John Guandolo is the President and Founder of Understanding The Threat, the only organization in the nation which provides a detailed assessment of the enemy threat in your local area, provides law enforcement investigative solutions, and creates state level counter-insurgency strategies to identify, dismantle and defeat the jihadi network in your area.” He is the author of the book, Raising a Jihadi Generation. The book may be purchased at his website at www.understandingthethreat.com or Amazon.com and is also available in major book stores.
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Documents Provided By Former Congressman Steve Stockman and Verified By Newsweek – Show Hillary Clinton Allowed Specialized Steel, Which Is Used For Nuclear Enrichment Centrifuges – To Be Shipped To Iran Via Ukraine, and Obama Administration Covered It Up – Retaliated Against Stockman With Trumped Up Charges Where He Remains In Federal Prison On Appeal.
Former Congressman Steve Stockman (R) investigated suspicious shipments of “dual-use” steel to Iran in violation of Iranian sanctions. This steel was highly specialized, which is alarming because it could be used for building enrichment centrifuges. This information was corroborated with Ukrainian officials and reported by Newsweek Magazine in 2015.
Interpipe, a company owned and operated by Ukrainian Oligarch Viktor Pinchuk (who also owned a subsidiary located in Houston,Texas) was permitted to violate Iranian sanctions while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State. At the time Pinchuk was the top contributor to the Clinton Foundation.
Stockman was also in contact with a Ukrainian intelligence official who claimed to have had direct involvement in the development of the Steele Dossier on behalf of the DNC and Hillary Clinton prior to the 2016 election.
Without warning, Steve Stockman was indicted in 2017 for what he called “railroading” at his trial, and was (wrongfully) found guilty of 23 charges. During his trial Stockman was prevented from offering testimony and evidence that would have exonerated him.
On November 17, 2018, the former Congressman was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
He is currently incarcerated at a federal penitentiary in Texas while awaiting a ruling on his appeal (which could take years).
After his sentencing and immediate incarceration, Stockman had expected to continue communication with his Ukanian friend and whistleblower. Although the judge had discretion to allow Stockman a release pending his appeal, he was shockingly labeled a flight risk, placed in handcuffs, and quickly taken to prison.
The status of his Ukraine contact who had become overwhelmed with fear for his life and safety of his family, is reportedly “on the run” and now assumed missing.
After her appearance on The Pete Santilli Show that aired on September 2, 2019 Steve Stockman’s wife, Patti, began providing important documentary evidence regarding Ukraine corruption the former Congressman had been investigating during the Obama Administration. This documentation was and still is a matter of public record as he also provided the information in written correspondence to the U.S. Treasury and Department of Energy while he was still in office.
The Obama Administration refused to respond to Stockman’s serious allegations and inquiries regarding matters of high public importance and national security. The only formal response from Washington D.C. was in the form of a retaliatory indictment. The full force of the United States Government was weaponized against Stockman who was eventually wrongfully indicted, railroaded during an unfair trial, incarcerated, and left bankrupt.
As these matters were being brought to public light, our investigative team attempted to communicate and provide documentary evidence to President Trump’s Attorney, Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Lev Parnas formally announced and began representing himself as “Rudy Giuliani’s Ukraine investigator” on September 21, 2019.
Between September 21st and October 5th, 2019, our team put Lev Parnas in direct contact with Patti Stockman and then contacted Parnas to ensure follow-through. We questioned him about whether this vital information was passed on to Rudy Giuliani and Parnas confirmed via telephone and text that he had indeed delivered all of the information to Giuliani.
On October 10, 2019, Parnas and two others were arrested and charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States. Unlike Steve Stockman, Lev Parnas is currently free on bond pending trial.
On January 3, 2020, a report published by GatewayPundit.com revealed that Parnas was likely a subject of FISA surveillance due to his contacts with foreign entities.
The U.S. Government has so far refused to disclose which legally authorized form of surveillance was employed, but has formally responded by indicating they did not intend to use any information obtained through surveillance. Therefore they not required to provide information to the defendants.
Court documents indicate that Parnas is subject to a subpoeana issued by (Adam Schiff’s) U.S. House of Representative’s Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which requires him to turn over any communication to the HPSCI to corroborate his wtiness testimony.
The materials Parnas has supplied to Schiff’s HPSCI contain all of the evidence and correspondence intended for delivery to Rudy Giuliani pertaining to the ongoing Stockman Ukraine investigation.
Court documents indicate that Schiff is now in possession of Steve Stockman’s information about Ukraine corruption.
There are four very important questions to be answered:
Will Congress now investigate Stockman’s Ukrainian whistleblower’s allegation; That he was involved in helping to prepare the Steele Dossier for the DNC and Hillary Clinton?
Will Congress now investigate Hillary Clinton’s involvement with Ukrainian Oligarch Viktor Pinchuk’s shipment of highly specialized steel in violation of sanctions against Iran?
Did Lev Parnas misrepresent his roll as “Rudy Giuliani’s investigator” and did Parnas provide all of Stockman’s important information to Rudy Giuliani?
If Parnas withheld such vitally important information from Rudy Giuliani, why? Is Parnas a foreign operative?
Will Schiff withhold this important information from the public record & continue to coverup the Obama Administration’s & Hillary Clinton’s election meddling in 2016 & corruption in Ukraine?
In an article on GatewayPundit.com (Did the Deep State Use FISA Warrants to Spy on Trump’s Personal Lawyer Rudy Giuliani? ) published January 3, 2020, we discovered that government prosecutors left open the possibility that FISA warrants were used to spy on Lev Parnas, Igor Fruman, David Correia and Andrey Kukushkin, the four individuals who were indicted in October and charged with campaign finance violations for taking foreign donations.
A 21-page indictment was unsealed in October and prosecutors alleged the four men tied to Giuliani were ‘engaged in political activities in the US on behalf of one or more Ukrainian government officials.
