Submitted by Mark Pellin via Headline USA,

Same thing I said about Penny Applies here.

Media is out to kill and destroy then hide the evidence. There better be White “BLM” protests for Williams in subways like there were for Neely.https://t.co/7lgD3zjQcf

— Malcolm FleX – Enigmatic Desperado (@Malcolm_fleX48) June 15, 2023

Two men were recently arrested in separate incidents for what multiple witnesses have claimed were attempts to intervene when unhinged lunatics threatened the safety of passengers on a New York City subway.

The case of Daniel Penny, who is white, has made national headlines and sparked turbulent protests with howls of racism. Penny was indicted Wednesday for allegedly placing Jordan Neely, a mentally disturbed black man with a lengthy criminal record, in a fatal chokehold in an effort, Penny and others have said, to protect himself and fellow passengers on a NYC subway.

In a separate incident this week, Jordan Williams allegedly stabbed a black man who was violently threatening passengers on a NYC subway car. Williams, who is black, was arrested Thursday with no national headlines and no outraged protests from woke leftists.

Like Penny, Williams was charged with manslaughter and both potentially face long prison sentences. In both cases, witnesses reportedly confirmed that both men acted in self-defense while also trying to protect others from what they perceived as a potentially deadly threat.

When Penny was originally arrested in May, several Squad Democrats used the opportunity to stoke racial discord, calling Penny’s actions another example of white supremacy and demanding protests, which erupted to shut down the subway system. The arrest of Williams has been met with crickets.

The glaring differences in the two cases prompted a searing response from social media influencer and substack columnist Malcom FleX, who is black and came under fire for defending Penny.

“These NYC district attorneys are out of control,” he tweeted Thursday after Williams was arrested. “I hope all of the ‘Pro-Blacks’ calling me coon for analyzing the Daniel Penny situation back me up here when I say that we need to back up Jordan Williams. Its (sic) not a crime to defend yourself or others. This man is a hero.”

A local NBC New York station reported that police said the black man Williams was accused of stabbing “had been harassing multiple passengers while acting belligerent and erratic toward others on board.”

FleX berated the media and Democrats last month for enflaming racial tensions to advance their own agendas around the Penny case. “AOC and Ayanna Pressley were on a media blitz calling this a modern-day lynching,” he told Fox’s Jesse Watters at the time.

“And the media was all too happy to just disseminate those lines and those narratives,” he said. “They want more instances that they can mark as white vigilantism, which we really know at this point can marginally be called self-defense.”

FleX hammered home the criticism in a Thursday tweet.

“Same thing I said about Penny Applies (sic) here,” he wrote. “Media is out to kill and destroy then hide the evidence. There better be White ‘BLM’ protests for Williams in subways like there were for Neely.”

FleX wasn’t alone in noticing the differences between the two cases, or in supporting Williams, like Penny, as a hero based on existing reports of both cases.

“Why didn’t you hear about this story?” asked the popular End Wokeness on Twitter.

Let me get this straight:

-defund the police
-criminalize self defense
-stop prosecuting criminals

Then a man is forced to defend the life of someone he loves because of these policies, and he’s charged with manslaughter?

Time to wake up from the wokeness!

— Justin Morris (@jmorris808) June 15, 2023

“And why isn’t this plastered everywhere like penny v Neely? I think we all know why,” wrote one commentator, while another responded, “These stories are only publicized if the media can turn people against each other on racial grounds.”

This is what real racism looks like. https://t.co/cuyxI1OUMV

— 3sidedstory 🇺🇲 (@3sidedstory) June 15, 2023

FleX concluded his Thursday thread with another jab at the racial divisiveness pushed by activist politicians.

“Ahem @RashidaTlaib @AyannaPressley @AOC Congressman Bowman,” he wrote. “Waiting for your outrage at this state sponsored lynching.”

Disgraced royals Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are “fucking grifters” according to Spotify executive Bill Simmons, reacting to a Thursday report that the Sussexes and Spotify had parted ways after inking a $20 million deal three years ago for their production company, Archewell.

