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Day 843: Julian Assange still in prison

failed evolution   World's number one political prisoner, Julian Assange, still in high security prison for exposing horrendous war crimes carried out by the US imperialists and their allies.      

TYT pseudo-Left attacks grassroots healthcare activists

via The Jimmy Dore Show Jimmy Dore exposes one more time the US neoliberal, pseudo-Left apparatus.

Drone warfare whistleblower sentenced to 45 months in prison for telling the American people the truth

Daniel Hale, a former intelligence analyst in the drone program for the Air Force who as a private contractor in 2013 leaked some 17 classified documents about drone strikes to the press, was sentenced today to 45 months in prison.   The documents, published by The Intercept on October 15, 2015, exposed that between January 2012 and February 2013, US special operations airstrikes killed more than 200 people. Of those, only 35 were the intended targets. For one five-month period of the operation, according to the documents, nearly 90 percent of the people killed in airstrikes were not the intended targets. The civilian dead, usually innocent bystanders, were routinely classified as “ enemies killed in action. ”   The Justice Department coerced Hale, who was deployed to Afghanistan in 2012, on March 31 to plead guilty to one count of violating the Espionage Act, a law passed in 1917 designed to prosecute those who passed on state secrets to a hostile power, not those who expos...

Meet Toka, the most dangerous Israeli spyware firm you’ve never heard of

The mainstream media’s myopic focus on Israel’s Pegasus spyware and the threats it poses means that other companies, like Toka, go uninvestigated,  even when their products present an even greater potential for abuse and illegal surveillance. by Whitney Webb Part 2 - Worse than Pegasus   Toka was launched in 2018 with the explicit purpose of selling a “ tailored ecosystem of cyber capabilities and software products for governmental, law enforcement, and security agencies. ” According to a profile of the company published in Forbes shortly after it launched, Toka advertised itself as “ a one-stop hacking shop for governments that require extra capability to fight terrorists and other threats to national security in the digital domain. ” Toka launched with plans to “ provide spy tools for whatever device its clients require, ” including not only smartphones but a “ special focus on the so-called Internet of Things (IoT). ” Per the company, this includes devices like Amazon Echo...

COVID-19: Why liberals suddenly love the lab leak theory

The lab leak theory bears a striking resemblance to the WMD hoax of 2002, not only in the fact that one of its key players is literally the same journalist using potentially the same anonymous sources, but also in the bipartisan political and media support it enjoys. by Alan Macleod  Part 3 - Cold warriors’ favorite theory As former MintPress staff writer Alex Rubenstein reported late last month, the lab leak theory has been mainstreamed by hackish, hawkish frauds who, for years, have been pushing for war with China. Among its early adopters was Trump advisor Steve Bannon, who claimed in March 2020 that COVID-19 was a Chinese bioweapon unleashed on the world. While advising Trump, Bannon constantly fear mongered about China and declared he had no doubt that the U.S. would be at war with Beijing within a few years. Then-President Trump, who claims that global warming was a “hoax” invented by China to destroy the U.S., insisted he had evidence the virus began in a Chinese lab but re...

How the GameStop hustle worked

How hedge funds and brokers have manipulated the market   by Lucy Komisar   Part 5 - Massive Shorts and Short Interest   An obvious sign of market manipulation is massive short interest, the number of shares that have been sold short but not yet covered. These could be legally borrowed shares that were first located. However, GameStop did have more than 100 percent short interest, including 140 percent in January, which means more shares were reported as being short sold than all the shares that should be available to trade. u/rainforest11 of Superstonk explained that FINRA reported short interest at 226 percent of total float at the height of the GME frenzy in January. This means that more than twice as many shares as exist in reality had been sold short at one point. As late as January 28, it was reported by S3, a market data company, to be 122 percent. Counterfeit shares were likely used as “loans” to cover the naked short attacks that knocked down the share price. Wit...

The notorious London spy school churning out many of the world’s top journalists

The fact that the very department that trains high state officials and agents of secretive three letter agencies is also the place that produces many of the journalists we rely on to stand up to those officials and keep them in check is seriously problematic.   by Alan Macleod   Part 7 - An academic journalistic nexus The Department of War Studies is also part of this pro-NATO, anti-Russia group. Quite apart from being staffed by soldiers, spooks and government officials, it puts out influential reports advising Western governments on foreign and defense policy. For instance, a study entitled “The future strategic direction of NATO” advises that member states must increase their military budgets and allow American nuclear weapons to be stored in their countries, thereby “ shar[ing] the burden. ” It also recommended that NATO must redouble its commitment to opposing Russia while warning that it needed urgently to form a “ coherent policy ” on the Chinese threat. Other War ...

