Delete TikTok and then Get a New Phone, Period

Don’t use TikTok in any form. Don’t even open it when it has been sent to you. Spread the word and do it now. Why you ask?
Well if the Pentagon has issued an order to all military personnel, uniformed and civilian to not download or use TikTok that is a good reason to consider. But, there is a movement among Republican governors that have issued executive orders with much the same language for all state employees and contractors…TikTok is forbidden. So far those states include: Utah, South Dakota, Texas, Maryland and Nebraska. Even FBI Director Chris Wray has said he is extremely worried about the app.

TikTok - Make Your Day

There is a rather shallow attempt by TikTok otherwise known as Byte Dance the parent company to address security concerns. That effort is known as Project Texas. What about this Project Texas thing? It is a result of the letter sent to TikTok by several Senators dated last June. Read the letter here in case you need to understand more.

Source: Warnings don’t come as blunt as the one Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) dished Thursday to the users of the highly popular Chinese TikTok app.

“Let me just be clear,” said Cotton, a China critic. “If you have TikTok on your device, you should delete it from your device. And even better, you should go and buy a new device and not download TikTok,” he added.

Cotton is the latest official to warn of intelligence findings that the app is collecting vital information on users and possibly storing it for future use — even blackmail.

Addressing China and Chinese immigration scams at a conference hosted by the Center for Immigration Studies, Cotton warned younger audience members about the possible trap the app was setting them up for.

“The back-office risks of TikTok aren’t the videos you see and the kind of corrosive effects it has on the minds of America’s youth. It’s the data that it collects,” he said.

“And that data can be used against our kids as they grow up, and not just kids obviously. Grown-ups use it too. I think, increasingly, people in Washington are using it to try and reach voters, communicate. That means they are being exposed as well,” he said.

Cotton also said that the app “exposes all of your personal data, perhaps all of the data that you have on your device, to collection and exploitation. It’s not like if your 15-year-old daughter is watching videos of drum major routines that that’s going to put her at risk. But if it accesses every bit of other information on her phone, then that can put her at risk. And it puts her at risk for the rest of her life. This data doesn’t just disappear. It’s collected in troves” and can be used against her if she lands a sensitive job in the future.

The center hosted Cotton because he has recently pushed Homeland Security on the app and TikTok’s use of visas to bring in Chinese nationals who take U.S. jobs at reduced pay.

“TikTok captures vast amounts of private information on users, including American citizens, and has long been suspected of providing the CCP with potential access to that information. This threatens the safety and security of American citizens and also functions as an avenue for the Chinese government to track the locations of and develop blackmail on federal employees and contractors,” he said in a letter to Homeland Security.

He also has asked the DHS to explain how many visas it has granted TikTok’s U.S. outlet, ByteDance. He said in the letter to the DHS that “Beijing-based employees of ByteDance have targeted specific American users for surveillance, and that at least 300 TikTok and ByteDance employees are also current or former employees of Chinese state media.”

 

Hurry and Reconsider you use of Venmo, PayPal or Other Payment Apps

President Biden said that anyone making less than $400,000 per year would not a dime more in taxes….now a lie. Apps of all sorts are already asking for your banking information. Note….the banking information is getting reported by payments apps and other online sites such as Etsy, Marketplace and OfferUp. As you read further, understand what is not being revealed. The IRS is using private corporations to aid them in reporting personal information about you. Getting a 1099 could easily put you in a higher tax bracket dust because you collected dues from team members, sold an old umbrella or work on the side selling a potholder you knitted.

Best Mobile Payments Apps to Send & Receive Money | MyBankTracker photo source

FNC: Americans who made money online this year could be in for a potentially brutal shock when they file their taxes in 2023.

That’s because, beginning next year, taxpayers must report to the IRS transactions of at least $600 that are received through payment apps like Venmo, PayPal and Cash App.

In an explainer posted online last month, the IRS warned small business owners about the $600 threshold for receiving Form 1099-K for third-party payments exceeding $600.

