DoD Doing A Lot Of Warrantless Surveillance Of U.S. Citizens

 

vice  |  The Pentagon is carrying out warrantless surveillance of Americans, according to a new letter written by Senator Ron Wyden and obtained by Motherboard.

Senator Wyden's office asked the Department of Defense (DoD), which includes various military and intelligence agencies such as the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), for detailed information about its data purchasing practices after Motherboard revealed special forces were buying location data. The responses also touched on military or intelligence use of internet browsing and other types of data, and prompted Wyden to demand more answers specifically about warrantless spying on American citizens.

Some of the answers the DoD provided were given in a form that means Wyden's office cannot legally publish specifics on the surveillance; one answer in particular was classified. In the letter Wyden is pushing the DoD to release the information to the public. A Wyden aide told Motherboard that the Senator is unable to make the information public at this time, but believes it would meaningfully inform the debate around how the DoD is interpreting the law and its purchases of data.

"I write to urge you to release to the public information about the Department of Defense's (DoD) warrantless surveillance of Americans," the letter, addressed to Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III, reads.

Wyden and his staff with appropriate security clearances are able to review classified responses, a Wyden aide told Motherboard. Wyden's office declined to provide Motherboard with specifics about the classified answer. But a Wyden aide said that the question related to the DoD buying internet metadata.

"Are any DoD components buying and using without a court order internet metadata, including 'netflow' and Domain Name System (DNS) records," the question read, and asked whether those records were about "domestic internet communications (where the sender and recipient are both U.S. IP addresses)" and "internet communications where one side of the communication is a U.S. IP address and the other side is located abroad."

I Said This About The Solarwinds Hack In January - I Think It Bears Repeating...,

unlimitedhangout |  The devastating hack on SolarWinds was quickly pinned on Russia by US intelligence. A more likely culprit, Samanage, a company whose software was integrated into SolarWinds’ software just as the “back door” was inserted, is deeply tied to Israeli intelligence and intelligence-linked families such as the Maxwells.

In mid-December of 2020, a massive hack compromised the networks of numerous US federal agencies, major corporations, the top five accounting firms in the country, and the military, among others. Despite most US media attention now focusing on election-related chaos, the fallout from the hack continues to make headlines day after day.

The hack, which affected Texas-based software provider SolarWinds, was blamed on Russia on January 5 by the US government’s Cyber Unified Coordination Group. Their statement asserted that the attackers were “likely Russian in origin,” but they failed to provide evidence to back up that claim.

Since then, numerous developments in the official investigation have been reported, but no actual evidence pointing to Russia has yet to be released. Rather, mainstream media outlets began reporting the intelligence community’s “likely” conclusion as fact right away, with the New York Times subsequently reporting that US investigators were examining a product used by SolarWinds that was sold by a Czech Republic–based company, as the possible entry point for the “Russian hackers.” Interest in that company, however, comes from the fact that the attackers most likely had access to the systems of a contractor or subsidiary of SolarWinds. This, combined with the evidence-free report from US intelligence on “likely” Russian involvement, is said to be the reason investigators are focusing on the Czech company, though any of SolarWinds’ contractors/subsidiaries could have been the entry point.

Such narratives clearly echo those that became prominent in the wake of the 2016 election, when now-debunked claims were made that Russian hackers were responsible for leaked emails published by WikiLeaks. Parallels are obvious when one considers that SolarWinds quickly brought on the discredited firm CrowdStrike to aid them in securing their networks and investigating the hack. CrowdStrike had also been brought on by the DNC after the 2016 WikiLeaks publication, and subsequently it was central in developing the false declarations regarding the involvement of “Russian hackers” in that event.

There are also other parallels. As Russiagate played out, it became apparent that there was collusion between the Trump campaign and a foreign power, but the nation was Israel, not Russia. Indeed, many of the reports that came out of Russiagate revealed collusion with Israel, yet those instances received little coverage and generated little media outrage. This has led some to suggest that Russiagate may have been a cover for what was in fact Israelgate.

Similarly, in the case of the SolarWinds hack, there is the odd case and timing of SolarWinds’ acquisition of a company called Samanage in 2019. As this report will explore, Samanage’s deep ties to Israeli intelligence, venture-capital firms connected to both intelligence and Isabel Maxwell, as well as Samange’s integration with the Orion software at the time of the back door’s insertion warrant investigation every bit as much as SolarWinds’ Czech-based contractor.

No Davos In Asia This Year...,

Forbes  |  The World Economic Forum cancelled its annual meeting, which was scheduled to take place in Singapore this August, due to uncertainties surrounding the continuing spread of the Covid-19 virus around the world.

“Regretfully, the tragic circumstances unfolding across geographies, an uncertain travel outlook, differing speeds of vaccination rollout and the uncertainty around new variants combine to make it impossible to realize a global meeting with business, government and civil society leaders from all over the world at the scale which was planned,” the WEF said in a statement on its website late Monday. “This is despite the excellent support provided by the government of Singapore.”

The decision came as Singapore battled to stem the increasing number of unlinked or untraceable Covid-19 infections in the city-state. The government implemented more stringent social distancing measures over the weekend and delayed the launch of a much-anticipated air travel bubble with Hong Kong for a second time. 

Singapore had been managing the Covid-19 situation better than most countries until infections spiked this month. The government reported 21 new community cases on Monday, 11 of whom are unlinked to previous cases.