“The fucking grifters. That’s the podcast we shoulda launched with them,” said Simmons, who sold The Ringer to Spotify in 2020 and has risen through the ranks at the tech company. “I gotta get drunk one night and tell the story of the Zoom I had with Harry to try and help him with a podcast idea. It’s one of my best stories.”

Bill Simmons absolutely HATES Prince Harry

We need to know what Harry said to Bill on that Zoom pic.twitter.com/lsxNoSPaCU

— The r/BillSimmons Podcast (@rBillSimmonsPod) June 16, 2023

Among Archewell’s podcasts was Archetypes, which was hosted by Markle. The show explored the societal forces that have impeded the progress of women and welcomed guests like Trevor Noah, Mariah Carey, Mindy Kaling and Serena Williams. It did not get a second-season renewal, though it could potentially resurface on another platform.

Markle last April signed with WME, with the agency also repping Archewell.

Simmons did not hold his tongue about the royal couple even during the time they were under contract with Spotify. Last January, he blasted Prince Harry, saying it was “embarrassing” to be affiliated with the same company. -Deadline

“Shoot this guy to the sun,” said Simmons. “I’m so tired of this guy. What does he bring to the table? He just whines about sh-t and keeps giving interviews. Who gives a sh-t? Who cares about your life? You weren’t even the favorite son. … You live in f-cking Montecito and you just sell documentaries and podcasts and nobody cares what you have to say about anything unless you talk about the royal family and you just complain about them.“

Authored by Kyle Anzalone via AntiWar.com,

In an interview with NBC News, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky attacked former President Donald Trump’s pledge to end the war. He argued that if Kiev does not defeat Moscow, Russia will attack a NATO member state and force the US into a direct conflict.

Zelensky was asked about Trump’s claim he would immediately engage the Kremlin in talks and bring the war to a negotiated settlement. “Are they ready to start a war to send their children? Are they ready to die?” he said in the interview that was published on Thursday. “If Russia occupies Ukraine, they will move on to the Baltic countries, to Poland, to any NATO country, and in that particular case the U.S. will have to choose between dismantling NATO or fighting.”

Kiev and hawks in Washington have asserted that Ukraine is a bulwark, protecting members of NATO from Moscow’s expansionist ambitions. However, there is no evidence that the Kremlin eyes attacking another country. Russian President Vladimir Putin views Ukraine as a unique security threat to his county and says seizing territory protects Moscow against the expanding NATO alliance.

Ukraine hopes to be added as a member of the alliance once the war is over. “We need an invitation, and it needs to be clear that after this war, if we are ready, and if the Ukraine army is ready to NATO standards, then after the war we will be invited to join.” Zelensky continued, “It’s very important to hear the truth and not tell us lies.”

In 2008, Ukraine was told it would one day receive full NATO membership. At the time, Moscow denounced the proposal, saying it violated red lines and, from the Russian perspective, would create a significant security threat.

Despite the Russian objections, NATO maintains its doors are open to new members, but Ukraine does not currently meet the requirements. As Kiev is currently at war with Moscow, admitting Ukraine into the alliance will put NATO in direct confrontation with Russia.

At times, Kiev appears to be frustrated with NATO refusing to make a formal commitment to Ukraine. Zelensky is threatening to sit out a coming meeting of the North Atlantic alliance in July because Ukraine will not receive a pledge to become a member at the end of the war.

Zelensky went on to slam Trump, claiming he was unable to end the war in Ukraine while he was in office. “Why didn’t he do that earlier? He was president when the war was going on here,” he explained. “I think he couldn’t do that. I think there are no people today in the world who could just have a word with Putin and end the war.”

#UkraineWar #Ukraine #Russia
”#Putin on #F16 delivery to Ukraine: [Western] tanks are on fire. Several tanks have been destroyed [today], including the #Leopards. And yesterday it was the same, and yesterday there were “leopards”. They are on fire. F-16s will also burn. There is… pic.twitter.com/7uwE86ZmgY

— 🛰️ War in Ukraine 🍉 (@EUFreeCitizen) June 17, 2023

The statement appears to be an admission from Zelensky that the war in Ukraine began before the Russian invasion in 2022. Prior to the Russian invasion, Ukraine was embroiled in an eight-year-long civil war. Washington and NATO justify their support for Kiev by saying the Russian invasion was “unprovoked.”

