SB Tactical, one of the most popular AR-15 pistol brace manufacturers, appears to have been hit with a data breach, where customer data, including names, addresses, and credit card information, was leaked online. 

A snapshot of an email from SB Tactical’s customer support has surfaced on Reddit and Twitter in the last few days detailing “a data security incident that may involve unauthorized access to your personal information.” 

“SB Tactical was recently informed by law enforcement that our website was compromised. It is possible that your credit card number, expiration date, CCV code, cardholder name, address, phone number, and email address were exposed,” the email said.

The pistol brace manufacturer has sold millions of units and is arguably one of the most popular stabilizing brace brands in the US. The email continued by indicating “the timeframe of the compromise to be between September 19, 2022, through December 13. 2022.” 

We contacted customer service regarding the data breach, who told us, “we recommend that you remain vigilant by reviewing your account statements and credit reports closely.” They said, “some customers have chosen to take the preemptive measure by requesting a new card from their financial institution,” adding, “our sincere apologies for the frustration.” 

The timing of the hack is very suspicious because tens of millions of Americans could become lawbreakers overnight, pending a decision by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) to classify stabilizing braces as short-barreled rifles. Anyone who doesn’t register with the ATF would possess an illegal SBR. 

Redditors on forums r/CAguns and r/AR15 have been discussing the hack for the last several days. 

“I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but wouldn’t that be a nice list for a three letter agency to have if a brace ban goes into effect…..,” a Redditor said on r/CAguns. 

Another said, “Hot take: it was actually the ATF trying to see who owns pistol braces.” 

“How convenient before the AFT brace decision. Sounds like a data grab by the government,” someone else said. 

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

U.S. drug regulators acknowledged deviating from the normal vaccine approval process when dealing with Pfizer’s COVID-19 shot, according to newly disclosed documents.

Weeks after Pfizer and its partner BioNTech announced they started a rolling submission of documents for approval of their COVID-19 vaccine, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration official penned a memorandum authorizing the release of a Biologics License Application (BLA) number for the shot even as regulators weighed whether to approve the BLA, one of the documents shows.

“This deviation from our normal practice is done to facilitate product labeling and distribution and is consistent with other Center practices to facilitate vaccine delivery during the declared Public Health Emergency,” Christopher Joneckis, the FDA’s associate director for review management, wrote in the June 17, 2021, memo. “When providing the license number, we should communicate that this license number does not constitute any determination by FDA on the application.”

Joneckis said the decision stemmed in part from the FDA having granted Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the shot in late 2020. That means the FDA “is familiar with and has reviewed much of the information provided in the BLA application,” which primarily consisted of data used in the application for emergency clearance, he said.

EUAs can be granted if a public health emergency has been declared and the FDA determines it’s “reasonable to believe” that the vaccine or other product in question “may be effective” in preventing, diagnosing, or treating the disease or condition caused by the public health threat. BLAs require a higher threshold of evidence, demonstrating that a product is “safe, pure, and potent.”

A separate document made public this week showed that the license number was given to Pfizer even though no approval decision had been made after Pfizer requested it.

“The Applicant requested a U.S. License Number for BioNTech Manufacturing GmbH with agreement that they will not use it until after the BLA is approved,” the document, a summary of a June 29, 2021, FDA meeting discussing Pfizer’s application, stated.

The summary noted that Joneckis wrote the memo authorizing the release of the number “in advance of the typical notification in the approval letter.” After that, the FDA “generated the license number which will be provided to the Applicant, after filing, in an email message.”

The FDA granted a BLA to Pfizer’s vaccine for individuals 16 and older on Aug. 23, 2021. The vaccine was later approved for children as young as six months of age. The FDA has also authorized or approved multiple boosters due to the vaccine performing poorly against newer variants.

The documents were released by the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN), which successfully convinced a court to order the FDA to produce documents related to its actions on the COVID-19 vaccines after the agency had claimed it would take decades to do so. The government has been providing ICAN documents in response to the suit and Freedom of Information Act requests.

Aaron Siri, a lawyer representing the network, told The Epoch Times in an email that the new documents are “another piece of evidence that supports that licensure of this product quickly became a foregone conclusion.”

The FDA did not respond to a request for comment.

Advisory Committee Meeting ‘Not Needed’

The FDA only held one meeting with its advisory panel, the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC), after Pfizer and BioNTech lodged their BLA request. That meeting focused on whether to clear vaccines for younger populations, and not the new application.

During the meeting, multiple panelists expressed confusion about when they would be consulted on any BLA requests.

Read more here…

In a report that should come as a surprise to no one (especially after the TWITTER FILES drops), Russia’s attempts to influence the 2016 US election via Twitter were a dismal failure that reached relatively few users, and had “no measurable impact in changing minds or influencing voter behavior,” according to the Washington Post, citing a study published Monday from the NYU Center for Social Media and Politics.

