Authored by Marina Zhang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Compared to Eris, BA.2.86 has a significantly lower growth efficiency, meaning that it is less capable of replicating itself in the human bodies.

Authored by John Cody via ReMix News,

Artificial intelligence is advancing at lightning speed, and these advances are not only set to reshape our very reality, they could leave many losing all of their savings, according to cybercrime expert Marc Maisch, who also works as a lawyer helping victims reclaim their lost savings after they fall victim on the web.

He warned in an interview with Germany’s Die Welt newspaper that authorities will be powerless to stop this new coming crime wave, which will see criminals use AI tools to fleece potentially millions out of their money.

“AI is a great tool, but of course cybercriminals also use it to create phishing emails in order to have ChatGPT write malicious code that can be used immediately. And we haven’t yet talked about deepfakes and voice phishing, i.e., faces and voices are recreated. We are currently seeing the start of a revolutionary development in cybercrime. Next year, the year after that, this will have reached a whole new level,” said Maisch.

With AI tools, cybercriminals may be able to deploy novel, machine-written code to steal personal information or hack accounts en masse. The advent of AI voice mimicry tools could also allow hackers to bypass voice authentication systems or trick family members into sending money.

Cybercrime has exploded in the last decade, and Europeans are increasingly the target of thieves.

Already in 2021, Germany’s Federal Office of Information Security (BSI) reported that cybercrime was higher in Germany than ever before.

Maisch says that cybercrime gangs are actually recruiting new employees openly on public websites, and in “Southeast Asia, there are human trafficking gangs that take people’s passports and force them to commit criminal acts.”

For example, they may tell them that “you first have to earn 100,000 euros and then you’ll get your passport back.”

Maisch says that even love scams can now become automated and target thousands of people at a time using AI chatbots, adding that “this is more profitable because the love scammer no longer has to devote himself entirely to one person and get them to pay, but he can scale and automate his scam and do it dozens of times at the same time.”

The cybercrime expert warned that one of the main issues is the global nature of cybercrime. One of Maisch’s clients was recently robbed of €800,000, and the police essentially discontinued the investigation.

“In the file, there is a discontinuance order which essentially states that experience shows that the perpetrators live abroad and are therefore difficult to catch, and there is not much that can be done. I wrote to the public prosecutor that it couldn’t be the case that the damage amount, which was almost a million euros, wasn’t being investigated at all. Then you could immediately say: The Criminal Code no longer applies on the internet. Cases like this really make me angry,” he told Welt.

In many cases, the police simply do not have the expertise or know-how to properly investigate cybercrime.

“I have the feeling that our police are underfunded and far too little is being done to strengthen international cooperation between law enforcement authorities.

…

Read more here…

Already the Indian government has been under intensifying international scrutiny in the wake of the June murder of Canadian Sikh separatist and activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar. Canada accused Indian intelligence of being behind the plot, sending relations between the two countries to a historical low point, as each side has also removed diplomats.

Now a similar episode is playing out on United States soil. Federal prosecutors allege that an Indian government official was behind a failed assassination plot of a US citizen which was to take place in New York City. 

A 52-year old Indian man identified as Nikhil Gupta was arrested and has now been charged in the murder-for-hire plot. The US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York said in a news release that Gupta was “recruited” by an Indian government employee to hire a hitman to kill a Sikh activist in New York City as part of a covert hit.

“The defendant conspired from India to assassinate, right here in New York City, a US citizen of Indian origin who has publicly advocated for the establishment of a sovereign state for Sikhs,” Manhattan federal prosecutor Damian Williams announced Wednesday.

US agents had apprehended Gupta—who was to receive $100,000 for arranging the hit—in the Czech Republic, but the Indian government official has not been directly named (an extradition is in process). The US federal press release has underscored the Indian official’s likely intelligence ties, describing [emphasis ZH]:

GUPTA is an Indian national who resides in India, is an associate of CC-1, and has described his involvement in international narcotics and weapons trafficking in his communications with CC-1 and others.  CC-1 is an Indian government agency employee who has variously described himself as a “Senior Field Officer” with responsibilities in “Security Management” and “Intelligence,” and who also has referenced previously serving in India’s Central Reserve Police Force and receiving “officer[] training” in “battle craft” and “weapons.”  CC-1 directed the assassination plot from India.