The Minsk Accords were agreed to by Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France with the intention of ending the civil war. However, Zelensky was unable to get neo-nazi paramilitaries fighting for Ukraine to comply with the agreement. In the days before the Russian invasion, there was a surge in fighting between Ukrainian forces and rebels in the Donbas region.

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt purchased an abandoned 267-foot superyacht anchored at a Caribbean marina for the past year. 

“Alfa Nero” was ditched in Antigua in March 2022, shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine. The likely owner of the vessel is sanctions-hit Russian oligarch Andrey Guryev. The abandoned vessel was quickly deteriorating, uninsured, and posed a significant risk to other yachts in Falmouth Harbour. 

Earlier this year, the Antigua and Barbuda government put Alfa Nero, equipped with an infinity pool and helipad, up for auction to cover the monthly docking fees of $112,000. 

On Friday, Bloomberg reported the winner of the auction was Schmidt. He “won the auction this morning in a fully transparent process,” purchasing the vessel for $67.6 million, according to Sir Ronald Sanders, Antigua’s ambassador to the US. 

The US Treasury sanctioned Guryev last year and said he purchased the vessel for $120 million in 2014. He has denied ownership of the yacht.

After a year of being docked with only a skeleton crew, Alfa Nero’s next move will likely be dry dock, where it will undergo maintenance to ensure it’s still seaworthy. 

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Below is my column in the Messenger on the odds of Trump going to jail (as opposed to being convicted) and an interesting option for President Joe Biden: pledge to commute Trump’s sentence.

Here is the column:

“Can you give me the odds?” The question from a foreign correspondent this week was blunt but understandable. Legal analysts often are asked to give the percentages on a case’s outcome or conviction. This reporter wanted the odds on Trump being convicted. As in the past, I declined to offer a spread. For most of us, convictions are what gamblers call “off the board” bets; handicapping criminal cases can be not just untoward but unwise.

In truth, the reporter asked the wrong question if he was trying to get the spread on Trump’s future. The better question would have been the odds on Trump going to prison, not his odds of conviction. They are distinctly different propositions, and there is a reliable spread on that possibility.

On the merits, much can occur between now and a conviction. While the government has the advantage in this federal indictment, there are challenges being planned to attack the use of the Espionage Act, the use of statements made by Trump to his former counsel, and other issues. Moreover, with almost half of the country saying they view this prosecution as politically motivated, Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith could face a hung jury even if the indictment is found to be valid.

However, the odds of Trump going to prison could depend more on the court of public opinion than on the court of law.

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has pledged to pardon Trump and challenged other candidates to do likewise. The pressure to do so will only likely increase as candidates attempt to lure away some of the 80 percent of Republican voters who view this as politically motivated.

Thus, the odds of Trump going to prison could well be the same as the odds of him or another Republican winning the 2024 presidential election.

Currently, those odds are roughly even. Voters overall are not enthused with either Biden or Trump, but 34% favor the current president and 32% favor the former president in a USA Today/Suffolk University poll.

Some observers are suggesting that if Trump were elected, he could not give himself a pardon. There is even a suggestion that he would need to temporarily relinquish power to his vice president under the 25th Amendment to allow him or her to pardon Trump.

That is not necessary. Presidents can issue self-pardons. While there are some legal and political analysts who believe self-pardons are impermissible, I have long disagreed. Indeed, five years ago, I wrote how Trump’s future could come down to a self-pardon. While I do not agree with self-pardons, I do not see any constitutional barrier to the use of such presidential power.

Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution defines the pardon power as allowing a president to “grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.” There is no language specifying who may or may not be the subject of a pardon. The president is simply given the power to pardon any federal crime.

The Justice Department has one prior opinion on this issue from August 1974, from the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). It was meant to address the possibility of then-President Richard Nixon pardoning himself. Like Trump, Nixon was hardly popular with the Justice Department. In October 1973, Nixon carried out the “Saturday Night Massacre” over Attorney General Elliot Richardson’s refusal to fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox; the standoff led to the resignations of Richardson and his deputy, William Ruckelshaus.

