one was forced at gunpoint, but we all knew that
threat was coming next. In fact, polling showed that a large percentage of Democrats were willing to scrap the Bill of Rights altogether and declare war on the unvaccinated…
JUST IN: Hunter Biden’s former business partner Devon Archer is set to testify this week that Joe Biden was deeply involved with Hunter Biden’s overseas business dealings, attending meetings both over the phone and in person.
kunstler.com | The hour is late for “Joe Biden.” His
sojourn in America’s highest office was one long twilight of pretending
to be effectual, or merely present, and now even that abject pantomime
slips into a place of nullity, where all is still and dark. What does he
do these languorous weekends at the fabled Delaware beach house? Stare
out at the empty Atlantic horizon over an uneaten egg salad sandwich
with the crusts cut off? Does he even suspect that the world is already
turning without him?
The pressure is mounting for some
group of somebodies to arrange his exit from the scene. Of course, there
is no public discussion of that among the somebodies because everything
they have been doing for years happens sub rosa, in addition to being
of dubious legality. Despite the most formidable praetorian protections —
a depraved justice department, a Gestapo-caliber FBI, a debauched news
media — the arrows of culpability are flying clean through the beach
house windows at that immobilized figure sitting in the crepuscular
gloom.
RFK JR ON BIDEN: “I think the issues are now coming up are worrying enough that we really need a real investigation… these revelations where you had Burisma, which is a notoriously corrupt company that paid out, apparently, $10M to Hunter and his dad”pic.twitter.com/5Tx3J3fCJx
Forgive me for bringing this up, but
remember the first impeachment of Mr. Trump on the grounds of a phone
call to freshly-minted President Z in Ukraine pertaining to some fishy
matters around the Burisma gas company? Yes, Mr. T was impeached over a
mere inquiry into possible misconduct by a former high US official
(being one “Joe Biden,” ex-veep) and his bag-man son. The setup was
patently obvious even to us bloggers who enjoy no intimate
correspondence with organelles of the DC Blob. A CIA spook
“whistleblower” named Eric Ciaramella (sssshhhh) was injected
into the scene with help from the devious Col. Vindman at NSA and an
assist from Intel Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson… and
voila! Recall the solemn pageantry of Nancy Pelosi’s march across the
Capitol rotunda with the hallowed bill of impeachment on a satin
pillow….
And now, more than three years later,
the nation is informed of all the particulars around those Burisma
Company’s doings with the Biden family in granular detail ($5-million
plus $5-million), laying out just one instance of treasonous
moneygrubbing by this family among many grifts in other nations. And in
case of any lingering questions — if the news media were not a pseudopod
of the Blob — a long roster of bank transfer records has been assembled
by Rep. Comer of the House Oversight Committee to validate the deal
memos, emails and audio recordings already available for inspection in
the alt.news.
You realize, don’t you, that the DOJ
and the FBI had all of this info (a.k.a evidence) in its possession even
before Trump impeachment number one? AG William Barr and FBI Director
Wray could have stepped up at any time after October, 2019, and said,
“Oh, here’s what that phone call to Z was about.” That they didn’t is
arguably the most blatant crime among scores of crimes committed by the
Blob in the Trump and post-Trump years.
Federal Justice Manual 9-5.000, Section B: Constitutional
obligation to ensure a fair trial and disclose material exculpatory and
impeachment evidence. Government disclosure of material exculpatory and
impeachment evidence is part of the constitutional guarantee to a fair
trial. Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 87 (1963). The law requires the disclosure of exculpatory and impeachment evidence when such evidence is material to guilt or punishment.”
So now the Blob is desperate to
jettison this embodiment of its corruption and lawlessness, “Joe Biden,”
before the Trump-deranged masses start paying attention to the distant
yelling from the asteroid belt of actual news beyond noisy Planet MSNBC.
The Blob will be fighting for its very life anyway. The Ukraine
operation is not proceeding according to plan. Do you know why? Answer:
because it was a stupid plan concocted by purblind Neocon idiots. Russia
has been insulted to the degree that it deems America unworthy of
negotiation — meaning Russia will bring the Ukraine mess to a conclusion
on its terms. They will take care to do it gingerly, so as not to
further inflame the psychosis afflicting America and tempt us into even
grosser stupidities. Namely, they will insist on a neutral Ukraine with
no foreign operators in it and some rearrangement of Ukraine’s borders.