Since September of 2019, our team had been working with former Congressman Steve Stockman’s wife Patti, to not only help bring public awareness to her husband’s federal criminal case, but to also relay vital information to appropriate authorities regarding corruption by the Obama Administration and Hillary Clinton in Ukraine.
We immediately became alarmed that the confidential communication and investigative efforts between us and Lev Parnas (who represented himself as ‘Rudy Giuliani’s Ukraine investigator”) may have been surveilled and gathered by Deep State operatives within the intelligence services or law enforcement. Essentially, we were deeply conmcerned with the real possibility of agencies now being criminally investigated for corruption that includes spying on their political opponents and covering up their crimes, had been listening to communications intended for delivery to President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani. We believed, based on information from our source, that Lev Parnas was the only primary contact who could get documentary evidence to Mr. Giuliani.
On September 21, 2019 initial contact with Lev Parnas was achieved. After we confirmed with him that he was Rudy Giuliani’s Ukraine investigator, he was briefed with the information we had, and was then connected directly with Patti Stockman.
By the beginning of October 2019, Patti Stockman relayed to us that Steve was becoming very concerned about the sudden shift in attitude and treatment he was receiving from personnel within the Bureau of Prison facility where he was incarcerated. He became so concerned in fact, that he asked to be interviewed and audio recorded for his own protection. Mr Stockman stated that in the event he was struck with sudden illness or found unresponsive in his cell he wanted the public to know he did not go willingly.
On October 3, 2019, and again on October 5th, our team documented Steve’s concerns via audio recordings. On October 9, 2019, just four days after making that audio recording, the sealed indictment against Lev Parnas and his co-defendants was unsealed. On October 10, 2019 Lev Parnas was arrested and charged. (See indictment here).
After reading the breaking news on January 3, 2019, that Lev Parnas may have been surveilled under a FISA warrants, the anomalies and sudden change in treatment by staff and guards that Stockman was extremely concerned over began making more sense.
It was at this point we knew there was a very strong possibility Deep State operatives had intercepted our communications meant for Rudy Giuliani via Lev Parnas.
Upon reviewing publicly available court records, we not only see there is a high probability Lev Parnas was surveilled under legal authority of a FISA warrrant, but we also learned the court approved forwarding all of that communication and documentation to Adam Schiff, head of the House Permament Select Committee on Intelligence (See Court Ruling) — sort of a mixed blessing, knowing that Adam Schiff is now in possession of Steve Stockman’s vital documentary evidence regarding Ukraine corruption by Hillary Clinton and her Obama Administration.
Our primary concern is now about Steve Stockman’s personal safety is heightened exponentially.
Congressman Steve Stockman sits in a Ft. Worth Texas prison today and the reason may just be more about what he knew and far less about what “they” said he did.
Former Congressman Steve Stockman had been going after Deep State criminals by investigating their lawless activities for decades. We first came to know of Stockman back in April – 2014 when after the Bundy Ranch protest, then Congressman Stockman penned a letter to Obama Administration officials, at the time when Sally Jewell was the head of the Department of The Interior and Neil Kornze was Director of The Bureau of Land Management. Stockman had already been an advocate against government overreach and corruption for many years, and he swiftly intervened during the Bundy Ranch crisis in Bunkerville Nevada in 2014.
Stockman’s notice and subsequent letter to Obama Administration officials became a central focus for the defense team in a landmark criminal trial which was dismissed in early 2018 by a Nevada federal judge Gloria Navvaro because of prosecutorial misconduct and ongoing coverup of exculpatory evidence withheld by BLM agents, federal prosecutors, and the FBI, all who have been fired or demoted as a result. The general public would never know the extent of hatred these officials had for Cliven Bundy and his co-defendants and to what extent they would go to seek revenge until Donald Trump became President. It was then after the veil was lifted, Americans clearly saw for themselves how corrupt the system had really become.
One thing is clear, Congressman Stockman had been a thorn in the side of the “DC Deep-State” and they hated him for it.
In 2014 Stockman took a trip to the Maidan in Kiev Ukraine after being tipped off that deals were being made with Iranian Oligarchs, involving then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
At the time there were trade sanction’s in place against Iran, and Steve Stockman’s investgation showed Hillary Clinton had questionable ties to Ukraine where she used the power of her office as Secretary of State for what could be viewed as a threat to U.S. national security.
Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Pinchuk, is one of the richest men in Ukraine and he is also on record as being the highest paying contributor to the Clinton Foundation. Doug Schoen, a long-time consultant to Bill and Hillary Clinton and regular cable news commentator also began representing Victor Pinhuk who hired Schoen on a $40,000 per month retainer. In 2004, Schoen introduced Pinchuk to Hillary Clinton … . In 2008, Pinchuk made a five-year, $29 million commitment to the Clinton Global Initiative, making him one of the Clinton foundation’s largest individual donors.
As the fourth richest man in Ukraine, Pinchuk owns Interpipe Group, a Cyprus-incorporated manufacturer of seamless pipes used in oil and gas sectors. As far back as November 2014, Republican Congressman, Stockman wrote to the US Department of the Treasury and the Department of Energy questioning Interpipe’s dealings with Hillary Clinton, the Obama Adminstration and Iran. In That letter Stockman refers to a “body of evidence” detailing “exports from Interpipe to Iranian entities” that “may have contravened US sanctions to Iran”
Obvious now, Pinchuk’s contributions to the Clinton Foundation paid off because the oligarch successfully traded with Iran, in violation of U.S. sanctions, and Congressman Steve Stockman went to prison for what he knew.
Newsweek reported Pinchuk “had courted the Clintons for at least nine years – in the United States, the Alps and Ukraine.”
“Newsweek has seen declarations and documents from Ukraine that show a series of shipments from Interpipe to Iran in 2011 and 2012, including railway parts and products commonly used in the oil and gas sectors.”
“Among a number of high-value invoices for products related to rail or oil and gas, one shipment for $1.8m (1.7m) in May 2012 was for ‘seamless hot-worked steel pipes for pipelines’ and destined for a city near the Caspian Sea.”
