Biden Leaving Troops in Afghanistan Past the May Deadline

For many many months, the Trump administration was negotiating a peace deal with the Taliban. Frankly, all that the Taliban has agreed to, they have violated. Trump also issued a schedule to lower troop levels in Afghanistan to only a small tight residual number in May of 2021 along with contractors. With the new possible threat(s) of the Taliban and their growing connection to al Qaeda, Biden has decided to leave troop levels in the region at the present level with an increase in Syria and possibly Iraq. All the while, Iran just hosted a Taliban leader for talks where the topic(s) are unknown. Further, Taliban officials have been meeting in Moscow with Russian officials. Those details are found here. 

President Biden also has another immediate issue before him and that is the release of a U.S. contractor that went missing in Afghanistan about a year ago. Mark Frerichs, a navy veteran went missing about a year ago while he was working as a contractor on an engineering project. It is thought he is in the custody of the Haqqani network. The U.S. State Department is offering a $5 million reward that leads to Frerichs’ return. 

So, it is rather fitting that just this week, a very old FOIA request for former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld documents have been released. Frankly, the questions which were referred to at the Pentagon as ‘snowflakes’ reflects his frustration of the layers of bureaucracy  within the Department of Defense and his anger at getting real answers and challenging the quality of intelligence reports. Sound familiar? It is clearly a problem that after 20+ years has not found a quality solution. Just read a few of his snowflakes and judge for your self.

***Donald H. Rumsfeld - U.S. PRESIDENTIAL HISTORY

35 of the most notable items from the new collection is below from the National Archives. 

A follow-on DNSA publication covering the rest of Rumsfeld’s tenure as secretary will appear through ProQuest later in 2021.

One such snowflake was written on March 3, 2003. At 8:16 AM, Rumsfeld wrote to Senior Military Assistant LTG Bantz J. Craddock and Department of Defense General Counsel William Haynes with the subject “KSM”. He wanted to know, “Do we know where the information to find Khalid Sheikh Mohammed came from? Was it from GTMO detainees?” There is no response from either Craddock or Haynes in the DOD release to the Archive, though Rumsfeld’s question is likely a push back to the false claims made by CIA Director George Tenet that the Agency’s resort to torture of Abu Zubaydah led to the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence torture report would later reveal that key intelligence on KSM as the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks came from the FBI’s non-coercive, rapport-building interrogation of Abu Zubaydah.[1] This success was prior to the CIA’s contract psychologists, James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, taking over the interrogation at the CIA “Detention Site Green” in Thailand, which was created to house Zubaydah in 2002.  Their approach to Zubaydah would include 83 water board sessions yet fail to produce any valuable intelligence.  CIA clandestine services chief Jose Rodriguez (and perhaps Gina Haspel, who would later become DCI, though CIA redactions of documents continue to obscure her role) ordered the destruction of the torture videotapes, commenting that “the heat from destoying [sic] is nothing compared to what it would be if the tapes ever got into public domain.”

Later on March 3, under the subject “Contingencies”, Rumsfeld wrote to Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Doug Feith, stating, “We need to plan what we will do if Saddam Hussein is captured. We need to plan what we will do if we catch an imposter.” There is no record of Feith’s answer in the DOD release to the Archive.

Throughout Rumsfeld’s tenure, his snowflakes circulated daily through the highest levels of the Pentagon. With scant limitations on their subject matter, the all-encompassing documents are sometimes an hourly paper trail inside the Office of the Secretary of Defense during six years of tremendous consequence for U.S. foreign policy. The declassified documents also provide an account that at times contradicts DOD public statements.  For example, The Washington Post published a selection of the memos in the six part series “The Afghanistan Papers” in September 2019 revealing that officials misled the American public about the war in Afghanistan.

The entire corpus of snowflakes also details many aspects of the day-to-day operations of the Pentagon, the modernization of the U.S. armed forces, and Rumsfeld’s personal agenda against bureaucracy. “Bureaucracy is driving people nuts,” he wrote in an April 8, 2002, memo at 7:41AM. “If we can take two or three layers out of this place, we will be a lot better off.” In a separate April 8 letter, the secretary suggested cutting all major Pentagon programs by at least 20 percent. (The DOD budget increased by 37.54 percent between FY2001 and FY2006.) On March 11, 2002, Rumsfeld wrote to colleagues, “I am getting tired of seeing the word ‘joint’ everywhere.”

Rumsfeld, Snowflake by Snowflake - Open Source with ...