America will have to lump it. The Blob Neocon faction will blame the
whole lamentable affair on “Joe Biden,” who, by then, will be gone from
the White House.
How does that happen? The 25th
Amendment, since we are now at the point where his infirmity is as hard
to ignore as the evidence of his crimes. How the Blob deals with his
successor, the distressing Ms. Harris, is another bridge to cross. The
switcheroo itself may be enough to tank the financial markets, which
will give the restive nation something else to think about: the personal
ruin of every household in the land. Then, things get really
interesting.
Consciousness reflects–and goes towards further influencing–the material underpinnings of the system in which it is situated. U$A is rapidly trending in a sharply authoritarian direction because the structural contradictions of capitalism can only be effectively addressed by the 1% via domestic austerity, increased repression (suppression of information, outright dismantling of supposed rule-of-law mechanisms, etc.), and accelerating militarism and war.
We are not approaching a crisis–we are in one. It was remarked to me years ago, there is a death wish at the core of capitalism. It’s 50/50 whether it’s more insane or evil, but both characterizations fit increasingly generalized events like the expulsion of legislators in Tennessee, the outright bribery of Supreme Court “justices,” and as always, the ability of the biggest banks to wallow outright in their corruption.
We live in interesting times. To the extent it is a spectator sport, we can only expect this plunge to continue and intensify. There is no “technical fix” to a system that is irrational and self-destructive–as someone remarked long ago, we will be its undertakers or ourselves be interred by its collapse.
From ChatGPT: Propaganda methods are techniques used to manipulate information, ideas, and opinions to influence and control people’s behavior. Here are some common propaganda methods:
Name-calling: This is a technique used to create negative associations by using negative labels or name-calling to discredit a person, group, or idea.
Testimonials: This is a technique used to build credibility by using endorsements or testimonials from respected people or authorities.
Bandwagon: This is a technique used to create a sense of social pressure or conformity by suggesting that “everyone else is doing it,” or that it is the popular or accepted choice.
Emotional appeals: This is a technique used to appeal to people’s emotions rather than reason, often by using vivid imagery, personal anecdotes, or appealing to people’s fears or desires.
Glittering generalities: This is a technique used to create positive associations by using vague or undefined terms that sound good but have no real meaning.
Simplification: This is a technique used to oversimplify complex issues, often by reducing them to simple slogans or catchphrases.
False or misleading information: This is a technique used to manipulate information or present false or misleading information as fact to support a particular point of view.
Scapegoating: This is a technique used to blame a particular person or group for a problem or issue, often unfairly, to distract attention from the real causes.
I foresee a future in which it is simultaneously claimed that AI is sentient for marketing purposes but lacks sentience for legal purposes. This is the way that Corporations have been given legal rights amounting to Corporate personhood but without the possibility of sending the Corporate person to prison no matter how many people the Corporation kills.
It was not the venture-capital backed companies that chose or agreed to
keep all their deposits at SVB. It was their venture capital investors
that forced this arrangement on them, confirmed by a reader: “Speaking
as a former customer as dictated by my VCs.” This distinction matters
because it puts the locus of influence and favor-trading much higher up
the food chain.
nueberger |It’s highly possible, one could even say likely, that those
massive deposits — Roku alone kept almost half a billion dollars in a
single account — were part of a corrupt set of practices by the bank itself and its big-dollar clients.
SVB would typically require, as part of its venture debt investments into emerging companies, that the money would be held in an account with SVB. SVB would then offer concierge, I think they called it white glove, services to the founders including personal LOCs, mortgages etc.
David Dayen, in an excellent, comprehensive piece, writes:
“So you have depositors that either didn’t know the first thing about
risk management, or were bribed by the bank into neglecting it.”
Keep
in mind who these depositors are: the very very wealthy in the West
Coast venture capital world. The corruption didn’t start just with the
bank. The VCs often initiated it. As a friend and former Silicon Valley
entrepreneur pointed out to me recently:
SVB
was a special case. VCs required the companies they funded to keep their
cash there. So the companies (and their employees) really were victims,
not incompetent at risk management. In exchange the VCs received
various favors from the bank. This is how Silicon Valley works behind
the scenes. I was in one deal where the lead VC for our
funding required a secret kickback of a certain % of the company stock
and that this arrangement be kept secret from the firm. This is typical.
