I participated in an online forum called US CBDCA Disaster in the making? We had a very productive discussion about the policy aspect of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). I believe that the Fed should not launch a CBDC. Ever. And I think that Congress should amend the Federal Reserve Act, just to be on the safe side. I want to distinguish between a wholesale CBDC and retail CBDC. With a wholesale CBDC, banks can electronically transact with each other using a liability of the central bank. That is essentially what banks do now. But retail CBDCs are another animal altogether. Retail CBDCs allow members of the general public to make electronic payments of all kinds with a liability of the central bank. This featuremaking electronic transactions using a liability of the Federal Reserveis central to why Congress should make sure that the Fed never issues a retail CBDC. The problem is that the federal government, not privately owned commercial banks, would be responsible for issuing deposits. And while this fact might seem like a feature instead of bug, it's a major problem for anything that resembles a free society. The problem is that there is no limit to the level of control that the government could exert over people if money is purely electronic and provided directly by the government. A CBDC would give federal officials full control over the money going intoand coming out ofevery person's account. This level of government control is not compatible with economic or political freedom.

Note: The above was written by Norbert Michel, Vice President and Director of the Cato Institute's Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on financial system corruption from reliable major media sources.

More than 119,000 people have been injured by tear gas and other chemical irritants around the world since 2015 and some 2,000 suffered injuries from "less lethal" impact projectiles, according to a report released Wednesday. Physicians for Human Rights and the International Network of Civil Liberties Organizations, which produced the report, called it "the most comprehensive study on crowd-control weapons to date." The report on casualties from a largely unregulated industry cites an alarming evolution of crowd-control devices into more powerful and indiscriminate designs and deployment, including dropping tear gas from drones. Some of the injuries were fatal but it was impossible from the data to estimate the total number of deaths, said the report's lead author, Rohini Haar. The vast majority of the data comes from cases in which a person came to an emergency room with injuries from crowd-control weapons and the attending doctor or hospital staff made the effort to document it, Haar said. Protesters have been blinded and suffered brain damage from beanbag rounds. In November, the city of Portland reached a $250,000 settlement with five demonstrators in a federal lawsuit over police use of tear gas and other crowd-control devices during racial justice protests. But last month, a federal judge threw out an excessive force claim against an unnamed federal agent who fired an impact munition at the forehead of protester Donavan La Bella, fracturing his skull.

Note: For an idea of how common the deployment of nonlethal weapons against protesters has become, see a list of incidents of police violence that took place in the US in 2020. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on police corruption and non-lethal weapons from reliable major media sources.

The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation has acknowledged for the first time that it purchased US location data rather than obtaining a warrant. The disclosure came today during a US Senate hearing. Senator Ron Wyden ... put the question of the bureau's use of commercial data to its director, Christopher Wray: "Does the FBI purchase US phone-geolocation information?" Wray said his agency was not currently doing so. "To my knowledge, we do not currently purchase commercial database information that includes location data derived from internet advertising," Wray said. "I understand that we previouslyas in the pastpurchased some such information for a specific national security pilot project. But that's not been active for some time." In its landmark Carpenter v. United States decision, the Supreme Court held that government agencies accessing historical location data without a warrant were violating the Fourth Amendment's guarantee against unreasonable searches. The decision left open a glaring loophole that allows the government to simply purchase whatever it cannot otherwise legally obtain. US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the Defense Intelligence Agency are among the list of federal agencies known to have taken advantage of this loophole. The Department of Homeland Security ... purchased the geolocations of millions of Americans from private marketing firms. The data were derived from ... benign sources, such as mobile games and weather apps.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.

The precise locations of the U.S. government's high-tech surveillance towers along the U.S-Mexico border are being made public for the first time as part of a mapping project by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. While the Department of Homeland Security's investment of more than a billion dollars into a so-called virtual wall between the U.S. and Mexico is a matter of public record, the government does not disclose where these towers are located, despite privacy concerns of residents of both countries and the fact that individual towers are plainly visible to observers. The surveillance tower map is the result of a year's work steered by EFF Director of Investigations Dave Maass. As border surveillance towers have multiplied across the southern border, so too have they become increasingly sophisticated, packing a panoply of powerful cameras, microphones, lasers, radar antennae, and other sensors. Companies like Anduril and Google have reaped major government paydays by promising to automate the border-watching process with migrant-detecting artificial intelligence. Opponents of these modern towers, bristling with always-watching sensors, argue the increasing computerization of border security will lead inevitably to the dehumanization of an already thoroughly dehumanizing undertaking. Nobody can say for certain how many people have died attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border in the recent age of militarization and surveillance. Researchers estimate that the minimum is at least 10,000 dead.