“Both the rail and oil and gas sectors are sanctioned by the US, which specifically prohibits any single invoice to the Iranian petrochemical industry worth more than $1m.”
“The person in charge of this list of non-US companies is the Secretary of State, who between 2009 to 2013 – the period during which Pinchuk’s company was trading with Iran – was Hillary Clinton.”
“Pinchuk became particularly friendly with Bill Clinton. In 2010, he invited the former president to his 50th birthday party in the French ski resort of Courchevel. In return, Pinchuk attended Clinton’s 65th in 2011, and was a guest at the inauguration of Clinton’s Presidential Library. The Clintons spoke at Pinchuk’s Yalta European Strategy conference, which seeks integration between Ukraine and Europe.”
When a Deep State whistleblower comes forward with information that is useful in advancing the radical left’s agenda, they’re heroized & protected.
When a real whistleblower such as former Congressman Steve Stockman comes forward to expose criminal corruption, the full force of the Deep State is brought down upon them.
In Congressman Steve Stockman’s case, he was fraudulently indicted and railroaded by Obama’s Justice Department in retaliation for his relentless pursuit of justice. He wasn’t given a fair trial, and Obama’s DOJ prosectutors know it, but they couldn’t have cared less. Congressman Stockman is still being unjustly punished through lengthy incarceration as his case proceeds through the appeal process.
Urgent Next Steps
As a matter of national security, former Congressman Steve Stockman should immediately be interviewed as a cooperative fact witness by Attorney General William Barr and U.S. Attorney John Durham.
Stockman should be protected. He fears for the safety of his family, and his own life, as he is central to exposing Deep State corruption at the highest levels of the Obama Admistration.
Stockman should immediately be released from incarceration pending appeal. The original indictment was retaliatory & fraudulent, he didn’t receive a fair trial, and despite the strength of his appeal which will certainly overturn his 10 year conviction, he remains in a federal prison which is putting his life and safety at risk. His situation warrants “protective custody”, but within the Bureau of Prisons system, protective custody means solitary confinement — Deep State bureaucrats will swiftly issue the most extreme punishment for speaking out about fear for his safety.
William Barr should immediately investigate the origins of the original indictment of Steve Stockman. Although there is too much information to break down in one article, our team has investigated the case extensively and have determined that Congressman Steve Stockman is a victim of malicious prosecution, bordering on proisecutoirial misconduct. We will continue to provide updates on Stockman’s case as it moves through the appeal ruling process.
For more information please be sure to visit Steve Stockman’s website:
Once again, Fox News piles on to a story that they’re forced to cover; this time thanks to the investigative work of President Trump and his unimpeachable Attorney Rudy Giuliani.
For the past 5-7 years, Ed Henry — who calls himself the “Chief Whitehouse Correspondent” — could have invested some time digging into the Ukraine story, particularly because the year after he joined Fox in 2011, Ukraine was overthrown by the CIA and U.S. State Department.
This is not a conspiracy theory.
In fact, I’ve covered the Ukraine coup since 2012, and I didn’t have a pompous title of Chief White House Correspondent, nor did I have a multi-million dollar salary. I’m an American patriot, and it was relatively easy to piece the facts together available in the public internet domain.
Either Ed Henry is an incompetent journalist, or he fits the Fox News mold of subservient suppressor of news. Based on my personal, first-hand experience with Fox News dating back to 2014, it’s likely the latter.
My team discovered early on during our pioneering independent media press coverage of the Bundy Ranch story that Fox News only gets involved in a news story when they (a) have no choice or (b) have a chance to sell diabetes pharmaceuticals to their dumbed-down, geriatric audience.
It is a fact that in 2014, my co-cost Deb Jordan & segment producer Ashley Jones brought the Bundy Ranch story to national prominence because of their relentless insistence to Fox that it was a major, national & international news story worthy of their attention. Ashley Jones contacted Fox within minutes of publishing my YouTube video of the Bureau of Land Management’s physical assault on peaceful protesters on April 9th 2014 – the video went viral instantly, and at the time it was the fastest video to reach 1 million views in Youtube’s history.
Ashley kept calling Fox with updates, “it’s at 400,000 views…are you guys gonna cover this?” “it’s at 600,000….are you rolling your news team?” “it’s at 800,000”. Within hours, Americans were so outraged by what they’d seen from my video, that Fox News had no choice but to roll their satellite trucks to Mesquite Nevada. Essentially, our team forced Fox News to cover a story that the American people were latching onto with outrage,. not because of their duty to inform the public about an important matter — that Barack Obama’s Department of Interior spent $6 million to collect $300,000 in cattle; with military force.
Back then, we watched Fox News in horror, and in real time, as they suppressed vital information on the ground as they profited around the clock from big box and big pharma advertising — only to pull the rug out from under the story by turning on Cliven Bundy after a Deep State false hit piece by the New York Times. They were literally complicit in perpetrating psychological warfare on the American people by amplifying emotions during the protests, only to dramatically deflate the spirit of American Patriots by demonizing Cliven Bundy as a racist in concert with the CIA’s New York Times. the desired effect was to cause the Americans to believe they were advocating for Cliven Bundy who the New York Times falsely characterized as a “racist”. In 2014, this military styled psy-op was not as well known and detectable as it is today. Today, we see the Fake News Media target the Americans they despise “deplorables”, “zenophobes”, “islamophobes”, etc.
Fox News’ role has always been to, at the most, present a very weak defense on behalf of the Republicans they pretend to represent.
Over the course of the past 5-6 years, I’ve studied them very closely, and I am 100% certain they’re the Republican arm of a marxist regime that has set out to overthrow our constitutional republic. They are marxist-enabling propagandists dressed up like Conservatives. They speak Republican, look like Republicans, but their designated oppositional silence makes them complicit enablers designed to assist the advancement of a marxist take-over of America.