Other topics in the collection include:

  • the military budgeting process and efforts to rein in defense spending;
  • military planning, procurement, and expenditures;
  • nuclear issues – weapons, proliferation, safety;
  • decision making on military wages, benefits, tours of duty, and veterans issues;
  • military intelligence;
  • Defense Department relations with the CIA and Homeland Security;
  • Rumsfeld’s relations with the State Department and National Security Council;
  • U.S. relations with NATO;
  • U.S. military relations with Russia, former Soviet republics, and other countries;
  • Rumsfeld’s interactions with the news media, Congress, and the public;
  • Guantanamo detainees, interrogation, and torture;
  • concerns about the International Criminal Court and U.S. liability for war crimes;
  • the hunt for Osama bin Laden and other terrorists;
  • the Joint Strike Fighter program; and
  • the emergency landing of a U.S. EP-3 at Hainan Island in 2001

Donald Rumsfeld’s Snowflakes, Part 1: The Pentagon and U.S. Foreign Policy, 2001-2003 will be a critical research tool for historians and will be available through many college and research libraries. Part II, which covers the last three years of Rumsfeld’s tenure as secretary of defense from 2004 to 2006, will be published in 2021. Learn more about accessing the Digital National Security Archive through your library online and how to request a free trial here.

 

March 11, 2002
April 8, 2002
September 12, 2003
October 23, 2003

A few more:

October 10, 2001
Rumsfeld requests a daily report on the location of Osama bin Laden.

 

November 8, 2001
Rumsfeld inquires: “Why doesn’t Pakistan sever its relationship with [sic] Taliban?”

 

November 29, 2001
Rumsfeld accuses career employees in the OSD of undermining his decisions and working too slowly.

 

January 5, 2002
Rumsfeld complains to George Tenet about the CIA.

 

February 15, 2002
Rumsfeld directs his staff to develop a white paper on detainees and the Geneva Conventions.

 

March 11, 2002
Rumsfeld suggests further classification review of the already pre-reviewed Annual Report to the President and the Congress.

 

March 11, 2002
Rumsfeld says the DOD annual report is not conclusive or upbeat enough.

 

March 12, 2002
Rumsfeld recounts his conversation with Russian MoD Sergei Ivanov at a Washington Wizards basketball game.

 

March 14, 2002
Rumsfeld asks how to fix the requirements process.

 

March 16, 2002
Rumsfeld inquiries into U.S. nuclear policy.

 

March 26, 2002
Under the subject “Business As Usual”, Rumsfeld questions whether the Department should cut educational programs while at war.

 

March 28, 2002
Rumsfeld pushes to lift restrictions on contractors providing force protection.

 

March 28, 2002
Rumsfeld proposes a weekly meeting on Afghanistan, stating that it is “drifting”.

April 3, 2002
Rumsfeld’s thoughts on the Middle East.

 

April 8, 2002
Rumsfeld instructs his staff to create a list of all the major “processes” at the Pentagon and shorten them by atleast 20 percent.

 

April 9, 2002
Rumsfeld expresses concern about a “zero defect mentality” in promotion process.

 

 

April 12, 2002
Rumsfeld ruminates on the creation of a new Homeland Security Department.

 

April 15, 2002
Rumsfeld details a conversation with Henry Kissinger about the ICC.

 

April 15, 2002
Rumsfeld contacts Tenet about the ICC.

 

April 23, 2002
Rumsfeld considers possibly renegotiating a Russia-NATO arrangement.

 

April 23, 2002
Rumsfeld proposes using contractors to train the Afghan army.

 

April 23, 2002
Rumsfeld asks if a DOD chart of the PPB system is a joke, or whether it should be.

 

May 5, 2002
Rumsfeld tells Hank Crumpton to “speak up”.

 

May 22, 2002
Rumsfeld circulates a letter comparing interrogation techniques in Afghanistan to Guantanamo.

 

August 8, 2002
Rumsfeld questions whether it is right for pilots to use amphetamines.

 

August 17, 2002
Rumsfeld ruminates on the U.S. and Western Europe “stopping proliferation, reducing weapons of mass destruction and contrubitng to peace and stability” around the world.

 

August 19, 2002
Rumsfeld addresses the President, Vice President, CIA Director, and National Security Advisor on U.S. policy towards Iran and North Korea.

 

October 1, 2002
Rumsfeld sends handwritten notes from an interview with a detainee to Fieth.

 

March 3, 2003
Rumsfeld requests a contingency plan for the possibility of capturing an imposter of Saddam Hussein.

 

March 3, 2003
Rumsfeld contacts Tenet about the intelligence that led to capturing KSM.

 

March 26, 2003
Rumsfeld requests material to brief the President privately on a post-Saddam Iraq.

 

Biden is staffing a Supreme Court Cmte led by Bob Bauer

Supreme Court ends Trump emoluments lawsuits

You may remember Bob Bauer when he was a trusted Obama White House lawyer….and oh yeah he is married to Anita Dunn, famous for including in a speech that 2 of her most favorite people were Mother Teresa and Mao Zedong. Yeah, great couple right?

Mr. and Mrs. Triple Evils, Obama, Perkins Coie Law Firm And Fusion GPS ... It should also be noted that Anita Dunn was the top Biden campaign advisor.

Yeesh…meanwhile….

