Opposition group says hundreds are being treated for critical injuries amid reports of bodies dumped in the Nile.

At least 100 people have been killed in a two-day crackdown on Sudanese protesters carried out by troops and paramilitaries, a doctors' committee close to the demonstrators said on Wednesday.

It said it had received eyewitness reports of bodies still to be recovered from the site of the sit-in as well as reports of bodies being dumped in the Nile by security forces.

Talks rejected
A Sudanese alliance of protesters and opposition groups on Wednesday rejected the ruling military council's invitation to talks.

Burhan had said on Wednesday that the council was still open to talks with opposition groups without any conditions.

Former IAEA deputy director Olli Heinonen, long a critic of his former employer, accused the IAEA in an interview of letting Iran “weaponize” uranium. He further claimed that Iran, with “maximum effort,” could produce a nuclear weapon in “six to eight months.”

Neither of these allegations were accurate by any stretch of the imagination. Heinonen was focusing on Iran improving its centrifuges. Despite this, Iran is still only enriching uranium to 3.6%, the level needed for its power plant, and far below the 90%+ needed for weapons-grade uranium.

Though the centrifuges conceivably could further enrich uranium beyond the levels presently being done, Iran has never attempted to enrich to anywhere near the 90% level, and has never suggested that they would even try.

In an interview Wednesday on Britain’s ITV, President Trump reiterated that he does not want a war with Iran, and would much rather talk, saying that there is “always a chance” of a war.

He gave the impression that’s getting less likely, however, calling them “extremely hostile when I first came into office,” adding “they were a terrorist nation, number one in the world at that time and probably maybe are today.”

That is a highly unusual thing for any US politician to say, as the broad official position is that no matter what Iran is doing at any given time, they are always the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism. Trump suggested that there some question to that.

It's an unavoidable fact of modern life that online companies know a lot about your online activity – buy stuff on Amazon, and of course that means Amazon knows what kind of stuff you buy. Post political content on Facebook, and Facebook knows what sort of political content you're wont to post. It's as obvious as pointing out “When you introduce yourself to people, it lets those people know who you are.”

But for all the potentially disturbing privacy implications of companies using such data to draw up accurate and truthful profiles about you, it's arguably a lot worse when companies jump to completely wrong conclusions — and place limits on your behavior as a result.

Yet blogger Imy Santiago says that's exactly what Amazon is doing. Specifically, she says Amazon is refusing to post a review she'd written about an e-book, out of the false belief that Santiago is friends with the author (and thus, the review presumably is not an honest one).

Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida recently signed a bill which added ‘anti-Semitism’ to the list of outlawed forms of discrimination in Florida, equating it with other forms of racialdiscrimination, reported the Tallahassee Democrat.

The major problem many have with this bill is that the definition of Anti-semitism under this law includes everything from saying the “Jews control the media,” “Jews are more loyal to Israel than to America,” to many other questionable statements that are protected under the first amendment of the United States constitution. It is also now illegal to question the number of Jews who died in the Holocaust. No other genocide has this protection in the world.

Minutes after announcing a new policy clamping down on “hateful” and “supremacist” videos, YouTube got to work banning, demonetizing, or otherwise hiding videos from conservatives, journalists, and even black metal musicians.

The Google subsidiary updated its “hateful content” policies on Wednesday, announcing the clampdown in a blog post. The company said that from now on it will be “specifically prohibiting videos alleging that a group is superior in order to justify discrimination, segregation or exclusion.” Other videos that don’t strictly violate the site’s rules - including those promoting phony science or conspiracy theories - will be subject to demonetization, and other measures to restrict their viewership.

Orwellian in theory? In practice, too. YouTube didn’t wait long before wielding the ban-hammer with glee.

Australian police stormed a building belonging to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), as part of an ongoing investigation against stories from 2017 related to Australian forces involved in possible war crimes in Afghanistan.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison tried to downplay the matter, though this was actually the second day of such raids against the reporter involved, while insisting that his government is “committed to press freedom.” He sought to avoid responsibility, however, saying that probe was actually started before he became premier. He also pointed out that ABC is a state-run outlet.

The 2017 articles in question were specifically related to the use of “unlawful killings” by Australian special forces. The warrant demanded drafts of the stories, access to reporter emails, and handwritten notes. Over 100 pages of documents were taken, and two USB drives.

David Menzies of The Rebel spoke to author Mark Steyn after he testified (or tried to) before Canada's Justice Committee. The Trudeau Liberals are clearly planning to bring back Section 13, the internet censorship provision under which Steyn was prosecuted 10 years ago.

Before his departure President Trump warned Mexico to clamp down on the illegal alien invasion of the US southern border or face increasing tariffs.

Just hours after President Trump announced he will be imposing 5% tariffs on Mexican imports over illegal immigration, Mexico’s president Lopez Obrador sent Trump a letter begging for a meeting to work toward a solution.

But it did not take long for Republican Senators to undermine the Republican president.

The do-nothing Senate Republicans sent Trump a warning Tuesday that they do not support tariffs on Mexican imports.

On Wednesday the US Border Patrol announced that a record 144,000 illegals were apprehended at the border in May.

Republican Senators do not care.

They will not stand with the Republican president.

Instead they undermine him while he is away in Europe.

It is no secret that Robert Hunter Biden, son of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, has or had a pretty harsh addiction to cocaine. In 2014, he was kicked out of the Navy Reserve — where he was employed as a public affairs officer — after he tested positive for cocaine.

So, when Robert Biden was in Prescott, AZ on October 27, 2016, in a rental car by himself —where police found a pipe containing cocaine—it is safe to assume that this pipe belonged to the son of the former Vice President.

As the Phoenix New Times reports:

PRESCOTT POLICE OFFICERS SEARCHED THE CAR, TOOK PHOTOS, AND IMPOUNDED THE ITEMS. DETECTIVES CONTACTED THE FBI, AND TWO FBI AGENTS SOON SHOWED UP, THE REPORT STATES. BIDEN WAS “LOCATED BY SECRET SERVICE” AND DEEMED TO BE DOING “WELL.”

Connected privilege flexed. Case closed.

SOURCE: ZEROHEDGE
Baltimore has been struggling with an aggressive cyber-attack over the last five weeks, previously profiled here, it has now been revealed the attack will cost the city $18.2 million, reported WBAL-TV 11.

The cost estimates were disclosed at a recent City Council budget hearing: city officials have already paid $4.6 million for recovery efforts since the ransomware was discovered May 7 and could spend an additional $5.4 million in 2H19. The remaining $8.2 million is from the loss or delayed revenue and loss of interest and penalty income.