Where Does That Leave Us, Part I
Where
that leaves us is here: The U.S. banking system, which hasn’t been
private in my recent memory, has been officially taken under the wing of
the federal government, with every deposited dollar now de factoinsured by the FDIC.
The Fed says its new lending facility is big enough to cover all US uninsured deposits and that it is "prepared to address any liquidity pressures that may arise" https://t.co/XwS40BS4hk@FinancialTimes
To
cover these claims, the FDIC normally collects money from the banks
receiving the insurance benefit. This means that the covered banks
prepay a reasonable amount for a bailout of depositor funds up to
$250,000 per account.
What would a “reasonable amount” be to
cover all funds on deposit in the U.S.? Are the banks willing to prepay
it? Highly unlikely. After all, who’s going to make them? The government
they control?
So the federal government has nationalized the
banking system, or nationalized its insurance of bank deposits to 100%
of risk, all at no new cost to the banks.
What do you think these banks will do next, with that worry off their backs? I hesitate to find out, but I know we’re about to.
Where Does That Leave Us, Part II?
The
second “where does that leave us?” leaves the financial realm and
enters the political. If Saagar Enjeti is right (see the clip above),
the rich decided that taking even a 10% loss (“haircut”) via the normal
unwinding process was still too big an ask.
Meanwhile, in East Palestine OH where the working class makes its life, this went on:
With a population of about 5,000 people, there are roughly 2,600 residential properties in East Palestine
according to Attom, a property data provider. The average value of a
property there in January of this year, prior to the derailment, was
$146,000, according to Attom.
Taken together, the value of
all residential real estate in the town adds up to about $380 million,
including single family homes and multi-family properties.
Those
values are only a fraction of the money that Norfolk Southern earns.
Last year it reported a record operating income of $4.8 billion, and a
net income of $3.3 billion, up about 9% from a year earlier. It had $456
million in cash on hand on its books as of December 31.
It’s been returning much of that profit to shareholders, repurchasing $3.1 billion in shares last year and spending $1.2 billion on dividends. And it announced a 9% increase in dividends just days before the accident.
A
year ago its board approved a $10 billion share repurchase plan, and it
had the authority to buy $7.5 billion of that remaining on the plan as
of December 31. (Emphasis added)
The point couldn’t
be more simple. When the wealthy face losses, the government they
control bails them out, within days if necessary.
When the rest
of us faces losses, we’re on our own. Neither the wealthy who caused the
mess nor the government that represent “the people” will step up to the
plate.
And it will be this way forever unless force is applied.
amidwesterndoctor |One of the things I have come to appreciate as the years have
gone by is how much of what people say are not their own thoughts. The
current structure of our educational system (discussed here)
is largely about replacing critical thinking with the illusion of
intelligence, where you are seen as smart if you copy what the most
authoritative sources or voices say instead of formulating your own
opinion.
Because of this, whenever I hear someone proudly
share an argument or train of logic I have already seen numerous times,
one of the most common replies I give is “are you sure those ideas are
your own?”
If you look at this article within the context of
Oster’s previous plea and its response (both of these articles are
essentially trying to do the same thing), I believe a strong case can be
made that these were tests to see what narrative needs to be pivoted
to. Likewise, Germany’s minister of health (and a well-credentialed
scientist) finally made a limited apology
for the disastrous policies he pushed on the German people without
acknowledging the worst mistakes while simultaneously shifting the blame
for his decisions to unnamed scientists who gave him bad advice.
Similarly, let’s consider Malcom Kendrick’s recent commentary on another leading advocate of this insanity:
With
the resignation of Jacinda Ardern [two weeks ago], my thoughts were
dragged back to Covid once more. Jacinda, as Prime Minster of New
Zealand was the ultimate lockdown enforcer. She was feted round the
world for her iron will, but I was not a fan, to put it mildly. Whenever
I heard her speak, it brought to mind one of my most favourite quotes:
‘Of
all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its
victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under
robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s
cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be
satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us
without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.’ C.S. Lewis
At one point she actually said the following:
“We will continue to be your single source of truth” “Unless you hear it from us, it is not the truth.’
Yet,
there are still many who believe her to have been a great and caring
leader. She certainly hugged a lot of people with that well rehearsed
pained/caring expression on her face.