Bauer is Professor of Practice and Distinguished Scholar in Residence at NYU Law, and Co-Director of NYU’s Legislative and Regulatory Process Clinic. He served as White House Counsel to President Obama, and returned to private practice in June 2011. In 2013, the President named Bauer to be Co-Chair of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration, which in January of 2014 submitted to the President its findings and recommendations in “The American Voting Experience: Report and Recommendations of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration.”

Bauer was General Counsel to Obama for America, the President’s campaign organization, in 2008 and 2012. Bob has also served as co-counsel to the New Hampshire State Senate in the trial of Chief Justice David A. Brock (2000) and counsel to the Democratic Leader in the trial of President William Jefferson Clinton (1999).

He is the author on books on campaign finance law and articles on various topics for law reviews and periodicals. He is a contributing editor of Lawfare and writes legal commentary for Just Security, and has published opinion pieces in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic and other publications.

In part: Among those who will be on the commission are Cristina Rodríguez, a professor at Yale Law School and a former deputy assistant attorney general in the Obama Department of Justice, who will join Bauer as co-chair. Caroline Fredrickson, the former president of the American Constitution Society, and Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard Law School professor and a former assistant attorney general in the Bush Department of Justice, will also serve on the commission, those familiar with discussions said.

Fredrickson has hinted that she is intellectually supportive of ideas like court expansion. In 2019, she said in an interview with Eric Lesh, the executive director of the LGBT Bar Association and Foundation of Greater New York: “I often point out to people who aren’t lawyers that the Supreme Court is not defined as ‘nine person body’ in the Constitution, and it has changed size many times.”

Rodríguez’s opinions on court reforms are less clear. Goldsmith’s selection, meanwhile, is likely to be the one to frustrate progressives. A senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Goldsmith did not support Trump and is a friend and co-author of Bauer. But he was a vocal advocate of Brett Kavanaugh’s appointment to the high court — an appointment that sparked Democratic advocacy for expanding the number of Supreme Court seats.

“He will also be an influential figure within the Supreme Court building,” Goldsmith wrote in 2018 about Kavanaugh in a Time article titled, “Brett Kavanaugh Will Right the Course of the Supreme Court.” “He is a brilliant analyst with a deep scholarly and practical knowledge of the law. His legal opinions are unusually accessible. He is a magnanimous soul.”

Bauer, who is not planning to go into the administration full-time, is himself a proponent of term limits for federal judges. He has been helping with the creation of the commission and, according to a person familiar with the deliberations, initially proposed the idea of forming a commission to study the issue of court reform.

Suspension of the 1st Amendment

‘petition the government for a redress of grievances’….remember that part of the First Amendment? 45 words of freedom…no more.

Diogenes' Middle Finger: NYT Graciously Admits the 1st ...

So, from the Department of Homeland Security under the Biden administration… Notice it expires in 3 months….hummm

Summary

 

The Acting Secretary of Homeland Security has issued a National Terrorism Advisory System (NTAS) Bulletin due to a heightened threat environment across the United States, which DHS believes will persist in the weeks following the successful Presidential Inauguration.  Information suggests that some ideologically-motivated violent extremists with objections to the exercise of governmental authority and the presidential transition, as well as other perceived grievances fueled by false narratives, could continue to mobilize to incite or commit violence.

 

Duration

Issued:  January 27, 2021 11:00 am
Expires:  April 30, 2021 01:00 pm

Details

  • Throughout 2020, Domestic Violent Extremists (DVEs) targeted individuals with opposing views engaged in First Amendment-protected, non-violent protest activity.  DVEs motivated by a range of issues, including anger over COVID-19 restrictions, the 2020 election results, and police use of force have plotted and on occasion carried out attacks against government facilities.
  • Long-standing racial and ethnic tension—including opposition to immigration—has driven DVE attacks, including a 2019 shooting in El Paso, Texas that killed 23 people.
  • DHS is concerned these same drivers to violence will remain through early 2021 and some DVEs may be emboldened by the January 6, 2021 breach of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. to target elected officials and government facilities.
  • DHS remains concerned that Homegrown Violent Extremists (HVEs) inspired by foreign terrorist groups, who committed three attacks targeting government officials in 2020, remain a threat.
  • Threats of violence against critical infrastructure, including the electric, telecommunications and healthcare sectors, increased in 2020 with violent extremists citing misinformation and conspiracy theories about COVID-19 for their actions.
  • DHS, as well as other Federal agencies and law enforcement partners will continue to take precautions to protect people and infrastructure across the United States.
  • DHS remains committed to preventing violence and threats meant to intimidate or coerce specific populations on the basis of their religion, race, ethnicity, identity or political views.
  • DHS encourages state, local, tribal, and territorial homeland security partners to continue prioritizing physical security measures, particularly around government facilities, to protect people and critical infrastructure.

The Biden inaugural address included much of this language and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez may be nuts but she is telling us what is really going on….this is a full blown assault on white, conservative citizens across the country…70,80, 90, 100 million people perhaps?