Note: As the article states, the Department of Homeland Security was "the largest reorganization of the federal government since the creation of the CIA and the Defense Department," and has resulted in U.S. taxpayers funding corrupt agendas that have led to massive human rights abuses. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.

A new investigation has uncovered connections between private equity firms and the contentious development of a sprawling police and fire service training complex in Atlanta known as "Cop City" and the police force which fatally shot an environmental activist. Private equity refers to an opaque form of financing away from public markets in which funds and investors manage money for wealthy individuals and institutional investors. Research shared exclusively with the Guardian details links between Roark Capital, an Atlanta-based private equity firm ... and a corporate backer of the Atlanta police foundation (APF). APF ... is raising $60m from corporate funders to build Cop City in the Atlanta forest previously earmarked for a public park. The APF has helped Atlanta become the most surveilled city in the US in large part thanks to a program called Operation Shield. Operation Shield currently boasts more than 12,800 private and public interconnected cameras monitored by the police. The private equity industry manages about $11tn globally. Yet unlike banks and other publicly listed companies, private equity firms are exempt from most financial disclosure rules, making it extremely difficult to track their assets or risks. It means people such as firefighters, nurses and teachers whose pensions are invested in private equity funds have little way of knowing if their retirement nest egg is financing police surveillance equipment, defence contractors, hospitals or coal plants.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on police corruption and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.

During one of his many visits to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Siddharth Kara ... met a young woman sifting dirt for traces of cobalt. Priscille told him she had suffered two miscarriages and that her husband, a fellow "artisanal" miner, died of a respiratory disease. It is just one of many devastating personal accounts in Cobalt Red, a detailed expos into the hidden world of small-scale cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The "quaint" moniker of artisanal mining, Mr. Kara points out, belies a brutal industry where hundreds of thousands of men, women and children dig with bare hands and basic tools in toxic, perilous pits, eking out an existence on the bottom rung of the global supply chain. The miners are the first step in the race for precious metals and minerals by some of the world's most powerful companies. If you own a smartphone, tablet, laptop, e-scooter, [or] electric vehicle ... then it is a system in which you are unwittingly complicit. Around 75 per cent of the world's cobalt is mined in the DRC. The rare, silvery metal is an essential component to every lithium-ion rechargeable battery. Congolese miners ... have experienced life-changing injuries, sexual assault, physical violence, corruption, displacement and abject poverty. Major tech and EV companies extol commitments to human rights, zero-tolerance for child labor, and clean supply chains. Mr. Kara described these statements as "utterly inconsistent" with what's happening on the ground.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption from reliable major media sources.

Trust in public health has been shatteredhalf of America has lost faith in the scientific community altogether. Our current government is doubling down on World Health Organization (WHO) decrees that directly circumvent public oversight. The WHO has drafted a new global Pandemic Accord. The U.S. ambassador to the WHO, Pamela Hamamoto, on February 27 imprudently promised "The United States is committed to the Pandemic Accord." This comes immediately after the exposure of yet another disgrace undermining trust in public health institutions. It turned out the February 2020 Lancet article calling the lab origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus a "conspiracy theory" was itself the true conspiracy, contrived behind closed doors contemporaneously with a March 2020 publication in Nature. If that coordinated media campaign was designed to conceal malfeasance by Drs. Francis Collins and Anthony Fauciwho, as leaders of America's National Institutes of Health, reportedly sent American tax dollars to fund China's dangerous gain-of-function research and circumvent Obama administration-introduced restrictionswe may be witnessing the deadliest cover-up scandal in history. News media are also beginning to acknowledge facts that refute the original reasons behind lockdowns. Despite protestations to the contrary, all signers of the Pandemic Accord clearly relinquish critical autonomy to the WHO. Most ominous is that WHO defines "public health emergency" on its own terms.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.

Almost all of America's leaders have gradually pulled back their COVID mandates, requirements, and closureseven in states like California, which had imposed the most stringent and longest-lasting restrictions on the public. At the same time, the media has been gradually acknowledging the ongoing release of studies that totally refute the purported reasons behind those restrictions. This overt reversal is falsely portrayed as "learned" or "new evidence." Little acknowledgment of error is to be found. We have seen no public apology for promulgating false information, or for the vilification and delegitimization of policy experts and medical scientists like myself who spoke out correctly about data, standard knowledge about viral infections and pandemics, and fundamental biology. History's biggest public health policy failure came at the hands of those who recommended the lockdowns and those who implemented them, not those who advised otherwise. Lies were told. Those lies harmed the public. Those lies were directly contrary to the evidence, to decades of knowledge on viral pandemics, and to long-established fundamental biology. To ensure that this never happens again, government leaders, power-driven officials, and influential academics and advisors often harboring conflicts of interest must be held accountable. Investigations must proceed. Remember G.K. Chesterton's critical lesson that "Right is right, even if nobody does it. Wrong is wrong, even if everybody is wrong about it."