Third-party payment processors will now be required to report a user’s business transactions to the IRS if they exceed $600 for the year. The payment apps were previously required to send users Form 1099-K if their gross income exceeded $20,000 or they had 200 separate transactions within a calendar year.

“I think it will come as a shock out of nowhere that people are getting these,” Nancy Dollar, a tax lawyer at Hanson Bridgett, told FOX Business.

Democrats made the change in March 2021, when they passed the American Rescue Plan without any Republican votes.

Now, a single transaction over $600 will trigger the form. The change is intended to crack down on Americans evading taxes by not reporting the full extent of their gross income. However, critics say that it amounts to government overreach at its worst and that it could ultimately hurt small businesses.

The lower reporting threshold threatens to sweep up millions of Americans who make money online. Roughly one in four Americans rakes in extra income on the side by selling something online, renting their home or using a digital platform to do work, according to the Pew Research Center.

The change could discourage some Americans from participating in the gig economy, according to Dollar.

“Everyone I know offloads old goods that they have on these platforms because it’s so easy,” Dollar said. “Or they’ve been engaging in gig work on a very casual basis, and that affects gig workers as well who have been underreporting their income. I think it’s going to force people to either cut down on those activities or kind of take them more seriously and track them.”

The new rule only applies to payments received for goods and services transactions, meaning that using Venmo or PayPal to send a loved one a gift, pay your roommate rent or reimburse a friend for dinner will be excluded. Also excluded is anyone who receives money from selling a personal item at a loss; for example, if you purchased a couch for $300 and sold it for $250, the amount is not taxable.

“This doesn’t include things like paying your family or friends back using PayPal or Venmo for dinner, gifts, shared trips,” PayPal previously said.

To be clear, business owners are already required to report that income to the IRS. The new rule simply means that the IRS will figure out what business owners earned on the cash apps, regardless of what that individual actually reports on their 1099-K, because it broadens the scope of the threshold.

Form 1099-K is used to report goods and services payments received by a business or individual in the calendar year, but there are certain exclusions from gross income that are not subject to income tax, including amounts from selling personal items at a loss, amounts sent as reimbursements and amounts sent as gifts.

For the 2022 tax year, you should consider the amounts shown on your Form 1099-K when calculating gross receipts for your income tax return,” PayPal said in a Q&A on its website. “The IRS will be able to cross-reference both our report and yours.”

The cash apps will now be required to send users who meet the newest requirements Form 1099-K for transactions made electronically or by mail.

The apps may request additional information from users shortly to properly report transactions, and users may be asked to provide their Employer Identification Number (EIN), Individual Tax Identification Number (ITIN), or Social Security Number (SSN) if it’s not already on file.

Now Ukraine Militarily has to Battle both Russia and Iran

With credit in part to Bellingcat:

In the early hours of Monday, 10 October 2022, Russia pummelled Ukraine’s largest cities with missiles killing at least 20 people and wounding more than 100, according to Ukraine’s national emergency service. Russia has boasted about the surgical precision of its cruise missiles and claimed the attacks on 10 October targeted Ukraine’s military, security command centres and the national energy grid. However, open-source evidence shows that multiple missiles struck non-military targets, damaging residential buildings and hitting kindergartens and playgrounds.

The 10 October attacks marked Russia’s largest coordinated missile strikes since the beginning of the war. Yet the destruction didn’t end there. Missile strikes continued the next day with at least 28 launched on 11 October. The strikes left large numbers of civilians in Kyiv, Lviv, Vinnytsia, and Dnipro with no or sporadic access to electricity.

Cruise missile attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure continued into a second week on 17 October 2022, when Ukraine reported shooting down three cruise missiles flying towards Kyiv. On the morning of 18 October, new missile attacks were reported in at least three cities leaving some of them with no electricity. As of 18 October 2022, international prosecutors were investigating the targeting of civilian buildings and critical civilian infrastructure as potential war crimes.

Remnants of a Kalibr missile found near impact craters on 10 October in Konotop, Ukraine, (Source: Ukraine’s Defence Ministry). The fuselage wreckage shows the Kalibr’s tell-tale black broken stripes (top right image) and the bottom shows partly the 3M-14 inscription that adorns the weapon and can be seen in greater detail here).