Henry Raymond, #Baltimore Financial Dir., says the #ransomware attack will not affect the city’s tax bills, which will will go out on time in July - says it’s costing $18 million @wbalradio pic.twitter.com/NYlYBHTkCg

— Phil Yacuboski (@WBALPhil) June 4, 2019
As of Tuesday, 35% of city employees had their email accounts restored, with the possibility of a full system restore by the end of the week.

When Google croaked over the weekend, a cascading tidal wave of web services came crashing down, including the Google cloud, Gmail, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and even portions of Amazon. Google owns the “Nest” brand which promises “smart home” functionality to control your home through a Google app on your mobile device. But during the outage, people were locked out of their smart homes… and many were unable to control home appliances such as air conditioners or lights.

It turns out that a “smart home” is an incredibly stupid idea. If you can’t even open your front door without getting permission from a remotely processed Google login procedure that requires the smooth functioning of routers, servers and the power grid, you’ve put yourself in a stupid situation. Do you really want Google — now the most evil corporation in the world — to control your access to your own home? Do you even want Google knowing when you’re entering and leaving your home?

SOURCE: MATT AGORIST @ THE FREE THOUGHT PROJECT

(Support Free Thought) - In March, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced the “first tranche” in a number of moves to restrict the rights of New Zealand citizens to protect themselves with firearms. This move was in direct response to the horrific murders that unfolded on March 15. Coincidentally, this is the exact move the terrorist who carried out these attacks had hoped for and predicted. The good news is, however, that most citizens are refusing to turn in their guns.

The terrorist who murdered 50 people earlier this year was engaging in a classic propaganda of the deed in which he predicted—accurately—that his murder would spark the restriction of gun rights. Lawmakers took his bait.

SOURCE: MIDDLE EAST MONITOR
France’s weapons sales to Saudi Arabia rose 50 per cent in 2018 despite the government calling for an end to the “dirty war” in Yemen, figures released on Tuesday showed, Reuters reports.
An annual government report showed that total arms sales rose 30 per cent to 9.1 billion euros in 2018, driven by a sharp increase in sales to European allies.

France sold about 1 billion euros worth of arms to Saudi Arabia, with the main item being patrol boats. A partial naval blockade of ports controlled by the Houthi movement is one of the tactics used by a Saudi-led coalition in Yemen that has been criticised by campaigners for worsening a humanitarian crisis.

The official trailer for the latest Call of Duty was released a few days ago, and it features the Syria narrative management operation known as the White Helmets depicted in heroic roles. Characters wearing the organization’s signature headgear are seen clearing rubble in part of the trailer for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.

To give you an idea how popular the CoD franchise is, as of this writing the official Youtube version of the trailer has 27 million views.

To be clear, the characters in the game are most certainly intended to resemble the White Helmets of Syria, and their presence there is most certainly intended to increase support for and interest in that group. How do I know? Its game writer has explicitly said so.

On the international level, the U.S. government plays an even more dreadful role. According to the current U.S. foreign policy; China, Russia, North Korea, Venezuela, Iran and the major European countries are considered as adversary regimes that needs to be dealt with in one way or another. Both Democrats and Republicans believe that a major war gives them a chance to rally their national and international forces. Both parties see a major military conflict as a catalyzing factor to tilt the power for a fundamental change in their benefit. President Trump plays a unique role in flaming the trade and military wars. Since 2016, Mr. Trump’s contradictory positions on many issues have discredited his Administration and the role of the U.S. in the world.

For one, the Middle East already has a regional hegemon – the United States. Even the wildest accusations against Iran regarding state sponsored terrorism pale in comparison to Al Qaeda and the self-proclaimed Islamic State (ISIS) whose terrorism spans the globe, including standing armies operating in Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Afghanistan – several of which Iran itself is specifically fighting.

The US also supports terrorist organizations within Iran including the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK). MEK enjoys the support of National Security Adviser John Bolton – who lobbied for them for years while they were listed as a foreign terrorist organization by the US State Department itself.

Thus, Iran finds itself involved in Yemen, Syria, and Lebanon precisely to stave off openly declared intentions by the US to include Iran next under its already expansive hegemony over the Middle East.

Assange’s critics mocked him for entering the embassy, saying his fear that the US government would indict him was paranoia. Then the US-controlled International Monetary Fund dangled a four billion dollar loan in front of Ecuadorian president Lenin Moreno (elected in 2017, replacing the president who granted him asylum), and Moreno eagerly handed Assange over to British authorities who the same day hauled him before the court to answer for skipping bail. No medical examination after what was seven years of house arrest. Straight to court. He was sentenced to 50 weeks – the maximum sentence.

Nearly 400 hospitals and medical facilities in Yemen were destroyed during the four-year war period as a result of the Saudi-led coalition air strikes, Health Ministry spokesman Youssef Hadiri said in an interview with Sputnik News, on Thursday.

“More than 375 hospitals and medical facilities were destroyed because they were hit directly or indirectly by bombs and missiles launched by the coalition,” Hadiri said.

The spokesman added that the Yemeni medical sector is in critical condition due to the war that is exacerbated by Saudi-led aggression.

Hadiri also said that more than 5,000 people in Yemen need to undergo dialysis or kidney transplants and that in the war period at least 1,200 people died from not receiving the treatment or medication needed for kidney disease. In addition, the spokesman said that the humanitarian crisis in Yemen has led to the death of more than 700,000 people.

Trump’s gifts to the Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu of the Syrian Golan occupied by Israel and of the whole of Israeli-occupied Jerusalem gave an enormous boost of adrenaline to all non-state actors and resistance movements in the Middle East. These groups, who enjoy financial and military support from Iran, are united not only against US hegemony but have also effectively linked themselves and their struggle to form a united front against the US and Israel. This new unity is evident from Yemen, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Lebanon to Palestine.

Around the world, governments are hitting on a modish new idea: Turn the internet off. Sometimes they mean it literally.

Methods vary, but the trend is clear enough. Countries are increasingly ordering telecoms and other companies to block network access, shut down messaging services, or otherwise restrict digital applications or websites, usually citing public order or national-security concerns. In extreme cases, internet access can be “blacked out” entirely. Worldwide, such shutdowns rose to 188 last year, up from 75 in 2016.

Brazil's right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro received the diplomatic credentials of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido's envoy to Brazil, formally recognizing her as the ambassador of the neighboring country.

Ambassador Maria Teresa Belandria had said on Friday that the Brazilian government withdrew its invitation to present her credentials at the presidential palace. But her spokeswoman told Reuters on Tuesday the government had changed its mind.

New Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday he was ready to negotiate with Russia to end the war in eastern Ukraine while sticking to Ukraine’s goal of one day joining the European Union and the NATO alliance.

Speaking at NATO headquarters, Zelenskiy, a former comic actor with no prior political experience who took over as president on May 20, said he would keep Ukraine “on the path of European and Euro Atlantic integration”.