In many ways
it’s remarkable that we have been able to move the dialogue this far in
just a few months, and to be honest, I would have given almost anything
for a compromise like what this article presented to have been made any
time in 2020 or early in 2021. However, any time a negotiation occurs,
you must keep in mind that whatever is initially offered is much less
than the party is willing to agree to, and the fact that something like
this is being openly offered means we are in a very strong bargaining
position.
Any type of promise or apology (especially
disingenuous ones) will not prevent what we saw happen over the last few
years from happening again. Laws, and ideally constitutional amendments
(initially at the state level and ideally at the national level) can
prevent such tragedies, and many people I have spoken to feel we have a
once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to correct many of the systemic issues
within medicine that have poisoned our culture.
In
my own opinion, if these people are actually sorry for what they did to
us, they would be willing to relinquish some of their power so it could
not happen again and I believe moving forward it is critical for us to
hold them to that. Anything less should not be considered acceptable
for them to be granted amnesty.
merylnass | It seems he used to tweet about eugenics. He liked it.
And it seems he remains intrigued with it.
Meryl’s
COVID Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new
posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
But
he was not impressed with the talks by me, Aseem Malhotra, Robert
Malone, Sasha Latypova. Guess what? This was not a science conference
in Stockholm. It was a conference about what has really been going on
these past three years. He likes the straw man argument.
So
who is this Kevin Bass, who some commenters to my last post described
as a twitter troll regarding nutrition and low carb diets. Why is he
apologizing for mistakes that the system made? Like, he admitted to
LOTS of mistakes?
He
had to explain to his followers that with the Newsweek piece he has
reinvented himself. He has decided to stop being an attack dog and
instead bring us sweetness and light. Oops. He forgot his new persona,
however, when he attacked the Stockholm conference. Who will he be
tomorrow?
localmemphis | Davis was most recently police chief in Durham, North Carolina. She
beat out several other candidates, including three from inside the
Memphis Police Department and that has some wondering why someone
already on the force wasn't chosen.
"I'm convinced the public and the officers are all going to want to be on her team," said Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland.
Strickland says he has no doubts C.J. Davis is the right woman to put
in charge of the Memphis Police Department, but his pick hasn't gone
without criticism. Some activists wanted more input from the public
regarding who was chosen, others have questioned why one of the three
internal candidates --who all have a long history with the department--
wasn't picked.
"I was given eight finalists who were all really top quality. I just
thought C. J. Davis was the best qualified. I didn't go into this
thinking I want someone from out of town one gender or another one race
or another. I just wanted to pick the best person," said Strickland.
Strickland says despite Davis' name was added into mix late in the
game, "she went thru the exact same process as the other candidates did,
the same background check, same interview panels."
Strickland says he has not, and will not, make suggestions for who she puts in command under her.
"I think Chief Davis needs to get here and get approved, talk to the
men and women in leadership of the Memphis Police Department and make
her own choice. This is the way I have done it with all my chiefs and
directors. I don't really mandate their deputies or number two in their
departments," said Strickland.
Durham is smaller than Memphis. Critics also have questions about her
ability to lead such a large department in a city with so much crime.
Strickland's thoughts about that?
"Let's not forget she spent approximately 25 years in Atlanta and
Memphis is similar to Atlanta in the size, scope, and challenges, so I
think she is well prepared," said Strickland. "I would expect her to
bring some fresh eyes to old challenges we've had. Memphis has had a
challenge with crime for decades, gun crime for decades, and it's gotten
worse.
So why did Strickland choose her instead of the other candidates? "I
think she has the right leadership skills, and I think that is what sets
her apart to lead our city through these rough waters of trying to
reduce violent crime and retain and recruit more officers."
When it comes to Friday's citizens' questions for Davis, Strickland
says he has no input regarding what questions will or won't be asked to
Davis. Strickland says the event is being moderated by the Memphis
NAACP.
psrmemphis | Memphis police officers watched as a man with a handgun bulging from
his right hip walked past them and into a convenience store where he
attempted to make a purchase.
It was busy that Friday night in Parkway Village, the day before
several of these same officers would become entangled in a deadly
encounter with Tyre Nichols – a violent altercation that resulted in the
29-year-old motorist’s death in a hospital bed three days later.
The action grew intense – and violent – on this night, too.