Visual evidence and photographs of remains of the missiles show that many that were launched on 10 and 11 October 2022 were winged cruise missiles, of the sea-launched Kalibr (3M-14), the land-launched R-500 (9M728) for the Iskander system, and air-launched Kh-101 types. These missiles are touted by Russia as high-precision weapons that only destroy relevant military targets. However, since the start of Russia’s invasion, long-range cruise missiles have repeatedly destroyed civilian infrastructure and caused hundreds of civilian deaths and injuries – for example when a cruise missile hit residential areas in Odesa and Mykolaiv earlier this summer. More here.

Now enter the manifest relationship between Russia and Iran.

In late November, U.S. media outlets quoted unnamed intelligence sources as saying that, in early November, Iran and Russia reached a definitive agreement under which Russia will produce Iran-designed armed drones in Russia proper. The agreement builds on recent deals under which Iran has delivered several hundred drones to Russia, which Moscow has used in Ukraine, primarily against civilian infrastructure targets such as power plants and water supply facilities. Iran has also reportedly agreed to transfer unknown numbers of its short-range ballistic missiles to Russia, for use against similar targets. Most of the Iranian drones that are part of the production deal are known as loitering munitions, which are capable of circling the skies until a suitable target is identified, providing greater reaction time and flexibility in target selection. These single-use systems, which use mobile launch platforms, are inexpensive, easy to operate, and have minimal maintenance costs. Low airspeeds allow the drones to travel long distances, sometimes flying below the radars of Ukrainian air defense systems, to reach their targets. This low and slow approach, however, has allowed Ukrainian forces to intercept many of the drones with short-range air defense weapons like heavy machine guns and the German-produced Gepard.

Moscow’s turn toward Iran for armed drones confirms that Russia has previously underinvested in its uncrewed aerial system (UAS). Despite this, Russia maintains a large and capable industrial base, and the production deal will grant Moscow greater control over the manufacturing process and possibly allow it to expedite and increase production of these simple but effective weapons. An alternative Iranian drone production facility in Tajikistan, inaugurated by Iran’s Defense Minister in May 2022, has unknown production capacity, and much of that factory’s output may be destined for other recipients, such as Iran’s regional allies and other armed drone customers, such as Sudan and Ethiopia.

The financial terms of the production deal have not been reported, and likely constitute a mix of cash, in-kind payments, and other promises of assistance from Moscow. Both countries are subject to sweeping U.S. and European sanctions, and the extent to which Russia is able to provide Iran with hard currency payments for the drone production agreement is unclear. As an alternative, Iranian leaders may seek additional Russian assistance to boost their nuclear program. Maintaining Russia as a partner may also help in circumventing sanctions that hinder Iran’s ability to acquire components and other goods for its advanced weapons programs. Several days after the reported production deal was reached, a key Russian hardliner, Secretary of the National Security Council Nikolai Patrushev, visited Tehran. According to Iranian and Russian media, Patrushev discussed Western sanctions and “interference” against both Russia and Iran with his counterparts in Tehran. The more than two months of protests in Iran, during which Iranian authorities have killed more than 400 demonstrators, have derailed any realistic prospect for Iran to achieve sanctions relief through an agreement with the United States to resume full compliance with the 2015 multilateral Iran nuclear deal. Iran also undoubtedly is looking to Russia to keep forces in Syria – despite Russia’s urgent need for personnel to deploy to Ukraine – in order to ensure Syrian President Bashar al-Assad maintains his grip on power.