WEF said its next annual meeting will instead be held in the first half of 2020. The final location and date of the event will be determined later this year, it said.

“It was a difficult decision, particularly in view of the great interest of our partners to come together not just virtually but in person, and to contribute to a more resilient, more inclusive and more sustainable world,” said Professor Klaus Schwab, the founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum. “But ultimately the health and safety of everyone concerned is our highest priority.”

 

Condensed Timeline Of The Great Reset Agenda

globalresearch |Timeline

Below is a condensed timeline of events that tracks the Great Reset agenda that went from just a “hope” in 2014 to a globalist ideology touted by royalty, the media, and heads of state the world-over in 2020.

2014-2017: Klaus Schwab calls for Great Reset and WEF repeats message

Ahead of the 2014 WEF meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Schwab announced that he hoped the WEF would push the reset button on the global economy. 

The ‘Great Reset’: A Technocratic Agenda that Waited Years for a Global Crisis to Exploit

The WEF would go on to repeat that message for years.

Between 2014 and 2017, the WEF called to reshape, restart, reboot, and reset the global order every single year, each aimed at solving various “crises.”

• 2014: WEF publishes meeting agenda entitled “The Reshaping of the World: Consequences for Society, Politics and Business.”
• 2015: WEF publishes article in collaboration with VOX EU called “We need to press restart on the global economy.”

• 2016: WEF holds panel called “How to reboot the global economy.”

• 2017: WEF publishes article saying “Our world needs a reset in how we operate.”

Then in 2018, the Davos elites turned their heads towards simulating fake pandemic scenarios to see how prepared the world would be in the face of a different crisis.

2018-2019: WEF, Johns Hopkins & Gates Foundation simulate fake pandemics

On May 15, 2018, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security hosted the “Clade X” pandemic exercise in partnership with the WEF.

The Clade X exercise included mock video footage of actors giving scripted news reports about a fake pandemic scenario (video below).

The Clade X event also included discussion panels with real policymakers who assessed that governments and industry were not adequately prepared for the fictitious global pandemic.

“In the end, the outcome was tragic: the most catastrophic pandemic in history with hundreds of millions of deaths, economic collapse and societal upheaval,” according to a WEF report on Clade X.

“There are major unmet global vulnerabilities and international system challenges posed by pandemics that will require new robust forms of public-private cooperation to address” — Event 201 pandemic simulation (October, 2019)

Then on October 18, 2019, in partnership with Johns Hopkins and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the WEF ran Event 201.

During the scenario, the entire global economy was shaken, there were riots on the streets, and high-tech surveillance measures were needed to “stop the spread.”

Two fake pandemics were simulated in the two years leading up to the real coronavirus crisis.

“Governments will need to partner with traditional and social media companies to research and develop nimble approaches to countering misinformation” — Event 201 pandemic simulation (October, 2019)

The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security issued a public statement on January 24, 2020, explicitly addressing that Event 201 wasn’t meant to predict the future.

“To be clear, the Center for Health Security and partners did not make a prediction during our tabletop exercise. For the scenario, we modeled a fictional coronavirus pandemic, but we explicitly stated that it was not a prediction. Instead, the exercise served to highlight preparedness and response challenges that would likely arise in a very severe pandemic.”

Intentional or not, Event 201 “highlighted” the “fictional” challenges of a pandemic, along with recommendations that go hand-in-hand with the great reset agenda that has set up camp in the nefarious “new normal.”

“The next severe pandemic will not only cause great illness and loss of life but could also trigger major cascading economic and societal consequences that could contribute greatly to global impact and suffering” — Event 201 pandemic simulation (October, 2019)

Together, the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, the World Economic Forum, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation submitted seven recommendations for governments, international organizations, and global business to follow in the event of a pandemic.

The Event 201 recommendations call for greater collaboration between the public and private sectors while emphasizing the importance of establishing partnerships with un-elected, global institutions such as the WHO, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the International Air Transport Organization, to carry out a centralized response.

One of the recommendations calls for governments to partner with social media companies and news organization to censor content and control the flow of information.

“Media companies should commit to ensuring that authoritative messages are prioritized and that false messages are suppressed including though [sic] the use of technology” — Event 201 pandemic simulation (October, 2019)

According to the report, “Governments will need to partner with traditional and social media companies to research and develop nimble approaches to countering misinformation.

“National public health agencies should work in close collaboration with WHO to create the capability to rapidly develop and release consistent health messages.

“For their part, media companies should commit to ensuring that authoritative messages are prioritized and that false messages are suppressed including though [sic] the use of technology.”

Sound familiar?

Throughout 2020, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube have been censoring, suppressing, and flagging any coronavirus-related information that goes against WHO recommendations as a matter of policy, just as Event 201 had recommended.

Big tech companies have also deployed the same content suppression tactics during the 2020 US presidential election — slapping “disputed” claims on content that question election integrity.

Salvatore Pais Been Playing With Y'all...,

foxnews  |  A former Navy pilot says he witnessed UFOs flying in restricted airspace off the coast of Virginia nearly every day for two years beginning in 2019.

Former Lt. Ryan Graves told CBS’s "60 Minutes" that the unidentified objects — like ones seen in a Pentagon-confirmed Navy video near San Diego — are a security threat.

The latest firsthand account comes a month ahead of a report by the national intelligence director and secretary of defense on unidentified aerial phenomena, a measure that was including in a COVID-19 relief bill passed in December.