Members of the Memphis Police Department’s SCORPION Team One swooped
onto this gas station parking lot when they saw some young men loitering
about.
After witnessing what they believed was a drug transaction, officers chased down one man and, during a struggle, pepper-sprayed him.
They arrested another man who, like Nichols, had no criminal record.
Carrying a pistol in his belt, he apparently violated the edges of
Tennessee’s permitless carry law by entering a business displaying signs
that guns are prohibited.
“Suspect … refused to cooperate and listen to detectives and immediately started screaming,’’ Officer Demetrius Haley wrote in a report charging the 22-year-old man with misdemeanor offenses of disorderly conduct and unlawfully possessing a gun.
An investigation by the Institute for Public Service Reporting found
that Haley and four other officers terminated by MPD last week in
connection with Nichols’ death were affiliated with a special unit
called SCORPION, a data-driven initiative that identifies crime hotspots
and attempts to suppress them with saturation patrols.
Records show the unit’s aggressive tactics often trigger volatile interactions with members of the public.
Launched in 2021 by MPD Chief Cerelyn “C.J.” Davis as part of Memphis
Mayor Jim Strickland’s war on crime, the Street Crimes Operation to
Restore Peace In Our Neighborhoods, or SCORPION, unit identifies upticks
in motor vehicle theft and violent crime and then targets those areas
with patrolling SCORPION officers – at times in unmarked cars. An opens in a new windowMPD video promoting the unit appears to show some of the officers dressed in plainclothes.
Discussing SCORPION in a January 2022 address, opens in a new windowStrickland said
the unit of “four, 10-man teams” had made 566 arrests in its first
three months alone, seizing more than “$103,000 in cash, 270 vehicles
and 253 weapons.”
The mayor said then the unit targets homicides, aggravated assaults, robberies and carjackings.
Yet dozens of reports reviewed by the Institute for Public Service
Reporting found SCORPION officers also appear to engage in
“zero-tolerance” or “proactive policing”-type activities, at times
stopping motorists for tinted windows or for failing to wear seat belts and confronting or arresting others for loitering, gambling, drug possession
and other low-level offenses – controversial tactics now at the heart
of a national debate on how best to balance public safety and community
trust.
A thorough analysis of SCORPION’s activities was not possible on
deadline for this story. Some reports show officers removing dangerous
individuals from the streets. Policy experts warn, however, that such
aggressive tactics, if not properly supervised, can lead to
discrimination and abuse, and can erode faith in police.
“They can be very effective,’’ said former Memphis Police Director E.
Winslow “Buddy” Chapman. “But they must be very closely controlled and
monitored.
“The danger is exactly what happened in this case,’’ he said, referring to the death of Nichols.
Just last week it was
revealed that the FBI again withheld pertinent information from the
American public, for past two months, until after the November 8, 2022
federal election.
The combination of a politically weaponized Intelligence
Community, operating hand-in-hand with organizations that are main
gateways for information to millions of Americans, is a serious threat
to American democracy and the integrity of our elections.
Let us just briefly look at the steep slope of lying, deceit and
corruption that has seeped into the leadership of the U.S. Intelligence
Community.
Having... false information -- some of which the FBI actually
altered -- in the public domain was evidently intended to damage Trump.
Today we know that the "Russia hoax" was a lie.... the
information in the "Steele dossier" was false -- and the FBI had known
it was from the start.
For almost two years, the authenticity of the material found on
Hunter Biden's laptop was questioned. Today, its authenticity has been
verified; the information is real and damning. As summarized by the New York Post:
"Yes that letter from the Dirty 51 had all the classic earmarks of a
disinformation operation, all right – one designed to ensure Joe Biden
won the presidency. And it was essentially a CIA operation, considering
43 of the 51 signatories were former CIA."
One final example of the Intelligence Community involving itself
in domestic politics comes from the recent release of the Twitter
files.... Tweet #17 states, "executives were also clearly liaising with
federal enforcement and intelligence agencies about moderation of
election-related content." Finally, the FBI paid Twitter $3.5 million
reportedly to "handle requests from the bureau."
The FBI, DHS and the ODNI had literally had set up shop at Twitter.
Can our government, law enforcement, and the Intelligence Community still be trusted?
Have those federal government agencies literally weaponized law
enforcement and intelligence against political opponents in the U.S.?