Note: The above was written by Scott W. Atlas, MD, the Robert Wesson Senior Fellow in health policy at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals on Monday implored the U.S. military to reinstate a ban on the intentional wounding of animals in experiments and to stop radiation testing in an attempt to determine the cause of the mystery ailment popularly known as "Havana syndrome" that has afflicted U.S. government officials posted at diplomatic facilities in Washington, D.C. and several foreign countries. PETA argues that the military's decision to use live animals in testing related to Havana syndrome is "counterproductive" due to biological differences between humans and species subjected to the experiments, as well as the widespread availability of non-wounding research methods and the likelihood that radio frequency waves did not cause the mysterious ailment. The U.S. government has a long history of radiation experiments not only on animals but also on human beings. Scores of institutions, including some of North America's most prominent universities, laboratories, and hospitals hosted government and military experimentation on both volunteers and unwitting test subjects in the MK-ULTRA mind control experiments and other highly unethical and sometimes deadly programs. People suffering from Havana syndromeso named because it was first identified by U.S. and Canadian diplomats and embassy staff in the Cuban capitalexperienced what The Lancet described as "an abrupt onset of unusual clinical symptoms."

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption and non-lethal weapons from reliable major media sources.

Beyond developing their camping skills, participating in a food drive to aid the hungry and donating pajamas for seniors, Girl Scouts across America this year were offered a new way to earn a special uniform patch: learning about the wonders of 5G cellphone technology and, in some cases, promoting it. The opportunity came courtesy of Ericsson, the Swedish telecommunications giant, which sponsored the "Ericsson Limited Edition 5G & IoT" (Internet of Things) patch program. The program, still available on at least one Girl Scout website, targets all age levels, from Daisies (kindergarten-age Scouts) to Ambassadors (those in high school), with an array of activities intended to "introduce Girl Scouts to 5G and the Internet of Things." Scouts of all ages are invited to "discuss with your troop or an adult how mmWave spectrum is safe and does not cause harm to our health." Health experts, who are concerned that wireless radiation poses a health risk to children, criticize the Ericsson program as an improper and inaccurate form of industry marketing. "Anytime corporations advertise directly to children, I'm very suspicious," Dr. Jerome Paulson, a pediatrician ... told ProPublica. "It would be like Exxon Mobil sponsoring a patch on climate change." The Environmental Health Trust, an activist nonprofit ... recently sent a letter of protest to the Girl Scouts' national office, saying the patch materials "misleadingly state that 5G networks and cellphones are safe," and urging their removal from all Girl Scout websites.

Note: Read an in-depth article that investigates how the FCC shields cell phone companies from significant safety and health concerns raised by the public about technologies emitting wireless radiation. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the dangers of wireless technologies from reliable major media sources.

"Don't get dirty!" was once a constant family refrain, as parents despairingly watched their children spoil their best clothes. Today, many parents may secretly wish their children had the chance to pick up a bit of grime. According to recent research, the dirt outside is teaming with friendly microorganisms that can train the immune system and build resilience to a range of illnesses, including allergies, asthma and even depression and anxiety. Certain natural materials, such as soil and mud ... contain surprisingly powerful microorganisms whose positive impact on children's health we are only beginning to fully understand. Our brains evolved in natural landscapes, and our perceptual systems are particularly well suited to wild outdoor spaces. Supporting this theory, one study from 2009 found that children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) were better able to concentrate following a 20-minute walk in the park, compared to a 20-minute walk on the streets of a well-kept urban area. People who grow up on farms are generally less likely to develop asthma, allergies, or auto-immune disorders like Crohn's disease [due to] their childhood exposure to a more diverse range of organisms in the rural environment. Michele Antonelli, a doctor from Italy ... has researched the ways that mud therapies can influence health. People with [skin] disorders ... seem to have an impoverished community of organisms. "These microorganisms can play a major role in many major chronic diseases," he says.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.