"I am worried, frankly. You know, if these were tactical jets from another country that were hanging out up there, it would be a massive issue," Graves said, according to a clip of the "60 Minutes" interview, which is set to air Sunday. "But because it looks slightly different, we’re not willing to actually look at the problem in the face. We’re happy to just ignore the fact that these are out there, watching us every day." 

Seamen who have seen the unidentified objects believe they could be a secret US technology, enemy surveillance devices, or something entirely different, Graves told CBS.

"This is a difficult one to explain. You have rotation, you have high altitudes. You have propulsion, right? I don’t know. I don’t know what it is, frankly," the lieutenant told correspondent Bill Whitaker as he watched an unclassified video.

"I would say, you know, the highest probability is it’s a threat observation program," Graves said, according to the report.

A former defense official who spent years investigating unidentified aerial phenomena told the network program that the vehicles have technology vastly exceeding any human invention.

 

Naval Footage Of Transmedium UAPs

foxnews  |  Video taken aboard a US Navy ship off the coast of San Diego shows a mysterious, spherical object flying in the air before disappearing into the ocean, reports said Friday.

The footage is the source of two freeze frame images of unidentified flying objects previously released that a Pentagon spokesperson confirmed was recorded by US Navy personnel, FOX 8 reported. 

The black and white clip, taken aboard the USS Omaha in July 2019, shows a small round object flying parallel to the ocean, hovering for a moment before it drops into the water out of sight.

"Whoa, it’s getting close," a voice can be heard saying in the clip as the craft got closer to the water’s edge.

"It splashed!" the voice said when the object hit the ocean.

Luis "Lue" Elizondo, a former Pentagon intelligence officer who used to have access to the agency’s UFO data, previously told The Post UFOs have "transmedium" capabilities, meaning they can freely travel in space, water and air.

The clip was taken with a cell phone inside the ship’s Combat Information Center, a classified location on the vessel where phones are not allowed, a Navy source told The Post.

Somebody Gotta Service Scurred Old Rich Mens Enthusiasms....,

newyorker |  Leslie Kean is a self-possessed woman with a sensible demeanor and a nimbus of curly graying hair. She lives alone in a light-filled corner apartment near the northern extreme of Manhattan, where, on the wall behind her desk, there is a framed black-and-white image that looks like a sonogram of a Frisbee. The photograph was given to her, along with chain-of-custody documentation, by contacts in the Costa Rican government; in her estimation, it is the finest image of a U.F.O. ever made public. The first time I visited, she wore a black blazer over a T-shirt advertising “The Phenomenon,” a documentary from 2020 with strikingly high production values in a genre known for grainy footage of dubious provenance. Kean is stubborn but unassuming, and she tends to speak of the impact of “the Times story,” and the new cycle of U.F.O. attention it has inaugurated, as if she had not been its principal instigator. She told me, “When the New York Times story came out, there was this sense of ‘This is what the U.F.O. people have wanted forever.’ ”

Kean is always assiduously polite toward the “U.F.O. people,” although she stands apart from the ufological mainstream. “It’s not necessarily that what Greer was saying was wrong—maybe there have been visits by extraterrestrials since 1947,” she said. “It’s that you have to be strategic about what you say to be taken seriously. You don’t put out someone talking about alien bodies, even if it might be true. Nobody was ready for that; they didn’t even know that U.F.O.s were real.” Kean is certain that U.F.O.s are real. Everything else—what they are, why they’re here, why they never alight on the White House lawn—is speculation.

Kean feels most at home in the borderlands between the paranormal and the scientific; her latest project examines the controversial scholarship on the possibility of consciousness after death. Until recently, she dreaded the inevitable dinner-party moment when other guests asked about her line of work and she had to mumble something about U.F.O.s. “Then they’d sort of giggle,” she said, “and I would have to say, ‘There’s actually a lot of serious information.’ ” Her blunt, understated way of talking about incomprehensible data gives her an air of probity. During my visit, as she peered at her extensive library of canonical ufology texts—with such titles as “Extraterrestrial Contact” and “Above Top Secret”—she sighed and said, “Unfortunately, most of these aren’t very good.”

In her best-selling book, “UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record,” published in 2010 by an imprint of Random House, Kean wrote that “the U.S. government routinely ignores UFOs and, when pressed, issues false explanations. Its indifference and/or dismissals are irresponsible, disrespectful to credible, often expert witnesses, and potentially dangerous.” Her book is a sweeping reminder that this was not always the case. In the decades after the Second World War, about half of all Americans, including many in power, accepted U.F.O.s as a matter of course. Kean sees herself as a custodian of this lost history. In her apartment, a tranquil space decorated with a Burmese Buddha and bowls of pearlescent seashells, Kean sat down on the floor, opened her file cabinets, and disappeared into a drift of declassified memos, barely legible teletypes, and yellowing copies of The Saturday Evening Post and the Times Magazine featuring flying-saucer covers and long, serious treatments of the phenomenon.

Kean grew up in New York City, a descendant of one of the nation’s oldest political dynasties. Her grandfather Robert Winthrop Kean served ten terms in Congress; he traced his ancestry, on his father’s side, to John Kean, a South Carolina delegate to the Continental Congress, and, on his mother’s, to John Winthrop, one of the Puritan founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. She speaks of her family’s legacy in rather abstract terms, except when discussing the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, her grandfather’s great-grandfather, whom she regards as an inspiration. Her uncle is Thomas Kean, who served two terms as New Jersey’s governor and went on to chair the 9/11 Commission.