Here’s a quick illustration of what I mean when I say that Ed Henry, “Chief White House Correspondent” and so-called “journalist” is a do-nothing marxist enabler either by the design of his masters, or through absolute negligence & incompetence. A simple Google search of Ed Henry’s name, the word Ukraine or Biden during the period of 2015 & 2016, at the height of controversy in the Ukraine, produces zero results:
As Rudy Giuliani says in his interview on November 22, 2019, “You should have jumped all over this in 2015 when this awful conflict was mentioned and it was hidden and suppressed by the Washington press,”. Here’s a more detailed transcription courtesy of DailyCaller.com to help add more context to the conversation:
President Donald Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani snapped at Fox News host Ed Henry during an interview Saturday, accusing Henry of covering up news about Joe Biden and Ukraine.
“Are you afraid, Mr. Mayor that you could be indicted?” Henry asked.
“Oh, wow, how long have you known me, Ed?” Giuliani said, adding, “Do you think I’m afraid? Do you think I get afraid? I did the right thing. I represented my client in a very, very effective way. I was so effective that I’ve discovered a pattern of corruption that the Washington press has been covering up for three or four years.”
“You should have jumped all over this in 2015 when this awful conflict was mentioned and it was hidden and suppressed by the Washington press,” he continued. “But you know that the reality is, I’m embarrassing you because you didn’t do your job and I’m also going to bring out a pay for play scheme in the Obama administration that will be devastating to the Democrat Party.”
Then, Giuliani warned that if the Mafia couldn’t kill him, the media wouldn’t either.
“I expected the moment I heard Biden’s name, I told my colleagues they’re going to try to kill me,” he said. “Because they’re going to kill the messenger. But damn it, the mafia couldn’t kill me, your colleagues are not going to kill me.”
At the 9:25 mark, after Giuliani absolutely shreds Ed Henry & his fellow Washington Deep State news suppressors, Henry states: “Mr. Mayor, I’m not painting you as a hero or villain, I’m just asking questions…” .
….So, basically….all of a sudden…..Ed Henry is asking questions about Ukraine.
Maybe he should rewind his own interview and replay the part where Mayor Giuliani said: “You should have jumped all over this in 2015 when this awful conflict was mentioned and it was hidden and suppressed by the Washington press,” he continued. “But you know that the reality is, I’m embarrassing you because you didn’t do your job and I’m also going to bring out a pay for play scheme in the Obama administration that will be devastating to the Democrat Party.”
Regardless of Fox News’ increasing irrelevancy and Ed Henry’s intentional, or corporate mandated negligence, it appears that Rudy Giuliani will always have the last word regarding his Ukraine investigation.
TRUTH ALERT:
The statement I’ve made several times of having an insurance policy, if thrown under bus, is sarcastic & relates to the files in my safe about the Biden Family’s 4 decade monetizing of his office.
If I disappear, it will appear immediately along with my RICO chart.
A couple key flicks, anyone can see that Ed Henry has been to pre-occupied purchasing hookers in Vegas with his millions, and hasn’t bothered to to do a lick of research on Ukraine corruption and U.S. State Department Coup D’Etat —- with the help of Victoria Nuland, Joe Biden, Eric Ciaramella, and John McCain; just to name a few.
Take a look for yourself and send Ed Henry a message that, in this article, I’m not painting him as a hero or villain, I’m just asking questions.
Joe Walsh, who announced a primary run against President Trump on Sunday, has a long history of anti-Muslim comments, racist remarks, conspiracy theories, violent rhetoric, and more.
And the apologies Walsh has offered about his past and the claims about when he decided he could no longer support Trump appear less than forthcoming.
Walsh, 57, a former one-term Illinois congressman elected as a Republican in the Tea Party wave of 2010, underwent a political evolution over the years, from failed pro-choice congressional and statehouse runs in the 1990s to running as a pro-lifer with no exceptions when losing his seat in 2012. Now, he has completed the journey from exclaiming he would be “grabbing my musket” if Hillary Clinton defeated Trump in 2016 to challenging the president in 2020.
The longtime Chicago radio shock jock teased his presidential run earlier this month in a New York Times op-ed before making it official in a media spree weekend. He is being encouraged by Never Trump leaders such as Bill Kristol, despite Walsh claiming last year that Kristol’s Twitter feed was “like a continuous documentation of the impact Trump Derangement Syndrome has on a person.”
Now Walsh is facing questions about his own fitness, too.
Walsh joined ABC’s This Week on Sunday and was asked about racial comments he’d made targeting former President Obama, with George Stephanopoulos bringing up a 2017 tweet where Walsh said the former president “was held to a lower standard cuz he was black.” Walsh made that argument many timesover the years. Stephanopoulos called this “textbook racism,” and Walsh responded by saying Trump had “made me reflect on some of the things I’ve said in the past.”
Walsh’s comments about Obama’s race also include a June 2016 claim that “the single greatest act of racism in American history was the election of Barack Obama.” Walsh also tweeted in December 2015 that the only problem with a Washington Post cartoon depicting Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s children as monkeys was that they wouldn’t do the same for Obama’s daughters.
Stephanopoulos brought up Walsh’s claims that Obama was a secret Muslim and asked if he really believed that.
“God no,” Walsh said. “And I’ve apologized for that.”
Walsh also repeatedly insisted Obama was a “traitor.”
“If I called Barack Obama a traitor, yes I apologize,” Walsh tweeted this weekend. Walsh called Obama a traitor on Twitter at least seven times, as recently as November 2016.
Walsh also promoted Birtherism, the conspiracy theory also pushed by Trump before he ran for president that Obama was not born in America, multipletimes.
Walsh repeatedlypushed the baseless Seth Rich conspiracy theory in 2017. He now claims Trump questioning the U.S. intelligence assessment about Russian interference while in Helsinki in July 2018 is when Trump “lost me for good.” But Walsh was still sharing pro-Trump content on Facebook months after Helsinki, including an October 2018 meme that proclaimed “it’s so great that Hillary Clinton isn’t President!”