Mental states can have a profound impact on how ill we get and how well we recover. Understanding this could help to boost the placebo effect, destroy cancers, enhance responses to vaccination and even re-evaluate illnesses that, for centuries, have been dismissed as being psychologically driven. Neuroscientist Catherine Dulac and her team at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, have pinpointed neurons in an area called the hypothalamus that control symptoms including fever, warmth-seeking and loss of appetite in response to infection. "Most people probably assume that when you feel sick, it's because the bacteria or viruses are messing up your body," she says. But her team demonstrated that activating these neurons could generate symptoms of sickness even in the absence of a pathogen. An open question, Dulac adds, is whether these hypothalamic neurons can be activated by triggers other than pathogens, such as chronic inflammation. The insula ... is involved in processing emotion and bodily sensations. A 2021 study ... found that neurons in the insula store memories of past bouts of gut inflammation and that stimulating those brain cells reactivated the immune response. Such a reaction might prime the body to fight potential threats. But these reactions could also backfire. This could be the case for certain conditions, such as irritable bowel syndrome, that can be exacerbated by negative psychological states.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.

As food prices rise around the world and access to healthy nutrition falls, trials in France and Belgium are experimenting with a unique "social security" for food. The affordability of food is a growing concern for increasing numbers of households worldwide as people struggle to cope with the greatest cost of living crisis in a generation. With some forced to cut back on food to meet other essential expenses, food insecurity is on the rise around the world. The idea of social security for food might sound far-fetched. But through recently launched projects in Montpellier in France and Brussels in Belgium, burgeoning collectives of NGOs, farmers, researchers and citizens are experimenting with the idea that quality, nutritious and organic food should be accessible to everyone regardless of income. "Eating healthy and having access to quality food is expensive and only a minority of the population can afford to do so," says Margherita Via, project manager at BEES Coop. Inspired by universal healthcare systems such as those in France and Belgium, civil society groups have proposed establishing a new branch of social security, under which each citizen would receive a monthly allowance enabling them to buy food meeting certain environmental and ethical criteria. At its heart, the idea is about moving away from food as a commodity. "A total overhaul of [the agro-industrial food] system based on the right to food is necessary," says agronomist Mathieu Dalmais, who has led the movement since its inception.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation regularly seizes cash, cars and other valuables that belong to people who aren't accused of any crimes. Months later, many of those people receive a dense, boilerplate notice stating that the FBI plans to keep their property forever, without any explanation of whya blatantly unconstitutional practice. That's what happened to Linda Martin. When the FBI took her life savings from a safe-deposit box during a 2021 raid of US Private Vaults in Beverly Hills, Calif., she assumed her money would be returned. The company's alleged wrongdoing had nothing to do with her. But several months later, sheand hundreds of other innocent people who had their safe-deposit boxes takenreceived a notice stating that the government wanted to forfeit her money. The [notice] didn't accuse Ms. Martin of any crime or even lay out why the FBI was trying to take her property. The FBI sends out similarly inscrutable notices whenever it wants to forfeit property, in a clear violation of the Fifth Amendment. Federal agencies keep the proceeds from forfeited property. In the US Private Vaults case, the FBI admitted under oath that even before the raid occurred it had decided to pursue property forfeiture against everything worth over $5,000 in the renters' boxes. Using federal forfeiture records, the Institute for Justice calculated that from 2017 to 2021 Justice Department agencies gained more than $8 billion through forfeiture, with the FBI taking in more than $1.19 billion of that bounty.

Note: Read more about the government's theft of private property under civil asset forfeiture rules. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on police corruption from reliable major media sources.

U.S. Special Operations Command, responsible for some of the country's most secretive military endeavors, is gearing up to conduct internet propaganda and deception campaigns online using deepfake videos, according to federal contracting documents. SOCOM's next generation propaganda aspirations are outlined in a procurement document that lists capabilities it's seeking for the near future and soliciting pitches from outside parties that believe they're able to build them. Last with a new section: "Advanced technologies for use in Military Information Support Operations (MISO)," a Pentagon euphemism for its global propaganda and deception efforts. Perhaps as provocative as the mention of deepfakes is the section that follows, which notes SOCOM wishes to finely tune its offensive propaganda seemingly by spying on the intended audience through their internet-connected devices. Described as a "next generation capability to 'takeover' Internet of Things (loT) devices for collect [sic] data and information from local populaces to enable breakdown of what messaging might be popular and accepted through sifting of data once received," the document says that the ability to eavesdrop on propaganda targets "would enable MISO to craft and promote messages that may be more readily received by local populace." In 2017, WikiLeaks published pilfered CIA files that revealed a roughly similar capability to hijack into household devices.

Note: Read more about the potential pitfalls of deepfake technologies. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.