Acting Assistant Attorney General Mary Lawton issued the three-page memo, which was lacking both depth and support. She declared that self-pardons are unconstitutional, stating that ”under the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case, it would seem that the question should be answered in the negative.” It was not a formal opinion, and — in my view — it was dead wrong.

The only limitation on the pardon power is that it cannot be used in cases of impeachment. Some have suggested that the limitation reflects an intent to bar self-dealing by a president. As I have previously argued, that argument confuses very different provisions with very different functions. Impeachment relates to the status of an officeholder, while indictments relate to the individual. A self-pardoned president can still be impeached.

Indeed, presidents have long used presidential powers to benefit themselves and their families in various ways. John F. Kennedy appointed his brother, Robert, as attorney general; Trump put his children on the White House staff. Pardons are no different. The Constitution does not bar such self-dealing any more than it bars self-pardons.

Presidential pardons have a checkered past of friends and family made beneficiaries of this power. Bill Clinton, for example, not only appointed his own wife to head a major federal commission on health care but pardoned his own half-brother.

Ramaswamy made a brilliant publicity move in getting to the front of the candidates’ line for pardon pledges. Trump already is running on this case, and many will likely view their votes as a way of defying the political and media establishment.

President Joe Biden could make an unexpected legal move, too, however. He could pledge not to pardon Trump but to commute any sentence handed down if Trump is convicted, declaring that — in the best interests of the country — he would spare his rival and a former president from being sent to prison. It would blunt any criticism of a more lenient outcome in Biden’s own classified-documents scandal.

Trump then would lose the danger of a potentially terminal sentence as a campaign issue — at least with regard to federal charges. (None of the presidential candidates could pardon Trump for state charges in New York or, potentially, in Georgia.)

Trump has pledged a comprehensive legal attack on his federal indictment. His odds in the upcoming challenge are not nearly as good as his odds in the upcoming election. In the end, however, that may be all that matters.

Earlier this month, the FBI announced the arrest of 18-year-old Mateo Ventura of Wakefield, Massachusetts, over allegations that he provided financial support to ISIS. According to the DOJ’s press release, Ventura was indicted for “knowingly concealing the source of material support or resources that he intended to go to a foreign terrorist organization.”

Yet, according to the government’s own criminal complaint, Ventura never gave a dime to any terrorist groups, while the only “terrorist” he actually had any contact with was an undercover FBI agent who befriended him when he was 16-years-old and convinced him to produce gift cards with small amounts of cash on them. The FBI agent told Ventura not to tell anyone about their ‘intimate online relationship,’ including his family, according to The Intercept.

Contrary to the sensational narrative fed to the news media of terrorist financing in the U.S., the charging documents show that Ventura gave an undercover FBI agent gift cards for pitifully small amounts of cash, sometimes in $25 increments. In his initial bid to travel to the Islamic State, the teenager balked — making up an excuse, by the FBI’s own account, to explain why he did not want to go. When another opportunity to travel abroad arose, Ventura balked again, staying home on the evening of his supposed flight instead of traveling to the airport. By the time the investigation was winding down, he appeared ready to turn in his purported ISIS contact — an FBI agent — to the FBI. -The Intercept

Whats more, Ventura’s father, Paul, told the outlet that his son suffered from childhood developmental issues which were so bad that he was forced to leave school due to constant bullying from other students.

“He was born prematurely, he had brain development issues. I had the school do a neurosurgery evaluation on him and they said his brain was underdeveloped,” said Ventura. “He was suffering endless bullying at school with other kids taking food off his plate, tripping him in the hallway, humiliating him, laughing at him.“

In short, instead of an actual terrorist – or terrorist adjacent, Ventura’s case is yet another example of the FBI grooming a mentally unfit young man to commit a crime that would not have other wise occurred.

“There is still significant use of informants and undercover agents in FBI investigations who aren’t just gathering information about potential crimes but are actively suggesting ideas for crimes or making it easier for people to do the things that they claim they want to do,” said Naz Ahmad, acting director of the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability and Responsibility, or CLEAR, project at the City University of New York School of Law. “There are documented cases where the government has provided people everything that they needed to execute a plot. Informants and undercover agents have often been used as a tool in these investigations to prod things along.”