The US government has called this a “dangerous plot” to “assassinate a US citizen on US soil” which originated overseas. The statement further detailed that “When a foreign government employee allegedly committed the brazen act of recruiting an international narcotics trafficker to murder a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil, DEA was there to stop the plot.”

There are some indicators this plot may have had the knowledge and backing of the highest levels of the Narendra Modi government: 

“Gupta directed the [purported hit man] to carry out the murder as soon as possible, but Gupta also specifically instructed the [purported hit man] not to commit the murder around the time of anticipated engagements scheduled to occur in the ensuing weeks between high-level U.S. and Indian government officials,” the news release stated.

The Sikh activist and US citizen who was targeted is an associate of the slain Hardeep Singh Nijjaran, the Sikh leader gunned down in British Columbia last summer. Thus the two cases appear directly linked and may be part of a broader Indian intelligence plot to hunt down political dissidents abroad. It must be remembered that the US was directly involved in tipping off Canada concerning culprits behind the June assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar…

American spy agencies provided information to Ottawa after the killing of a Sikh separatist leader in the Vancouver area, but Canada developed the most definitive intelligence that led it to accuse India of orchestrating the plot, according to Western allied officials. —NY Times

Canadian PM Justin Trudeau , in no uncertain terms, demanded India’s full cooperation in the investigation into assassination of Shaheed Bhai Nijjar. He condemned India’s blatant disregard for international diplomatic norms. pic.twitter.com/9Go3GfU1uy

— Dal Khalsa UK 🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 🦅 (@DalKhalsaUK) November 5, 2023

All of this is likely to bring US-India tensions much more out into the open, akin to spiraling Canada-India relations at the moment:

On June 18, Hardeep Singh Nijjaran, an associate of the victim, was killed by masked gunmen outside of a Sikh temple in British Columbia, Canada, prosecutors said. The following day, Gupta allegedly told the purported hit man that Nijjaran “was also the target” and said they had many other targets, according to prosecutors. Gupta told the purported hit man that because of Nijjaran’s murder, there was no need to wait to kill the victim, according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors further described, “The Victim has publicly called for some or all of Punjab to secede from India and establish a Sikh sovereign state called Khalistan, and the Indian government has banned the Victim and his separatist organization from India.” He is an attorney and US citizen of Indian origin residing in New York City.

Gupta has meanwhile been charged with murder-for-hire and conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, but this may just be the tip of the iceberg in terms of a bigger plot involving other hired hitmen and additional targets, which likely has Indian intelligence officials behind it.

By Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com,

Around 21% of Russia’s LNG volumes bound for the European Union are trans-shipments, which are not included in official import figures and thus ignored by EU policymakers, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) said in an analysis on Wednesday.

Over the past year and a half, the EU has boosted imports of Russian LNG, as the bloc is now buying significantly more Russian LNG than it did before the invasion of Ukraine.

Unlike Russian oil, Russian gas is not banned or under sanctions in Europe. But while pipeline gas supply from Russia has slowed to a trickle, Europe has raised imports of LNG, including LNG from Russia.

The EU, however, has a target to be independent of Russian fossil fuel imports by 2027, as envisioned in the REPowerEU plan.

EU Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson said in September that the European Union should phase out imports of LNG from Russia. 

Data analyzed by IEEFA shows that of all the Russian LNG that was received by Belgium and France between January and September 2023, as much as 37% was transshipped, of which the majority went to non-EU markets.  

“The transshipped cargoes arriving at LNG terminals in Europe are often not included in official import figures and thus ignored by policymakers,” Ana Maria Jaller-Makarewicz, the Lead Energy Analyst for IEEFA’s Europe team, wrote in the analysis.

Spain, Belgium, and France are the biggest importers of Russian LNG, but a part of the cargoes is being transshipped from the ice-class breakers to LNG vessels and later shipped on to other markets, including in Asia.

For example, IEEFA’s analysis showed that in the first nine months of 2023, the volume of LNG from Russia’s Yamal LNG export facility that arrived at Belgium’s Zeebrugge terminal was almost double the volume of Yamal LNG imports to the terminal. That’s because Zeebrugge still allows transshipment of Yamal LNG, unlike the Netherlands, which has stopped offering transshipment services for Russian LNG, and the UK, which has banned Russian imports of the fuel altogether, IEEFA notes.

Belgium is looking into ways to tackle the transshipment issue without putting European supply security at risk, a spokesperson for the Belgian energy ministry told the Financial Times.  