“The strategic course of Ukraine to achieve fully-fledged membership in the EU and NATO ... remains unchanged,” Zelenskiy told reporters alongside NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. “This is the priority of our foreign policy.”

Islamic State claimed responsibility on Tuesday for a deadly overnight attack in an area of eastern Congo hit by an Ebola epidemic, although its account of the violence differed from local reports.

The deputy mayor of Beni in the eastern Democratic of Congo said 13 civilians were killed late on Monday in an attack by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) - a group thought to be linked to Islamic State.

“The victims were killed by bullets and others by bladed weapons,” Mayor Modeste Bakwanamaha told Reuters.

In a statement on the messaging website Telegram, Islamic State said it was behind the attack. It said it had targeted the Congolese army in Beni, killing or wounding 25 people.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Tuesday that Tehran would not be “deceived” by U.S. President Donald Trump’s offer of negotiations and would not give up its missile programme.

Iran and the United States have been drawn into starker confrontation in the past month, a year after Washington pulled out of a deal between Iran and global powers to curb Tehran’s nuclear programme in return for lifting international sanctions.

Trump has condemned the nuclear deal, signed by his predecessor Barack Obama, as flawed for not being permanent and for not covering Iran’s ballistic missile programme and its role in conflicts around the Middle East. He has called on Iran to come to negotiating table to reach a new deal.

The revelation of a massive US citizen photo database fanned the flames of debate about the highly controversial high-tech solution to crimes, which can possibly become the culprit in mass wrongful arrests and privacy violations.

US lawmakers are calling for a nation-wide moratorium on facial recognition technology after a massive database of 640 million photos gathered by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) was revealed during a hearing on Tuesday.

Speaking before a House Oversight and Reform Committee, Government Accountability Office (GAO) representative Gretta Goodwin revealed that the FBI has access to some 640 million photos of US citizens, including 36 million mugshot photos and 21 state driver’s license directories. The revelation sparked bewilderment amongst the lawmakers.

In a bizarre fashion, you might even say that, in the twenty-first century, the bomb and missile count replaced the Vietnam-era body count as a metric of (false) progress. Using data supplied by the U.S. military, the Council on Foreign Relations estimated that the U.S. dropped at least 26,172 bombs in seven countries in 2016, the bulk of them in Iraq and Syria. Against Raqqa alone, ISIS’s “capital,” the U.S. and its allies dropped more than 20,000 bombs in 2017, reducing that provincial Syrian city to literal rubble. Combined with artillery fire, the bombing of Raqqa killed more than 1,600 civilians, according to Amnesty International.

The Trump Administration has made clear that their anger toward Venezuela’s government also extends to Cuba, and this was shown again today with the administration imposing new restrictions to prevent Americans ever setting foot on Cuban soil.

The new restrictions target educational trips as well as cruise ships, forbidden all cruises from stopping in Cuba for recreational purposes. There was no grace period for ships already en route.

This created immediate chaos among cruise operators, and a number of scheduled cruises that were to stop in Cuba as part of their voyages have uncertain futures, with Carnival Corp saying they won’t be going to Cuba, but they will be going someplace in the future.

To fully understand the Deep State one need focus on matters both inside and outside of government. The Deep State corrupts everything it touches. Today that includes much of the country.

The Deep State corrupted the media.

The first task of any State is to control the information (propaganda) fed to its citizens. Totalitarian states eliminate any free exchange of opinions. The Soviet Union had a state-run newspaper known as Pravda. It was a monopoly in that no other sources legally provided news. The new Russia pretends it has press freedom, but it controls the media. So does China. Severe penalties, including murder, are used to obtain conformity.

In the US, we say we have freedom and a “free press.” But do we?

Officials say US must come up with a new approach 'before it is too late'

With no progress being made in talks between the US in North Korea since the failed Hanoi Summit, North Korea is warning that deals reached at last year’s summit could also be at risk if the US doesn’t start coming up with a new effort to resume talks.

The statement cautions that the US must abandon its demands for unilateral North Korean disarmament “before it is too late,” and that if the US continues to test North Korean patience, the joint Singapore declaration would end up a “mere blank sheet of paper.”

North Korea has been calling for a new US approach for months, but so far the signs are that there will be no change.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has insisted that the US will hold North Korea to commitments to unilaterally disarm.

It was 4am when Masih Ur-Rahman Mubarez’s wife Amina called, an unusually early time for their daily chat. When he picked up the phone, he could hear the panic in her voice.

The call ended with Masih saying he would call again when things had calmed. But at 9am, when he dialed his wife’s number, her phone was off. He tried again at 9.30am. Still off. Through the whole of that day and the next, he repeatedly called. But Amina’s phone remained off.

It took another day for him to the learn the truth. Relatives avoided his calls or gave vague replies to his questions, until finally his brother broke the news. “He tried to avoid telling me the whole story, but I insisted that he tell me the truth,” Masih recalled in a wavering voice. “He told me to have patience in God - no one is left.”

An airstrike on Masih’s house had killed his wife and all his seven children, alongside four young cousins. His youngest child was just four years old.

The Donald Trump administration issued two authorisations for the transfer of technical "nuclear expertise" to Saudi Arabia after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi late last year, US Senator Tim Kaine has revealed.

Kaine, a Democrat from Virginia, where Khashoggi resided, called the decision "shocking" - as it came amid global outrage over the Saudi journalist's gruesome murder on 2 October.

The two approvals were issued on 18 October - only 16 days after Khashoggi was killed - and on 18 February, respectively.

Known as "Part 810 authorisations", they allow US companies to discuss and work on nuclear-related projects in the Gulf kingdom.

"I have serious questions about whether any decisions on nuclear transfers were made based on the Trump family's financial ties rather than the interests of the American people," Kaine said in a statement on Tuesday.

Multiple US Air Force aircraft, including a B-52 strategic bomber, have joined the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Arabian Sea for a ‘simulated strike operations’ exercise to prepare to take on Iran “when called upon.”
The drills witnessed F/A-18 Super Hornets, MH-60 Sea Hawk helicopters, and E-2D Growlers from the USS Abraham Lincoln mastering joint maneuvers to improve their “operational tactics in several warfare areas,” US Naval Forces Central Command said on Sunday. Among other “joint training evolutions,” the US Air Force participated in “strike coordination and reconnaissance exercises.”

Authored by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,

It looks like 2019 could be the worst year for U.S. agriculture in modern American history by a very wide margin. As you will see below, millions upon millions of acres of U.S. farmland will go unused this year due to cataclysmic flooding. And many of the farmers that did manage to plant crops are reporting extremely disappointing results.

The highly classified transcript between former National Security Advisor Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn and former Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak would answer once and for all exactly what was said between the then senior government officials. Kislyak’s phone was being monitored by U.S. intelligence but that didn’t stop senior U.S. officials from leaking the conversation to the media. In fact, it was that essence of Flynn’s conversation with Kislyak that eventually led to Flynn being fired from his role as President Donald Trump’s national security advisor.