Do you really know the reason the National Guard is still in Washington DC? It is not so much about securing the Capitol or guarding against further protests, it is a message to the nation that you are simply no longer trusted in any form.

Further, this site wrote about pending legislation in Congress that should terrify you beyond words. As a reminder:

There have been countless hearings on The Hill in various committees where Democrats assert the deadly threats of white nationalism and systemic racism. At no time is there tangible evidence except talking points concocted by progressive think tanks and isolated cases investigated by the FBI.

There is also the ever constant issue getting very little attention and that is ‘critical race theory’. Emerging from Harvard University in the 1980’s, critical race theory came from Derrick Bell, a tenured African-American professor.

In part from the Federalist:

As such, federal employees and those who work for corporations that do business with the federal government sucked into the poisonous vortex of critical race theory can thank President Trump for ordering a stop to the promulgation of critical race theory. Thanks should also be sent to scholar Christopher Rufo, whose diligence brought the critical race theory venom to the forefront of Trump’s attention, and Russ Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, who is working to root out members of the administrative state who defy that order.

It’s important to remember that because very few of its activists have shown much sincere desire to end racism, critical race theory should not be taken entirely at face value. If a majority of its supporters were sincere, they would be willing to have fruitful discussions in a civil society that supports civil discourse. Rather, critical race theory’s agitators are committed to tearing down civil society on the pretense that it is an incubator for “systemic racism.”

If you’ve any doubt about that, consider the Smithsonian display on “whiteness” that condemned all elements of civil society, including politeness, hard work, self-reliance, logic, planning, and family cohesion. None of those are “white” values, but critical race theory frames them just so. This sort of animus proves that critical race theory “arguments” are non-starters and merely serve as convenient pretexts for power grabs.

Doused with critical race theory, the Black Lives Matter organization and its related Antifa-infused mobs are organized for the same purposes as all cult recruits: to recruit more people and to implement the desire to divide and conquer. The phenomenon can be seen as they surround people in vehicles or restaurants, demanding their victims raise a fist and recite slogans under the intense intimidation and implications of violence.

Where do you go to redress grievances? Nowhere…just behave accordingly to the Democrats…

 

Progressive’s Comprehensive Manipulation of Human Behavior

This is a rather long article but for your benefit and that of our nation.

For decades, slicing away at human rights and the protections of the Bill of Rights have been not only been happening but in recent years it has moved into a faster forward gear. The right to self protection is often bundled in the 2nd Amendment but consider self protection is also protected in the 1st Amendment and that means protecting ourselves with speech, rallies and peaceful protests.

Big media and big tech are grouping people that are for law and order, that are conservatives and are loyal Trump supporters because of his doctrine are under assault which is beyond dispute. Big media and big tech are on overt missions to terminate Fox News, NewsMax, OANN and even social media platforms such as Parler. Just turn on CNN and MSNBC for an hour if you can stand it and the proof is there.

All for the greater good….yeah sure….

Understand that the template for a national lock-down during the beginning of the pandemic, we behaved. We stayed home, we detached ourselves from society, we could not go to church, we could not go to doctor appointments, we could not go to the gym to maintain physical fitness. Dr. Fauci was the expert and we were told to trust the science of the virus. That science changed countless times. Since then, many mayors and governors have mandated closures and sequestration applying slippery facts and slanted science.

Empty street is seen on Times Square | in-cyprus.com an empty Time Square

We continue to suffer from fear across the nation for various reasons that altering our behavior and thought. We don’t want to be cancelled, but we are getting cancelled nonetheless. We are in a tidal wave of censorship meant to silence foes and settle old scores.

Thought, conversation and dissent is a human right, a civil right. Free movement is as well, a long look back at unalienable rights is your duty. This report from the U.S. State Department summarizes it well.

It goes beyond MSNBC.

On Wednesday night, a member of the Democratic National Committee ranted that everyone who voted for President Trump should be “deprogrammed.”

David Atkins, who wrote in his campaign for the DNC, “I currently serve as the Region 10 Director for the California Democratic Party,” tweeted on Wednesday a message reminiscent of the repressive Communist states around the world: “No seriously…how *do* you deprogram 75 million people? Where do you start? Fox? Facebook? We have to start thinking in terms of post-WWII Germany or Japan. Or the failures of Reconstruction in the South.” Read more here from the DailyWire.

But there is yet another nefarious global policy that is taking hold and you must beware. It is called The Great Reset. It is applying the same template that was used in 2020-21. Your behavior has already been altered, so it stands to reason the global elites and the Biden administration will push that action on all of America.

Now is the time for a 'great reset' of capitalism | World ...