In a further sign that U.S.-Sino relations are just fine and dandy under President Biden, some of the world’s largest consulting companies like Deloitte and KPMG are now asking their employees to use burner phones when traveling to Hong Kong.

McKinsey consultants are also being instructed to use a second phone when traveling to Hong Kong, a new Financial Times report revealed. As a result, some people are reluctant to visit the area. “People are not prepared to come here,” one source told FT. 

FT makes light of the fact that in 2020, Beijing implemented a comprehensive national security law in Hong Kong, marking a significant move to tighten its grip on the previously semi-independent region.

As a result, the U.S. withdrew Hong Kong’s special trade status, citing that the territory no longer maintained enough autonomy to justify different treatment from mainland China, which has also recently enhanced its data protection and anti-espionage regulations.

James Zimmerman, a partner at Perkins Coie in Beijing, told FT: “With much talk [about] national security issues, the general feeling is that it is important to be cautious in Hong Kong as well.” 

One anonymous cybersecurity expert that works with these consulting firms added: “We have been recommending for several years that clients treat the risk of being in Hong Kong as the same as mainland China. I think what you’re seeing is that message sinking in now.”

They said there is “a range of risks, up to and including the risk of infiltration by a state-backed hacker.”

Not all Big Four firms enforce policies on carrying separate devices for business. PwC confirmed it doesn’t have such a policy, while EY, despite declining to comment, appears not to have one either, the report said.

The practice by certain companies contrasts with Hong Kong’s efforts to promote itself as a global financial hub. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority recently held a finance conference, attended by top executives like Goldman Sachs’ David Solomon and Morgan Stanley’s James Gorman.

Hong Kong’s Chief Executive John Lee tried to emphasize the region’s unique ‘one country, two systems’ approach at the event.

Maybe they should have called it the ‘one country, two phones when traveling’ approach…

Authored by Thomas Brooke via ReMix News,

Residents of villages in Ireland have resorted to establishing barricades and road checkpoints around their communities to prevent the government from relocating asylum seekers to the area.

Locals of Dromahair in County Leitrim took the drastic measure to cordon off the village on Friday amid rumors the Department of Integration was planning to bus in dozens of foreign nationals without prior agreement by community leaders.

According to the Irish Examiner, three checkpoints were erected on roads around the village and members of the Dromahair Concerned Residents Association manned the roadblocks and checked cars as they sought to enter the area.

Protesters have expressed their discontent in recent days at the possibility of new arrivals to the town, citing security and the saturation of public services as their primary concerns.

The Irish government did not attempt to relocate the migrants on Friday and the citizens’ association in the village confirmed on Monday they had received written confirmation from Integration Minister Roderic O’Gorman that no new arrivals would descend on the town without sufficient engagement among the local residents.

The letter sent to the organization followed what the Department of Integration called a “positive” meeting on Sunday with local MPs Frank Feighan, Martin Kenny, and Marian Harkin.

The government plans to repurpose the Abbey Manor Hotel in the village to house dozens of asylum seekers but is facing fierce resistance as has also been seen in several other towns and villages across the country.

“If a contract is agreed, it is hoped that this property can be brought into use. Capacity and configuration will not be agreed until negotiations reach the final stage, however, it is anticipated that the capacity will be circa 155 persons,” a government spokesperson said previously.

Similar scenes have been witnessed in Rosslare Harbour where the government is attempting to scrap the planned renovation of a derelict hotel into a nursing home and cater for hundreds of “male adult” migrants in a village that has already taken its fair share of refugees.

“Between the amount of refugees that we have currently in Rosslare Harbour and what’s planned for the Great Southern site, it will mean that this village will have taken in over 700 refugees. That will add about a third to the indigenous, settled population, with no additional services or provisions made,” local councilor Ger Carthy said earlier this month.

…

Read more here…

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken came a away from a NATO meeting of foreign ministers on Wednesday with the conclusion that the alliance is holding strong on supporting Ukraine, despite the avalanche of negative reports on how Ukrainian forces are fairing on the battlefield.

He told a press briefing there is “no sense of fatigue” among NATO allies and they are remaining firm. “We must and we will continue to support Ukraine,” he said following the NATO meeting in Brussels. 

His words seemed by design a flat rejection of the avalanche of headlines which go to back to at least the summer which warned of increasing ‘war fatigue’ among Western publics and among political leadership.

