BLM Rioters Get $6M Because Cops Didn’t Wear Face Masks

The Black Lives Matter race riots in New York City were among the worst in the country. Racist mobs injured hundreds of police officers, started fires, looted stores and vandalized parks and statues. At least 450 businesses, many of them small and family owned, were damaged or looted by the rioters who claimed to be angry over the drug overdose death of George Floyd: a vicious career criminal who had previously robbed a woman by putting a gun to her stomach.

While Black Lives Matter was swimming in hundreds of millions of dollars, funneled to it by radical nonprofits, major corporations and Hollywood celebrities, family businesses in New York City looted by those rioters were offered a maximum of $10,000 to rebuild their shattered lives.

One small business owner in the Bronx complained that it would hardly even begin to cover the $200,000 in damages to her store after rioters “smashed glass display cases and medical equipment”. But participants in an extremist group’s Bronx protest are getting a much better deal. New York City will be paying $21,500 to each of the “protesters” in the Bronx for a total of as much as $6 million. And none of that money will be going to the looted businesses.

This has been described as the largest payout for mass arrests in American history.

The BLM riot era class action lawsuit claimed, among other things that the, “police officers responding to protests frequently failed to wear masks or to assist detained protesters in covering their noses and mouths, and on occasion even forcibly removed protesters’ masks, exposing protesters to a heightened risk of contracting COVID-19.”

Family businesses lost everything and cops and civilians were badly wounded during the BLM riots, but the police officers didn’t always wear masks when trying to control those riots.

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Florida bill would require bloggers who write about governor to register with the state

Florida Sen. Jason Brodeur (R-Lake Mary) wants bloggers who write about Gov. Ron DeSantis, Attorney General Ashley Moody, and other members of the Florida executive cabinet or legislature to register with the state or face fines.

Brodeur’s proposal, Senate Bill 1316: Information Dissemination, would require any blogger writing about government officials to register with the Florida Office of Legislative Services or the Commission on Ethics.

In the bill, Brodeur wrote that those who write “an article, a story, or a series of stories,” about “the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, a Cabinet officer, or any member of the Legislature,” and receives or will receive payment for doing so, must register with state offices within five days after the publication of an article that mentions an elected state official.

If another blog post is added to a blog, the blogger would then be required to submit monthly reports on the 10th of each month with the appropriate state office. They would not have to submit a report on months when no content is published.

For blog posts that “concern an elected member of the legislature” or “an officer of the executive branch,” monthly reports must disclose the amount of compensation received for the coverage, rounded to the nearest $10 value.

If compensation is paid for a series of posts or for a specific amount of time, the blogger would be required to disclose the total amount to be received, upon publication of the first post in said series or timeframe.

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The CIA’s anal ‘feeding tube’ torture

Last week in a federal courtroom at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, an American physician hired by the Pentagon testified about the CIA’s use of rectal “feeding” tubes on prisoners it detained and tortured in Thailand from 2001 to 2006.

The physician, Sondra S. Crosby, M.D., an expert on tortures and other trauma, described the painful repeated insertion of plastic tubes into the anal cavity of the defendant in the case, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, over a period of four years. Al-Nashiri is on trial for conspiracy to bomb the USS Cole in October 2000.

The hearing at which Dr. Crosby testified was ordered by the military judge when defense counsel told him the nature and extent of the torture visited upon their client by the CIA and its contractors. Dr. Crosby was given access to CIA raw notes and reports, some of which had not been seen by the investigators who produced the 2014 U.S. Senate 500-page documented study on CIA torture during the administration of President George W. Bush.

The site in Thailand at which al-Nashiri was tortured was run by Gina Haspel, the future CIA director, nicknamed by her colleagues “Bloody Gina.” The CIA infamously made videos of the torture of al-Nashiri and others, which Haspel destroyed.

Dr. Crosby, who was harshly critical of the CIA’s use of this internationally condemned interrogation technique, which is criminal under federal law, revealed that the CIA notes reflected that al-Nashiri and others who received this barbaric treatment were actually being fed nutrients via these anal tubes. She told the court that this must have been a subterfuge as there is simply no biological means to nourish a person via the person’s anal cavity.

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Mayor of College Park arrested, charged with 56 counts of child pornography

The mayor of a College Park was arrested Thursday morning on dozens of child pornography counts hours after he resigned from office.

Patrick Wojahn, 47, faces 56 counts of possession and distribution of child porn, the Prince George’s County Police Department said in a statement Thursday morning. Police searched his College Park home Tuesday and seized cell phones as well as a storage device, tablet and computer.

County officials said the department started investigating after the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children notified them on Feb. 17 that a social media account had distributed suspected child pornography. Detectives traced the account to Wojahn, authorities said.

Wojahn submitted his resignation after business hours on Wednesday, city officials said in a statement Thursday. He was serving his second term as mayor of College Park, which includes the University of Maryland campus, after winning election in 2015. He previously served eight years as a city councilman.

“Mr. Wojahn resigned his position yesterday and has been cooperating fully with law enforcement,” his attorney David Moyse said via email Thursday. “While too early to comment on the allegations, we will continue to cooperate as the process unfolds.”

In his resignation letter, which the city released, Wojahn said he plans to “deal with my own mental health” and asked residents to keep his family in their prayers.

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US Ambassador To China: “We’re The Leader” Of The Indo-Pacific

A recent US Chamber of Commerce InSTEP program hosted three empire managers to talk about Washington’s top three enemies, with the US ambassador to China Nicholas Burns discussing the PRC, the odious Victoria Nuland discussing Russia, and the US ambassador to Israel Tom Nides talking about Iran.

Toward the end of the hour-long discussion, Burns made the very interesting comment that Beijing must accept that the United States is “the leader” in the region and isn’t going anywhere.