Walsh also has a long history of anti-Muslim tweets. Walsh apologized earlier this month and claimed he’d “always meant to say Islamists are the problem” and “not all Muslims,” but a review of his social media accounts indicates this is not the case. He made his animosity toward the religion known through hundreds of tweets and social posts. One Facebook post shared on his page in September 2016 listed “Muslims” as one of the four reasons he supported Trump.
After a terrorist attack on the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in 2015, Walsh hoped for violence against U.S. media outlets.
Walsh also has a lengthy record of racist commentary directed toward black people.
In the wake of shootings that killed five Dallas police officers in 2016, Walsh tweeted, then deleted a call for “war.”
“Watch out Obama. Watch out black lives matter punks,” Walsh said. “Real America is coming after you.”
Walsh tweeted in 2018 that “Haiti is a shithole and it’s run by blacks” and “the violence in Chicago is all black on black.”
Walsh also deflected from stories about possible police misconduct by pointing to black-on-black crime instead. One tweet from Walsh in 2016 even denied the existence of any police shootings against black people.
Walsh has also referred to a “war on whites,” said Democrats have turned blacks into “uneducated government slaves,” suggested he wants “quotas for whites in BET Awards,” claimed “millions of white people died so blacks could be free,” said “once again blacks in America try to burn their own neighborhood down,” and tweeted “I have a right to say blacks are lazy and the Irish are drunks.”
“I would have been run out of DC if I tried to launch the Congressional White Caucus,” Walsh complained in 2016. “That’s not right.”
Similarly, Walsh was repeatedlyupset that calling someone a “fag” had consequences.
Walsh’s longtime association with white nationalist Paul Nehlen, who was twice supported by Walsh in doomed primary attempts against former congressman Paul Ryan, will also give the presidential hopeful headaches. Just a couple days after the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Walsh had the anti-Semite on his radio show. Nehlen was a known “pizzagate” conspiracy promoter and had spent the weekend retweeting alt-right celebrations of Charlottesville. Walsh called Nehlen “my friend” and told his listeners to visit Nehlen’s campaign website.
Walsh’s own personal behavior will be scrutinized, too, including the $117,000 in child support he allegedly owed his ex-wife until 2012.
The former congressman reacted angrily to his own constituents during a town hall in 2011.
Sacha Baron Cohen convinced the congressman to participate in an absurdist pro-gun fake commercial in 2018.
“In less than a month, a first grader can become a first grenadier,” Walsh was duped into saying.
Have you heard about China’s social credit system? It’s a technology-enabled, surveillance-based nationwide program designed to nudge citizens toward better behavior. The ultimate goal is to “allow the trustworthy to roam everywhere under heaven while making it hard for the discredited to take a single step,” according to the Chinese government.
In place since 2014, the social credit system is a work in progress that could evolve by next year into a single, nationwide point system for all Chinese citizens, akin to a financial credit score. It aims to punish for transgressions that can include membership in or support for the Falun Gong or Tibetan Buddhism, failure to pay debts, excessive video gaming, criticizing the government, late payments, failing to sweep the sidewalk in front of your store or house, smoking or playing loud music on trains, jaywalking, and other actions deemed illegal or unacceptable by the Chinese government.
It can also award points for charitable donations or even taking one’s own parents to the doctor.
Punishments can be harsh, including bans on leaving the country, using public transportation, checking into hotels, hiring for high-visibility jobs, or acceptance of children to private schools. It can also result in slower internet connections and social stigmatization in the form of registration on a public blacklist.
China’s social credit system has been characterized in one pithy tweet as “authoritarianism, gamified.”
At present, some parts of the social credit system are in force nationwide and others are local and limited (there are 40 or so pilot projects operated by local governments and at least six run by tech giants like Alibaba and Tencent).
Beijing maintains two nationwide lists, called the blacklist and the red list—the former consisting of people who have transgressed, and the latter people who have stayed out of trouble (a “red list” is the Communist version of a white list.) These lists are publicly searchable on a government website called China Credit.
The Chinese government also shares lists with technology platforms. So, for example, if someone criticizes the government on Weibo, their kids might be ineligible for acceptance to an elite school.
Public shaming is also part of China’s social credit system. Pictures of blacklisted people in one city were shown between videos on TikTok in a trial, and the addresses of blacklisted citizens were shown on a map on WeChat.
Many Westerners are disturbed by what they read about China’s social credit system. But such systems, it turns out, are not unique to China. A parallel system is developing in the United States, in part as the result of Silicon Valley and technology-industry user policies, and in part by surveillance of social media activity by private companies.
Here are some of the elements of America’s growing social credit system.
Insurance companies
The New York State Department of Financial Services announced earlier this year that life insurance companies can base premiums on what they find in your social media posts. That Instagram pic showing you teasing a grizzly bear at Yellowstone with a martini in one hand, a bucket of cheese fries in the other, and a cigarette in your mouth, could cost you. On the other hand, a Facebook post showing you doing yoga might save you money. (Insurance companies have to demonstrate that social media evidence points to risk, and not be based on discrimination of any kind—they can’t use social posts to alter premiums based on race or disability, for example.)
The use of social media is an extension of the lifestyle questions typically asked when applying for life insurance, such as questions about whether you engage in rock climbing or other adventure sports. Saying “no,” but then posting pictures of yourself free-soloing El Capitan, could count as a “yes.”
PatronScan
A company called PatronScan sells three products—kiosk, desktop, and handheld systems—designed to help bar and restaurant owners manage customers. PatronScan is a subsidiary of the Canadian software company Servall Biometrics, and its products are now on sale in the United States, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom.
PatronScan helps spot fake IDs—and troublemakers. When customers arrive at a PatronScan-using bar, their ID is scanned. The company maintains a list of objectionable customers designed to protect venues from people previously removed for “fighting, sexual assault, drugs, theft, and other bad behavior,” according to its website. A “public” list is shared among all PatronScan customers. So someone who’s banned by one bar in the U.S. is potentially banned by all the bars in the U.S., the U.K., and Canada that use the PatronScan system for up to a year. (PatronScan Australia keeps a separate system.)