“My personal sense coming out of this is that this got way overhyped,” said report co-author Josh Tucker, who co-directs the NYU center. “Now we’re looking back at data and we can see how concentrated this was in one small portion of the population, and how the fact that people who were being exposed to these were really, really likely to vote for Trump,” he added.

“And then we have this data to show we can’t find any relationship between being exposed to these tweets and people’s change in attitudes.”

Key findings via the Post:

WaPo‘s caveat here is that Russian influence ops on other platforms may have been more successful.

The study, published this morning in Nature Communications — an offshoot of the science journal Nature magazine — is years in the making. That’s due to the amount of time needed to acquire data from Twitter, conduct the study, carry out surveys and run it through the peer review process, Tucker said.

And Twitter is easier to get data from than Facebook, given that posts are public, among other reasons, he said. Thus, the focus on Twitter, despite its smaller user base.

Plus, there were some fundamental differences with observing how people absorbed information on Twitter versus Facebook, Tucker said. “One of the super interesting things we were able to do in this paper is show that lots of what people were exposed to here was not because they were following the accounts of these Russian trolls, but because they follow people who retweeted tweets that came from these Russian trolls, and that’s easier on Twitter, where almost everything is open,” Tucker said. -WaPo

Except that we know Russian influence campaigns on Facebook in 2016 totaled roughly $100,000.

So yeah, all of that was a lie.

Authored by Bill Rice via The Brownstone Institute,

I was just a kid, but I’m old enough to remember Watergate. As I grew older, I learned more specific details about this historic event. Here’s my Watergate takeaway, which I think is the accepted “narrative” on this historic event:

Watergate was the biggest political scandal of the century. The fallout or denouement caused President Nixon to resign from office and sent several “conspirators” to prison. 

It also made Woodward and Bernstein the most famous journalists of all time. 

Few people had heard of these journalists when they began compiling relevant facts about the original Watergate crime and obligatory cover-up, but this changed over the span of about two years.

Based in part on these two journalists doing their jobs, Congressional officials decided to also do their jobs and before you knew it, most of the sordid story was known to the world. 

Woodward and Bernstein, who were already minor celebrities, really cashed in with the publication of their best-selling book All the President’s Men, which was adapted into an Academy Award-winning movie starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, two of the biggest stars of our era.

After filling their mantles with every journalism prize, the Washington Post scribes parlayed this fame and success into a lifetime of speaking gigs. By “breaking” the Watergate scandal, they also acquired the panache that allowed them to play leading roles in future investigations that resulted in even more best-selling books.

Today, the names of both journalists are literally in the history books, where their journalistic accomplishments will live forever. 

Every ambitious journalist who followed wanted to be the next Woodward and Bernstein and break some huge scandal that might elevate them onto a similar professional pedestal. 

The employer of Woodward and Bernstein, the Washington Post, built most of its reputation on the fact it was the newspaper that did more than any other to expose Watergate.

So … It pays handsomely – directly and indirectly with benefits that will last a lifetime – to be the journalists or news organization that breaks the “scandal of the century.”

Which leads to THE question: Given all of the above, why doesn’t any journalist, editor or publisher want to be the next Woodward and Bernstein when it comes to Covid scandals? 

The Covid scandals that could be exposed by an enterprising journalist(s) are vastly larger and more important than those involving Watergate.

To cite one difference … nobody died in Watergate.

In way of comparison, the disease Covid – as well as all the calamitous responses to Covid – must have killed and injured 10, 20, 50 million (a billion?) people by now. And these casualty figures are still growing.

Nor did Watergate cripple the economy nor lead to rampant inflation. 

Nor did it lead to mass censorship and the evisceration of civil liberties. 

Also, the Watergate conspiracies and cover-ups included only a small group of Nixon loyalists in the White House, plus a few people who actually did the “dirty tricks.”

It takes no Woodward and Bernstein for the Man on the Street to realize that Covid crimes and cover-ups must have involved practically every agency in government by now. 

NIH, NIAID, CDC, FDA, the Pentagon, the FBI, the CIA, the White House, the Department of Homeland Defense, Congress, the Justice Department, the courts , judges, governors, mayors, OSHA, the Departments of Transportation, Commerce, Labor, HHS … local police departments, all the state and local health agencies, colleges, school boards … almost all of these agencies went “all in” on the bogus Covid narratives and requisite cover-ups.

Then we have all of the private sector cronies and conspirators. 

In Watergate, at least that I am aware of, Big Pharma was not implicated. With Watergate, none of the world’s major corporations signed onto the program. 

With Covid, as far as I can tell, every big company endorsed the CDC’s policy guidebook and did their patriotic best to make sure the conspiracy went off without a hitch. 

When you stop and think about it, there’s no way a “Woodward and Bernstein” could tell the story of the Covid Scandal. There’s simply too many scandals that would have to be exposed. It would take an army of Woodward and Bernsteins to break the pieces down into individual, sub-scandal components. 