Key witness in Assange case admits to lies in indictment

A maj­or wit­n­ess in the United States’ Depart­ment of Justice ca­se against Ju­li­an Assange has admitted to fabricat­ing key accusati­ons in the indict­ment against the Wiki­leaks found­er.   Bjartmar Oddur Þeyr Alexandersson / Gunnar Hrafn Jónsson  Part 4 - On the FBI radar   Thordarson's rogue acts were not limited to communications of that nature as he also admits to Stundin that he set up avenues of communication with journalists and had media pay for lavish trips abroad where he mispresented himself as an official representative of WikiLeaks. He also admits that he stole documents from WikiLeaks staff by copying their hard drives. Among those were documents from Renata Avila, a lawyer who worked for the organization and Mr. Assange. Thordarson continued to step up his illicit activities in the summer of 2011 when he established communication with “Sabu”, the online moniker of Hector Xavier Monsegur, a hacker and a member of the rather infamous LulzSec hacker grou...

THE ANGRY ARAB: How the US Controls Lebanon

The “war on terror” is even more convenient for Washington’s dreams of hegemony and domination than the previous war on communism, writes As`ad AbuKhalil.    by As`ad AbuKhalil   Part 4 - Hizbullah Versus ISIS & Nusrah   When ISIS and al Nusrah (al-Qaeda) subjected Lebanon to car bombs and infiltration, it was Hizbullah and not the Lebanese Army which defeated them and threw them across the border.  Just as Hizbullah and its allies across the Syrian border were about to finish off the ISIS and Nusrah threat in 2017, the U.S. insisted that the Lebanese Army should shell some unidentified locations in order to send the message that the Lebanese Army — and not Hizbullah — was responsible for the eviction of the ISIS-Nusrah threat from Lebanon. Zionist experts in Washington talk openly about the role of the Lebanese Army against Hizbullah. But the army is a mirror of the demographics of Lebanon: a solid one-third of the rank-and-file are Shiites and there are no...

WikiLeaks reveals what else is behind US imperialists' obsessive hostility against China

The WIKILEAKS Public Library of US Diplomacy (PlusD) holds the world's largest searchable collection of United States confidential, or formerly confidential, diplomatic communications. As of April 8, 2013 it holds 2 million records comprising approximately 1 billion words. The collection covers US involvements in, and diplomatic or intelligence reporting on, every country on earth. It is the single most significant body of geopolitical material ever published. The PlusD collection, built and curated by WikiLeaks, is updated from a variety of sources, including leaks, documents released under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and documents released by the US State Department systematic declassification review.      globinfo freexchange An August 10, 2009 cable from the  US Embassy in Canberra, Australia, reveals the serious concerns of the US officials for the absolute dominance of China in the rare earths global market, which involves materials critical for mod...

Day 838: Julian Assange still in prison

failed evolution   World's number one political prisoner, Julian Assange, still in high security prison for exposing horrendous war crimes carried out by the US imperialists and their allies.      

Cuba’s ambassador: 6 decade-long US embargo is a genocidal policy

Going Underground   Cuban Ambassador to the UK Bárbara Montalvo Álvarez, discusses the anti-government protests in Cuba and the biased Western media coverage. The role of US companies in fomenting the unrest with hashtags such as SOSCuba. The effects of the US embargo on the Cuban economy which she calls a genocidal policy. The Cuban medical industry and its production of homemade vaccines. The US’ listing of Cuba as a state sponsor of terror. Cuba’s warmth to the prospect of Lula Da Silva returning to power in Brazil amid what some call the Second Pink Tide.  

Birds mysteriously dropping dead across US

RT America   All across the US south and midwest, for months now, birds have been mysteriously dying, and scientists still can’t figure out why. 

Meet Toka, the most dangerous Israeli spyware firm you’ve never heard of

The mainstream media’s myopic focus on Israel’s Pegasus spyware and the threats it poses means that other companies, like Toka, go uninvestigated,  even when their products present an even greater potential for abuse and illegal surveillance. by Whitney Webb Part 1   This past Sunday, an investigation into the global abuse of spyware developed by veterans of Israeli intelligence Unit 8200 gained widespread attention, as it was revealed that the software – sold to democratic and authoritarian governments alike – had been used to illegally spy on an estimated 50,000 individuals. Among those who had their communications and devices spied on by the software, known as Pegasus, were journalists, human rights activists, business executives, academics and prominent political leaders. Among those targeted political leaders, per reports, were the current leaders of France, Pakistan, South Africa, Egypt, Morocco and Iraq. The abuse of Pegasus software in this very way has been known for ...

COVID-19: Why liberals suddenly love the lab leak theory

The lab leak theory bears a striking resemblance to the WMD hoax of 2002, not only in the fact that one of its key players is literally the same journalist using potentially the same anonymous sources, but also in the bipartisan political and media support it enjoys. by Alan Macleod  Part 2 - A theory resting on shaky ground What is particularly worrying in all this is that there are huge, gaping flaws in the analysis. First, Wade is not some neutral expert but a discredited, racist pseudoscientist. His 2014 book, “A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History,” contends that humanity could be broken down genetically into three distinct groups — Africans, Caucasians and East Asians — and that each are sufficiently genetically distinct from each other as to qualify as subspecies. He argued that Caucasians’ genes could explain “ the rise of the West ” and that African nations are poorer because they are inherently more violent and lazy, writing: “ Variations in their natur...