Knowing exactly what was said could be a game changer. Prosecutors don’t want that to happen. In fact, they argue that the transcripts aren’t essential to Flynn’s prosecution, in which he has already pleaded guilty. Isn’t that interesting, since it was senior government officials who broke the law and leaked the fact to the media that the two had spoken by phone.

Former MI6 agent Christopher Steele has finally agreed to meet with US officials to discuss his relationship with the FBI, and the now-infamous dossier of unfounded claims against Donald Trump which he assembled on behalf of the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

The 54-year-old Steele has agreed to meet with investigators from the US Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General (OIG), according to The Times of London, after a former US official told Politico that the OIG report would "try to deeply undermine" Steele.

The news marks a 180-shift in Steele's past refusals to engage with US authorities. In April, Politico reported that Steele would not meet with the OIG to assist them with their investigation, while just last week, Reuters reported that he wouldn't meet with US attorney John Durham, who was handpicked by AG William Barr to review the origins of the Trump-Russia probe.

SOURCE: QUARTZ

Over the past 20 years, the share of Americans working in their 70s has risen from less than 10% to nearly 15%, according to US Census bureau data.

In addition to people being healthier and living much longer, economists say that a combination of financial considerations such as years of stagnant real wages and a shift away from traditional pensions in the private sector are some of the reasons people are working longer. The decline of manufacturing and the increase in the number of people working in less labor-intensive occupations also has contributed to the trend says Abraham, who researches work and retirement decisions of older Americans.

“Which matters more [the choice to keep working or the necessity to do so] depends on what your history up until that point has been in the type of work you’re doing,” Abraham says.

SOURCE: THEGRAYZONE.COM

FACEBOOK’S NEW PUBLIC POLICY MANAGER FOR UKRAINE KATERYNA KRUK IS A FORMER GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL, DIEHARD NATIONALIST, AND ANTI-RUSSIAN JINGOIST WHO VOLUNTEERED WITH THE EXTREME-RIGHT PARTY SVOBODA DURING THE 2014 US-BACKED COUP.
BY BEN NORTON

When Facebook hired a new public policy manager for Ukraine, the mega-corporation chose one of the most biased candidates possible: a hawkish jingoist who has worked extensively with the Ukrainian government and the European Union.

Kateryna Kruk, who has served as Facebook’s public policy manager for Ukraine since late May, was an active participant in Ukraine’s 2014 US-backed coup, in which far-right ultra-nationalists violently ousted a democratically elected pro-Russian government and replaced it with a pro-NATO one.

SOURCE: ROWENA HE VIA THE NATION

Remembering the Tiananmen Movement is not just about repression... it’s about hope.

On May 23, 1989, Yu and his two friends threw eggshells filled with paint at Mao’s portrait in Tiananmen Square. Instead of applauding their audacity, the students turned them over to the authorities.

The students wanted to keep their protests separate from those of the workers. There was never an attempt to form a grand alliance to overthrow the regime, as Beijing would later assert. The students also feared that if they didn’t hand over the three young men, the government would have an excuse to crack down on them.

The image of thousands of people holding candles has become as iconic as the Tank Man, reminding us that Tiananmen is not just about repression—it’s about hope. Tiananmen symbolizes the struggle for freedom and human rights. Because this longing for basic rights is universal, history will witness the Tiananmen spirit again and again.

Mark Fallon, former investigator at Guantanamo, noticed an advertisement for the International Spy Museum in Washington.

The fact the ?@IntlSpyMuseum? would seek to profit from human suffering, with sidewalk ads about water #torture is shameful and irresponsible. ?@hrw? ?@P4HR? ?@HRFNatlSecurity? ?@hrfalerts? ?@cvt_staff? ?@amnestyusa? #HumanRights matter

148
2:35 PM - Jun 2, 2019
107 people are talking about this
Twitter Ads info and privacy
On a recent trip to the museum I picked up on many subtle–and not so subtle–messages to valorize the deeply problematic deeds of secret intelligence agencies.

SOURCE: DEEP STATE BLOG

Eli Lake, the pro-Israel Bloomberg columnist, thinks selling Israeli-made Pegasus spyware to Saudi Arabia not a good idea. Lake recently met Palestinian blogger Ayad al-Baghdadi (no relation to the ISIS leader of the same name) who has reportedly been targeted by the Saudi regime.

Now living in exile in Norway, al Baghdadi still has to fear the long arm of Saudi intelligence as empowered by Israeli technology.

Pegasus and similar hacking programs are now able to break into a phone without requiring the user to even click a link. In some cases, a bogus WhatsApp call is enough to infect the phone and make it a powerful tracking device. That makes it particularly suited to monitor Arab dissidents like Al-Baghdadi, who rely on the encrypted messaging service to make contact with networks of activists across the Middle East.

Monsanto paid a shadowy chemical industry front group to help push back against the mounting scientific evidence that the company’s signature Roundup weedkiller causes cancer, court documents reveal.

“If a company like [Monsanto] won’t support us, then who will?” the head of the American Council on Science and Health wrote to a Monsanto scientist in 2015. A day later came the reply: “[T]he answer is yes…. [D]efinitely count us in!!”

Emails between Monsanto and the American Council on Science and Health, or ACSH, and related internal Monsanto emails were first made public during the trial last July of a lawsuit by a former California school groundskeeper who was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma after using Roundup. The jury awarded Dewayne “Lee” Johnson $289 million in punitive and compensatory damages, later reduced by the judge to $78 million.

SOURCE: MATT AGORIST @ THE FREE THOUGHT PROJECT
(Support Free Thought) - Dallas, NC — An infuriating video was shared with the Free Thought Project this week showing North Carolina cops violate the rights of multiple innocent people because one of them smelled marijuana. No marijuana was found, but that didn’t stop cops from holding a family and their guests hostage for over an hour to look for it.

The incident in Dallas, NC started after police claimed they received a “911 hang up call.” Dallas police officer Beer arrives on scene and finds that the 911 hang up call was a non-incident. However, he then claims to smell marijuana and begins knocking on an innocent family’s door.

The officer admits in the video that the call did not come from the family’s home, but he knocked on their door anyway. A woman inside the home answers the door, at which point a rights-violating frenzy unfolds.

SOURCE: MATT AGORIST @ THE FREE THOUGHT PROJECT
(Support Free Thought) - Dallas, NC — An infuriating video was shared with the Free Thought Project this week showing North Carolina cops violate the rights of multiple innocent people because one of them smelled marijuana. No marijuana was found, but that didn’t stop cops from holding a family and their guests hostage for over an hour to look for it.