Still, the journalists who provided the public with a few key answers to what really happened and why, journalists who told the world the names of the people who committed the biggest crimes and cover-ups, would surely go down in history as the most important journalists of world history. 

That is, Woodward and Bernstein would have to move down to second place. 

Which isn’t their fault. It’s just that, compared to Covid, Watergate seems like a scandal to fix a few parking tickets. 

But, still, not ONE mainstream media journalist nor one mainstream media news organization has shown any interest in exposing any parts of the scandal of all time. 

How does one explain such a surreal reality? 

If saving lives and exposing corrupt (I’d say evil) officials doesn’t motivate today’s journalists, one would think that the All-American values of wanting to become rich and famous would get the adrenalin of a few crackerjack journalists flowing.

But, no. 

As it turns out, nobody wants to be the next Woodward and Bernstein. Nobody cares about earning that spot in the history books and making their children and grandchildren proud. (“My Dad scored four touchdowns in a high school football game.” “… Well, my Dad broke the Covid scandal …”)

Why doesn’t any journalist want to expose the real truth about the myriad Covid scandals? 

The answer to this puzzler seems pretty obvious to me. The watchdog press must be a part of the conspiracy. The conspiracy must be that vast. This is the only possible answer I can come up with.

The reason Woodward and Bernstein were able to tell the the world that Nixon’s White House was full of crooks is because the Washington Post wasn’t part of that conspiracy.

In fact, the journalists and their employer were part of a massive group effort involving hundreds of news organizations that were working around the clock, trying to expose the crimes and cover-ups.

When you realize this, you realize that Nixon and his team never had a chance of getting away with it. 

But skip forward 50 years to Covid times and we see that the scales of journalism have completely flipped.  

The key to the modern-day scandal is …

Of course everyone will get away with their miscellaneous crimes and misdemeanors because nobody who could expose the crooks is trying to do this. 

The lesson here is a big one: If you want to get away with “crimes against humanity,” you better make sure you’ve fully captured the watchdog press. (Even Woodward and Bernstein, who are still alive and cranking out stories, don’t care about no Covid scandals.)

How the Bad Guys were able to capture and control approximately 40,000 mainstream journalists would itself be one heck of a story.

But who’s going to tell that story?

Don’t laugh, but I guess it will end up being someone like me.

In the past, I would never have considered that some small-time freelance journalist could break some big, historic scoop. I mean, I can’t even get one government official to return my calls or emails (“Dr. Fauci, Bill Rice, Jr. on the phone …”)

Nor do I have a partner like Woodward helping me with any digging.

But, I’ll say this: I’m not like today’s other 40,000 mainstream journalists. Becoming rich and famous wouldn’t bother me. If I could save a few lives and help put a few diabolical crooks into prison, this would check my “I did something meaningful with my life” box.

Plus, I’ve had this thought: Nobody else is really on the case. Even today, Woodward and Bernstein – with some research help from some of theWashington Post’s army of interns – could expose some of these scandals in three weeks … if they tried. 

But we all know these guys are sitting this scandal out. 

Breaking this scandal would make them even richer and more famous, but it would also prove all the conspiracy “kooks” were right all along. The embarrassment and professional stigma would be too great for them to bear. The mean tweets from former colleagues (“Why did you go and do that? You’re not in our club anymore!”) wouldn’t be worth the cost.

As it turns out, for reasons that boggle the mind, the amateurs on Substack have been granted complete monopoly rights to investigate the Story of All Time. 

What the heck. If the Big Leaguers don’t want play, I say, “Put me in, Coach …” 

Anyway, if anyone reading this happens to be a potential whistleblower with information that would tell your fellow citizens what really took place with Covid, please contact me via this Substack site.

I also know this. In 2023, Covid’s version of Deep Throat would be wasting his breath to call anyone at theWashington Post. But every real journalist at Substack would take that call and run with it. 

*  *  *

Reposted from the author’s Substack

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Oregon Department of Education (ODE) has released a document advising schools on how to support “gender expansive” students, including keeping their so-called gender identities a secret from family members.

If a student discloses their “gender expansive” identity to school staff, the guidance asks staff members to respect the child’s “confidentiality needs.” Students who do not publicly assert their “gender identity” might have concerns about their families and community members finding out, the new guidance (pdf) states.

“Parent and family support is the goal when supporting gender expansive students, but may not be possible in all situations,” according to the document.

“Schools should refer to their current policies when there may be a safety concern. To the extent possible, schools should refrain from revealing information about a student’s gender identity, even to parents, caregivers, or other school administrators, without permission from the student.”

The updated guidance “clarifies new and evolving laws and policies” on how to address the needs of “gender expansive” students and the school districts that serve them, ODE Director Colt Gill says in the letter.