“From my perspective sitting here in China looking out at the Indo-Pacific, our American position is stronger than it was five or ten years ago,” Burns said, citing the strength of US alliances, its private sector and its research institutions and big tech companies.

“And I do think that the Chinese now understand that the United States is staying in this region — we’re the leader in this region in many ways,” Burns added emphatically.

The “Indo-Pacific” is a term which has gained a lot of traction in geopolitical discourse in recent years, typically describing the vast multi-continental region between Australia to the south, Asia to the north, Africa to the west, and the middle of the Pacific Ocean to the east. It contains half the Earth’s population, and it very much includes China.

After making the rather audacious claim of being “the leader” of a region which China is a part of but the United States is not, Burns went on to claim the US does not want any kind of confrontation with the Chinese government.

“We want a future of peace with China,” Burns said. “As President Biden makes clear every time he talks about this, we don’t want conflict, but we’re gonna hold our own out here. And I feel optimistic, just concluding my first year as ambassador, about the American position in this country and in this region.”

Again, Burns is saying this from China, so by “in this country” he means in China.

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Ticketmaster, PayPal, eBay are hassling customers to report sales even though the IRS says they don’t have to

People are being told they need to provide their Social Security numbers to online platforms and cash transfer app companies for the sales of things like clothes and concert tickets over $600, even though the IRS says they don’t need to.

The prompts from companies like eBay and Ticketmaster are the result of a change in the tax law that was reneged last-minute by the IRS ahead of the 2023 tax filing season.

The switch is causing a lot of confusion among taxpayers and tax professionals — and even within the IRS itself.

The threshold for reporting business income or personal income from using these apps was supposed to change this year. It was downgraded from sales above $20,000 to sales of above just $600 and was part of a provision passed in the 2021 American Rescue Plan.

That means you’d need to pay a capital gains tax on sales worth more than $600 if you used these apps to receive a payment.

But the IRS decided to delay this rule change from tax season 2023 to tax season 2024, citing “confusion during the … 2023 tax filing season” and the need to “provide more time for taxpayers to prepare and understand the new reporting requirements.”

The IRS said some taxpayers may be receiving 1099-K forms “in error.”

“Some individuals may receive a Form 1099-K for the sale of personal items or in situations where they received a Form 1099-K in error (i.e. for transactions between friends and family, or expense sharing),” the agency said in a statement.

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Canadian Government Launches UFO Study

Taking a page from the United States, the Canadian government has launched their own official study on UFOs in the hopes of getting a better understanding of the mysterious phenomenon. The intriguing effort has reportedly been dubbed the ‘Sky Canada Project’ and will be overseen by the country’s Chief Science Advisor. Believed to be the first government-sponsored UFO research project in almost three decades, the endeavor is similar in scope to studies currently being conducted in America wherein determining how reports of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) are being collected by the government is at the center of the work rather than answering the question of what these objects might be.

To that end, an official document detailing the creation of the study stresses that “it is not meant to prove or deny the existence of extraterrestrial life or extraterrestrial visitors.” On the contrary, the project will seek to “identify the key Canadian players and how they deal with UAP observations.” As such, researchers will be seeking input from various government departments within Canada including the country’s space agency as well as the Royal Mounted Police. The project will also consult with American counterparts in the US Department of Defense and NASA who are also examining the UAP issue. Ultimately, they aim to issue a public report on the study sometime next year.

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10 Steps to the Edge of the Abyss

At this moment, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Doomsday Clock now stands at only 90 seconds before midnight. Thus, as we move closer and closer to a nuclear World War 3, why not identify the major steps that took us to this dangerously slippery road? Who knows, perhaps this exercise could help to bring some perspective to those who are pushing us into oblivion. They have families and children too. Sometimes even the greatest villains have the moment of repentance.

Here is my take of the ten such major events in the chronological order and those responsible for them.

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Senate unanimously votes to declassify Wuhan lab leak intelligence

The Senate on Wednesday unanimously voted in favor of a bill mandating that the Biden administration declassify intelligence materials involving the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Republican Sens. Mike Braun, Ind., and Josh Hawley, Mo., reintroduced the measure following a report from the Department of Energy concluding that the virus was likely the result of a lab leak, the Epoch Times reported.

Hawley celebrated the measure’s passage in a Tweet, saying “Tonight the Senate UNANIMOUSLY passed my bill to declassify all the intelligence the government has on #covid origins. Let the people see the truth!”

Formerly maligned as a conspiracy, the notion that the virus spread by way of a leak has increasingly gained traction among major federal agencies, including the DOE and FBI.

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ATF Honors Agents Who Kicked Off the Waco Slaughter of Women, Children

The ATF is honoring its agents who were killed as they kicked off the slaughter of American women and children at the Waco, Texas Branch Davidians compound in 1993, in an event widely known as the “Waco Massacre.”

The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives Houston, Texas office posted to Twitter this week to mark the 30th anniversary of the beginning of the Waco Siege, that led to the Waco Massacre. Included in the ATF’s tweet was a photograph of four agents “standing post” at the “Waco Peace Officer Memorial in Waco, TX in honor of Special Agents Conway LeBleu, Todd McKeehan, Robert Williams, and Steve Willis.”

The ATF was blasted in the responses to its tweet by a chorus of Twitter users, including prominent accounts like those of Jake Shields and Mindy Robinson.

“We mourn for the innocent women and children you burned alive,” Shields commented on the ATF’s tweet.

“Oh, you mean the baby killers?” Mindy Robinson wrote. “Are they standing guard so real patriots don’t dance on their graves? Yea, it takes a real man to shoot, kill, poison, and set innocent women and children on fire for their own “safety.”

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