Biden’s Build back better is a World Economic Forum plan to “reinvent capitalism” so that companies are more focused on the greater good, not profits, according to the WEF‘s own statements. How to accomplish that? By the “great reset.” Again, that’s according to the WEF‘s own words. source

Here is a summary for your use by Stacey Rubin, a lawyer and former litigator: (I interviewed her on my radio show)

At any anti-lockdown protest, you will see signs that say “Stop the Great Reset.” The New York Times calls this phrase “a baseless conspiracy theory.” Here is the problem. None of this is secret. There are books you can read about it and detailed websites describing it. Time Magazine even did a cover story. It’s the title of World Economic Forum head Klaus Schwab’s book on the lockdowns and the future. It was published July 9, 2020, and now has nearly 900 reviews on Amazon.

Proponents of “The Great Reset” argue that the pandemic proves our former society “doesn’t work,” so we need a tech-focused, “sustainable” future to reduce emissions and thereby “save the planet.” The Great Reset is a rebranded, tightened-up version of the UN’s decades-old “Sustainable Development” agenda (“Agenda 21”). The same policies and ideas are contained in “The Green New Deal,” which was defeated in 2019 in the US Congress.

It bears repeating: six months before “SARS-CoV-2” was discovered by China, the UN and the WEF signed a “Strategic Partnership” specifically to advance the “Sustainable Development” agenda, now known as “The Great Reset.” You can read all about this partnership online.

Schwab has been openly “fighting” (to use his own word) against Milton Friedman-style economics for decades, ever since Friedman published his famous 1970 essay: “The Social Responsibility Of Business Is to Increase Its Profits.” Schwab now predicts that the “COVID19 pandemic” — which he says will last at least until 2022 — will mark the final death-knell of “neo-liberalism,” which he defines as “a corpus of ideas and policies . . . favoring competition over solidarity, creative destruction over government intervention and economic growth over social welfare.”

Others would describe neoliberalism as “decentralized power and smaller government,” and Schwab’s preferred system as “China under Xi Jinping.”

How long has Schwab known that a pandemic could be used to advance his ideals? A while, if his publications and planning exercises are any indication. His book, COVID-19: The Great Reset contains lengthy discourse on how pandemics are known agents for major societal shifts. He asks, “Why should COVID-19 be any different?”

Then there is the fact that Schwab’s organization practiced a “high-level pandemic exercise” in October 2019, less than five months before “Covid-19″ came along. The WEF’s co-sponsors for this event were The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, both of which have actively promoted 2020’s unprecedented pandemic response —as Imperial College London’s Neil Ferguson recently explained, lockdowns were not recommended by any government until Xi Jinping “changed what was possible” by proclaiming “this worked for us in China.”

This extraordinarily fortuitously-timed pandemic planning exercise makes Schwab look like something of an oracle. Indeed, he openly brags about his foresight:

“For years, international organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO), institutions like the World Economic Forum and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI — launched at the Annual Meeting 2017 in Davos), and individuals like Bill Gates have been warning us about the next pandemic risk, even specifying that it: 1) would emerge in a highly populated place where economic development forces people and wildlife together; 2) would spread quickly and silently by exploiting networks of human travel and trade; and 3) would reach multiple countries by thwarting containment.”

In 2017, Anthony Fauci made a similar prediction, declaring that “there is no doubt” that Donald J. Trump “will be confronted with a pandemic” before the end of his term. Like Schwab, Fauci actively promotes lockdowns. Like Schwab, he declares that we can never again return to normal — if we do, we should expect diseases to constantly jump from animals to humans (because pandemics never happened until 2020, when the world grew “too industrialized”). To save ourselves, we must redesign society “in harmony with nature.”

Both Fauci and Schwab’s prose are littered with terms like “sustainability,” “inclusiveness,” “green,” “nature,” and “harmony.” Terms that are hard to disagree with, although the behaviors supposedly promoting them are a harder sell. Schwab reveals in his “Great Reset” book that our new germ-avoidant behaviors are seen as optimal to “the environment:”

During lockdowns, many consumers previously reluctant to rely too heavily on digital applications and services were forced to change their habits almost overnight . . . many of the tech behaviors that we were forced to adopt during confinement will through familiarity become more natural. If health [read: fear of germs] considerations become paramount, we may decide, for example, that a cycling class in front of a screen at home . . . is safer (and cheaper!).

The same reasoning applies to many different domains like flying to a meeting (Zoom is safer, cheaper, greener and much more convenient), driving to a distant family gathering for the weekend (the WhatsApp family group is not as fun but, again, safer, cheaper and greener) or even attending an academic course (not as fulfilling, but cheaper and more convenient).

Spelling this out for those too stunned to take it in: this is an open admission that it benefits Schwab and Fauci’s political agenda to continue lockdowns as long as possible. The same people who sell interminable lockdowns — by ignoring great science on pre-existing immunity, lack of asymptomatic spread, and flawed PCR tests — believe the lockdowns are the perfect agent to usher in the changes they desire. Will they succeed? Is their behavior remotely justified? Does the pandemic really prove our society is fatally flawed? Why can’t they use the political system to gain majority votes if their agenda is so good?