Kean attended the Spence School and went to college at Bard. She has a modest family income, and spent her early adult years as a “spiritual seeker.” After helping to found a Zen center in upstate New York, she worked as a photographer at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. In the late nineteen-nineties, after a visit to Burma to interview political prisoners, she stumbled into a career in investigative journalism. She took a job at KPFA, a radio station in Berkeley, as a producer and on-air host for “Flashpoints,” a left-wing drive-time news program, where she covered wrongful convictions, the death penalty, and other criminal-justice issues.

In 1999, a journalist friend in Paris sent her a ninety-page report by a dozen retired French generals, scientists, and space experts, titled “Les OVNI et la Défense: À Quoi Doit-On Se Préparer?”—“U.F.O.s and Defense: For What Must We Prepare Ourselves?” The authors, a group known as COMETA, had analyzed numerous U.F.O. reports, along with the associated radar and photographic evidence. Objects observed at close range by military and commercial pilots seemed to defy the laws of physics; the authors noted their “easily supersonic speed with no sonic boom” and “electromagnetic effects that interfere with the operation of nearby radio or electrical apparatus.” The vast majority of the sightings could be traced to meteorological or earthly origins, or could not be studied, owing to paltry evidence, but a small percentage of them appeared to involve, as the report put it, “completely unknown flying machines with exceptional performances that are guided by a natural or artificial intelligence.” COMETA had resolved, through the process of elimination, that “the extraterrestrial hypothesis” was the most logical explanation.

Kean had read Whitley Strieber’s “Communion,” the 1987 cult best-seller about alien abduction, but until receiving the French findings she had never had more than a mild interest in U.F.O.s. “I had spent years at KPFA reporting on the horrors of the world, injustice and oppression, and giving voice to the voiceless,” she recalled. As she acquainted herself with the plenitude of odd episodes, it was as if she’d seen beyond our own dismal reality and the limitations of conventional thinking, and caught a glimpse of an enchanted cosmos. “To me, this just transcended the endless struggle of human beings,” she told me, during a long walk around her neighborhood. “It was a planetary concern.” She stopped in the middle of the street. Gesturing toward a heavily overcast sky, she said, “Why should we assume we already understand everything there is to know, in our infancy here on this planet?”

SMDH..., Old Rich Men Fearing Death Stay Fiddling With Their Bowels and Whatnot

NYTimes |  What’s across the River Styx? Robert Thomas Bigelow would like to know. Wouldn’t anyone, especially now? But Mr. Bigelow is not just anyone, or any 76-year-old mourning a wife and confronting his own mortality. He’s a maverick Las Vegas real estate and aerospace mogul with billionaire allure and the resources to fund his restless curiosity embracing outer and inner space, U.F.O.s and the spirit realm.

Now he’s offering nearly $1 million in prizes for the best evidence for “the survival of consciousness after permanent bodily death.”

In other words, was Hamlet right to call death an inescapable boundary, “the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns?” Or does consciousness in some form survive bodily death — what the Dalai Lama called how we merely “change our clothes”?

Is Raymond Chandler’s Big Sleep only a nap?

Mr. Bigelow believes so. “I am personally totally convinced of it,” he said.

A daunting quest, perhaps fringe to some, but the shaggy-maned and mustached entrepreneur, the sole owner of Bigelow Aerospace and Budget Suites of America, is not easily put off. He amassed a fortune to pursue his interests, including the designing and building of inflatable astronaut habitats for NASA, like his soft-sided expandable activity module called BEAM attached to the International Space Station.

His aerospace ventures have been financed by his Budget Suites business, one of the first extended-stay rental chains, now housing some 15,000 people in three states. The profits have enabled him, he says, to sink more than $350 million into Bigelow Aerospace, “my own real black hole,” as he put it in recent phone interviews.

They have also enabled Mr. Bigelow to indulge a celebrated, if sometimes derided, interest in what he called “anomalous events” including his 20-year ownership of a spooky Utah ranch overrun by flying orbs and other creepy phenomena. The strange goings-on drew the interest of the Defense Intelligence Agency and, through funding secured by Harry Reid, the former Democratic Senate majority leader, led to the formation of a Pentagon effort to study unidentified flying objects — the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, revealed by The New York Times in 2017.

Step Up Bill Gates!!!

thesun |  BILL Gates has been urged to come forward and give evidence about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein - as it's revealed he bought homes near the disgraced financier and one of his billionaire pals.

Lawyer Spencer Kuvin, who represents nine Epstein victims, told The Sun that Gates should volunteer any information about the perv or his pals that could help in the Ghislaine Maxwell investigation.

Gates and the billionaire pedophile first met each other in 2011 - three years after Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting an underage girl in Florida - and met on numerous occasions

"The issue I have is a similar issue as with Prince Andrew," Kuvin told The Sun.

"Why are you taking business meetings with a person like that? I question anyone's moral character who chooses to take business meetings with someone who's exhibited that kind of behavior and admitted to that type of behavior.

"With Bill Gates, his wealth and investigatory powers, I find it incredibly hard to believe that he would not have known the full extent of the allegations that have been brought against Epstein here for that. 