Has more than one solitary person -- former FBI attorney Kevin
Clinemith, for altering an email -- been held accountable for these
egregious abuses of power?
Who authorized the cozy relationship between law enforcement, the intelligence community with twitter?
Who in these government agencies reviewed and approved of the output and decisions coming from these joint efforts?
Who has the records, notes and decisions that emanated from these groups?
It is clear that our law enforcement community needs to be
investigated, but most importantly we need to investigate how our
Intelligence Community has evolved from having literally a non-existent
relationship with speech in America to being inside the room determining
what speech is allowed.
There... needs to be a significant investigation by an outside,
non-government group to understand how far this massive government
overreach into free speech and election manipulation went. Clearly the
government has been influencing what we get to see and hear. It needs to
stop -- now -- before our democracy is destroyed.
CNN cuts away from Speaker McCarthy's press conference when he starts hammering Rep. Swalwell for being allegedly compromised, and Rep. Schiff for repeatedly lying about having evidence of collusion. pic.twitter.com/fL5xcblNI1
trendingpolitics | On Thursday while speaking with reporters, Speaker of the House Kevin
McCarthy left reporters speechless after he defended his decision to
keep California Democrats Eric Swalwell and Adam Schiff off of the House
Intelligence Committee.
“If you got the briefing I got from the FBI, you wouldn’t
have Swalwell on any committee,” McCarthy said, leaving reporters
silent.
This suggests damning bombshell information about Swalwell’s handlings that we will hopefully learn in the coming weeks.
“And you’re going to tell me other Democrats couldn’t fill that slot?
He cannot get a security clearance in the private sector,” McCarthy
said. “So would you like to give him a government clearance?”
McCarthy went on to explain that the last Congress lead by Nancy
Pelosi kept Swalwell on the committee even though they were aware of the
massive red flag from the FBI.
“You’re going to tell me there are 200 other Democrats that couldn’t
fill that slot, but they kept him on it? The only way that they even
knew it came forward is when they put to nominate him to the Intel
committee. And then the FBI came and told the leadership that he’s got a
problem, and they kept him on. That jeopardized all of us,” McCarthy
said.
McCarthy also name dropped Schiff.
“Adam Schiff openly lied to the American public. He told you he had
proof. He told you he didn’t know the whistle blower,” McCarthy said
while referring to false claims made by the California Democrat against
former President Donald Trump.
“He put America for four years through an impeachment that he knew
was a lie.” At the same time, we had Ukraine, the same time we had
Afghanistan collapse. Was that the role of the Intel committee? No,”
McCarthy said.
“So what I am doing with the Intel committee, bringing it back to the
jurisdiction is supposed to do forward looking to keep this country
safe, keep the politics out of it,” he continued.
Slate | On
Thursday night, the latest installment of what CEO Elon Musk has dubbed
the “Twitter Files” was published on the social media platform, this
time with a bombshell-promising thread
from former New York Times opinion editor Bari Weiss, who now runs an
online magazine called the Free Press. Weiss, like fellow Twitter Files
author Matt Taibbi,
was given access to internal documents of the company by its new owner
in order to interrogate the content-moderation actions of Twitter’s
leadership before Musk bought the company. Many extremely online
right-wingers have long accused Twitter of being biased against
conservatives. Weiss’ thread, like Taibbi’s from a week earlier, tells
them just what they want to hear.
Weiss’
focus is on Twitter’s ability to deamplify accounts so that, for
example, they are boosted less by the platform’s news-feed algorithm or
are barred from trending topics or search (a policy Twitter has been
open about, publicly describing it in a blog post in 2018).
Among several examples, Weiss cites the platform’s treatment of Libs of
TikTok, a Twitter account that remains active despite its connection to
multiple acts of terror and intimidation from far-right extremists,
including multiple bomb threats
against a children’s hospital. This portrayal of Libs of TikTok as
representative of accounts posting conservative views is alarming. The
implication seems to be that platforms that seek to protect users from
harassment and violence—which is what Libs of TikTok has repeatedly
inspired—are engaging in anti-conservative bias when they do so. Weiss
contrasted the treatment of Libs of TikTok by Twitter with a post
harassing Libs of TikTok using personally identifying information that
was not taken down by Twitter staff, which seems to have been an error
on Twitter’s part. (All content moderation involves human error, and
thus far Weiss has not demonstrated any sort of consistent pattern on
any side.)