[Former UK Health Secretary] Matt Hancock wanted to "deploy" a new Covid variant to "frighten the pants off" the public and ensure they complied with lockdown, leaked messages seen by The Telegraph have revealed. The Lockdown Files more than 100,000 WhatsApp messages sent between ministers, officials and others show how the Government used scare tactics to force compliance and push through lockdowns. Hancock ... appeared to suggest in one message that a new strain of Covid that had recently emerged would be helpful in preparing the ground for the looming lockdown, by scaring people into compliance. In a WhatsApp conversation on Dec 13 ... Damon Poole - one of Mr Hancock's media advisers - informed his boss that Tory MPs were "furious already about the prospect" of stricter Covid measures and suggested "we can roll pitch with the new strain". The comment suggested that they believed the strain could be helpful in preparing the ground for a future lockdown and tougher restrictions in the run-up to Christmas 2020. Mr Hancock then replied: "We frighten the pants off everyone with the new strain." Mr Poole agreed, saying: "Yep that's what will get proper behaviour [sic] change." Mr Hancock expressed his worry that talks over Brexit would dominate headlines and reduce the impact, and probed Mr Poole for his media advice. "When do we deploy the new variant," asked Mr Hancock. During the pandemic, the Government was accused of scaremongering but it was denied.

Note: This article is available for free viewing on this webpage. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus and media manipulation from reliable sources.

Leaked messages seen by The Telegraph showed that in December 2020, Matt Hancock, the health secretary at the time, suggested that the Government "frighten the pants off everyone" to ensure strict Covid rules were adhered to. Sir Charles Walker, who was a leading member of the Covid Recovery Group of Conservative backbenchers, said that he was distressed by the leaked conversations. "What makes me so angry is the evils and the psychological warfare we deployed against young people and the population, all those behavioural psychologists," he [said]. "And there needs to be a reckoning. We need to understand and fully appreciate the damage that those sorts of campaigns did." Sir Charles lamented Parliament going "missing in action" as most MPs waved through dozens of Covid restrictions with little debate. He said: "Those voices that raised concerns were just othered. We were positioned as being anti-lockdown, Right-wing headbangers. And actually wanting to do the right thing isn't Right-wing. "We did terrible things to youngsters. We did terrible things to a large number of people. We need to make sure we never do those things again." Paul Dolan, a professor of behavioural science at the London School of Economics, blamed a mix of "mission creep" and "expertise creep" for a response dominated by groupthink. "It was wrong in every sense to make younger people scared of a virus that we knew very early on was of very limited risk to them," he [said].

Note: The unethical use of "nudge" tactics to inflate fear among the public prompted 40 psychologists in the UK to write a letter to the Parliaments Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, saying it was highly questionable whether a civilised society should knowingly increase the emotional discomfort of its citizens as a means of gaining their compliance." For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing...

The origin of SARS-CoV-2, the agent that causes the disease COVID-19, remains a mystery. But there are purportedly a few high up in government and scientific communities well aware of its genesis. In "The Truth About Wuhan: How I Uncovered the Biggest Lie in History," Andrew G. Huff, former EcoHealth Alliance vice president and senior scientist, details his coming forward "as a material witness and whistleblower related to SARS-CoV-2." "The Truth About Wuhan" [contains] an insider's view of working for EcoHealth Alliance; a damning critique of models and of function" research; the real COVID-19 timeline; China and U.S. culpability in the virus mayhem; and the multifarious, direct attacks used by the federal government to harass and discredit Mr. Huff. According to the author, "SARS-CoV-2 leaked from the [Wuhan Institute of Virology] laboratory as early as August 2019. The probable cases detected in Italy in 2019 make sense as Italy is one of the most popular tourist destinations of the Chinese. By mid-October 2019 the disease was likely already on every continent except Antarctica. The DoD, along with militaries globally, detected the disease in their countries' service members that attended the Military World Games in Wuhan. Trying to avoid global panic, governments began to implement response plans, which included the U.S. government's mobilization of the mRNA SARS-CoV-2 gene therapy."

Note: Before buying this book, you might read this review and the reviews on Amazon. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.

In the month since veteran journalist Seymour Hersh published his bombshell report alleging that President Joe Biden personally authorized a covert action to bomb the Nord Stream pipelines, we've seen a frenzy of speculation, detailed dissection of Hersh's specific assertions, and the emergence of competing narratives both supporting and denouncing the report. On March 7, the New York Times and the German newspaper Die Zeit both published stories that thicken the plot. The Times story was based on a narrative clearly being pushed by U.S. intelligence sources that "a pro-Ukrainian group carried out the attack." If the bombing of the Nord Stream pipelines was, as Hersh alleges, directed by the U.S., then the leaked suggestion that the culprits were a "pro-Ukrainian group" could indicate a nascent effort at floating a cover story. No one has claimed responsibility for this attack, but there are recent precedents for foreign actors taking credit for U.S. operations to conceal Washington's involvement. Military officials have lied or misled the public ... throughout U.S. history. There is no U.S. law or rule prohibiting the government from promoting a false alternative explanation to conceal an operation. "This is an established practice in military operations and intelligence activities where it is often known as 'cover and deception,'" [said former Government Secrecy Project director Steven Aftergood]. "Sometimes, in order to maintain the operational security of X, you have to declare that it is actually Y."