But more specifically there have been echoes of fatigue voiced by NATO countries’ top leadership:

In particular, Giorgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister, fell victim to a prank call from a pair of Russian comedians where she acknowledged international “fatigue” over the war in Ukraine.

“There is a lot of fatigue, I have to say the truth, from all the sides,” she said. 

“The problem is to find a way out which can be acceptable for both, without destroying the international law.”

Ms Meloni since said she regretted the comments and that Italy will continue to back Ukraine. 

The fact that Blinken now has to address the question of alliance members’ fatigue head on is itself very telling. It also comes after the Israel-Gaza conflict has for the past eight weeks dominated the globe’s attention. Gone are the days of Zelensky addressing packed out parliaments and Western audiences greeting him as if he’s a rock star. 

Winter is coming, and the already stalemated front line situation will likely get a lot worse. NATO Secretary Jens Stoltenberg warned of precisely this in Brussels, saying Russia amassed a large missile stockpile ahead of winter, as cited in Reuters. Other sources have also pointed to Russia’s amassing more missiles…

Something to 🚩about Russian activity. I’ve had concerns that the pause in missile launches means they are storing up for large strikes. This week multiple large Shahed strikes at night. Bombers recently resumed shuttling around between bases after a quiet period/1 @konrad_muzyka pic.twitter.com/H5PJM8SHnq

— Dara Massicot (@MassDara) November 29, 2023

“It is important that our solidarity with Ukraine is not only demonstrated in words but also in deeds,” Stoltenberg continued, arguing that the Western allies must do more. “These are concrete actions, we need more of them and we need sustained and stepped up support.”

Both the US and Kiev have meanwhile denied recent and growing reports that Washington is pressuring the Zelensky government behind the scenes to negotiate for ceasefire, which would necessitate territorial concessions. Yet, the US government’s own social media accounts strongly suggest otherwise…

The West is now telling Zelensky, more or less explicitly and right out in the open: time to wrap this up. https://t.co/BnjnaejN7e

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 20, 2023

Ukraine is still vowing it “won’t back down” and has consistently refused to so much as consider or discuss the prospect of direct peace negotiations so long as President Vladimir Putin is in power.

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

People working for the government in the UK have been told that they should check what pronouns their colleagues prefer and not assume they know the gender their co-workers identify as.

The Telegraph reports that civil servants were advised to take the measures in an internal memo that asked staff to mark Transgender Day of Remembrance, one of several calendar days earmarked for LGBTQ+ themed activities.

🔴 Civil servants told to check up on colleagues who don’t list pronouns.

Officials advised it is good practice to look at email signatures for clues as to gender https://t.co/TIi8Yxld70

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) November 26, 2023

The report further notes that the director general of trade negotiations in the Department for Business and Trade told staff that the event “encourages us to pause to commemorate those whose lives have been lost due to intolerance”.

The memo also contained a diatribe from a non-binary staff member who expressed a desire for “actions that I’d like to see colleagues take to work towards removing stigma and build [sic] a culture where we are open and inclusive of our trans colleagues.”

The memo continues, “Checking people’s email signatures for their pronouns and not assuming colleagues’ pronouns, are both simple things that I know can make acknowledging gender diversity part of our daily discourse.”

It adds, “Joining DBTs LGBTQ+ Network is also a way to support your LGBTQ+ colleagues and keep up to date with current issues the community is facing.”

In response to the revelation, Helen Joyce, director of advocacy for the campaign group Sex Matters, told The Telegraph: “Telling civil servants to check each other’s emails for pronouns is downright nasty, and it’s very worrying that a senior official endorsed a memo suggesting such uncollegial and bigoted behaviour.”

Joyce also argues that the Transgender Day of Remembrance amplifies false claims that “trans people in the UK are at elevated risk of murder or other violence – a claim that is unsupported by the evidence.”

She noted “The day is supposed to feature the deaths of trans-identified people caused by ‘transphobia’, and is used to circulate baseless claims that trans people face outsize risk of violence. These are in turn used to suggest that doctors must give cross-sex hormones and genital surgery to trans-identified people on demand, and everyone else must pretend that trans people are the sex they claim to be, not the sex they actually are.”

“If these demands are rejected, trans lobby groups engage in emotional blackmail, claiming that the result will be trans people dying by violence or suicide,” Joyce further asserts.