Judgment about what kind of behavior qualifies for inclusion on a PatronScan list is up to the bar owners and managers. Individual bar owners can ignore the ban, if they like. Data on non-offending customers is deleted in 90 days or less. Also: PatronScan enables bars to keep a “private” list that is not shared with other bars, but on which bad customers can be kept for up to five years.
PatronScan does have an “appeals” process, but it’s up to the company to grant or deny those appeals.
Uber and Airbnb
Thanks to the sharing economy, the options for travel have been extended far beyond taxis and hotels. Uber and Airbnb are leaders in providing transportation and accommodation for travelers. But there are many similar ride-sharing and peer-to-peer accommodations companies providing similar services.
Airbnb—a major provider of travel accommodation and tourist activities—bragged in March that it now has more than 6 million listings in its system. That’s why a ban from Airbnb can limit travel options.
Airbnb can disable your account for life for any reason it chooses, and it reserves the right to not tell you the reason. The company’s canned message includes the assertion that “This decision is irreversible and will affect any duplicated or future accounts. Please understand that we are not obligated to provide an explanation for the action taken against your account.” The ban can be based on something the host privately tells Airbnb about something they believe you did while staying at their property. Airbnb’s competitors have similar policies.
It’s now easy to get banned by Uber, too. Whenever you get out of the car after an Uber ride, the app invites you to rate the driver. What many passengers don’t know is that the driver now also gets an invitation to rate you. Under a new policy announced in May: If your average rating is “significantly below average,” Uber will ban you from the service.
WhatsApp
You can be banned from communications apps, too. For example, you can be banned on WhatsApp if too many other users block you. You can also get banned for sending spam, threatening messages, trying to hack or reverse-engineer the WhatsApp app, or using the service with an unauthorized app.
WhatsApp is small potatoes in the United States. But in much of the world, it’s the main form of electronic communication. Not being allowed to use WhatsApp in some countries is as punishing as not being allowed to use the telephone system in America.
What’s wrong with social credit, anyway?
Nobody likes antisocial, violent, rude, unhealthy, reckless, selfish, or deadbeat behavior. What’s wrong with using new technology to encourage everyone to behave?
The most disturbing attribute of a social credit system is not that it’s invasive, but that it’s extralegal. Crimes are punished outside the legal system, which means no presumption of innocence, no legal representation, no judge, no jury, and often no appeal. In other words, it’s an alternative legal system where the accused have fewer rights.
Social credit systems are an end-run around the pesky complications of the legal system. Unlike China’s government policy, the social credit system emerging in the U.S. is enforced by private companies. If the public objects to how these laws are enforced, it can’t elect new rule-makers.
An increasing number of societal “privileges” related to transportation, accommodations, communications, and the rates we pay for services (like insurance) are either controlled by technology companies or affected by how we use technology services. And Silicon Valley’s rules for being allowed to use their services are getting stricter.
If current trends hold, it’s possible that in the future a majority of misdemeanors and even some felonies will be punished not by Washington, D.C., but by Silicon Valley. It’s a slippery slope away from democracy and toward corporatocracy.
In other words, in the future, law enforcement may be determined less by the Constitution and legal code, and more by end-user license agreements.
Some crackpot Silicon Valley-ite had the bright idea of hiring privacy and psychology experts to write a paper on how to treat “Algorithmic Discrimination” caused by Google.
I decided to write my own paper to solve the problem. Read the document below: (Disclaimer: I called it a white paper to trigger the Libtards into calling me a racist…which I’m not.)
Judging by how they’ve conducted themselves thus far, do we really want Tech Giants anywhere near decisions having to do with our online content?
Every time we see a major “terrorist event”; we plug our ears for the secondary explosion of tyrants who subscribe to the adage “you never want a good crisis to go to waste”. Governments and corporations wasted no time after the New Zealand mosque shooting to begin gun-grabbing, propagandizing on behalf of the Islamic political lobby (yes, it’s a major political movement wrapped in a religion — so that we can’t talk about it without being called “Islamo-phobic”)
Now we see phase 3 of the marxist plan for seizing global dominance: internet government. Mind you; these marxist sling the word “democracy” around in the public rhealm while they meet behind closed doors with an unelected body of Tech Giant leaders to install tyranny
This is likely why President Trump’s administration opted out of these secret meetings; because as long as Trump is President, we will remain a Constitutional Republic.
I can honestly say that this one snuck up on me. Hat tip to Faith Goldy for bringint it to my attention.
The internet bridges divides and helps us build a more open, inclusive world. But it has also increasingly become a tool for terrorism and violent extremism. The March 2019 terror attack in Christchurch was a harrowing reminder that we need to take coordinated action to prevent social media and other online platforms from being used as a tool to incite, publish and promote terrorism, violence, and hatred.
Today, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau joined Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern, President of France Emmanuel Macron, other government leaders, and industry leaders to adopt the Christchurch Call to Action – a global pledge to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online.
Through the Christchurch Call, governments and online services providers are making voluntary, collective commitments to prevent people from abusing the internet to promote and sensationalize acts of terrorism. These commitments include:
Building more inclusive, resilient communities to counter violent radicalization
Enforcing laws that stop the production and dissemination of terrorist and extremist content online
Encouraging media to apply ethical rules when reporting on terrorist events to avoid amplifying terrorist and violent extremist content
Many of the Christchurch commitments match the priorities of the National Strategy on Countering Radicalization to Violence, which the Government of Canada launched in December 2018. Through the National Strategy and the Christchurch Call, the Government of Canada will continue to provide international leadership on countering radicalization to violence and eliminating terrorist and violent extremist content online.