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption and media manipulation from reliable sources.

This month marks the 20th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq. We must not forget how the George W Bush administration manipulated the facts, the media and the public after the horrific attacks of 9/11, hellbent as the administration was to go to war in Iraq. On 11 September 2001, mere hours after the attacks, Donald Rumsfeld, the then secretary of defense, was already sending a memo to the joint chiefs of staff to find evidence that would justify attacking the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein (as well as Osama bin Laden). In the two years following 9/11, Bush and his top officials publicly uttered at least 935 lies about the threat that Saddam posed to the United States, according to the Center for Public Integrity. In the run-up to war, Bush & associates flooded the airwaves with the talking point "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud" so often that it began to sound like a jingle from a cheap law firm commercial. No weapons of mass destruction were ever found. Bush succeeded at the time because the public, primed to be afraid, was susceptible to his lies. The New York Times, as the nation's leading newspaper, played a key role in disseminating the administration's lies. The Iraq war ushered in a style of politics where truth is, at best, an inconvenience. Long before Trump spokesperson Kellyanne Conway ... told NBC's Chuck Todd about "alternative facts" ... we were already living in a post-truth world, one created in part by an established media willing and able to amplify government lies.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and media manipulation from reliable sources.

At least 1,003 people have been arrested and charged so far for participation in events on Jan. 6, with 476 pleading guilty, in what has been the largest single criminal investigation in U.S. history. Of the 394 federal defendants who have had their cases adjudicated and sentenced ... approximately 220 "have been sentenced to periods of incarceration" with a further 100 defendants "sentenced to a period of home detention." There are six convictions and four guilty pleas on charges of "seditious conspiracy." This offense is so widely defined that it includes conspiring to levy war against the government and delaying the execution of any law. Those charged and convicted of "seditious conspiracy" were accused of collaborating to oppose "the lawful transfer of presidential power by force" by preventing or delaying the Certification of the Electoral College vote. Those who walked to the Capitol were not aware that the Department of Justice had created arbitrary markers. Anyone who crossed that invisible line was charged with violating Capitol grounds. The vast majority of those caught up in the incursion of the Capitol did not commit serious crimes, engage in violence or know what they would do in Washington other than protest the election results. Environmental activists ... anti-war activists and even congressional staffers have engaged in numerous occupations of congressional offices and interrupted congressional hearings. Will they be given lengthy prison terms based on dubious interpretations of the law?

Note: Read this article in full to understand the scope of this criminal investigation undertaken by the federal government, and why there are massive concerns of government overreach and erosion of civil liberties. Watch a brief video of Attorney Joseph D. McBride discussing his work with the Jan. 6 defendants, describing the horrendous conditions many of them faced.

We are stuck in a never ending cycle of disaster that has led to one giant sense-making crises. False flag terrorism ... refers to governments creating, supporting, or staging events, like acts of terrorism in their own country and on their own citizenry, and then blaming it on someone else. Sometimes events can be created and even staged, and other times events are completely real yet the narrative we receive is where the deception lies. Either way, in many cases these events are used for control and/or political and financial gain. Take, for example, Operation Northwoods. This was a plan hatched by the US government in the early 1960s to fool the American public and the international community into supporting a war against Cuba in order to oust Fidel Castro. The plan included blowing up a US ship, attacking a US military base, sinking and blowing up boats of Cuban refugees, hijacking planes, and orchestrating violent terrorism in multiple US cities against American citizens. And of course, blaming Cuba for these actions. 9/11 could perhaps be one of the best examples of false flag terrorism, but the evidence that has lead the majority of people to feel this sentiment has not seen the light of day within the mainstream. There are many similarities between 9/11 and COVID, and in my mind COVID has been a clear act of bioterrorism by the same entities who proposed the 'solution.' These included vaccine mandates, mask mandates and more, which we are likely to see resurface again in the future.

Note: Read more about false flag terrorism. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption from reliable major media sources.