How the GameStop hustle worked

How hedge funds and brokers have manipulated the market   by Lucy Komisar   Part 4 - The Big Scam   In 2007, online retailer Overstock sued the major prime brokers for naked shorting its stock and creating counterfeit shares that flooded the market, causing its share price to drop from $70 to $20. It presented evidence that Goldman Sachs created fake inventory for stock lending. Here’s how an insider described it in a 2011 Overstock court deposition: “ A firm or a market maker would synthetically create a short position by doing option trades in it, buying the stock, selling a call or buying a put or this, that and the other. And by buying the stock, they could create a borrow off an option trade. ” In the conversion trade, an options market maker is on one side, and a prime broker on the other. It isn’t real market making, which is to be in the middle so all traders can buy or sell shares, or in this case, options. “ The goal of the trade is to get the prime broker loan...

The notorious London spy school churning out many of the world’s top journalists

The fact that the very department that trains high state officials and agents of secretive three letter agencies is also the place that produces many of the journalists we rely on to stand up to those officials and keep them in check is seriously problematic.   by Alan Macleod   Part 6 - Bellingcaught A recent MintPress investigation explored how Bellingcat acts to launder national security state talking points into the mainstream under the guise of being neutral investigative journalists themselves. Newly leaked documents show how Bellingcat, Reuters and the BBC were covertly cooperating with the U.K.’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to undermine the Kremlin and promote regime change in Moscow. This included training journalists and promoting explicitly anti-Russian media across Eastern Europe. Unfortunately, the FCO noted, Bellingcat had been “ somewhat discredited, ” as it constantly spread disinformation and was willing to produce reports for anyone with mo...

Key witness in Assange case admits to lies in indictment

A maj­or wit­n­ess in the United States’ Depart­ment of Justice ca­se against Ju­li­an Assange has admitted to fabricat­ing key accusati­ons in the indict­ment against the Wiki­leaks found­er.   Bjartmar Oddur Þeyr Alexandersson / Gunnar Hrafn Jónsson  Part 3 - Revealing chat logs   Thordarson spoke with a journalist from Stundin for several hours as he prepared a thorough investigative report into his activities that include never before published chat logs and new documents. The chat logs were gathered by Thordarson himself and give a comprehensive picture of his communications whilst he was volunteering for Wikileaks in 2010 and 11. It entails his talks with WikiLeaks staff as well as unauthorized communications with members of international hacking groups that he got into contact with via his role as a moderator on an open IRC WikiLeaks forum, which is a form of live online chat. There is no indication WikiLeaks staff had any knowledge of Thordarson’s contacts with a...

THE ANGRY ARAB: How the US Controls Lebanon

The “war on terror” is even more convenient for Washington’s dreams of hegemony and domination than the previous war on communism, writes As`ad AbuKhalil.    by As`ad AbuKhalil   Part 3 - US Control Since 2005   Since the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon in the spring of 2005, following the assassination of Saudi-Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, the U.S. has pretty much taken control of Lebanon and coordinated its moves there with its close Arab allies, especially the Saudi regime. The U.S. asserted control over the Lebanese Army and the various intelligence agencies and worked to diffuse the anti-Israeli fighting doctrine of the army.  Instead of fighting Israel (the biggest aggressor in modern Lebanese history), the enemy was made out to be unidentified terrorists who are always eager — for some inexplicable reason — to take over Lebanon. As for the U.S. training of the army, no Israeli threat is permitted to be contemplated.  The U.S. provid...

Jill Stein on Julian Assange and the Doctors For Assange initiative

Redacted Tonight   Former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein joins Lee Camp on VIP this week. Stein is part of "Doctors For Assange." The group is concerned about the health of Julian Assange under the persecution of the United States. Stein and the group she's organizing with are in the fight to free Assange for more than just the political prisoner's health. The prosecution of Assange is an attack on press freedom and democratic values. 

Day 828: Julian Assange still in prison

failed evolution   World's number one political prisoner, Julian Assange, still in high security prison for exposing horrendous war crimes carried out by the US imperialists and their allies.      

Oliver Stone exposes JFK assassination cover-up

Going Underground   Legendary film director Oliver Stone speaks about his new film JFK: Revisited: Through The Looking Glass . He discusses JFK’s often over-looked campaigns for peace with the Soviet Union and Cuba prior to his assassination as well as work furthering civil rights. The details exposing an alleged cover-up of the assassination of JFK including rapid policy changes from the successor LBJ administration and alleged CIA involvement in the assassination. Why larger powers wanted John F. Kennedy dead. JFK’s preparations to shatter the CIA and his belief that the war in Vietnam was a mistake. How the events leading up to the assassination of JFK were meticulously planned and the CIA’s involvement on the day.