Yet, the production deal with Moscow also carries substantial risks for Tehran. On the one hand, Iranian leaders might see the deal as reducing their exposure to new sanctions because the drones would be produced in Russia, not Iran. On Friday, the Biden administration announced sanctions on three entities within the Russian military responsible for training and transfers related to Iranian drones. Russian and Iranian leaders assess that the United States and NATO have many more options to interdict Iranian deliveries of armed drones to Russia than they have options to interrupt production of the weapons inside the Russian Federation itself. However, U.S., European, and regional leaders view the drone production pact as a deepening of Iran’s involvement in the Ukraine conflict, and a demonstration of Iran’s emergence as a significant strategic threat capable of influencing a war in Europe. Iran’s active and direct support for the Russian war effort increases tensions between the United States and Iran. Iranian involvement in the Ukraine war may strengthen Binyamin Netanyahu’s arguments for increased joint retaliation against Iran between the U.S. and Israel. U.S. forces have struck Iranian targets and their proxies in Iraq and Syria in response to attacks against U.S. personnel. Direct action against Iran as a reaction to its support of Russia, however, is an escalatory step the U.S. is unlikely to take. Source is Soufan Intel.

A Deeper Look Due to the Twitter Files

Elon Musk has assigned three people so far to drop summaries of internal communications at the Twitter headquarters. While much has been revealed, much has been held back including the actual communications. So withhold your excitement and gratitude of Elon Musk….however, there is some strategic thinking that does need to be applied here with what we have come to learn.

Let’s begin with something most disgusting and how it festered not only at Twitter but appears to have permeated throughout social media and now Congress and our education system….

Yoel Roth, the now former Twitter employee responsible for Trust & Safety appears to be a really dark and yikes …into child sex. The Post Millennial and the Libs of Tik Tok reports in part:

after it was revealed that Roth’s PhD thesis argued for minors to have access to adult content, writing “…it’s worth considering how, if at all, the current generation of popular sites of gay networked sociability might fit into an overall queer social landscape that increasingly includes individuals under the age of 18.” Read the full summary here.

BREAKING: Former Twitter exec Yoel Roth argued for minors' access to adult  internet services in PhD thesis | The Post Millennial |  thepostmillennial.com source

With that nasty part out of the way…The video above hosted by Steve Hilton of The Fox News Channel does an excellent breakdown of the U.S. security apparatus working in partnership/cadence with ALL social media. Big Tech that includes, Microsoft, Twitter, Google, Y0uTube, Reddit, Yahoo, Instagram, Facebook and Apple. We have a rogue Federal government and an even more rogue and nefarious social media/big tech system throughout the United States and actually the world.

Redoubling Efforts to Secure Midterm Election Elvis Chan, 2018 on election security

This particular release of the deposition of Elvis Chan. Chan is the head of cyber security , agent in charge at the FBI Bureau located in San Francisco. The reason for this deposition is due to the lawsuit against against the Federal government and the Biden administration brought by the Attorney General(s) of Missouri and Louisiana. The almost 400 pages is quite revealing. Chan under oath admitted that the FBI met weekly with social media companies in the lead up to the 2020 election with the topic of the Russia hack and dump operation. That is the continued script that began with Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy and continued through, well even today.

To validate the statement above that partnership between the security apparatus and social media understand the following:

All of the people listed below once or do work at Twitter….you can likely win a bet if there are others that work at the other big tech corporations…so here we go…

Elvis Chan, FBI

Shelby Pierson, Office of the Director of National Intelligence

Jim Baker, former FBI top lawyer and signer of false FISA warrants

Vijaya Gaddes, now currently hired by the Biden administration in the CISA agency

Dawn Burton, FBI

Jeff Carlton, formerly with the CIA and FBI

Matthew W. FBI

Patricia G. FBI

Bruce A. FBI

Michael Scott Robinson, CIA and FBI

Greg Anderson, NATO

Gordon McMillan, British Army Officer psyops soldier

Aaron Berman, CIA (now at Meta/Facebook)

Scott Stern, CIA

Deborah Berman, CIA

Bryan Weisbard, CIA

Cameron Harris, CIA

Emily Vacher, FBI

Hagan Barnett, former CIA contractor

Neil Potts, former USMC intelligence officer

Olga Belogolova, from the Defense Department

There are more people that moved within the big tech circles, leaving one company to join another. You can read the details here.