In 2021, Paul Ventura said that armed FBI agents visited his home to inform him that his son had been browsing websites “he should be looking at,” and connected the father with who the FBI said was a counselor – who Paul says had no knowledge of his son’s ongoing communications with the undercover FBI agent.

“Two years ago, the FBI came to my house and they took his computer and said he’s on these sites he shouldn’t be on. We said OK, and he wasn’t arrested at that time or anything. I didn’t hear from them again after that, but I guess over time things escalated,” said Paul. “I wasn’t home a lot because I work, and he wasn’t at school because of the bullying. Instead of them telling me that he’s doing what he’s doing online and to take his computer away, they let him keep doing it.”

In their case against Ventura, the government reveals that the boy began communicating with the undercover FBI agent when he was 16-years-old, and told the agent of his desire to make “hijrah,” which means to migrate to territories under ISIS control. Yet, by the time the discussion happened, ISIS had been largely eliminated throughout Iraq and Syria. The DOJ says that the undercover FBI agent impersonated an ISIS member by using broken English, who then encouraged Ventura to pursue his ISIS dreams, and then told the boy not to tell anyone about their conversations.

VENTURA: I reached out to brother [A.D.] for hijrah [migration] I dont know if it is still possible but if it is I know it will take sometime.

OCE: Ahh

OCE: Inshallah [if Allah wills it] I help u, but before talk have rule my brother.

OCE: U must no talk about what said here or intention to anyone. No tell family.

No tell friend. No tell ikhwan [brothers] at masjid [mosque]. No one. This for both are safety.

OCE: Intention stay between U and Allah azzawajal [the mighty and majestic].

Venture than sent a $25 Google Play gift card to the undercover agent, along with the redemption code. The FBI agent also had the 16-year-old record an audio file of himself pledging allegiance to the leader of ISIS and then sending the clip via chat.

Over the next year two years, Ventura continued sending small amounts of cash through gift cards to the FBI agent, mostly through gaming stores like Steam, PlayStation Network, and Google Play. The amounts of his small transactions, which spanned over roughly two years, added up to a total of $965 during the time that he was a juvenile, and another $705 after he became a legal adult.

All the while, Ventura’s conversations with the FBI undercover operative online continued, including promises to make a passport and assurances that he would teach himself Arabic “very fast” in case he traveled to Egypt on behalf of the group.

In the end, Ventura appeared to get cold feet. In September 2022, when he was 17 years old, he told the agent that he could no longer “go for hijrah,” because he had been “hurt very bad in fall and can no longer walk.” The injury was an excuse that the FBI — which, according to the affidavit in the case, interviewed Ventura six days thereafter — concluded had been made up by the teen. -The Intercept

This January, just after Ventura turned 18, he resumed contact with the FBI agent via encrypted messaging – apologizing for the long time since they had last spoke. He expressed interesting in traveling to the Islamic State, while the two also discussed the possibility of Ventura dying in an attack by ISIS fighters somewhere in the world – or possibly attending a training camp.

Ventura, at the FBI agent’s direction, took a video of himself which he sent over the  chat in which he noted that he had grown a beard. The FBI agent told him that he looked “strong” and “Look (sic) like lion.”

He then sent another $25 via a Google Play gift certificate, and finally – on April 10, booked a flight on Turkish Airlines to Egypt.

Instead of actually boarding the flight, however, Ventura contacted the FBI’s National Threat Operations Center to report a tip – and demanding “10 million dollars in duffel bags” if he were to provide information on future terrorist attacks. “I known (sic) you thought I am retarded fool but jokes on you I will not admit I sent this or communicate until the cash is delivered,” he said, according to the criminal complaint.

In the next few days, Ventura called the FBI several more times to offer to ‘help’ fight terror – including to help stop a future ISIS terrorist attack, and to provide information on the people who would be carrying them out, in exchange for money and legal immunity.