She concludes that “All employers, including DBT, should think carefully about the risk of claims against them for discrimination and harassment of gender-critical employees if they allow themselves to be used as mouthpieces for evidence-free and inflammatory lobbying.”

As we previously highlighted, U.S. government departments have also attempted to force workers into using preferred pronouns and marking Transgender calendar days at work:

Whoops! State Department Says It ‘Unintentionally’ Added MANDATORY Pronouns Onto Emails

Biden State Dept. Blasted For Celebrating ‘Intersex Day’

Biden Health Department Forces ALL Employees To Use ‘Preferred Pronouns’

Video: Biden Department of Education ‘Pride’ Seminar Advocates Puberty Blockers For Kids

*  *  *

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our great merch.

Authored by John & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

“We are rapidly entering the age of no privacy, where everyone is open to surveillance at all times; where there are no secrets from government.”

 – William O. Douglas, dissenting in Osborn v. United States (1966)

The government wants us to believe that we have nothing to fear from its mass spying programs as long as we’ve done nothing wrong.

Don’t believe it.

It doesn’t matter whether you obey every law. The government’s definition of a “bad” guy is extraordinarily broad, and it results in the warrantless surveillance of innocent, law-abiding Americans on a staggering scale.

For instance, it was recently revealed that the White House, relying on a set of privacy loopholes, has been sidestepping the Fourth Amendment by paying AT&T to allow federal, state, and local law enforcement to access—without a warrant—the phone records of Americans who are not suspected of a crime.

This goes way beyond the NSA’s metadata collection program.

Operated during the Obama, Trump and now the Biden presidencies, this secret dragnet surveillance program (formerly known as Hemisphere and now dubbed Data Analytical Services) uses its association with the White House to sidestep a vast array of privacy and transparency laws.

According to Senator Ron Wyden, Hemisphere has been operating without any oversight for more than a decade under the guise of cracking down on drug traffickers.

This is how the government routinely breaks the law and gets away with it: in the so-called name of national security.

More than a trillion domestic phone records are mined through this mass surveillance program every year, warrantlessly targeting not only those suspected of criminal activity but anyone with whom they might have contact, including spouses, children, parents, and friends.

It’s not just law enforcement agencies investigating drug crimes who are using Hemisphere to sidestep the Fourth Amendment, either. Those who have received training on the program reportedly include postal workers, prison officials, highway patrol officers, border cops, and the National Guard.

It’s a program ripe for abuse, and you can bet it’s getting abused.

Surveillance, digital stalking and the data mining of the American people—weapons of compliance and control in the government’s hands—haven’t made America any safer, and they certainly aren’t helping to preserve our freedoms.

Indeed, America will never be safe as long as the U.S. government is allowed to shred the Constitution.

The Fourth Amendment was intended to serve as a protective forcefield around our persons, our property, our activities, our communications and our movements. It keeps the government out of our private business except in certain, extenuating circumstances.

Those extenuating circumstances are spelled out clearly: government officials must have probable cause that criminal activity is afoot (a higher legal standard than “reasonable suspicion”), which is required by the Constitution before any government official can search an individual or his property.

Unfortunately, all three branches of government—the legislatures, courts and executive offices—have given the police state all kinds of leeway when it comes to sidestepping the Fourth Amendment.

As a result, on a daily basis, Americans are already being made to relinquish the most intimate details of who we are—our biological makeup, our genetic blueprints, and our biometrics (facial characteristics and structure, fingerprints, iris scans, etc.)—in order to clear the nearly insurmountable hurdle that increasingly defines life in the United States: we are now guilty until proven innocent.

Warrantless, dragnet surveillance is the manifestation of a lawless government that has gone rogue in its determination to do whatever it wants, whenever it wants, the Constitution be damned.

Dragnet surveillance. Geofencing. Fusion centers. Smart devices. Behavioral threat assessments. Terror watch lists. Facial recognition. Snitch tip lines. Biometric scanners. Pre-crime. DNA databases. Data mining. Precognitive technology. Contact tracing apps.

What these add up to is a world in which, on any given day, the average person is now monitored, surveilled, spied on and tracked in more than 20 different ways by both government and corporate eyes and ears.

This creepy new era of government/corporate spying—in which we’re being listened to, watched, tracked, followed, mapped, bought, sold and targeted every second of every day—has been made possible by a global army of techno-tyrants, electronic eavesdroppers, robotic snoops and digital Peeping Toms.