Speaking to Fox News, an ODE spokesperson confirmed that when students claim that notifying their parents about their “gender expansive” identity might be a safety concern, the department encourages schools to “prioritize the student’s safety within all school environments.”

‘Gender-Affirming’ Care

The document pushes for providing “gender-affirming care” in schools. Services like social affirmation through name, gender markers, pronoun use, access to facilities, athletics, etc. are likely to occur in schools. Medical services like access to puberty blockers, “gender-affirming” surgeries, and hormone therapy are likely to occur within a school-based health center (SBHC), the document noted.

It cited a survey by a Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA) at a middle school in which respondents picked “gender-affirming” items like clothing, makeup, chest binders, and menstrual products as something the school should focus on for the upcoming year.

The ODE’s updated gender policy has riled some parents. “Oregon is demonstrating for parents that, once again, academics and education are not the priority of our government school system,” Laura Zorc, executive director of Building Education for Students Together, a group focused on parental rights in education, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“There are so few hours in a day, yet Oregon is committed to pushing and retraining teachers on gender issues rather than educating our children.”

State Gender Agenda

Oregon has been the scene of various attempts at pushing gender agenda among school kids. In August, it was reported that Oregon’s Driftwood Public Library was teaming up with a local high school to establish a “gender-affirming” closet for students that is aimed at helping children get access to items like underwear, makeup, and chest binders.

In December, the ODE was reportedly set to spend $2 million on a campaign seeking to launch a pro-“LGBTQ2SIA+” curriculum, pride events, and teacher training. The plus sign was said to stand for a “myriad of additional marginalized gender identities, expressions, and sexual and romantic orientations,” according to Breitbart.

Read more here…

Billionaire Citadel boss Ken Griffin plans to build a new skyscraper in Manhattan that would serve as the flagship tower for his financial empire, according to Bloomberg, citing people familiar with initial proposals. 

Griffin plans to build a 1,350 feet (411 meters) skyscraper with 51 office floors and seven terraces. Citadel will occupy at least 54% of the building. Foster + Partners, the firm founded by architect Norman Foster, will be the lead designer of the tower that could be completed by 2032. 

Last month, Vornado Realty Trust and Rudin Management reached an agreement with Citadel that allows the developers to construct the 1.7 million-square-foot skyscraper by replacing three adjacent properties in Midtown, at 350 Park Avenue, 40 East 52nd Street, and 39 East 51st Street. 

“We expect that if this building is built it will be able to house all of our New York City employees for both Citadel and Citadel Securities, which will reduce the need for us to have them spread across multiple sites in New York City as they currently are,” Zia Ahmed, a spokesperson for Citadel, told Bloomberg last month. 

The tower’s height would make it one of the tallest buildings in the borough and rival JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s new headquarters in Midtown that is being built, as well as the skyscraper near Grand Central Terminal. 

“We want to have exceptional work environments around the world that provide an unparalleled experience for our team members, reflecting the commitment they make to us,” Griffin recently said about the firm’s office buildings. 

Griffin is worth an estimated $29.1 billion and ranks 40 on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He moved Citadel’s headquarters to Miami’s Brickell area from Chicago, citing out-of-control violent crime. 

Update (1925ET): After last week’s dramatic speaker election, House Republicans adopted a rules package that will govern how the chamber operates until 2025 – Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) first legislative win as the newly-elected Speaker.

The vote of 220-213 was mainly along party lines.

No word on the mystery addendum.

*  *  *

Update (1445ET): There’s word of a ‘much-fabled 3-page House rules addendum’ circulating throughout certain GOP offices in which McCarthy reportedly agrees on everything from the 20-holdout demands on everything from strategy on the debt ceiling, to committee assignments.

Via Axios‘ Andrew Solender:

At least one GOP office apparently has the much-fabled 3-page House rules addendum.

“We’re taking a look at it … we’re just going through it,” Rep. Ken Calvert, a Steering Committee member, tells @Axios

Asked if members have received a copy: “I don’t know if everybody has.”

— Andrew Solender (@AndrewSolender) January 9, 2023

According to Punchbowl News,

there’s also a secret three-page addendum that McCarthy and his allies hashed out during several days of grueling negotiations with the House Freedom Caucus. This pact includes the most controversial concessions McCarthy made in order to become speaker – three seats on the Rules Committee for conservatives, freezing spending at FY2022 levels, a debt-ceiling strategy, coveted committee assignments and more.

*  *  *

How that Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has been elected Speaker of the House, his first order of business is presiding over the Republican rules package for the 118th Congress.

That said, in order to finally win the gavel after 14 failed votes, McCarthy had to make massive concessions to a group of 20 holdout Republicans, including the ability for just one member to vote to vacate the speaker’s chair.

In a Sunday night tweet, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) tweeted “This is what we’ve been fighting for,” in relation to seven bills that the holdouts were able to include in the rules package, which is expected to be put to a vote on Monday.