Quote
“Terrorist and extremist content online continues to spill out into the real world with deadly consequences. Today, we are stepping up to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online. Together, we can create a world where all people – no matter their faith, where they live, or where they are from – are safe and secure both on and offline.”
—The Rt. Hon. Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada
The Canada Centre for Community Engagement and Prevention of Violence leads the Government of Canada’s efforts to counter radicalization to violence, and works with all levels of government, not-for-profit organizations, communities, youth, frontline practitioners, academia, law enforcement, and international organizations.
Radicalization to violence happens when a person or group takes on extremist beliefs that lead them to promote violence and, possibly, taking part in terrorist activity.
Leaders and tech firms pledge to tackle extremist violence online
Jacinda Ardern and Emmanuel Macron host Christchurch Call summit in Paris
World leaders and heads of global technology companies have pledged at a Paris summit to tackle terrorist and extremist violence online in what they described as an “unprecedented agreement”.
Wednesday’s event, two months to the day since the Christchurch massacre in New Zealand, drew up a “plan of action” to be adopted by countries and companies to prevent extreme material from going viral on the internet.
Known as the Christchurch Call, it was organised by New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, in response to the attack on the Christchurch mosque on 15 March in which 51 people were killed.
The gunman, a 28-year-old Australian, livestreamed the attack on Facebookfrom where it was shared online around the world. The footage was picked up by some international media outlets who initially published excerpts of the video and links to the gunman’s extremist “manifesto” before quickly dropping them in the face of political and public outrage.
Macron and Ardern met ministers from G7 nations and leaders of internet companies including Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter. Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, did not attend.
The initiative calls on signatory nations to bring in laws that ban offensive material and to set guidelines on how the traditional media report acts of terrorism. However, as a voluntary initiative it is for individual countries and companies to decide how to honour their pledge.
At the table, from left: Jean-Claude Juncker, Theresa May, Norway’s Erna Solberg, Senegal’s Macky Sall, Jacinda Ardern and Emmanuel Macron. Photograph: Charles Platiau/pool/EPA
Britain, Canada, Australia, Jordan, Senegal, Indonesia, Norway and Ireland signed the pledge, along with the European commission, Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Twitter, YouTube, Daily Motion and Quant.
France’s Elysée Palace said Germany, India, Japan, Holland, Spain and Sweden had expressed support for the Christchurch Call.
The US has reportedly refused to sign up because of concerns about freedom of speech.
At a press conference after the Paris meeting, Macron made reference to recent attacks in Sri Lanka and the killing of two French soldiers by terrorists in Burkina Faso.
He said: “Our aim is simply that what has happened in each of these places never happens again. Christchurch was not just an abject terrorist attack, it was the transformation once again of the internet into a crazy propaganda machine used for the fracture of our society.
“The war of everyone against everyone else [is] an objective of extreme right and Islamist terrorists. The objective of our joint initiative is to enlarge the field of action. We have decided to act.”
Ardern said the Christchurch attack was “truly unprecedented in its use of social media and subsequent spread of the terrorist’s message. Fifty-one men, women and children from the New Zealand Muslim community were killed, and were killed online. Initially the live stream was watched by only a few hundred people but it was then shared and spread online at such a pace that YouTube recorded one upload per second on their platform in the first 24 hours.”
She added: “Never have so many countries and tech companies come together in reaction to such an attack to work together to use new technology and develop new technology so our communities are safer.
“Today must be day one of change. The Christchurch Call is a roadmap for action. It’s a nine-point commitment that I hope will bring lead to further change … to eliminate terrorism from the networks.”
She said she hoped it would lead to a “more human internet that cannot be used by terrorists for their hateful purposes”.
Macron said things were moving in the right direction and the presence of the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, and his “personal engagement” was encouraging.
“They said they support the objectives they will do all to cooperation, they haven’t formally signed up to the Christchurch Call but we will do all we can to have a more concrete and formal engagement. The fact the US administration has said it shares our objectives is a positive element,” Macron said.
He said the Christchurch Call differed from previous initiatives to clean up the internet, because of the involvement of tech companies and its worldwide appeal.
Ardern said Facebook had made a changes to its livestreaming, announced at the same time as the summit, under which the Christchurch terrorist “would not have been able to livestream his act of violence”.
She said: “That is just one element of the work of we must do. Ultimately we want to be in a position to prevent harm in the first place, to make sure that lives aren’t lost.”
Christchurch Call: details emerge of Ardern’s plan to tackle online extremism
New Zealand PM will reportedly urge nations to enforce laws banning extremist material and set rules for reporting on terrorism
Details have emerged of a plan by New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern and French president Emmanuel Macron to eliminate terrorist and violent content online.
Ardern and Macron will meet in Paris this week on the sidelines of a meeting of digital ministers from the Group of 7 nations to discuss the plan – named the “Christchurch Call” – and urge other leaders to sign up.
The New Zealand prime minister announced the project in the wake of the Christchurch mosque attacks on 15 March. The worst mass-murder in the nation’s modern history, in which 51 people were killed, was streamed live online and shared thousands of times.
On Monday the New York Times reported that the initiative would call on signatory nations to adopt and enforce laws that ban objectionable material, and set guidelines on how traditional media can report acts of terrorism without amplifying them.
However, the pledge does not contain any enforcement or regulatory measures, and it would be up to each individual country and company to decide how it would honour its voluntary commitments.
A definition of violent extremist content was not included in a draft version of the pledge, and it would be up to individual companies to decide on what constituted objectionable material, the paper said. The pledge asked tech companies to enforce their terms of service, as well as “re-evaluate their algorithms that direct users to extremist content, and commit to redirecting people looking for extremist material”.
At the summit in Paris on Wednesday, Ardern will meet the leaders of global tech giants including Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will not attend the event.
Before leaving New Zealand, Ardern said her country of fewer than 5 million people had been “left reeling” after the Christchurch attack, and despite free speech principles being a central tenet of western democracy, no one has “a right to livestream the murder of 50 people”.