The incident in Dallas, NC started after police claimed they received a “911 hang up call.” Dallas police officer Beer arrives on scene and finds that the 911 hang up call was a non-incident. However, he then claims to smell marijuana and begins knocking on an innocent family’s door.

The officer admits in the video that the call did not come from the family’s home, but he knocked on their door anyway. A woman inside the home answers the door, at which point a rights-violating frenzy unfolds.

SOURCE: THE INTERCEPT

IN A FEDERAL lawsuit, the tech giant Oracle has provided new details to support its accusation that Amazon secretly negotiated a job offer with a then-Department of Defense official who helped shape the procurement process for a massive federal contract for which Amazon was a key bidder.

Amazon Web Services and Microsoft are now the two finalists to win the highly contested $10 billion contract for what is known as the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI. The deal, one of the largest federal contracts in U.S. history, would pay one company to provide cloud computing services in support of Defense Department operations around the world.

Julian Assange’s case goes even farther than breaking all the rules of “democratic” free speech. The way he is treated is a serious infraction on Human Rights. The US and British governments intend to silence and punish a champion of free speech, torturing him for the world to see, and especially as a deterrent for would-be whistleblowers and other free-speech advocates.

Chinese social media sites have been placed on a lockdown ahead of the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, according to Bloomberg.

While Beijing already employs highly restrictive controls over their internet, Chinese censors typically intensify their efforts ahead of the June 4 anniversary of the bloody student protests in 1989.

This year, Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s messaging app WeChat and micro-blogging site Weibo barred users from changing their profile photos and other personal information. Video-streaming service Bilibili said it suspended real-time comments and other features for “technical upgrades.” -Bloomberg

SOURCE: BUSINESSINSIDER.COM
The Facebook shareholder revolt just got bloody.

In a filing on Monday, Facebook revealed how investors voted on a raft of proposals at its annual shareholder meeting last week — and the results underline the unrest among outside investors.

According to an analysis of the results by Open Mic — an organization that works with activist shareholders to improve corporate governance at America's biggest companies — independent shareholders overwhelmingly backed two proposals to weaken Mark Zuckerberg's power.

Some 68% of ordinary investors, those who are not part of management or the board, want to oust Zuckerberg as chairman and bring in an independent figure to chair Facebook's board. This was a significant increase on the 51% who voted in favor of an almost identical proposal last year.

It’s been a busy few days for American diplomacy, with three dozen nations ending up at the receiving end of threats, ultimatums and sanctions this week alone.

by Carlos Miller

It was a minor fender bender but it led to a man's murder.
If only she had been a police officer, Hannah Payne would easily have avoided the murder charge by simply claiming she was in fear for her life.

Instead, the 21-year-old Georgia woman acted as if she were protected by Blue Privilege when she chased down a 62-year-old man whom she saw strike a tractor-trailer and continue driving on May 7.

"Get the fuck out the car! I'm going to shoot you!" she screamed at Kenneth Herring after pursuing him for a mile, then cutting him off and getting out of her car with the gun.

She then proceeded to punch and grab at him, trying to pull him out of the car.

She then shot and killed him.

"He just shot himself with my gun," she told a 911 dispatcher, according to the Clayton News-Journal.

The family of Kenneth Herring said he was likely having a diabetic episode when he crashed into the car and was probably driving himself to the hospital.

THE MESSAGES ARRIVED suddenly and then he went quiet. “My identity is leaked,” he said. “I am worried about my safety.”

The Chinese dissident artist Badiucao had been busy preparing an exhibition in Hong Kong to celebrate Free Expression Week, a series of events organized by rights groups. His show was partly inspired by Google’s plan to build a censored search engine in China, and was set to include work that the artist had created skewering the U.S. tech giant for cooperating with the Communist Party regime’s suppression of internet freedom.

But just days before the exhibition was set to launch last year, at a high-profile event featuring members of Russian punk-activist group Pussy Riot, it was canceled by organizers. Badiucao had received threats from the Chinese government and soon went into hiding.

SOURCE: ZERO HEDGE

A new lawsuit by the Center for Inquiry (CFI) alleges Walmart is "committing wide-scale consumer fraud and endangering the health of its customers through its sale and marketing of homeopathic medicines."

The lawsuit was filed in the District of Columbia last month. CFI is also involved in a similar suit against CVS, which has been ongoing since June 2018.

"Walmart sells homeopathics right alongside real medicines, in the same sections in its stores, under the same signs," said Nicholas Little, CFI's Vice President and General Counsel. "Searches on its website for cold and flu remedies or teething products for infants yield pages full of homeopathic junk products. It's an incredible betrayal of customers' trust and an abuse of Walmart's titanic retail power."

SOURCE: GEEK.COM

The U.S. State Department now requires most visa applicants to submit their social media usernames, previous email addresses, and phone numbers.

As reported by the Associated Press, this change is a “vast” expansion of President Trump’s enhanced screening of potential immigrants and visitors.

It will affect some 15 million foreigners applying for entry to the US each year.

“National security is our top priority when adjudicating visa applications,” according to a government statement published by the AP.

“Every prospective traveler and immigrant to the United States undergoes extensive security screening,” the State Department continued. “We are constantly working to find mechanisms to improve our screening process to protect U.S. citizens, while supporting legitimate travel to the United States.”

How to boycott Google

It’s easy at 1-2-3.

Why boycott Google?

They spy on you, they lie about it and now they’re censoring the Internet.

You don’t have to put up with it.

There are three ways to ways to boycott:

SOURCE: QUARTZ
...

Over the past 20 years, the share of Americans working in their 70s has risen from less than 10% to nearly 15%, according to US Census bureau data.

In addition to people being healthier and living much longer, economists say that a combination of financial considerations such as years of stagnant real wages and a shift away from traditional pensions in the private sector are some of the reasons people are working longer. The decline of manufacturing and the increase in the number of people working in less labor-intensive occupations also has contributed to the trend says Abraham, who researches work and retirement decisions of older Americans.

“Which matters more [the choice to keep working or the necessity to do so] depends on what your history up until that point has been in the type of work you’re doing,” Abraham says.

Holocaust denial, the denial of the systematic genocidal killing of approximately six million Jews in Europe by Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s, is illegal in 16 European countries and Israel. Many countries also have broader laws that criminalize genocide denial. Of the countries that ban Holocaust denial, some, such as Austria, Germany, Hungary, and Romania, were among the perpetrators of the Holocaust, and many of these also ban other elements associated with Nazism, such as the expression of Nazi symbols.

By B.N. Frank

More creepy “Surveillance Capitalism” courtesy of Amazon who isn’t hiding that it is putting millions of smart speakers in homes and hotels by “offering discounted hardware, customized software and new ways for property managers to harvest and use data.”

Are there actually people willing to pay for this type of arrangement?

From the Wall Street Journal, “Amazon’s Plan to Move In to Your Next Apartment Before You Do.”