According to the affidavit, on April 20, Ventura was informed in a FBI phone call that information he had provide was “not specific and therefore not actionable.”

Then in early June, Ventura was arrested and charged with one count of “knowingly concealing the source of material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization,” based on the gift cards.

As the Intercept notes, while Ventura’s arrest was framed by the DOJ as the foiling of an Islamic State funding operation, there’s no evidence that Ventura had actually been in contact with the terrorist group – yet he now faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted on charges of providing material support to a terrorist group.

Amazing…

By Alex Kimani of Oilprice.com

China has delivered its first smart floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) with land-sea integrated operation system, marking a breakthrough in the country’s application of the digital twin technology.

The offshore oil and gas FPSO with a storage capacity of 100,000 tons is the first of its kind in China and employs diverse cutting-edge technologies including artificial intelligence (AI), edge computing, cloud computing, big data and the internet of things (IoT). The ship can process oil and gas on the sea thus eliminating the need for piping from offshore rigs to onshore factories.

The ship is equipped with more than 8,000 sensors that monitor temperature, pressure and liquid level data and transmits it to the server room. In addition to the on-board system, China has also built a digital twin of the ship onshore in the smart control center in Shenzhen City, a full 1,000 kilometers away from the real ship. The digital twin, a virtual replica of the offshore ship, will be used to monitor the production process in real-time.

Floating oil and gas processing and storage platforms are becoming increasingly popular. Last year, Demand for LNG floating storage and regasification units (LNG-FSRUs) recorded a sharp increase as Europe scrambled to fill its gas stores ahead of winter. Demand for LNG imports  intensified after the ruptures on the key Nord Stream pipeline system quashed any prospect of Russia turning its gas taps back on. This forced dozens of countries in Europe to turn to FSRUs or floating LNG terminals, which are essentially mobile terminals that unload the super-chilled fuel and pipe it into onshore networks.

Currently, there are 48 FSRUs in operation globally, with Rystad Energy revealing that all but six of them are locked into term charters. 

According to energy think-tank Ember, the EU has lined up plans for as many as 19 new FSRU projects at an estimated cost of €9.5bn. 

The biggest beneficiaries are Korean shipbuilding, for whom FSRUs are a major revenue-generator. South Korea is the definitive world leader in the FSRU sector, and recently built the country’s first ammonia FSRU.

A document obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the US State Department reveals that the US government has been enlisting an international cadre of censorship czars coordinated through a hyper-partisan network that includes the Global Engagement Center (GEC) and the Poynter Institute – which runs PolitiFact, and which has received funding from both the Soros’ Open Society foundations and a State Department-funded group.

More via America First Legal – run by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller and DOJ advisor Gene Hamilton.

2/ We obtained more documents from our lawsuit against the State Department about the GEC, exposing the international censorship czars. Meet the 11 “journalists” who decide what you can see online. https://t.co/v3T4pI8FDc pic.twitter.com/Y8GWOpC2ht

— America First Legal (@America1stLegal) June 14, 2023

More via threadreaderapp.com

Key Takeaway: The global cabal of “fact-checkers” do not appear to be the benevolent truth-seekers they say. They appear to be highly ideological activists, affiliated through the Poynter network, backed by the same money to say the same thing.

Their claim of independence is farcical. Independent means free from the influence of others. But as we will see, all fact checkers claim the credential of IFCN, a Poynter-backed organization that gives them their ‘legitimacy’ to influence content moderation online.

5/ FACT CHECK — CLAIM: “fact-checkers are independent” = FALSE

Follow along as we expose the charade of “independence” pic.twitter.com/me8XYGHmSG

— America First Legal (@America1stLegal) June 14, 2023

https://t.co/NKKXjbMiQ0

— America First Legal (@America1stLegal) June 14, 2023

As AFL has previously shown, @Poynter runs PolitiFact and @factchecknet, which was initially funded by the Department of State-funded National Endowment for Democracy, the Omidyar Network, Google, Facebook, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, per @Jacob__Siegel.