Covid-19 is the first major pandemic in six decades. Worse pandemics occurred in 1918, 1957, and 1968, when the population was exponentially smaller (1.8 billion; 2.8 billion; and 3.6 billion, respectively) and carbon emissions were not even on anyone’s radar. Because pandemics have always occurred, there is no logical basis — not even a flimsy one — to infer that “population growth,” “climate change” or “industrialization” caused this one.

People may or may not agree with Schwab that Zoom meetings are preferable to in-person work, that sitting in the same house every day of the week is preferable to commuting to an office, that local entertainment is better than international travel, that exercise classes are just as good over the computer screen as they are in a studio. But there is one thing most people agree with: being told that “germs” threaten your existence when they really do not is abusive.

Scaring people into their homes, making them fear their own family and friends, preying on their vulnerabilities, shattering their social existences— especially when you knowingly do this in hopes of making it permanent — is just about as bad as human behavior gets.

Just as bad, Schwab et al. know the lockdowns are “taking out” certain industries while sparing others: in a nutshell, the powerful survive. Anyone who has both this knowledge and the ability to influence lockdown duration has an unthinkable level of power and an unlimited ability to amass more of it by manipulating pretty much the entire global financial system. All of this is eminently predictable by the people encouraging, supporting, and imposing the restrictive orders.

“The [restaurant] sector of activity has been hit by the pandemic [lockdown] to such a dramatic extent that it . . . may never come back. In France and the U.K., several industry voices estimate that up to 75% of independent restaurants might not survive the lockdowns and subsequent social distancing measures. The large chains and fast-food giants will. This in turn suggests that big business will get bigger while the smallest shrink or disappear. A large restaurant chain, for example, has a better chance of staying operational as it benefits from more resources and, ultimately, less competition in the wake of bankruptcies among smaller outfits.”

Knowingly taking out small businesses — one of the last bastions of free speech and independence, distinguishable from the tightly-controlled corporate world — is evil. It is hard to believe anyone would do it, if they could avoid it. However, it is equally hard to ignore the fact that Florida, Georgia, South Dakota, Texas and Sweden (among many others) have fully open economies and average mortality to show for it.

Both public health ethics and the Siracusa Principles dictate that the “least restrictive means” must be used when “public health” is given as a justification for restricting basic human rights, such as the right to earn a living. Yet Schwab and Fauci both ignore Sweden and Florida, and claim that Covid-19 lockdown restrictions must continue until 2022 (or longer). How on earth do they justify it?

They seem to be telling themselves — and may even truly believe — that they are “saving the planet,” so the ends justify the means. In his book, Schwab poses the rhetorical question, “Is it okay to lie to the public for some greater good?” “Well,” I would respond, “who should we trust to decide what is the greater good?” There will never be unified agreement on which system achieves this end. Some will vote Milton Friedman, some Klaus Schwab. Most everyone, however, would agree that tricks like exploiting pandemics should not be used, even by “one’s own” side.

Reasonable people may well believe in the merit of Schwab’s “stakeholder economy.” But they undoubtedly expect to be persuaded of its merit, not to have the system foisted on them by ruse. The democratic process exists so ideas can be openly hashed out, debated, and settled by the public, each person allotted one vote. Schwab quite openly admits that he would like to dispense with this process — it is not producing the result he desires. Far from it: recent populist movements in the US (“Make America Great Again”) and UK (“Brexit”) have specifically rejected his collectivist ideals:

“Without greater collaboration, we will be unable to address the global challenges that we collectively face. Put in the simplest possible terms: if, as human beings, we do not collaborate to confront our existential challenges (the environment and the global governance free fall, among others), we are doomed.”

In his “Great Reset” marketing book, Schwab threatens that this rising tide of nationalism will prove “incompatible” with the United States dollar’s “status as global reserve currency.” He suggests that an alternative currency will be needed, that a global digital currency is eventually going to arrive, and that China is “years ahead of the rest of the world” in developing one.

Although he doesn’t say so directly, Schwab et al. undoubtedly dislike what Trump has been doing to defend the dollar. Schwab quotes Barry Eichengreen and European Central Bank representatives as follows: “The security premium enjoyed by the U.S. dollar could diminish” because “the U.S. is disengaging from global geopolitics in favor of more stand-alone, inward-looking policies.”

Predictably, Schwab makes the argument that these same nationalist policies proved disastrous during “the pandemic.” Echoing the WHO’s praise of China’s collectivist action in Wuhan — which Xi Jinping proudly declares “eradicated the virus” from the entire nation of China — Schwab writes that countries fared better during the pandemic when they share “a real sense of solidarity, favoring the common good over individual aspirations and needs.”

“Favorable societal characteristics [include] core values of inclusivity, solidarity and trust [which] are strong determining elements and important contributors to success in containing an epidemic.”