What do you feel you missed with news that should have been reported legacy media, social media or even our own agencies at the Federal government? You missed it because it was suppressed, unreported or completely censored. Every part of that is noted above cheated the entire voting public and that included congressional committees. Really? Yes.

Per the Chan testimony:

Chan also explained how the FBI would share the “disinformation” or “misinformation” with social media companies. It would take place around the time of quarterly meetings, if not more frequently through secure e-mails if the FBI field offices thought necessary. For example, the FBI might notify Facebook that a certain IP address is associated with the Internet Research Agency. The accounts flagged by the FBI are always removed by the social media companies, in large part because of pressure from Congressional Committees. As explained by Chan:

Around this same time, there were visits from Congressional staffers to pressure social media companies. Senior-level staffers have even visited Facebook, Google, and Twitter as part of these influence – or censorship – campaigns.

Chan continued:

The Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) is none other than Adam Schiff. As for the SCCI, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has Democrat Mark Warner as the Chairman.

 

 

 

Is Turkey About to Copy the Russian Invasion Plan?

Primer: Today as this is posted, the United States has an estimate 900 troops in Syria sharing bases with the Syrian Defense Force located in the Hassekeh and Raqqa provinces.

Erdogan does not seem to care, one NATO member country to another….

Turkey wants full control of key regions in Syria….sounds much like much like the selected oblasts in Ukraine that Russia works to control. Could it be that Iran is out of money and tired of Syria and has moved on to embellish their relationship with Moscow?

In Syria, Erdoğan is off to make war… "in the name of peace" - KEDISTAN source

FNC:

Turkey’s impending invasion of northern Syria likely results from “political reasons” rather than a national security need, and it remains unclear how officials will declare “mission success,” experts told Fox News Digital.

“This is a politically motivated military incursion rather than a sort of, you know, tactically sound or, you know, strategically oriented ambition,” Sinan Ciddi, an expert on Turkish domestic politics and foreign policy for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said. “The timing of this operation will have been much closer to the upcoming Turkish presidential election, so they can reap maximum political benefit out of it.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week ordered a series of airstrikes against Kurdish militias in northern Syria and vowed to order a land invasion of the territory as tensions surrounding border disputes peaked.

The Pentagon urged Turkey to stand down on its plan to invade Syria as U.S. officials warned that the operation could endanger U.S. troops in the country.

A spokesperson for the Turkish Embassy in Washington, D.C., told Fox News Digital that officials have “time and again pointed out threats against our national security, posed by the PKK/YPG terrorist network in Syria and Iraq.”

“We have always called for unequivocal and genuine solidarity in the face of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations,” the spokesperson said. “Notwithstanding, the terrorist organization continued its attacks, recently targeting innocent civilians in the heart of Istanbul.”

The spokesman pointed to Turkey’s commitment to help fight DAESH – the Arabic name for ISIS – and is “the only NATO ally that has put boots on the ground and fought DAESH chest-to-chest since the outset,” even though U.S. officials have warned that the invasion could lead to the release of detained ISIS members.

Sinam Sherkany Mohamad, the representative of the Syrian Democratic Council mission in the U.S., said that democratic forces – located in northern and eastern Syria – remain prepared for the invasion but “hope it will not happen.”

“We don’t want war, we don’t want to create another conflict zone in the region,” Mohamad said. “We already, as Syria, suffered a lot [in] 12 years from the Syrian crisis, so we don’t want to create another conflict zone or a war in the region that is not in the interest of anyone, neither the United States nor Syrian nor Turkey.”

“We hope that the international community and the main powers, like Russia and the United States, could stop us from [facing] any ground invasion in the coming [days and weeks],” she added.

Mohamad praised the U.S. efforts to pressure Turkey to prevent the invasion from happening, echoing concerns for U.S. troop safety, and she urged U.S. officials to consider sanctions against Turkey should Erdogan authorize the invasion.

“There are many mechanisms that the U.S. administration can do to prevent Turkey from this ground invasion,” she said, stressing that any invasion would result in a “humanitarian catastrophe” with millions of displaced people.