1) A bill to cut some of the additional funding that was made available to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

2) A bill to authorize the secretary of Homeland Security to turn away people crossing the border illegally.

3) A bill that includes prohibiting the secretary of energy from sending petroleum products from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to China.

4) A tough-on-crime bill that includes amending the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act to direct the district attorney and prosecutor’s office to report to the attorney general.

5) A bill to require a national instant crime background check system to notify U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other law enforcement agencies when information surfaces that a person present in the United States illegally may be trying to obtain a firearm.

6) A bill to prohibit taxpayer funded abortions.

7) A bill to amend Title 18, United States Code, to prohibit a health care practitioner from failing to exercise the proper degree of care in case of a child who survives an abortion or attempted abortion. –Epoch Times

“When we come back, our very first bill will repeal the funding for 87,000 new IRS agents,” McCarthy said on Jan. 7, shortly after being elected Speaker, adding that Republicans “believe government should be to help you, not go after you.”

In a recent letter, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA), said that legislation is “ready to go” which will be brought to the House floor over the next two weeks. According to the Epoch Times, the House rules package largely mirrors Scalise’s list.

More via The Epoch Times‘ Tom Ozimek:

According to Scalise’s letter, the first bill, dubbed the Family and Small Business Taxpayer Protection Act (pdf), aims to revoke some of the additional IRS funding that Democrats passed as part of their Inflation Reduction Act that the agency plans to use for tax enforcement.

With the first bill, Republicans are targeting what Scalise said was “tens of billions of dollars allocated to the IRS for 87,000 new IRS agents.” That figure is in dispute, with the Biden administration saying much of the money would go to non-enforcement staff like customer service.

Another bill Scalise put in the schedule is the Strategic Production Response Act (pdf), which would prohibit non-emergency drawdowns of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve without a parallel plan to boost energy production on federal lands.

Republicans have been highly critical of President Joe Biden for ordering the release of oil from the strategic reserve, arguing that it was a ploy to win votes ahead of the midterms by trying to lower pump prices.

Biden, for his part, has insisted the release was meant to stabilize global oil markets amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing energy price shock, as well as trying to lower prices for Americans amid decades-high inflation, of which a major component is the cost of energy.

Scalise has scheduled another related bill, called Protecting America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve from China Act (pdf), which would restrict the energy secretary from selling oil from the strategic reserve to China.

Another bill is the Prosecutors Need to Prosecute Act (pdf), which would allow the public to see how many cases prosecutors are declining to prosecute, along with the number of criminals released onto the streets and the number of offenses committed by career criminals.

On border security, Scalise put forward a bill called the Border Safety and Security Act (pdf), which would give the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) the power to turn away people crossing the border illegally in order to gain “operational control” of the border.

Another bill, called the Illegal Alien NICS Alert Act (pdf) would require the National Instant Criminal Background Check system (NICS) to notify U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and relevant local law enforcement if someone trying to buy a firearm is an illegal immigrant.

One bill, called the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act (pdf), seeks to make the Hyde Amendment permanent and prohibit federal funding for abortions as well as funding for any insurance plans that include on-demand abortion.

Another bill, called Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act (pdf), would ensure that infants born alive after a failed abortion would receive the same legal protection and health care as a newborn.

McCarthy’s Concessions

Besides the bills, McCarthy had to make numerous concessions to win over the holdout Republicans, including giving the Freedom Caucus members seats on the powerful House Rules Committee, taking a hard line on the debt limit, and reducing spending.

McCarthy was elected as the 55th House Speaker in the early hours of Jan. 7 by a vote of 216–212.

While it normally takes 218 votes—a majority of the House—to become speaker, that threshold can be reduced if members are absent or merely vote present.

It’s precisely this maneuver that gave McCarthy his coveted win, as six Republicans voted “present” instead of “yea” in the final vote: Reps. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), Eli Crane (R-Ariz.), Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), Bob Good (R-Va.), and Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.).

In a 20-minute speech following the vote, McCarthy laid out his priorities for the 118th Congress, including securing the southern border, combating “woke” indoctrination in American schools, and unleashing domestic energy production.

“We must get America back on track,” he said. “We’ll hold the swamp accountable.”

Authored by Techno Fog via The Reactionary,

With House Republicans having decided on the Speaker, one of their next items of business is one that is well overdue: the formation of a new subcommittee on the “Weaponization of the Federal Government,” which would conduct a thorough investigation of abuses by federal law enforcement and national security agencies.  

According to a recent interview with Rep. Chip Roy, Speaker Kevin McCarthy has “committed to giving the subcommittee at least as much funding and staffing as the House special committee in the last Congress that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.”

It’s about time.

Of course, the very name of the subcommittee – the “Weaponization of the Federal Government” – suggests a wide-ranging inquiry that could look into the actions of a number of federal agencies – the FBI/DOJ, Department of Homeland Security, the CIA and NSA, etc. It would include efforts by the Biden Administration and FDA/CDC to eliminate unapproved speech about COVID-19 and how the FBI made sure social media companies, including Twitter, took down alleged misinformation about the 2020 election and had a part in the suppression of the Hunter Biden story.