"And yet he continued to take meetings with him. It just shows poor judgment."

Gates has always denied witnessing any wrongdoing during any of his meetings with Epstein. Prince Andrew has also denied any wrongdoing.

While records show Gates flew on Epstein's notorious Lolita Express in 2013, Gates claims he didn't know who the jet belonged to.

Melinda Gates was reportedly disturbed by her then husband's relationship with the wealthy Epstein way back in 2013, telling friends how uncomfortable she was in his company and that she wanted "nothing to do with him", the Daily Beast reported.

The business magnate announced last week he and Melinda would be parting ways after 27 years of marriage.

Kuvin added that the timing of the divorce, the process of which is believed to have started in 2019, by Melinda, around the time of Epstein's arrest on sex trafficking charges "does seem suspect".

 

 

 

Women Don't Protect Other Women

politico |   Jeffrey Epstein has become a near-universal villain in the public eye. Dozens of women, some of whom were as young as 14 at the time, have accused him of molesting them over two decades, primarily in the 1990s and 2000s, in Florida, New York and New Mexico, as well as on his private Caribbean island. A number of powerful men, from Britain’s Prince Andrew to lawyer Alan Dershowitz, have been accused in court documents of having sex with a young woman Epstein introduced them to, allegations both men deny. One male associate of Epstein’s has been charged in France. Other influential men were friends with Epstein or accepted his money. Yet after reporting on Epstein for months and speaking to associates like Oh, I came to a realization: Beyond these men exists a group of women, possibly even larger, who helped keep Epstein’s massive sex-trafficking operation running for more than 20 years.

Dozens of these women worked for Epstein, formally or informally. If you think of this group as a pyramid, at the top sits Maxwell, a longtime Epstein employee and confidante who now stands accused of recruiting minors for Epstein and sex-trafficking a 14-year-old girl, charges she denies. Below her were women Epstein employed as assistants, who allegedly scheduled and managed dozens of minors for Epstein to abuse. There were also women like Oh who brought friends to meet Epstein and received gifts or access to his wealth.

These women aren’t household names, even for people following Epstein’s story. But his victims say they were key to grooming and deceiving them and allowing Epstein to operate with impunity. In fact, most of Epstein’s victims were introduced to him through other women, according to the 12 victims I’ve spoken with over the past year and a half, as well as dozens of allegations in court and in the media. Often, victims say, it was the women around Epstein who tried to make them feel comfortable, as if what they were experiencing was normal or harmless.

Once Epstein began to face legal scrutiny, other women made it easier for him to rehabilitate himself and reemerge with his power and social cachet largely intact. Two women served as the lead prosecutors on his case when he first faced charges, in 2006, and were closely involved in crafting his federal non-prosecution agreement, plea deal and lenient sentence. For those without deep knowledge of the case, Epstein’s short incarceration of 13 months in a county jail could be read as a signal that, whatever crime he had committed, it wasn’t that bad. After his release, a number of female socialites and professionals helped to welcome Epstein, by then a registered sex offender, back into elite circles. His abuse then continued, court documents assert.

To point this out is not to excuse any of the men or prestigious institutions—universities, banks, funds—that also helped to protect Epstein, nor is it meant to hold women to a higher standard. But as a woman myself, I have been struck by the sheer number of women around Epstein, and many of the victims I’ve spoken with say they feel especially betrayed by those who violated the unspoken rule that women protect other women, especially minors.

Move Along Now, Nothing To See Over Here...,

miamiherald |  The Florida Department of Law Enforcement has cleared Palm Beach state prosecutors and the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office of any wrongdoing in connection with the lenient criminal prosecution and liberal jail privileges received by sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

FDLE investigators found no evidence that Barry Krischer, who was the Palm Beach state attorney when the case was investigated in 2005-2006, or his assistant state attorney on the case, Lanna Belohlavek, committed any crimes, accepted any bribes or gifts, or did anything improper in their handling of the case, according to a 24-page summary of the state probe into their actions obtained Monday by the Miami Herald.

FDLE’s criminal investigation was ordered by Gov. Ron DeSantis following a series of stories in the Miami Herald, beginning in 2018. The series detailed how Epstein received unprecedented federal immunity and served a short jail sentence in 2008. After the series, Epstein was indicted in New York in 2019 on new sex trafficking charges, but died a month later behind bars while awaiting trial. His death was ruled a suicide by hanging.

The state’s probe was two-fold: focusing on Krischer’s initial decision not to prosecute Epstein, a wealthy New York financier accused of molesting and raping more than a dozen middle and high school girls at his Palm Beach mansion; and on Palm Beach Sheriff Ric Bradshaw’s role, if any, in Epstein’s unusual accommodations while he was in custody in the Palm Beach county jail.

In 2007, Epstein’s criminal case was taken over by the Miami U.S. Attorney’s Office, which compiled enough evidence to charge him in a 53-page sex crime indictment. However, Miami’s U.S. attorney at the time, Alexander Acosta, approved a non-prosecution agreement giving Epstein and an untold number of other conspirators immunity in exchange for Epstein agreeing to plead guilty to relatively minor state charges and serve what turned out to be a 13-month sentence in the Palm Beach county jail. 

FDLE released three summaries of its investigation Monday — an examination of the state attorney’s office’s handling of the case; a look at allegations that Epstein sexually abused two women while he was on work release in Palm Beach; and an inquiry into whether anyone in the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office committed any crimes or received any benefits for giving Epstein special privileges while he was incarcerated.

Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article251285139.html#storylink=cpy

 

Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article251285139.html#storylink=cpy

 

Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article251285139.html#storylink=cpy

Those Who Are Left Behind The Spike Protein Curtain

NYTimes | At Fort Bragg, soldiers who have gotten their coronavirus vaccines can go to a gym where no masks are required, with no limits on who can work out together. Treadmills are on and zipping, unlike those in 13 other gyms where unvaccinated troops can’t use the machines, everyone must mask up and restrictions remain on how many can bench-press at one time.

Inside Dodgers Stadium in Los Angeles, where lines not long ago snaked for miles with people seeking coronavirus vaccines, a special seating area allows those who are fully inoculated to enjoy games side by side with other fans.

When Bill Duggan reopens Madam’s Organ, his legendary blues bar in Washington, D.C., people will not be allowed in to work, drink or play music unless they can prove they have had their shots. “I have a saxophone player who is among the best in the world. He was in the other day, and I said, ‘Walter, take a good look around because you’re not walking in here again unless you get vaccinated.’”

Evite and Paperless Post are seeing a big increase in hosts requesting that their guests be vaccinated.

As the United States nudges against the soft ceiling of those who will willingly take the vaccine, governments, businesses and schools have been extending carrots — actually doughnuts, beers and cheesecake — to prod laggards along. Some have even offered cold hard cash: In Ohio, Gov. Mike DeWine this week went so far as to say that the state would give five vaccinated people $1 million each as part of a weekly lottery program.

On Thursday, federal health officials offered the ultimate incentive for many when they advised that fully vaccinated Americans may stop wearing masks.

Now, private employers, restaurants and entertainment venues are looking for ways to make those who are vaccinated feel like V.I.P.s, both to protect workers and guests, and to possibly entice those not yet on board.

Come summer, the nation may become increasingly bifurcated between those who are permitted to watch sports, take classes, get their hair cut and eat barbecue with others, and those who are left behind the spike protein curtain.

 

 

Wow, That Sounds Like A Really Good Deal, How Bout I Give You The Finger?

 cdc | If you’ve been fully vaccinated:

• You can resume activities that you did prior to the pandemic.
• You can resume activities without wearing a mask or staying 6 feet apart, except where required by federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial laws, rules, and regulations, including local business and workplace guidance.
• If you travel in the United States, you do not need to get tested before or after travel or self-quarantine after travel.
• You need to pay close attention to the situation at your international destination before traveling outside the United States.
  • You do NOT need to get tested before leaving the United States unless your destination requires it.
  • You still need to show a negative test result or documentation of recovery from COVID-19 before boarding an international flight to the United States.
  • You should still get tested 3-5 days after international travel.
  • You do NOT need to self-quarantine after arriving in the United States.
• If you’ve been around someone who has COVID-19, you do not need to stay away from others or get tested unless you have symptoms.
  • However, if you live or work in a correctional or detention facility or a homeless shelter and are around someone who has COVID-19, you should still get tested, even if you don’t have symptoms.

No Jab No Job - Compliance And Obedience Are Mandatory Beehotches....,

 WaPo  |  Delta Air Lines chief executive Ed Bastian said Friday that new employees who join the company will be required to be vaccinated for the coronavirus.

The announcement makes Delta the only major U.S. airline to require vaccines for at least a portion of its workforce. While most carriers have taken steps to boost vaccination rates, including setting up centers at airports to encourage employees to get the shot, others aren’t requiring they do so.

In an interview on CNN, Bastian said: “Any person joining Delta in the future, we’re going to mandate that they be vaccinated before they can sign up with the company.” The vaccine will continue to be optional for workers already at the airline.

“I’m not going to mandate and force people if they have some specific reason why they don’t want to get vaccinated, but I am going to strongly encourage them and make sure they understand the risk to not getting vaccinated,” Bastian said.

Even so, those who opt not to be vaccinated might encounter limits to the work they can do, he said. For example, he said unvaccinated employees may not be able to fly international routes since shots might be required in other countries.

Bastian said more than 60 percent of Delta’s 75,000 employees have received at least one dose of the vaccine, adding that he expected between 75 and 80 percent ultimately would be vaccinated. 

Cornpop And The Karenwaffen Don't Want "Unity" They Want Compliance And Obedience

realclearpolicy |  We hear a lot about “unity” these days. The Biden administration promises and even demands it. Meanwhile, Republicans (and some Democrats) charge the administration with hypocrisy because its radical programs can’t garner a legislative majority — let alone the consensus support the word “unity” implies. But the charge of hypocrisy misses the point: The demand for unity is dangerous because it aims to undermine the genuine diversity that is essential to a free people.

To call for unity is, in effect, to call for obedience. But free people are not obedient. Free people should obey the law, of course, but they do so only because they have consented to the law. And before consent comes debate: Free people air differing opinions that reflect their differing backgrounds and experiences, rather than bowing to those who claim they know what’s best. Free and open debate — and the diversity of viewpoint such debate implies — is therefore essential to lawmaking in a democratic republic.

This is our constitutional inheritance. Our lawmaking process is structured by mechanisms — such as the separation of powers, checks and balances, and lesser rules like the Senate filibuster — that ensure the views of the minority are not simply brushed aside by a fleeting political majority. Of course, from time to time, Americans do come together as one nation, for instance in the face of great tragedies or crises. Yet, unfortunately, such crises can easily be exploited or manipulated to stifle dissent and centralize political power.