Weiss may be best known for a column introducing “the intellectual dark web,”
a group of anti-progressive types fixated on the concept of cancel
culture and the idea that liberals routinely censor conservative ideas.
With the Twitter Files, she describes herself leading a team that has been given “broad and expanding access” to Twitter’s internal documents and communications. This group includes opinion writer Abigail Shrier, who is best known for writing Irreversible Damage,
a book opposing transition for female-assigned people on the grounds
that an unproven social contagion is the root cause of transmasculine
identities.
Contrary to the extremist rhetoric, gender-affirming care is supported by all mainstream medical organizations
as potentially lifesaving for young people with gender dysphoria. It is
also perfectly possible to speak with children about the existence of
transgender people and about families headed by same-sex parents in an
age-appropriate, nonsexual way. All-ages drag events are places where
kids can see members of the drag community in elaborate full-body
costumes providing innocent entertainment in the name of inclusivity and
fun, and even adult drag shows are raunchy rather than sexual in
nature. However, the issues with Libs of TikTok and the Twitter Files
are fundamentally not about anyone’s opinion on gender-affirming care,
diversity in schools, or drag. They’re about the conflation of
stochastic terrorism with conservative opinions, and the refusal of many
conservatives to recognize or respect any line drawn between the two.
Armed
white supremacist gangs seem to closely monitor Libs of TikTok’s posts
to find new targets, based on the multiple incidents associated with
those named on its Twitter feed. Account owner Chaya Raichik,
meanwhile, has done nothing to attempt to calm, dissuade, change how
she communicates, or otherwise bring an end to the pattern of violence
and near-violence driven by her posts. These often include misinformation
as well as a conflation of healthy, age-appropriate discussions of
diversity with child abuse. Instead of seeking to end the violence
directed at the targets she chooses, Raichik and Libs of TikTok are
constantly toeing the line, attempting to stop short of what is
officially considered either harassment or hate speech, and occasionally
catching a ban when Twitter decides that line was crossed.
jonathanturley | In the aftermath of the release of the “Twitter Files,” the
media and political establishment appear to be taking a lesson from
Karl Marx who said, “history repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as
farce.”
The censoring of the Hunter Biden scandal before
the 2020 election by Twitter and others was a tragedy for our
democratic system. That tragedy was not in its potential impact on a
close election, but the massive (and largely successful) effort to bury a
story to protect the Biden campaign. It has now ended in farce as the
same censorship apologists struggle to excuse the implications of this
major story.
The Twitter Files confirmed that Twitter never had any evidence of a
Russian disinformation campaign or hacking as the basis for its decision
to censor the New York Post story. Indeed, some at Twitter expressed
concern over preventing the sharing of the story. Former Twitter Vice
President for Global Communications Brandon Borrman asked if the company
could “truthfully claim that this is part of the policy” for barring
posts and suspending users.
Those voices were few and quickly shouted down as the company barred
the sharing of the story, including evidence of a multimillion-dollar
influence peddling scheme by the Biden family.
The back channel communications between Biden campaign and Democratic
operatives show a willing use of the company to suppress political
discussion of the scandal before the election. It was an
all-hands-on-deck moment for the media and Twitter was eager to lend a
hand.
Over a year ago, I discussed how the brilliance of the Biden campaign
was to get the media to become invested in the suppression of the
story. After two years, major media finally but reluctantly admitted
that the laptop was authentic as well as the emails detailing massive
transfers of money from foreign interests (including some with foreign
intelligence links).
Many have responded by shrugging that influence peddling is not
necessarily a crime, ignoring that it is still a massive corruption
scandal with serious national security concerns. After all, as Heather
Digby Parton argued in Salon on December 5, “There is nothing there
other than a man making money by trading on his family name.”
After the release of the “Twitter Files,” many of these same figures
have shifted to excuse the censorship done at the request of Biden
campaign or Democratic operatives.
For some of us who come from long-standing liberal Democratic
families, it has been chilling to see the Democratic Party embrace
censorship and denounce free speech, including organizing foreign and corporate interests to prevent Musk from restoring free speech protections.
Beyond personally attacking Elon Musk and Matt Taibbi, many
have resorted to two claims that are being widely repeated in the media
to avoid discussing the coordinated censorship efforts between this
company and Democratic operatives.
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