For Amazon, the appeal is obvious: Adding millions of new users to its services and gaining access to data like their voice-based wish lists and Alexa-powered shopping habits will put it further ahead of the competition which, at the moment, doesn’t have a significant presence in rental properties and new-home construction.

‘We can predict if residents are happy based on their digital interactions.’

Here’s what they have to say about privacy:

SOURCE: ZEROHEDGE

A couple of new bombshell leaked NSA documents from the Snowden archive published days ago by The Intercept confirms the extremely close level of cooperation between American and Israeli intelligence services, especially as part of the so-called "global war on terror" since 9/11. The documents reveal the NSA even assisted in an aggressive targeted assassination campaign waged by Israel inside Lebanon, especially during the 2006 Lebanon War.

According to The Intercept's report — aptly titled "Israel Hated American Ban on Sharing Intel for Assassinations, so US Made New Rules" —the newly unearthed NSA memos reveal attempts to find a legal loophole of sorts on the part of the US intelligence officials which would allow unprecedented information sharing related to a deeply controversial targeted assassination campaign by Israel.

SOURCE: SUBMITTED BY NATURE HUB

— AMERICAN’S DANGEROUS ADDICTION TO FACTORY FOOD.
Over the years ultra-processed factory food has become more and more common. Living in the USA it’s almost impossible to avoid them. As children most of us grew up eating them- and in many cases those cute frozen TV dinners were delivered right to our door. Eating out of the package isn’t ideal- for sure- but just how big of a price are we paying with our health?

Many would be surprised to find out just which foods make the list of ultra-processed foods. It’s not just fast food, sweets, fried foods, and chips, but also bread, sausages, fruit-yogurts, packaged soups and noodles, sweetened drinks, jarred sauces, processed meats, and almost any frozen meal- things that are common staples of the American diet, served in schools, restaurants, and homes across the country.

SOURCE: RT

Sudan’s military has used live ammunition to disperse protesters in the capital, Khartoum, according to reports. A medical association close to the protesters said that at least 13 people have been killed and dozens injured.
Sudan has been ruled by the Transitional Military Council since the ousting of authoritarian president Omar al-Bashir in April. The crackdown comes as participants in a long-running sit-in outside the army’s HQ have been demanding democratic reforms and for generals to hand over power.

SOURCE: THE NEW AMERICAN
Reprinted with permission from TheNewAmerican.com.

Venezuela’s Marxist dictator Nicolás Maduro hasn’t paid Rostec, Russia’s state-controlled military contractor, for months, so the company is pulling the plug, according to the Wall Street Journal. That contractor has been providing vast military armaments and other materiel to Maduro’s regime, including Kalashnikov rifles, helicopters, tanks, and aerial defense systems. It has also, until recently, had about 1,000 technicians in place to train Venezuelan military personnel how to maintain that high-tech equipment. Now, said the Journal, that number has been reduced to just a few dozen.

U.S. sanctions, particularly on Maduro’s Central Bank of Venezuela, have made it all but impossible for the bank to sell off what remains of the country’s gold reserves to raise the cash to pay Rostec’s bills.

SOURCE: MATT AGORIST @ THE FREE THOUGHT PROJECT

(Support Free Thought) - Cleveland, OH — A deeply disturbing video has been released from a surveillance camera inside Cuyahoga County jail of multiple officers strapping a woman to a restraint chair before hitting her and then covering her face in pepper spray foam. The nature of the video were so horrifying that the officers involved have all been charged with crimes.

The incident happened on July 16, 2018 when an innocent woman, Chantelle Glass was brought to jail. Despite being strapped down to a chair and savagely tortured, Glass was never charged with a crime but because she had an unpaid traffic ticket, they held her in jail.

Officer Idris-Farid Clark is one of five officers charged in multiple attacks on inmates. The video of Glass’ incident was just released this week as part of a claim cleveland.com filed against the county in the Ohio Court of Claims.

SOURCE: THE INTERCEPT
THE VANS STARTED coming on May 14, depositing their passengers into an alley by the Greyhound station in San Bernardino, California, and then taking off. The first night, the station’s small lobby quickly filled with migrants from Guatemala and elsewhere who had been abruptly dropped off there by the U.S. Border Patrol.

The manager of the station ended up getting many of them tickets to Los Angeles that night, said Luis Suarez, of the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice. “It’s open 24/7, and he wanted them to have a warm place at least. San Bernardino closes at 2 a.m.” On summer nights, temperatures can drop 30 degrees in the city, which is located in the foothills of a mountain range about 60 miles east of Los Angeles.

SOURCE: RT
A top-secret NSA targeting system which dramatically increased the civilian death toll in Afghanistan and Iraq has made its way back home, according to leaked documents boasting of its use on the US-Mexico border.
The RT-RG targeting system, which sucks up and processes hundreds of millions of phone and internet records per day in order to “find, fix and finish” enemy combatants, has been deployed on the US’ southern border since 2010, according to documents leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

When NSA agents gave a presentation at the El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC) in 2008, the Drug Enforcement Administration, one of 21 law enforcement agencies with a presence at the center, dropped everything to get its hands on an RT-RG of its own.

SOURCE: COMMON DREAMS
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden said Thursday that people in systems of power have exploited the human desire to connect in order to create systems of mass surveillance.

Snowden appeared at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia via livestream from Moscow to give a keynote address for the Canadian university's Open Dialogue Series.

Right now, he said, humanity is in a sort of "atomic moment" in the field of computer science.

"We're in the midst of the greatest redistribution of power since the Industrial Revolution, and this is happening because technology has provided a new capability," Snowden said.

"It's related to influence that reaches everyone in every place," he said. "It has no regard for borders. Its reach is unlimited, if you will, but its safeguards are not."

Without such defenses, technology is able to affect human behavior.

Liberal billionaires George Soros and Scott Wallace are helping bankroll a new fund hosted by an intricate dark money organization and focused on helping Democrats make inroads with midwestern voters for the 2020 elections.

The deep-pocketed donors moved the money from the Open Society Foundations, Soros's foundation, and the Wallace Global Fund, Wallace's foundation, to the newly launched Heartland Fund, a collaborative effort focused on building "power across the divides of the American heartland" as overall Democratic efforts have veered towards the region.

The Heartland Fund recently disbursed $500,000 in its first round of grants to nine left-wing groups and will begin its efforts with organizing and issue advocacy. The initiative is housed at the Windward Fund, which falls under the auspices of Arabella Advisors, a major dark money "fiscal sponsor" network founded by Eric Kessler, a former Bill Clinton appointee.

SOURCE: ZEROHEDGE
The Trump administration has implemented a new policy, effective on Friday, that now asks most applicants for U.S. visas to provide information on their use of social media, according to The Hill.