And that’s just the more recent history of governmental abuses. What else is out there, still waiting to be uncovered? There is sure to be more. We just haven’t heard of it yet.

Then there are the federal abuses of their investigative powers, starting with the Russiagate fiasco. Yet even with Russiagate there’s much we don’t know. It’s either hidden under layers of classifications or kept secret as part of federal investigative steps. Or the evidence remains with the DNC and Crowdstrike, assuming it hasn’t been destroyed.

But if we could suggest areas of Russiagate-related focus for Congressional investigators – a long list that we’ve had to narrow down to things we’re personally most curious about – here’s where we would start. 1

1. The DNC “Hack”

Topping the list is the holy grail of them all, the purported Russian hack of the DNC servers. Initially leading the investigation and response to the hack was no other than Michael Sussmann, the DNC/Hillary Campaign lawyer who would later draw charges from Special Counsel John Durham for lying to the FBI about other Russian information: the Alfa Bank/Trump connections.

As has been documented here and elsewhere, the investigation into the DNC hack was bungled from the start. The FBI never took possession of the DNC servers, instead relying on conclusions formed by DNC contractor Crowdstrike (which, by the way, was hired by Michael Sussmann on behalf of his clients). The FBI never obtained the complete reports from Crowdstrike. And even Crowdstrike had no direct evidence of exfiltration. As explained by Aaron Mate, the manner in which the Russian attribution is described by US intelligence officials signals that they “lacked concrete evidence for their Russian hacking claim.”

Part of the DNC hack inquiry would be further documentation of who at the FBI raised red flags about the investigation’s scope and seemingly pre-determined outcome. It would also get into who made the decisions. That gets us to the next topic.

2. Corrupted Leadership of the FBI and DOJ

This is an admittedly broad category, covering years of investigative and prosecutorial decision. But its importance is underscored by what we have learned about how the dubious investigations they decided to pursue (like how they targeted Flynn) and how that leadership’s killed necessary investigative into witnesses damning to their “collusion” narrative.

With respect to the FBI, the Michael Sussmann trial revealed how FBI headquarters ordered there to be a “full field investigation” opened into the Trump-Alfa Bank allegations. This decision was made by the FBI’s 7th floor, including Director James Comey. And it was a significant step according to one FBI Special Agent: “In order to open a full field investigation, we would need specific and articulable facts that a threat to U.S. national security has occurred or there’s been a violation of federal law.” Based on what information did Comey possess to make that order?

The Sussmann trial also demonstrated that FBI Headquarters disapproved the request from FBI agents investigating the Alfa Bank allegations to interview the source of the information. Which FBI leader denied that request?

3. Corruption of Special Counsel Mueller

Regarding the Mueller Special Counsel, one former FBI Intelligence Analyst testified that members of the Mueller Special Counsel took the position “to not investigate Mr. [Charles] Dolan.” (If you recall, Dolan was a Clinton ally who ended up being a source for the Steele reports.) This former FBI Intelligence Analyst explained:

“We had been instructed at SCO not to take further action on the matter involving Mr. Dolan and Mr. Danchenko’s relationship.”

By that time, the Mueller Special Counsel was aware the connection between Dolan and Danchenko and there were suspicions, if not direct knowledge, that Dolan had informed the Steele reports. The FBI asked Danchenko about Dolan on June 15, 2017 – before Mueller asked for the 4th FISA warrant on Carter Page, which was submitted to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on June 29, 2017.

Later on, the Mueller Special Counsel would prevent the FBI agents under its supervision from investigating Dolan. One FBI Agent compiled a comprehensive report on Dolan and corroborated Dolan’s involvement in the Steele reports. She submitted that report to the Mueller Special Counsel and requested further investigation of Dolan. She was told that investigation “was not going to be opened.”  

It’s hard to overstate the importance of this inquiry. The instructions by Team Mueller to not investigate the Dolan-Danchenko relationship, and to shut down the investigation of Dolan himself, are informed by Team Mueller’s understanding of the consequences of those investigative steps: blowing up the Carter Page FISA warrants, exposing the deception to the FISA court, and the accountability from the FBI/DOJ/Mueller that would come from revealing the truth.

That’s just scratching the surface. Other matters that deserve inquiry include the wiping of Special Counsel phones (a potentially criminal act).

4. The DARPA Connection

As documented by our friends Undead and Margot Cleveland, “The U.S. Department of Defense and private individuals pumping the Alfa Bank hoax also assisted former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Donald Trump for supposed collusion with Russia.”