In @mtaibbi Report on Censorship Industrial Complex, @Poynter is #8 on the list of top 50 organizations to know. There he reports that in an election slack, the FBI asked about two tweets, and a Twitter trust and safety staffer cites Politifact as the authority for striking a piece of content, writing: “This is proven to be false via this.”

10/ Faktograf calls itself a nonprofit for good journalism, critical thinking, and an informed public. But it models itself after Politifact! And per its own website, its “launch … was financially supported by the @NED and @StateDept” https://t.co/7k0951KMIt

— America First Legal (@America1stLegal) June 14, 2023

And Faktograf is so committed to an informed public and critical thinking that in 2021 Brakus called for more authority to censor political leaders.

13/ But while Ana seems to think she should have a say in what you can see online, she doesn’t appreciate being questioned. If you question fact-checkers, her organization says you are harassing or promoting violence. https://t.co/TjZdo5dFDl

— America First Legal (@America1stLegal) June 14, 2023

“With this research, we wanted to better understand what the wider fact-checking community faces, as well as how politically exposed persons use and fuel harassment that we are faced with. Sadly, it has become obvious that our experiences at Faktograf are not unique, and that harassment is a common occurrence in the fact-checking community,” said Brakus.

Catch Ana this week @PointConference speaking on “invisible harassment: the perspective of fact-checkers and women” after panels on censoring podcasts and YouTube, the green internet, and innovations in fighting disinformation.

Third, Barbara Whitaker @barbwhitAP is an editor for the Associated Press. The AP is a wire service, meaning, what they print is reproduced and delivered as news by outlets around the world. The AP claims:

But the Fact Check section reads like the talking points of a left-wing policy shop.

18/ And as we uncovered in our previous thread, AP’s funding from the State Department calls its true independence into question.https://t.co/0scW1LK88p

— America First Legal (@America1stLegal) June 14, 2023

Up next is Gülin Çavuş. @gulincav is the editor-in-chief of Teyit, a Turkish fact-checking platform. After going through the American higher education system, Gülin ended up in journalism.

After ‘reporting’ on ‘misinformation problems about refugees’ in 2016, she came on Poynter’s radar and won an IFCN fellowship in 2017. She is now the EIC for a Poynter-credentialed fact-check site with an outsized influence on what content is “moderated”

22/ In 2018 she called for a global database of false news about refugees so she could control the global narrative migration trends. https://t.co/5syKRkjTv6

— America First Legal (@America1stLegal) June 14, 2023

Read about the rest here…

Via The Cradle,

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi met with Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel and former president Raul Castro in Havana on Thursday during the last leg of his Latin American tour.

Six bilateral agreements to expand economic, political, and judicial cooperation were signed during Raisi’s visit to the Caribbean island. “Our cooperation in the path to progress can create hope in independent nations and despair in imperialists,” the Iranian president said on Thursday, stressing the necessity of unity among like-minded nations to deal with “global arrogance.”

“Iran is ready to cooperate with all countries, but if a country acts against our nation’s interests, we will oppose it,” Raisi added.

He hailed Iran-Cuba relations, saying, “In the years following the victory of the Islamic Revolution, the relations between the two countries have been enhancing, and constructive mutual cooperation has taken place in recent years, especially during the coronavirus pandemic.”

The Cuban president called Raisi’s visit “meaningful” and said it is a sign of “common values and views” between Havana and Tehran.

“The three countries you chose as the destination for your regional trip have a meaningful relationship with the Iranian Revolution. I am confident that your visit to Cuba will be a turning point in the history of relations between the two countries,” Diaz-Canel said.

“Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Iran are among the countries that have heroically confronted sanctions… threats, blockades and interference by Yankee imperialism and its allies with a tenacious resistance.”

“This visit reinforced our conviction that we have in Iran a friendly nation in [West Asia], with which to confide… and talk about the most complex global issues,” the Cuban leader added.

Furthermore, Raul Castro hailed Iran’s 44 years of resistance, highlighting, “The era of unilateralism is over, and we are moving toward multilateralism.” Raisi visited Havana after concluding his tour of Venezuela and Nicaragua.

Before setting off to Cuba, the Iranian leader spoke at the Nicaraguan parliament, where he took aim at the hypocrisy of western states and highlighted the ongoing transformation of the world order and the decline of the US.