Support for these concepts is not a new feeling for Schwab. This did not spring organically out of the pandemic for him, like an epiphany. Rather, this is his long-held vision of utopia and his life’s work. He’s been talking about it for decades:

Earlier this year, Schwab told the Financial Times that his aim has been to beat back Friedman. “What was for me always disturbing was that Milton Friedman gave a moral reasoning to shareholder capitalism — [he argued] the role of business was to make business earn as much as possible and then the money would flow back from the company to the government in the form of taxes. I had to fight against the wave.”

In short, Schwab et al. are on a mission. The mission is to change society. They admire China’s and New Zealand’s governance. They practiced for a pandemic. Science has been thrown to the wind for months, censorship is rampant, Sweden and Florida are ignored, the rule of law is suspended, and certain governors seem determined never to release us from their declared “state of emergency.”

These circumstances are favorable to Schwab and his powerful allies, including technology companies, billionaires, the media, China, the UN, and others. They are detrimental to billions of less powerful, less organized people and small businesses. There is a lot we don’t know, because we aren’t being told.

Schwab and his ideologically-aligned allies think they are saving the world. It is not conspiracy theory to read their own books and listen to their own words, which target fundamental liberties and rights that the West has long taken for granted. At some point, it’s not unreasonable to observe that this is no longer about public health. It’s about a new political vision, one hatched by a private few in order to rule over the many. It is unlikely to be shared by most people, thus setting up what is likely to be an epic battle in 2021.

 

 

 

What is it with CrowdStrike?

CrowdStrike, The DNC's Security Firm, Was Under Contract ... CrowdStrike was working on behalf of the DNC, the company was also under contract with the FBI for unspecified technical services. According to a US federal government spending database, CrowdStrike’s “period of performance” on behalf of the FBI was between July 2015 and July 2016. CrowdStrike’s findings regarding the DNC server breach — which continue to this day to be cited as authoritative by everyone from former FBI Director James Comey, to NBC anchor Megyn Kelly — were issued in June 2016, when the contract was still active. source

Some may believe this is all old news. It maybe years old, however it is remains unsolved. With a new Biden administration, it is important that many, many of those old players are now part of the Biden presidential operation, especially Susan Rice and the others that did unmasking. Beware of what comes.

Meanwhile…..when governments collude…especially intelligence agencies and operatives….

Real Clear Politics published in May of 2020 the following:
CrowdStrike, the cyber-security firm that first accused Russia of hacking Democratic Party emails and served as a critical source for U.S. intelligence officials in the years-long Trump-Russia probe, privately acknowledged more than two years ago that it had no evidence that Russian hackers stole emails from the Democratic National Committee’s server.

CrowdStrike President Shawn Henry’s admission under oath, in a recently declassified December 2017 interview before the House Intelligence Committee, raises new questions about whether Special Counsel Robert Mueller, intelligence officials and Democrats misled the public. The allegation that Russia stole Democratic Party emails from Hillary Clinton, John Podesta and others and then passed them to WikiLeaks helped trigger the FBI’s probe into now debunked claims of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia to steal the 2016 election. The CrowdStrike admissions were released just two months after the Justice Department retreated from its its other central claim that Russia meddled in the 2016 election when it dropped charges against Russian troll farms it said had been trying to get Trump elected.

And the Crowdstrike CEO is proud of the work his company does with the FBI. Going back further, it is noted: Attorney Andrew Bagley has been employed by the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike since January 2015; this company was involved deeply in the Democratic National Committee (DNC) hacking debacle. In 2010, Bagley served as a visiting researcher at the Link Campus University in Rome; while there, his résumé notes that Bagley, “Conducted research and held discussions with Italian and American prosecutors, special agents, and intelligence officials about intelligence analysis, national security, cybersecurity, and counterterrorism policy.”

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According to Bagley’s online résumé, he served as the E-Discovery Technical Advisor to the FBI, conducting legal research, advising on technical issues, and drafting policy for the Discovery Coordination and Policy Unit within the FBI, from 2012 to 2015.

In its capacity as attorney for the DNC, Perkins Coie – through another of its partners, Michael Sussman – is also the law firm that retained CrowdStrike, the cyber security outfit, upon learning in April 2016 that the DNC’s servers had been hacked.

Interesting: Despite the patent importance of the physical server system to the FBI and Intelligence-Community investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election, the Bureau never examined the DNC servers. Evidently, the DNC declined to cooperate to that degree, and the Obama Justice Department decided not to issue a subpoena to demand that the servers be turned over (just like the Obama Justice Department decided not to issue subpoenas to demand the surrender of critical physical evidence in the Clinton e-mails investigation).

Instead, the conclusion that Russia is responsible for the invasion of the DNC servers rests on the forensic analysis conducted by CrowdStrike. Rather than do its own investigation, the FBI relied on a contractor retained by the DNC’s lawyers.