The government has a veritable arsenal of surveillance tools to track our movements, monitor our spending, and sniff out all the ways in which our thoughts, actions and social circles might land us on the government’s naughty list, whether or not you’ve done anything wrong.

Rounding out the list of ways in which the Techno-Corporate State and the U.S. government are colluding to nullify the privacy rights of the individual is the Biden Administration’s latest drive to harness the power of artificial intelligence technologies while claiming to protect the citizenry from harm.

In his executive order on artificial intelligence, President Biden is calling for guidelines on how the government will use AI while simultaneously insisting that corporations protect consumer privacy.

Talk about ironic that the very government that has been covertly invading our privacy rights wants to appoint itself the guardian of those rights.

Tell me this: how do you trust a government that continuously sidesteps the Constitution and undermines our rights? You can’t.

A government that repeatedly lies, cheats, steals, spies, kills, maims, enslaves, breaks the laws, overreaches its authority, and abuses its power at almost every turn can’t be trusted.

At a minimum, you shouldn’t trust the government with your privacy, property or freedoms.

Whatever else it may be—a danger, a menace, a threat—the U.S. government is certainly not looking out for our best interests.

Remember the purpose of a good government is to protect the lives and liberties of its people.

Unfortunately, what we have been saddled with is, in almost every regard, the exact opposite of an institution dedicated to protecting the lives and liberties of its people.

Indeed, the government has a history of shamelessly exploiting national emergencies for its own nefarious purposes.

Terrorist attacks, mass shootings, civil unrest, economic instability, pandemics, natural disasters: the government has been taking advantage of such crises for years now in order to gain greater power over an unsuspecting and largely gullible populace.

That’s exactly where we find ourselves now: caught in the crosshairs of a showdown between the rights of the individual and the so-called “emergency” state.

All of those freedoms we cherish—the ones enshrined in the Constitution, the ones that affirm our right to free speech and assembly, due process, privacy, bodily integrity, the right to not have police seize our property without a warrant, or search and detain us without probable cause—amount to nothing when the government and its agents are allowed to disregard those prohibitions on government overreach at will. 

This is the grim reality of life in the American police state: our so-called rights have been reduced to technicalities in the face of the government’s ongoing power grabs.

While surveillance may span a broad spectrum of methods and scenarios, the common denominator remains the same: a complete disregard for the rights of the citizenry. 

With every court ruling that allows the government to operate above the rule of law, every piece of legislation that limits our freedoms, and every act of government wrongdoing that goes unpunished, we’re slowly being conditioned to a society in which the Constitution means nothing.

Any attempt by the government to encroach upon the citizenry’s privacy rights or establish a system by which the populace can be targeted, tracked, monitored and singled out must be met with extreme caution.

Dragnet surveillance in an age of pre-crime policing and overcriminalization is basically a fishing expedition carried out without a warrant, a blatant attempt to circumvent the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement and prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures.

What we need is a digital “No Trespassing” sign that protects our privacy rights and affirms our right to be left alone.

Then again, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, what we really need is a government that respects the rights of the citizenry and obeys the law.

Authored by Alice Giordano via The Epoch Times,

A Texas judge is under investigation by the Texas Rangers for allegedly rigging an $11 million pandemic outreach contract so it would be awarded to one of her political allies, a former campaigner for Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and data director for the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

On Nov. 9, 2023, the Texas Rangers Public Corruption Investigation Unit announced it had obtained search warrants for documents relative to an investigation it has launched in conjunction with the Harris County District Attorney’s Office into Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo. The corruption investigation unit accuses Ms. Hidalgo of witness tampering, intent to conceal evidence, and the misuse of emergency authorization powers to bypass the county’s contract voting process. They are planning to take their findings to a grand jury.

“Whether it’s the White House or the Harris County Judge’s office, there appears to be an epidemic of corruption among high-level Democrat officials,” Harris County GOP Chairman Cindy Siegel said in a statement about the recently announced investigation into Judge Hidalgo.

According to a Nov. 14 story by Fox 26 in Texas, invoices from the Harris County auditor show that the companies paid out from the $11 million COVID outreach money paid to Elevate Strategies, were all Democratic campaign organizations that focused on outreach to Democratic voters, and had no history of engaging in pandemic-related activity.

Rice University political analyst Mark Jones told the television network that the evidence overwhelmingly shows that the public money was being used as a “camouflage” to maximize Democratic voter turnout by buying voter lists and funding data mining operations.