The signing ceremony of bilateral cooperation documents between Iran and Cuba was held in the presence of the presidents of the two countries, and the high-ranking officials of the two countries signed 6 cooperation documents and memoranda of understanding. pic.twitter.com/qHAACIIKhq

— Iran Foreign Ministry 🇮🇷 (@IRIMFA_EN) June 15, 2023

“The domineering powers want to force their selfish interests on the nations, and that’s why we should question why the US and some western countries, who pretend to care about human rights, freedom, and democracy, don’t respect the real votes of the nations in Palestine, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Latin America,” Raisi said.

“Military occupation, coup, and sanctions” are the tools of the west against independent nations, the Iranian leader stressed, adding, “The US and western countries claim to fight terrorism verbally, but in reality, as they admitted during the US presidential election, they created and supported [ISIS].”

“The current world order is changing, and the indicators show that the authority of domineering power and the US is declining, and the will of the nations in Latin America and West Asia is rising,” he said.

Authored by Adam Coleman via The Epoch Times,

Political extremism is often presented as being a linear concept, stretching from the polar ends of the political left to right. But it’s better explained as being circular, where the extremes on both ends neighbor each other and share more in common than they do with the moderates in the proverbial middle.

The primary goal of ideological extremists is to recruit the most vulnerable people into their flock, because strength is in numbers, and misery loves company.

However, extremist recruitment can create an unintended side effect for the people who are fighting against them: they edge closer to the people whom they claim to reject.

The racial tension perpetrated by the media and exploited by progressive activists in all walks of life created a counter-reaction by the majority who reject outlandish racism claims, the push to see racial minorities as victims, and the acceptance of white Americans as being inherently guilty for sins they haven’t personally committed.

Reasonable people can accept that life in America may not be perfect for some people for unfair reasons, but there was a reaction of disgust when the narrative shifted to the immediate guilt of an entire group of people based on something they had no control over—their skin color—and anyone (of any color) who stood offended by these assumptions was unjustly labeled a white supremacist.

With every implementation of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in workplaces and corporate environments across the country, more people were being suffocated by nonsensical dogma that aimed to compel the majority to adhere to a more revolutionary approach toward social cohesion or else feel the wrath of administrative power.

Every form of entertainment started to shapeshift into a purposefully multi-ethnic theatrical event perpetuated by the industry elites who consider the ramifications of not following the guidelines of DEI and environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) to be more important than the financial impact of not following the profits.

With numerous massive shifts in our society being pushed by the progressive elite, an anti-woke movement formed as a countermeasure to return to normality, allying with people of all political persuasions and ethnicities with the primary objective of ridding society of this pernicious ideology.

However, over time, the anti-woke and anti-DEI movement has created unintended casualties as a result of their pushback: the misperception of favoritism for all minorities.

The anti-woke brigade has become so fatigued from fighting the “woke” ideologues, who are attempting to use race-based practices that favor minorities or anyone who’s labeled as “marginalized,” that they’re quick to believe that the success of someone who fits into this demographic is solely due to the existence of these practices.

I’ve had this happen to me as a writer and commentator: Having had a multitude of opportunities in the past couple of years, I’ve been labeled as a diversity pick by the very people who wear the uniform of the anti-woke. After Tucker Carlson was fired, Lawrence Jones, a black man, temporarily filled in for his timeslot and online was quickly attacked for being placed there not for his experience or talent but due to his skin’s melanin content.

In some ways, the anti-woke brigade has fallen for the traps placed by the progressive left. Progressives wanted all Americans to consider race in all of their actions to hypothetically make them understand what it’s like for minorities. While their primary goal is to recruit, it’s not always necessarily to make you believe what they do; it’s just as effective to make you see the world as they do by becoming more race-conscious.

Progressives understand the importance of confusion, manipulation of language, and beneficial propaganda to shift unsuspecting naysayers and adversaries into a state of paranoia that causes them to leave behind their original principles.

When you’ve begun implementing skepticism of every person that fits into the category of “marginalized” when their star rises, you’re no longer color blind: you’re racially clear-eyed.