Link International - Link Campus University of Rome Link University, Rome

As Senator Lindsey Graham published the now declassified documents/testimonies on RussiaGate, CrowdStrike comes into view again. Why? Well, the FBI has a long and comprehensive history with the Link Campus in Rome and now we learn more about Joseph Mifsud. He was on staff at the Link Campus in Italy. Remember how, AG Barr flew to Italy for some one on one interviews? Those he interviewed remain unknown.Could AG Barr have met with Vincenzo Scotti or maybe even Mifsud himself? As for Link Campus University, Italy: Mifsud, Scotti, and Frattini were all employed by this Italian university. ‘Enzo’ Scotti is Scotti is an Italian politician and member of Christian Democracy. He was Minister of the Interior and Minister of Foreign Affairs. And it could be that Mifsud is hiding in Russia….just a suggestion.

As intelligence expert Chris Blackburn notes on Twitter, leafing through the minutes, “the FBI knew that Joseph Mifsud was working with Italian intelligence figures-trainers at the Link Campus in Rome. Because the FBI worked there, too. Of course Mueller didn’t want to include it in his report.” Nothing but “Russian agent”, then. As RealClearInvestigations points out, after Mifsud was identified as the man who would talk to Papadopoulos, Mueller’s team described him as someone with important Russian contacts. This description of the Maltese lecturer, however, ignored Mifsud’s own ties to Western governments, politicians and institutions, including the CIA, FBI and British intelligence services. It’s really curious that, despite Mifsud’s central role in the investigation, the FBI conducted only a brief interview with him in an atrium of a Washington, D.C., hotel in February 2017. Mueller’s team later claimed that Mifsud provided false statements to FBI agents but did not charge him as happened with Papadopoulos. How could he be a Russian agent? And if he did, why wasn’t he questioned?
Then there is CrowdStrike and Ukraine, or is there?

FILE – CrowdStrike co-founder and CTO Dmitri Alperovitch speaks during the Reuters Media and Technology Summit in New York, June 11, 2012.

After CrowdStrike released its Ukraine report, company co-founder Dmitri Alperovitch claimed it provided added evidence of Russian election interference. In both hacks, he said, the company found malware used by “Fancy Bear,” a group with ties to Russian intelligence agencies.

CrowdStrike’s claims of heavy Ukrainian artillery losses were widely circulated in U.S. media.

On Thursday, CrowdStrike walked back key parts of its Ukraine report.

The company removed language that said Ukraine’s artillery lost 80 percent of the Soviet-era D-30 howitzers, which used aiming software that purportedly was hacked. Instead, the revised report cites figures of 15 to 20 percent losses in combat operations, attributing the figures to IISS.

The original CrowdStrike report was dated Dec. 22, 2016, and the updated report was dated March 23, 2017.

The company also removed language saying Ukraine’s howitzers suffered “the highest percentage of loss of any … artillery pieces in Ukraine’s arsenal.”
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Just a few months ago, in fact June of 2020, CrowdStrike on their website apparently felt compelled to put forth the following detail for reasons that may be coming clear.
June 5, 2020 UPDATE

Blog update following the release of the testimony by Shawn Henry, CSO and President of CrowdStrike Services, before the House Intelligence Committee that was recently declassified.

What was CrowdStrike’s role in investigating the hack of the DNC?

CrowdStrike was contacted on April 30, 2016 to respond to a suspected breach. We began our work with the DNC on May 1, 2016, collecting intelligence and analyzing the breach. After conducting this analysis and identifying the adversaries on the network, on June 10, 2016 we initiated a coordinated remediation event to ensure the intruders were removed and could not regain access. That remediation process lasted approximately 2-3 days and was completed on June 13, 2016.

Why did the DNC contact CrowdStrike?

The DNC contacted CrowdStrike to respond to a suspected cyber attack impacting its network. The DNC was first alerted to the hack by the FBI in September 2015. According to testimony by DNC IT contractor Yared Tamene Wolde-Yohannes, the FBI attributed the breach to the Russian Government in September 2015 (page 7).

Why did the DNC hire CrowdStrike instead of just working with the FBI to investigate the hack?

The FBI doesn’t perform incident response or network remediation services when organizations need to get back to business after a breach.

CrowdStrike is a leader in protecting customers around the world from cyber threats. It is common for organizations to hire third-party industry experts, like CrowdStrike, to investigate and remediate cyber attacks when they suspect a breach even if they are collaborating with law enforcement. As John Carlin, former Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division at The Department of Justice, testified before the House Intelligence Committee (cited from page 21 of his testimony):

“A lot of — outside of any political organization, companies, most corporations, they often would use these third party contractors, who they hired through their own counsel, and maximize the control from the point of view of the victim.”
What the heck is going on here for real? Outside of this little website of mine, is anyone else going deeper and seeking truths when it comes to CrowdStrike, Perkins Coie, Link University and the FBI…much less the all things DNC?
Other key citations for reference include:

https://www.voanews.com/usa/cyber-firm-rewrites-part-disputed-russian-hacking-report

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/scandals-collide-dossier-dnc-server-perkins-coie/

https://www.torial.com/satoshi.nakamoto/portfolio/355396