Even temporary visitors will be required to list their social media identifiers in a drop-down menu, along with other personal information, when applying. Applicants for visas will be given the option to say that they don’t use social media, but if they are found to be lying, they could face "serious immigration consequences", according to a U.S. Department of State official.

A spokesperson for the Department of State said:

SOURCE: THE NEW AMERICAN
Reprinted with permission from TheNewAmerican.com.

The Fake News organs that regularly shower Stacey Abrams with adulatory coverage are now mum about her entry into the secretive, shadowy corridors of power.

Stacey Abrams has really arrived. The former Minority Leader of the Georgia House of Representatives and the Democrat Party candidate in the 2018, hotly-contested Georgia gubernatorial election, Abrams scored a double anointing by major globalist groups during the month of May. First, on May 10, she was chosen to deliver the keynote address at the Council on Foreign Relations’ Seventh Annual Conference on Diversity in International Affairs. She received the royal rock star treatment during that conference, as the great and the good packed into “A Conversation With Stacey Abrams,” a Q&A session emceed by New York Times reporter and editorial board member Eduardo Porter.

SOURCE: ALJAZEERA.COM
The Afghan Taliban is unlikely to call a ceasefire any time soon, the group's leader has indicated, even though the "doors of dialogue" with the United States to end the 18-year-long war in the country remain open.

In his annual message on Saturday, ahead of next week's Eid al-Fitr holiday marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan, Mullah Haibatullah Akhunzada pledged to continue fighting until the group's objectives were reached.

"No one should expect us to pour cold water on the heated battlefronts of Jihad or forget our 40-year sacrifices before reaching our objectives," he said in the message, adding that the Taliban aimed for "an end to the occupation and establishment of an Islamic system".

His statement comes days after a Taliban official said that "decent progress" had been made during talks with a group of senior Afghan politicians in Moscow.

Apparently reporting on a war crime committed by Israel and providing a first hand account of the destruction and the anguish inflicted on Palestinian refugees is considered ‘hate speech’ according to the authoritarian social network.

SOURCE: MEDIUM.COM

British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has just given a speech extolling the virtues of a free media, praising the journalists who’ve been brave enough to expose the truth about wicked governments in the face of tyrannical oppression. While he was preparing to give this speech, without any indication of any self-reflection at all, he defended the torture of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

After news broke that UN Special Rapporteur on torture Nils Melzer had found that Julian Assange has been the victim of psychological torture for years, Hunt, who is gunning to become the UK’s next Prime Minister, accused him of interfering in British affairs and making “inflammatory statements”.

“This is wrong,” Hunt tweeted. “Assange chose to hide in the embassy and was always free to leave and face justice. The UN Special Rapporteur should allow British courts to make their judgements without his interference or inflammatory accusations.”

SOURCE: RT

Facebook’s lawyer has denied the social media platform invaded American users’ privacy when it allowed their personal data to be slurped up by Cambridge Analytica, claiming they had no privacy to begin with. No crime, no victims?
“There is no invasion of privacy at all, because there is no privacy,” attorney Orin Snyder argued in a motion to have a class-action lawsuit against Facebook dismissed in California’s Northern District Court this week. The suit alleges Facebook’s failure to protect user data from predatory third parties like Cambridge Analytica constitutes invasion of privacy, breach of contract, and negligence and violates other privacy statutes.

SOURCE: AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL USA
Responding to today’s announcement by the U.S.-led Coalition that at least 1,302 civilians have been unintentionally killed by Coalition strikes in Syria and Iraq between August 2014 and the end of April 2019, Amnesty International’s Senior Crisis Response Adviser Donatella Rovera said:

“While all admissions of responsibility by the U.S.-led Coalition for civilian casualties are welcome, the Coalition remains deeply in denial about the devastating scale of the civilian casualties caused by their operations in both Iraq and Syria.

“A comprehensive investigation by Amnesty International in partnership with Airwars, launched last month, revealed that more than 1,600 civilians were killed in the Raqqa offensive alone in 2017 – meaning the acknowledged deaths are just a fraction of the total numbers killed.

SOURCE: MATT AGORIST @ THE FREE THOUGHT PROJECT
(Support Free Thought) - St. Paul, MN — When 24-year-old Terrell Wilson was arrested on April 13, 2016, he never thought an accusation of swiping someone’s cellphone at a night club would end up with him being held down by a half dozen officers—and savagely tortured—while in handcuffs. But that is exactly what happened. Now, after three years, the disturbing video has been released and the taxpayers, not the cop who did most of the torturing, are being held liable.

On Thursday, Wilson received more than $500,000 as part of a settlement reached with the county.

SOURCE: ZEROHEDGE

Israel has admitted responsibility in a significant overnight attack on Syria which reportedly killed up to ten pro-Assad forces, including possibly seven of what the Israeli media is claiming were Iranian and Hezbollah "foreign fighters".

The predawn raid took place south of Damascus in Quneitra province and unlike prior Israeli attacks appeared to included a multi-pronged sustained offensive of warplanes and helicopters on artillery and intelligence facilities. Syrian state media confirmed the attack, saying its anti-air defenses were active and successful over Quneitra and over the capital of Damascus, but put its early casualties as three killed and seven among the wounded.

There is something unhealthy and despairing about trying to change real human culture in virtual media. All of us who oppose the attempt of process and power-money to crush individual creativity need to move on and utilise more subtle means of resistance. The Slog is no exception.

If the Nazis were in power today, during the digital revolution, they would rule the world, says Dr. Yaniv Levyatan, an expert in psychological warfare

Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joe Dunford has revealed that it was he who was driving recent US military deployments into the Middle East, saying he recommended them based on intelligence with respect to Iran.

Dunford claimed that “malign activity and threats to our forces by the Iranians were not new,” but that what he saw was a synchronized series of efforts that looked more like a formal campaign against the US.

Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan confirmed that Dunford told him of an “anomaly” in Iranian behavior. At the same time, Shanahan says that President Trump has made clear he does not seek a war over the matter.

The Israeli military said it attacked a Syrian anti-aircraft position after an Israeli warplane came under fire. Syrian TV earlier stated that Israel had carried out a missile strike in Syria’s Quneitra province.
According to SANA, one officer was killed and two others were injured in the attack on a military site east of Khan Arnabeh in the Quneitra countryside. It added that the Syrian Air Defense attacked an unmanned aerial vehicle that entered Syrian airspace near the southern suburb.

Israeli Defense Forces claimed that it was their jet making a routine flight in northern Israel that came under fire. The Syrian anti-aircraft missile missed the warplane and it was able to complete its mission successfully.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been moved to the hospital wing of the Belmarsh prison in the UK, prompting Concerns about his health pending the hearing on his extradition to the US.

Assange’s health had already “significantly deteriorated” during the nearly seven years he spent inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and has continued to get worse over the seven weeks he has spent in Belmarsh, WikiLeaks said in a statement on Wednesday.