 

Definition Of Anti-Vaxxer Now Includes Those Who Oppose Forced Vaccination

RT  |  Merriam-Webster is again redefining language to fit a narrative, this time framing its definition of “anti-vaxxer” to include not only people who oppose vaccination, but also those who are against inoculation mandates.

The definition on Merriam-Webster's website says “anti-vaxxer” means “a person who opposes vaccination or laws that mandate vaccination.” It’s not clear when it was written to include opposition to forced jabs, but many observers noticed for the first time on Wednesday.

“Welcome to ‘1984.’ This is the Ministry of Truth,” rapper and podcaster Zuby said on Twitter, referring to George Orwell’s dystopian novel.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary has changed their definition of 'anti-vaxxer' to include

'people who oppose laws that mandate vaccination'.

Welcome to 1984. This is The Ministry of Truth. pic.twitter.com/a62lBOCJDj

— ZUBY: (@ZubyMusic) May 12, 2021

Other reactions were similar, with many commenters noting that they now fit the dictionary definition of “anti-vaxxer,” even though they believe in the benefits of vaccinations and choose to receive the shots themselves. Merriam-Webster's definition appears to dismiss the concept of favoring a product personally but being opposed, on principle, to forcing others to use it.

Smart Scientifically Literate Folks Can Interpret Data For Themselves And Disagree With "Experts"

arvix |  Controversial understandings of the coronavirus pandemic have turned data visualizations into a battleground. Defying public health officials, coronavirus skeptics on US social media spent much of 2020 creating data visualizations showing that the government’s pandemic response was excessive and that the crisis was over. This paper investigates how pandemic visualizations circulated on social media, and shows that people who mistrust the scientific establishment often deploy the same rhetorics of data-driven decision-making used by experts, but to advocate for radical policy changes.Using a quantitative analysis of how visualizations spread on Twitter and an ethnographic approach to analyzing conversations about COVID data on Facebook, we document an epistemological gap that leads pro- and anti-mask groups to draw drastically different inferences from similar data. Ultimately, we argue that the deployment of COVID data visualizations reflect a deeper sociopolitical rift regarding the place of science in public life.

This paper has investigated anti-mask counter-visualizations on social media in two ways: quantitatively, we identify the main types of visualizations that are present within different networks (e.g., pro-and anti-mask users), and we show that anti-mask users are prolific and skilled purveyors of data visualizations. These visualizations are popular, use orthodox visualization methods, and are promulgated as a way to convince others that public health measures are unnecessary. In our qualitative analysis, we use an ethnographic approach to illustrate how COVID counter-visualizations actually reflect a deeper epistemological rift about the role of data in public life, and that the practice of making counter-visualizations reflects a participatory, heterodox approach to information sharing. Convincing anti-maskers to support public health measures in the age ofCOVID-19 will require more than “better” visualizations, data literacy campaigns, or increased public access to data. Rather, it requiresa sustained engagement with the social world of visualizations andthe people who make or interpret them.While academic science is traditionally a system for producing knowledge within a laboratory, validating it through peer review,and sharing results within subsidiary communities, anti-maskers reject this hierarchical social model. They espouse a vision of science that is radically egalitarian and individualist. This study forces us to see that coronavirus skeptics champion science as a personal practice that prizes rationality and autonomy; for them, it is not a body of knowledge certified by an institution of experts. Calls for data or scientific literacy therefore risk recapitulating narratives that anti-mask views are the product of individual ignorance rather than coordinated information campaigns that rely heavily on networked participation. 

Recognizing the systemic dynamics that contribute to this epistemological rift is the first step towards grappling with this phenomenon, and the findings presented in this paper corroborate similar studies about the impact of fake news on American evangelical voters [98] and about the limitations of fact-checking climate change denialism [42].Calls for media literacy—especially as an ethics smokescreen to avoid talking about larger structural problems like white supremacy—are problematic when these approaches are deficit-focused and trained primarily on individual responsibility. Powerful research and media organizations paid for by the tobacco or fossil fuel indus-tries [79,86] have historically capitalized on the skeptical impulse that the “science simply isn’t settled,” prompting people to simply“think for themselves” to horrifying ends. The attempted coup on January 6, 2021 has similarly illustrated that well-calibrated, well-funded systems of coordinated disinformation can be particularly dangerous when they are designed to appeal to skeptical people.While individual insurrectionists are no doubt to blame for their own acts of violence, the coup relied on a collective effort fanned by people questioning, interacting, and sharing these ideas with other people. These skeptical narratives are powerful because they resonate with these these people’s lived experience and—crucially—because they are posted by influential accounts across influential platforms.Broadly, the findings presented in this paper also challenge conventional assumptions in human-computer interaction research about who imagined users might be: visualization experts tradition-ally design systems for scientists, business analysts, or journalists. 