Ardern said many people did not seek out the video of the attack, but saw it unwittingly because “the proliferation of it was so extreme”. Ardern herself saw parts of the video when it appeared on her Facebook page shortly after the attack.
It was important to New Zealanders that the internet remained “free, open and accessible”, Ardern said, and the Christchurch Call would not impinge on those rights, but seek to patrol the dissemination and spread of terrorist and extremist material online.
New Zealand government officials have already visited the White House and the state department to discuss the pledge and urge the US to sign, the Times reported, although the US has indicated it would not.
Britain, Canada, Australia, Jordan, Senegal, Indonesia, Norway and Ireland have indicated they intend to sign the pledge.
The news came as New Zealand opened a royal commission into the Christchurch attacks.
The inquiry will look into the suspected gunman’s activities, use of social media and international connections, as well as whether there was inappropriate priority settings in counter terrorism resources.
“The commission’s findings will help to ensure such an attack never happens here again,” Ardern said in a statement. Its findings will be handed to the government on 10 December.
• This article was amended on 13 May 2019 to remove an incorrect reference to Australia not supporting the “Christchurch Call”. Australia has endorsed the call, as the article now makes clear.
The White House is considering a military plan that would include sending 120,000 troops to the Middle East in response to what the Trump Administration has called a dangerous threat from Iran, a report said on Monday.
Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan made the proposal to President Trump’s top military aides last Thursday as a deterrent to Iran launching an attack of their own or continuing to develop nuclear weapons, according to The New York Times.
The aggressive stance was reportedly backed by Trump’s national security adviser, John R. Bolton.
Earlier this month, Bolton issued a stern warning to Iran while announcing the deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group along with a bomber task force to the Persian Gulf.
“The United States is not seeking war with the Iranian regime, but we are fully prepared to respond to any attack, whether by proxy, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or regular Iranian forces,” Bolton said in the statement.
The proposed deployment of 120,000 troops would be nearly equal to the amount of US troops that invaded Iraq in 2003.
A spokesman for the National Security Council told the Times that the president does not seek “military conflict with Iran” but that they are ready to defend US interests in the region.
The National Association of Realtors’ (NAR) 2019 report examined employment increases, population trends, income growth, and housing market conditions in the top 100 metropolitan areas across the country to identify millennial migration trends. The top ten cities NAR labeled were selected for their high concentration of millennial residents, expanding employment opportunities and affordable housing.
NAR determined that Madison, Wisconsin, is the mecca for millennials. The report showed 75% of recent moves in 2017 had been by millennials.
Regions of the San Diego metropolitan area had 67.1% of them move to the area in the same timeframe, making it the No. 13 destination for millennials out of 100 cities analyzed.
Despite being No. 13 destination for millennials, San Diego had the most significant population (27% above the national average) of millennials in the country.
The 2017 data showed millennials were flocking to, in addition to, Madison (74.98% of new moves), New Haven-Milford, Connecticut (74.70% of new moves); Syracuse, New York (73.30% of new moves); Grand Rapids-Wyoming, Michigan (72.70% of new moves); Richmond, Virginia (70.50% of new moves), Urban Honolulu, Hawaii (70.20% of new moves); Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, Washinton (69.60% of new moves); Etc.
“We see that millennials are moving to areas with strong employment and wage growth,” NAR economist Nadia Evangelou told the Chicago Tribune.
NAR said only 2% of millennials who moved to San Diego could afford the median home price ($528k to $ $572k in 2017 prices). Making this super popular West Coast city one of the worst places for millennials to live in terms of affordability.
The most affordable metro for millennials was Dayton, Ohio, located in the Rust Belt, where decades of deindustrialization have kept home prices relatively depressed. In 2017, 56% of new moves were millennials, and 54% of those youngsters could comfortably afford a home.
The cities millennials avoided the most were all located in Florida: Fort Myers, Lakeland, Palm Bay-Melbourne, North Port-Sarasota, and Tampa.
The report noted that business leaders frequently warn about a loss of jobs to Texas from California, but it appears millennials aren’t moving to the Lone Star State. Dallas placed No. 39 destination for millennials in 2017, due to only 10% of millennials could afford a home. Austin was the No. 48 destination with less than 3% of millennials able to purchase a new home.
Evangelou told the Tribune that the study’s purpose was to identify millennial migration trends and understand if they stay in one place. If youngsters can’t afford to purchase a home and income growth wanes, this heavily indebted generation will migrate to the next city where affordability and wages are much better. And the report concludes by saying Madison, Wisconsin, is becoming the most popular city for millennials, due to decent wage growth and an affordability factor of 29% can buy homes.
“They don’t stay in some places because they can’t afford to buy (a home) and raise a family,” she said. “We’re looking for those people that want to raise a family in those places.”
Top Metro Areas Millennials Are moving To (Based on 2017 Census American Community Survey):
Madison, Wisc. – 74.98% New Haven-Milford, Conn. – 74.70% Syracuse, N.Y. – 73.30% Grand Rapids-Wyoming, Mich. – 72.70% Richmond, Va. – 70.50% Urban Honolulu, Hawaii – 70.20% Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, Wash. – 69.60% Toledo, Ohio – 69.40% Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, Calif. – 68.50% Durham-Chapel Hill, N.C. – 67.90% Omaha-Council Bluffs, Neb.-Iowa – 67.50% Provo-Orem, Utah – 67.30% San Diego-Carlsbad, Calif. – 67.10% San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, Calif. – 67.10% Boston-Cambridge-Newton, Maine-N.H. – 66.80%
With millennials deeper in debt than any other generation, a job environment that is stalling, and a home affordability crisis in major coastal cities, it certainly seems that this deadbeat generation is giving up on their West Coast dreams and moving to affordable regions inland.
Although this article was published back in July 2011, I wanted to republish it as a reminder to everyone who is behind the censorship on Social Media.
The CIA publishes a helpful list of press releases on all the social media ventures it sponsors via its technology investment arm, In-Q-Tel.