But there’s more to it than that, as provided by Cleveland in this must-read. There’s the allegation that these researchers helped assist with the “DNC attack attribution.” This raised a question from a member of Special Counsel John Durham’s team:

“Do you believe that DARPA should be instructing you to investigate the origins of a hacker (Guccifer_2.0) that hacked a political entity (DNC)?”

5. The FBI’s 2018 deceptive letter to the FISA Court

In this letter, the FBI assured the FISA court that they found Danchenko to be “truthful and cooperative.” This was written after the FBI knew that Danchenko had lied to them, with his deception starting in January 2017.

That letter was purportedly reviewed by the FBI, which “confirmed its factual accuracy.” It still must be determined who at the FBI reviewed that letter and who vouched for the accuracy of Danchenko. Hopefully we can be provided answers.

6. The CIA Collecting Information on President-Elect Trump

As we detailed in this article, in February 2017 the CIA received manipulated information and data from Michael Sussmann that purported to show that Trump, or Trump associates, “had suspicious interactions with internet protocol (IP) addresses affiliated with a Russian mobile phone provider.”

Currently, we don’t know what the CIA did with that information. Maybe they analyzed the data. Maybe that simply passed it on to the FBI. But, at a minimum, we should ask why the CIA was so willing to accept a meeting and take possession of information from a DNC lawyer that was allegedly damning to the President-elect. And there’s another important question: what else did they collect on American soil?

7. Current Conflicts within the Office of Attorney General Garland

As we’ve reported, Jake Sullivan is a witness in the Durham inquiry, being there for the Clinton Campaign’s Fusion GPS misconduct. He was mentioned during the Michael Sussmann trial as one of the campaign staffers who received updates on the Fusion GPS “opposition research.”

Sullivan’s wife is Margaret Goodlander, who servers as counsel to AG Garland. We have strong reason to believe that Goodlander is keeping tabs on the Durham investigation. There’s a serious concern that she’s being provided non-public information on what happens in the Durham investigation. Totally improper for a government official who happens to be the spouse of a witness.

8. Release the materials, the unredacted reports and 302s.

Let the public see what happened for themselves.

9. Finally, and this one is unrelated to Trump/Russia – but how about House Republicans demand all CIA and FBI documents on Jeffrey Epstein?

We know they’re out there.

*  *  *

1. We’re limited on space and couldn’t include everything that should be investigated. We also note that Special Counsel Durham is looking into some of these very same issues. His report, whenever its submitted, may answer many of these questions.

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The Seattle city school district has sued several social media giants, which they blame for causing a mental health crisis.

According to the lawsuit – filed late Friday in Seattle federal court against Alphabet, Meta, Snap and TikTok owner ByteDance – students have been suffering from anxiety, depression and other psychological troubles stemming from their use of social media.

The district serves around 50,000 children across more than 100 schools.

The suit appears to be the first of its kind in the US brought by a school district, following similar claims filed last year by scores of families, including more than a dozen blaming the tech companies for suicides.

The idea that social media companies shoulder responsibility for the potential damage their products cause to young people came to the fore late in 2021 when former Meta employee Frances Haugen revealed documents about its internal operations. Among Haugen’s allegations was a claim that the company was knowingly preying on vulnerable young people to boost profits. Congress held hearings and some state attorneys general launched investigations. –Bloomberg

In Friday’s lawsuit, Seattle School District #1 is asking a judge to find that big tech has created a nuisance, and seeks remedies which include monetary damages, as well as funding to prevent and treat the excessive use of social media. The district cites a spike in suicides and ER mental health visits, as well as President Joe Biden’s 2022 State of the Union speech in which he called to “hold social media platforms accountable for the national experiment they’re conducting on our children for profit.”

“Seattle School District No. 1 brings this action to do just that,” reads the complaint. “Youth in plaintiff’s community are experiencing the same mental health crisis observed nationally.”

No word on whether Seattle schools will also sue the US government and the media over life-altering lockdowns and three years of pandemic hysteria, which also affected the mental health of young Americans.

Via The Cradle,

During a speech in Ankara last Thursday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hinted that a meeting with his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad may soon take place, “as part of efforts for peace.” He added that a tripartite meeting between the foreign ministers of Turkiye, Russia and Syria is scheduled to be held in the near future for the first time since 2011.

Erdogan said, “As Russia-Turkey-Syria, we have launched a process through the meeting of our intelligence chiefs and defense ministers in Moscow. Then, God willing, we will bring our foreign ministers together trilaterally. Then, depending on the developments, we will come together as leaders.”

The upcoming meeting aims to enhance communication after Russian-sponsored talks between the Turkish and Syrian defense ministers were held in Moscow on 28 December. The meeting was the highest-level of official meetings between Ankara and Damascus since the start of the Syrian war.

In a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on 5 January, Erdogan called on the Syrian government to ‘take the steps to achieve a tangible solution concerning the case of Syria.”

The US sis seeking to establish a middle ground between Ankara and the SDF in order to prevent Turkish-Syrian reconciliation.