Researchers took a comprehensive look at statistical findings from 46 different studies around the globe and found that the use of a cell phone for more than 1,000 hours, or about 17 minutes a day over a ten year period, increased the risk of tumors by 60 percent. Researchers also pointed to findings that showed cell phone use for 10 or more years doubled the risk of brain tumors. Joel Moskowitz ... with the UC Berkeley School of Public Health conducted the research in partnership with Korea's National Cancer Center, and Seoul National University. Their analysis took a comprehensive look at statistical findings from case control studies from 16 countries including the U.S., Sweden, United Kingdom, Japan, Korea, and New Zealand. With the increased use of mobile devices, the research has been vast on their potential link to cancer. The findings have varied and at times been controversial. Many studies looking into the health risks of cell phone use have been funded or partially funded by the cellular phone industry. In 2017, California regulators alerted the public of potential health risks related to cell phone use. The California Department of Public Health ... provided advice on how to reduce exposure, including keeping phones away from your body and carrying devices in a backpack, briefcase, or purse. Health experts said cell phones should not be held in a pocket, bra, or belt holster, as a phone's antenna tries to stay connected with a cell tower whenever it's on, emitting radio frequency (RF) energy even when not in use. 

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Last month, a small warehouse in the English city of Nottingham received the crucial final components for a project that leverages the power of used EV batteries to create a new kind of circular economy. Inside, city authorities have installed 40 two-way electric vehicle chargers that are connected to solar panels and a pioneering battery energy storage system, which will together power a number of on-site facilities and a fleet of 200 municipal vehicles. Each day Nottingham will send a combination of solar-generated energy and whatever is left in the vehicles after the day's use from its storage devices into the national grid. What makes the project truly circular is the battery technology itself. Funded by the European Union's Interreg North-West Europe Programme, the energy storage system, E-STOR, is made out of used EV batteries by the British company Connected Energy. After around a decade, an EV battery no longer provides sufficient performance for car journeys. However, they still can retain up to 80 percent of their original capacity, and with this great remaining power comes great reusability. "As the batteries degrade, they lose their usefulness for vehicles," says Matthew Lumsden, chairman of Connected Energy. "But batteries can be used for so many other things, and to not do so results in waste and more mining of natural resources." One study ... calculated that a second life battery system saved 450 tons of CO2 per MWh over its lifetime.

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Around the world, people have been turning to swapping, trading and bartering during the coronavirus pandemic, whether to do their bit for the local community, save money or simply source hard-to-find baking ingredients. With economic uncertainty looming and anxiety levels soaring, barter is becoming an emerging alternative solution to getting by and staying busy. The increase in bartering is nowhere better exemplified than in Fiji. The country has a long tradition of barter, known as 'veisa' ... and Fijians have harnessed modern technology to connect even more people. "I knew that money would be tight to stretch out and even harder to come by. I asked myself what happens when there's no more money? Barter was a natural solution to that," says Marlene Dutta, who started the Barter for a Better Fiji group on 21 April. Its membership is just under 190,000  more than 20% of Fiji's population. Items changing hands have run the gamut pigs for kayaks, a violin for a leather satchel and doughnuts for building bricks but the most commonly requested items have been groceries and food. Bartering isn't just for individuals looking for baking items or help with grocery shopping, however. Businesses are increasingly interested in joining barter exchanges, which have "doctors, lawyers, service companies, retailers you name it", says Ron Whitney, President of the US-based International Reciprocal Trade Association, a non-profit organisation founded in 1979 that promotes and advances modern trade and barter systems.

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Swarms of honeybees can generate as much electrical charge as a thunderstorm, new research shows. In a study published in the journal iScience on Monday, researchers from the University of Bristol ... discovered this phenomenon by chance. Biologist Ellard Hunting [said] that the Bristol team was studying how different organisms use the static electric fields that are everywhere in the environment. Atmospheric electricity has a variety of functions, mainly in shaping weather events and helping organisms, for example in finding food. "Flowers have an electric field and bees can sense these fields. And these electric fields of flowers can change when it has been visited by a bee, and other bees can use that information to see whether a flower has been visited," Hunting explained. Having set up equipment to measure atmospheric electric fields at the university's field station, which features several honeybee hives, Hunting and his team noticed that whenever the bees swarmed, there was "a profound effect on atmospheric electric fields," even though the weather hadn't changed. All insects create a charge during flight as a result of friction in the air, with the size of the charge varying between species. Individual bees carry a charge that is small enough to be overlooked by researchers, so "this effect (in swarming bees) came as a surprise," Hunting said. They found that, depending on the swarm density, the atmospheric charge could be similar to that of a storm cloud, thunderstorm or electrified dust storm.