Researchers create systems intended to democratize processes of data analysis and inform a broader public about how to use data,often in the clean, sand-boxed environment of an academic lab.However, this literature often focuses narrowly on promoting expressivity (either of current or new visualization techniques), assuming that improving visualization tools will lead to improving public understanding of data. This paper presents a community of users that researchers might not consider in the systems building process (i.e., supposedly “data illiterate” anti-maskers), and we show how the binary opposition of literacy/illiteracy is insufficient for describing how orthodox visualizations can be used to promote unorthodox science. Understanding how these groups skillfully manipulate data to undermine mainstream science requires us to adjust the theoretical assumptions in HCI research about how data can be leveraged in public discourse.What, then, are visualization researchers and social scientists todo? One step might be to grapple with the social and political dimensions of visualizations at the beginning, rather than the end, of projects [31]. This involves in part a shift from positivist to interpretivist frameworks in visualization research, where we recognize that knowledge we produce in visualization systems is fundamentally“multiple, subjective, and socially constructed” [73]. A secondary issue is one of uncertainty: Jessica Hullman and Zeynep Tufekc

 

 

 

 

YKYDFU When Sen. Susan Collins Comes For Your Dome Piece....,

themainewire |  A report published earlier this month in the New York Post revealed emails between the CDC and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) where recommendations from the union made their way into the official CDC guidance documents verbatim.

Dr. Monica Gandhi, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco called the exchange “very, very troubling.”

“What seems strange to me here is there would be this very intimate back and forth including phone calls where this political group gets to help formulate scientific guidance for our major public health organization in the United States,” Ghandi told The Post. “This is not how science-based guidelines should work or be put together.”

The New York Times on Tuesday published a report from David Leonhardt that questioned the CDC’s recent guidance on mask wearing outdoors. Upon releasing the new guidelines in April, the agency announced that “less than 10 percent” of COVID-19 transmission was occurring outdoors.

According to the report, the 10 percent figure is “almost certainly misleading.” A review of the data by the Times found that certain cases in the study were misclassified as outdoor transmission and quoted numerous experts who contend the share of cases linked to the outdoors is less than 1 percent, and could be as low as 0.1 percent.

“I’m sure it’s possible for transmission to occur outdoors in the right circumstances,” Dr. Aaron Rictherman of the University of Pennsylvania told the Times, “but if we had to put a number on it, I would say much less than 1 percent.”

As noted in the report, the CDC’s newest guidance on summer camps says these facilities should require mask wearing “at all times” with few exceptions. Considering the low rate of outdoor transmission and the fact that many summer camp activities take place outside, it seems unnecessary to have hordes of children playing outside with masks on.

“Dr. Walensky, I used to have the utmost respect for the guidance from the CDC. I always considered the CDC to be the gold standard. I don’t anymore,” Collins said Tuesday during the hearing.

“Here we have unnecessary barriers to reopening schools, exaggerating the risks of outdoor transmission and unworkable restrictions on summer camps. Why does it matter? It matters because it undermines public confidence in your recommendations,” Collins said.

Havana Syndrome A Scientifically Implausible Hoax - Just "Russia, Russia, Russia" Nonsense...,

foreignpolicy |  “It’s an act of war,” said Christopher Miller, former President Donald Trump’s last acting secretary of defense. He was talking about alleged attacks on diplomatic and intelligence personnel by an unknown microwave directed-energy weapon. But before the United States declares war on the unknown enemy wielding that weapon, we should know what it is—and whether it exists at all.

Every few weeks, another alleged attack on Americans is reported, some recent, some decades ago. The symptoms are neurological, such as dizziness, headaches, and brain damage. The first wave of reports came in 2016, from the American and Canadian diplomatic missions in Havana, hence the name “Havana syndrome.” Since then, similar cases have been reported in other places, including China; Washington, D.C.; and Syria. State Department and intelligence personnel make up most of those affected.

The State Department and the CIA have investigated Havana syndrome, with much criticism by the victims and their legal counsel. The Jasons, a group of defense advisors, have been reported to be studying the incidents. Most recently, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine also conducted a study that concluded a microwave attack was the most plausible explanation; it also considered chemical pollutants, infectious agents, and psychological and social factors, and found all these explanations wanting.

Here’s the problem. Aside from the reported syndromes, there’s no evidence that a microwave weapon exists—and all the available science suggests that any such weapon would be wildly impractical. It’s possible that the symptoms of all the sufferers of Havana syndrome share a single, as yet unknown, cause; it’s also possible that multiple real health problems have been amalgamated into a single syndrome.

It’s not the first time microwaves and embassies have mixed. From 1953 to 1976, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow was bathed in high-powered microwaves coming from a nearby building. The purpose seems to have been related to espionage—activating listening devices within the embassy or interfering with American transmissions. But a 1978 study concluded that there were no adverse health effects.

Back in the United States, microwave ovens came into common use during the 1970s. Their ability to heat food by imperceptible waves created many myths. How they actually work is well understood. Some molecules, notably water, absorb microwaves and turn them into heat. That happens across the microwave and visible spectrum: Substances absorb energy of a higher frequency and turn it into heat. It’s why sunlight heats surfaces.

There’s a persistent myth that microwaves heat things from the inside out. Anyone who has heated a frozen dinner knows that this is not true. The outer part of the frozen food thaws first, because it absorbs the microwaves before they can reach the inner part. Back in the day, when I was working for the Los Alamos National Laboratory, I had to debunk the idea that microwave heating could produce oil from underground oil shale. Water and minerals between the shale and the microwave source above ground would absorb the microwaves. In the same way, if a directed microwave beam hit people’s brains, we would expect to see visible effects on the skin and flesh. None of that has accompanied Havana syndrome.