The Syrian-Turkish rapprochement via declared Russian mediation was paralleled by Emirati-Syrian rapprochement – the latest of which was a “brotherly” meeting aimed at strengthening cooperation and restoring historical relations between Assad and Foreign Minister of the UAE Abdallah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, according to SANA.

Saudi newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reported that the UAE seeks “to join Russia in sponsoring Syrian-Turkish relations at a high level,” noting that the Emirati foreign minister’s visit to Damascus sought to arrange Turkiye’s participation in the tripartite meeting of Syrian-Turkish-Russian foreign ministers, making it a quadripartite meeting.

The meeting is meant to pave the way for a presidential meeting between Erdogan and Assad in the presence of Putin. Reportedly, the UAE has offered to host this summit, with a possibility of a high-level UAE official being present at the meeting if it will be held in Moscow.

Asharq Al-Awsat added that Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu plans to visit Washington on 16-17 January to brief US officials on the developments of Turkish-Syrian normalization, his meeting with Syrian Foreign Minister Faysal Mikdad, and the “roadmap” sponsored by Moscow in the context of security, military, political and economic fields – as agreed upon by the defense ministers as well as the intelligence chiefs in Syria, Turkiye and Russia over the past weeks.

As Turkey has been launching successive operations against Kurdish groups both on the Turkish-Syrian border as well as within Syria itself under ‘Operation Claw Sword,’ a Western official informed Asharq Al-Awsat that a high-ranking US official will be visiting Ankara in the coming hours as part of efforts to mediate between Turkiye and the SDF in northeastern Syria.

Ankara has demanded that Moscow and Washington commit to the implementation of the bilateral military agreements signed at the end of 2019. The agreements stipulate the withdrawal of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to beyond 30 kilometers from the Turkish border, and from the areas of Manbij and Tal Rifaat, in addition to the withdrawal of all heavy weaponry.

The SDF says that it has fulfilled its obligations, and will not withdraw its police force – known as the Asayish – nor dismantle its local councils, despite Turkiye’s insistence on dissolving all Kurdish military and civil institutions in the area.

Meanwhile, Cavusoglu told media on 29 December that Ankara is willing to withdraw from the territory it occupies in northern Syria and hand it over to Damascus in the event that “political stability” is reached – after cooperation in “neutralizing ISIS members, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the YPG.”

The Saudi newspaper’s report stated that US mediation seeks to reach a “compromise” between the Kurdish groups and Ankara without a new Turkish incursion taking place ahead of the Turkish presidential and parliamentary elections in mid-2023. This mediation seems to be an attempt at circumventing the imminent Syrian-Turkish reconciliation.

Another official source disclosed that Ankara was “uncomfortable with the leaks following the meeting of the Syrian, Turkish and Russian defense ministers in Moscow, and that it had agreed to a full withdrawal.” However, the source confirmed that, “it is true that Ankara and Damascus consider the PKK a common threat, and will work against any separatist agenda, because it is an existential threat to both countries,” adding that the two countries will “work to open the Aleppo-Latakia Highway.”

Following the UAE’s visit to Damascus, which came after the US called on its allies and international partners to refrain from normalizing ties with Syria, Asharq Al-Awsat quoted an official as saying that the US has been the only western country to issue a statement against normalization, and is working alongside Paris, Berlin, and London to assume a united stance against normalization with Syria.

Communication is currently underway for a meeting between the representatives of Paris, Berlin, London, and Washington and UN Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pederson in Geneva on 23 January. This meeting will take place before Pedersen’s visit to Damascus to meet with the Syrian foreign minister to “confirm the position against normalization, and support the provision of funding for electricity projects within the timeline of early recovery,” stipulated by a resolution for international aid that will be extended before 10 January.

Asharq Al-Awsat said that the UAE has proposed to contribute to the funding of economic and electrical projects in Syria – within the confines of the Caesar Act.

A poll indicates that there is strong support across all Turkish political parties for Erdogan to meet with Assad.

Overall 59% for, 28.9% against.

Via @OmarKadkoy: pic.twitter.com/HJCZ36kD63

— Aron Lund (@aronlund) January 8, 2023

Simultaneously, Jordan, who was the first to open high-level channels of communication with Damascus, is leading efforts alongside other Arab countries to reach a “united Arab position that defines Arab demands in order to make normalization possible.”

The newspaper quoted another western official as saying that Jordan is calling for coordination to put pressure on Damascus to provide political and geopolitical steps for the coming phase in southern Syria, as Amman confirmed that there has been an increase in the smuggling of Captagon, weapons and ammunition across the Syrian border following the start of the normalization process. Additionally, Amman has said that the Iranian presence in southern Syria near the Jordanian border has not diminished, and that there has been an expansion of ISIS activity in the area, according to the official.

Syria’s Arab League membership was suspended in November of 2011 following the start of the Syrian war, and it has been excluded ever since.