Ms. Hidalgo already boasts an influential list of Democrats who have stumped for her in the past, including First Lady Jill Biden and “Hamilton” creator and liberal activist Lin Manuel-Miranda.

Prior to the bid-rigging scandal, Ms. Hidalgo was under scrutiny by state Republicans for creating a controversial “threat policy” at the height of the pandemic that included a $1,000 fine and jail time for not wearing a mask. Some of the $11 million in pandemic funds was intended to be used to enforce her policies.

The search warrants, which were obtained by The Epoch Times, show that Ms. Hidalgo is accused of using her position to direct $11 million worth of pandemic outreach money to Elevate Strategies, which is owned by her political ally Felicity Pereyra.

Ms. Pereyra and Elevate Strategies did not respond to inquiries from The Epoch Times.

According to her resume posted on LinkedIn, Ms. Pereyra has worked on a variety of other Democratic campaigns including as the analytics director for Ms. Clinton’s Hillary for America campaign in 2016. Her resume shows she was also DNC’s director of data between 2017 and 2018, and served as deputy data director for Obama for America campaign in 2012.

Mrs. Hidalgo held a press conference on Nov. 10, the day after the search warrants were served, to deny any wrongdoing. She said she is a victim of “dirty politics” and accused Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg of abusing her office for political reason. Mrs. Hidalgo pointed out that her staffers were indicted during her reelection bid in 2022 and that the search warrants were obtained during Mrs. Ogg’s campaign for reelection.

Ms. Hidalgo, who won her reelection bid, has publicly endorsed Mrs. Ogg’s Democrat challenger Sean Teare.

“This is the same politics she’s been playing for years,” Ms. Hidalgo said about Mrs. Ogg. “She’s abused the power of her office the way that a bully abuses size on the playground.”

Harris County is located in Houston, a liberal stronghold in otherwise heavily Republican Texas. It has voted Democrat for more than a decade.

Mrs. Ogg told KHOU-11 that Judge Hidalgo was using her status to “taint the investigative process and confuse the public.”

“County Judge Hidalgo’s outburst today was nothing more than an attempted deflection from the facts and evidence that led to the initial indictment of her staffers,” Mrs. Ogg said.

Three of Ms. Hidalgo’s senior staffers, including her chief of staff, have already been indicted on felony charges that include record tampering and misuse of official information.

Following their indictment in April 2022, Ms. Hidalgo took a leave of absence, citing “mental health reasons.” She returned to the bench last month. Three weeks later, the Texas Rangers announced their investigation.

According to the search warrants, the Texas Rangers believe Ms. Hidalgo edited and/or erased documents relative to the COVID contract and that she failed to turn over correspondence she was initially asked for in the criminal investigation into her staffers.

The search warrants also claim that Ms. Hidalgo sometimes uses encrypted messaging to communicate with her senior-level staff members and that show her staffers used their personal phones to communicate about the vaccine outreach money with Ms. Pereyra.

They also showed that Ms. Hidalgo communicated with Ms. Pereyra about the availability of the $11 million contract before it was publicly announced and that when she believed the county commissioner might not approve the allocation of funds, she used her emergency authorization powers to bypass the voting process and award it to Ms. Pereyra’s Elevate Strategies.

As uncovered by Houston blogger Aubrey Taylor, county real estate records show Ms. Pereyra and her husband bought a new home two months after her company was awarded the contract.

Prior to the bid rigging scandal, Ms. Hidalgo also came under public scrutiny for her behavior at the funeral of slain Harris County police officer Cpl. Charles Galloway, who was shot to death during a routine traffic stop on Jan. 23, 2022.

A video taken of Officer Galloway’s funeral shows Ms. Hidalgo arguing with several law enforcement officials.

According to Sgt. Roy Guinn of the Harris County Constable’s Office, when he and the other officers asked her to take her seat with all the other elected officials in attendance, she refused, saying, “Do you know who I am, I’m the county judge.”

Mr. Guinn made a YouTube video of the incident and was interviewed by both TV and radio media about it.

Sgt. Guinn, who accused Judge Hidalgo of deliberately positioning herself in front of media cameras during the entire service “to be seen,” said she even refused to move when she was told she was in the way of the honor guard.

A spokesperson for Judge Hidalgo said she would not be commenting on the incident.