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More countries shut down the internet in 2022 than ever before, according to a new report by digital rights researchers. Authorities in 35 countries instituted internet shutdowns at least 187 times, according to the New York-based digital rights watchdog Access Now. Nearly half of these shutdowns occurred in India, and if that nation is excluded, 2022 saw the most number of shutdowns globally since the group began monitoring disruptions in 2016. [The] report ... spans complete blackouts, suspensions of specific phone networks or social media apps, and the slowing down of internet speeds. Triggers for shutdowns have included large protests, conflict situations, elections and even examinations. Whatever the situation, they make it substantially more difficult for people to communicate and receive or send news, and they incur significant economic costs, which prompted the United Nations last year to call for governments to avoid using such a blunt tactic. "This can be a big warning sign of how the human rights situation is deteriorating, and shutdowns are often associated with increased levels of insecurity and other restrictions," said Liz Throssell, a spokeswoman at the U.N. Human Rights Office. A majority of [India's] 84 disruptions were logged in Indian-administered Kashmir, part of a disputed region in the Himalayas. India has at times cited a desire to control social unrest in the territory, where there is a separatist movement. The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and mass civilian protests in Iran also led to internet shutdowns

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On at least four occasions since 2019, Elon Musk has predicted that his medical device company, Neuralink, would soon start human trials of a revolutionary brain implant to treat intractable conditions such as paralysis and blindness. Yet the company, founded in 2016, didn't seek permission from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) until early 2022 and the agency rejected the application. Musk has detailed a bold vision for Neuralink: Both disabled and healthy people will pop into neighborhood facilities for speedy surgical insertions of devices with functions ranging from curing obesity, autism, depression or schizophrenia to web-surfing and telepathy. Musk also has said Neuralink would restore full mobility to paralyzed patients. Reuters exclusively reported late last year that the federal government was investigating the company's treatment of its research animals. The probe was launched amid growing employee concern that the company is rushing experiments, causing additional suffering and deaths of pigs, sheep and monkeys. Musk's company ... trails at least one direct rival in the race for FDA approval. Synchron, a competitor making a BCI implant, has won the agency's blessing for human trials. The company first tested its device on four patients in Australia who successfully sent text messages with their minds. Synchron recently raised $75 million, including from funds backed by tech billionaires Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos.

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Advanced Impact Media Solutions, or Aims, which controls more than 30,000 fake social media profiles, can be used to spread disinformation at scale and at speed. It is sold by "Team Jorge", a unit of disinformation operatives based in Israel. Tal Hanan, who runs the covert group using the pseudonym "Jorge", told undercover reporters that they sold access to their software to unnamed intelligence agencies, political parties and corporate clients. Team Jorge's Aims software ... is much more than a bot-controlling programme. Each avatar ... is given a multifaceted digital backstory. Aims enables the creation of accounts on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Telegram, Gmail, Instagram and YouTube. Some even have Amazon accounts with credit cards, bitcoin wallets and Airbnb accounts. Hanan told the undercover reporters his avatars mimicked human behaviour and their posts were powered by artificial intelligence. [Our reporters] were able to identify a much wider network of 2,000 Aims-linked bots on Facebook and Twitter. We then traced their activity across the internet, identifying their involvement ... in about 20 countries including the UK, US, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Greece, Panama, Senegal, Mexico, Morocco, India, the United Arab Emirates, Zimbabwe, Belarus and Ecuador. The analysis revealed a vast array of bot activity, with Aims' fake social media profiles getting involved in a dispute in California over nuclear power; a #MeToo controversy in Canada ... and an election in Senegal.

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The FBI and the Defense Department were actively involved in research and development of facial recognition software that they hoped could be used to identify people from video footage captured by street cameras and flying drones, according to thousands of pages of internal documents that provide new details about the government's ambitions to build out a powerful tool for advanced surveillance. The documents, revealed in response to an ongoing Freedom of Information Act lawsuit the American Civil Liberties Union filed against the FBI, show how closely FBI and Defense officials worked with academic researchers to refine artificial-intelligence techniques that could help in the identification or tracking of Americans without their awareness or consent. Many of the records relate to the Janus program, a project funded by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency, or IARPA. The improved facial recognition system was ultimately folded into a search tool, called Horus, and made available to the Pentagon's Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office, which helps provide military technologies to civilian police forces. No federal laws regulate how facial recognition systems can be used. The tool's use in domestic mass surveillance would be a "nightmare scenario," said Nathan Wessler, a deputy director at the ACLU. "It could give the government the ability to pervasively track as many people as they want for as long as they want. There's no good outcome for that in a democratic society."

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