The federal government wastes tens of billions of dollars on all sorts of “fragmented, overlapping or duplicative” programs in areas ranging from healthcare to defense, the production of U.S. currency and disaster response. It is a perpetual government-wide epidemic that has long fleeced American taxpayers, according to a report issued this month by the nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress, the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The watchdog has published similar documents in the past eight years listing more than 300 areas of waste yet the hemorrhaging continues because Congress or executive branch agencies have failed to act.

The Pentagon has introduced restrictions that will prevent American companies from using Russian space rocket launches and satellite services, set to take effect in 2023.

The rule will levy “additional prohibitions with regard to acquisition of certain foreign commercial satellite services, such as… satellites and launch vehicles,” according to a Pentagon notice published on the US Federal Register website on Thursday.

From a distance the gathering of some 130 wealthy and influential people in Montreux, Switzerland, starting tomorrow looks benign enough. The website of the Bilderberg Group says it’s just “an annual forum for informal discussions, designed to foster dialogue between Europe and North America.… It’s a forum for informal discussions about major issues.… There is no detailed agenda, no resolutions are proposed, no votes are taken, and no policy statements are issued.

The group even posts its agenda items, which include “informal discussions” about Brexit, climate “change,” and the future of capitalism. All designed to put any seeker of the truth to sleep.

SOURCE: DEEPSTATEBLOG.ORG

It’s your fault, a National Security Agency official says to the city of Baltimore about the ransomware attack that has disrupted city services.

The unknown hackers, who have demanded $100,000 in bitcoin, are using software stolen from NSA. The agency’s response: we warned Baltimore two years ago and they didn’t patch their network.

“NSA shares the concerns of all the law-abiding citizens around the world about the threat posed by that criminal, malicious cyber activity, but the characterization that there’s an indefensible nation-state tool propagating ransomware is simply untrue,” Joyce said at a cybersecurity conference hosted by CrowdStrike.

What’s true is that there is a nation-state tool, created by NSA, that is propagating ransomware. What is untrue is that it is indefensible. American cities have to defend themselves from NSA’s stolen weapon, and if they don’t do it quickly enough, the NSA feels that it is absolved of responsibility

SOURCE: CNBC.COM

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s personal security chief has been accused of sexual misconduct and making racist and homophobic remarks about Zuckerberg’s wife, Priscilla Chan, and members of his staff, NBC News has confirmed with a spokesperson for Zuckerberg.

The allegations against Liam Booth, a former Secret Service officer now serving as the Facebook founder’s personal security chief, were brought by former employees of Zuckerberg’s household staff via the law offices of The Bloom Firm. They were first reported by Business Insider.

Lawyers representing the employees — a former member of Zuckerberg’s household staff and a former executive assistant to Booth — sent letters regarding the allegations to the law firm that represents the companies that provide security for the Zuckerberg family, according to Business Insider.

SOURCE: BREAKINGDEFENSE.COM

TEL AVIV: The Israeli government just awarded the initial, $125 million contract of a planned 12-year, $280 million program to replace its tank-like M109 howitzers with Elbit’s wheeled ATMOS. About half the work will be done by Elbit’s subsidiaries and partners in the United States, a sign of how Israeli defense spending has shifted since Washington restricted its ally’s ability to spend US aid on non-US products.

The investment also shows how good old-fashioned 155 mm shells still play a vital role in a Mideast roiled by Hezbollah rockets and Iranian missile tests. Even in an age of smart weapons, when you need to bombard a target, it turns out that quantity still has a quality of its own.

Twenty years after the Wachowskis’ iconic 1999 film, The Matrix, introduced us to a futuristic world in which humans exist in a computer-simulated non-reality powered by authoritarian machines—a world where the choice between existing in a denial-ridden virtual dream-state or facing up to the harsh, difficult realities of life comes down to a red pill or a blue pill—we stand at the precipice of a technologically-dominated matrix of our own making.

We are living the prequel to The Matrix with each passing day, falling further under the spell of technologically-driven virtual communities, virtual realities and virtual conveniences managed by artificially intelligent machines that are on a fast track to replacing us and eventually dominating every aspect of our lives.

Science fiction has become fact.

Published: May 31, 2019
Share | Print This

SOURCE: MATT AGORIST @ THE FREE THOUGHT PROJECT
(Support Free Thought) -

While the Free Thought Project often reports on the megacorp Nestle and their rampant abuse and exploitation of drinking water supplies across the nation, few are aware that the company has been found using slave labor. What’s more, as governments across the world attempt to crack down the use of slave labor by requiring companies to report on its use, Nestle is fighting it, saying that it will end up costing consumers at the register.

Late last month, Nestle issued a warning against proposed legislation that would require them to report on their efforts to weed out slavery within their company. The company says the cost of checking to see if they are forcing people to work against their will end up being passed on to the consumer.

Bloomberg reports that Russia's President Putin has rejected a controversial Iranian request to buy S-400 missile defense systems on the basis of current soaring tensions between Tehran and Washington following accusations of "sabotage" attacks on oil tankers and a pipeline in the gulf region.

The breaking report cites a senior Russian official and other unnamed sources with knowledge of the matter:

The request was rebuffed by President Vladimir Putin, the people said on condition of anonymity because they’re not authorized to discuss the matter. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif visited Moscow May 7.

SOURCE: RT
Following a slew of reports that North Korea had executed a senior envoy who participated in the Hanoi peace summit with US President Donald Trump, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said he’s ‘checking it out.’
“We've seen the reporting to which you are referring,” Pompeo told a news conference in Berlin Friday, answering a question about reports in South Korean media that nuclear envoy Kim Hyok Choi had been executed by Kim Jong Un’s regime.

“We’re doing our best to check it out. I don't have anything else to add to that today.”

South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo daily reported Thursday on the execution of Choi and four other high-level officials, following the breakdown in negotiations at the Hanoi peace summit in February of this year.

For its part, North Korea has yet to comment on the allegations, though the secretive state has used executions to cover up public failures in the past.

SOURCE: THE INTERCEPT
PEOPLE IN THE El Paso area were stunned to learn on Memorial Day that a new segment of border wall had just sprung up in their midst, seemingly out of nowhere. Though it is already hundreds of feet long and snakes up a high mountain, it was initiated secretly, in just a few days, on private property that for long has been so off-limits to the public that even reporters have feared going near.

The massive, imposing barrier is planned to be about a half-mile long. It’s being erected by We Build the Wall Inc., a crowdfunded effort spearheaded by ultra-right military veteran Brian Kolfage. In December, Kolfage called for people to donate for a privately funded border wall to be built on private land. He said his plan would bypass problems created by Congress, the courts, and legal opponents such as the American Civil Liberties Union.