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German Police Investigate Roger Waters Over Nazi-Like Costume

German police are investigating Roger Waters after the former Pink Floyd frontman wore a Nazi-inspired costume during his recent performance in Berlin.

The concert in question took place on May 17 at the Mercedes-Benz Arena. Waters, who has become a lightning rod of controversy thanks to his outspoken opposition of Israel, wore an SS-style uniform during his performance of “In the Flesh.” His attire included a long leather jacket, gloves and a seemingly Nazi-inspired red armband, which featured a crossed-hammers symbol, rather than a swastika.

As Waters performed, an inflatable pig – adorned with graffiti including a Star of David – floated above the audience. On large screens, the names of famous victims of persecution were shown, among them, Anne Frank.

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Congress To Investigate WHO Plans To Use “Listening Surveillance Systems” To Identify “Misinformation”

If you’ve been following our reporting on the issue, you’ll already know that the new World Health Organization (WHO) pandemic prevention initiative, the Preparedness and Resilience for Emerging Threats (PRET), recommends using “social listening surveillance systems” to identify “misinformation.” But as more people are learning about how unelected bodies are being used to suppress speech and potentially override sovereignty, it’s starting to get more pushback.

According to documents from the UN agency, PRET aims to “guide countries in pandemic planning” and work to “incorporate the latest tools and approaches for shared learning and collective action established during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The PRET document describes misinformation as a “health threat,” and refers to it as an “infodemic.”

“Infodemic is the overabundance of information – accurate or not – which makes it difficult for individuals to adopt behaviors that will protect their health and the health of their families and communities. The infodemic can directly impact health, hamper the implementation of public health countermeasures and undermine trust and social cohesiveness,” the document states.

However, it continues to recommend invasive methods of countering the spread of misinformation.

“Establish and invest in resources for social listening surveillance systems and capacities to identify concerns as well as rumors and misinformation,” the WHO wrote in the PRET document.

“To build trust, it’s important to be responsive to needs and concerns, to relay timely information, and to train leaders and HCWs in risk communications principles and encourage their application.

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Seattle Firefighters Now Drilled on Ibram Kendi Before Promotion to Top Jobs  

Of all the jobs in a standard fire department, a lieutenant’s is among the most difficult. When a fire truck approaches a blaze, the lieutenant decides how to tackle it—what windows to breach, which floors to prioritize, and how best to deploy the truck’s three or four firefighters against a shifting, inanimate enemy.

To see if they’re up to snuff, most departments administer a written test, typically multiple-choice, to prospective lieutenants. Candidates must score above a cut-off to be considered for the job, with higher scores increasing the odds of promotion. The exam, which covers a litany of topics from building construction to medical techniques, is designed to ensure that the people making life-and-death decisions know the bare minimum to make them well.

So firefighters in Seattle, Washington, were surprised when their department’s lieutenant exam focused almost as much on social justice as on firefighting.

The test, which has both written and oral components, is based on a list of texts assigned by the Seattle Department of Human Resources—including, as of this year, How To Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi and Both Sides of the Fire Lane: Memoirs of a Transgender Firefighter by Bobbie Scopa, according to a copy of the exam bibliography obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

Along with A Leader’s Guide to Unconscious Bias and Fighting Fire, a memoir by a female firefighter, the books about race and gender span over 800 pages—a large fraction of the total study material.

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Ukrainian Intelligence Says It’s Trying to Kill Putin

The Ukrainian intelligence service is making multiple attempts to kill Russian President Vladimir Putin. A high-ranking official admitted to actively plotting the Russian leader’s assassination after a recent drone attack on the Kremlin. 

“Putin is noticing that we are getting closer and closer to him,” Vadym Skibitsky, the deputy head of Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate, told Welt in an interview. He added, Putin is number one on the kill list “because he coordinates and decides what happens.”

The Ukrainian intelligence official claimed his agency had failed to kill Putin because he “stays holed up.” Skibitsky suggested another attempt could be made soon as the Russian leader “is now beginning to stick his head out.”  

Ukrainian officials have admitted to previously attempting to kill Putin. Last year, Kyrylo Budanov, the Head of the Chief Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine, in an interview with Ukrainska Pravda claimed, “There was an attempt to assassinate Putin…[It was an] Absolutely unsuccessful attempt, but it really happened… It was about [March 2022].”

Three weeks ago, two unmanned aerial vehicles were downed over the Kremlin, where Putin keeps an office. Although, the Russian leader was not present at the complex when the attack occurred. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Moscow considered the drones to be an assassination attempt against Putin.

Kiev has denied any involvement in the attack. However, the New York Times reported on Wednesday that American officials say the attack was orchestrated by the Ukrainian government.

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Regime Journalists Promote The ‘Right’ Conspiracy Theories To Be Successful

Independent investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald succinctly summarises how ‘regime media narratives’ are formed and disseminated, and that any journalist who questions the process ends up a target for destruction by the establishment.

During his “System Update” broadcast on Rumble, Greenwald noted how “Journalists who spread conspiracy theories that the CIA wants them to spread get promoted, and the journalists who question the conspiracy theories of the CIA get destroyed.”

“It’s not prohibited in American corporate journalism to spread false stories and conspiracy theories,” Greenwald asserted, adding “In fact, that’s the only way you can thrive in journalism.”

“The people who have lied the most, and who spread the most conspiracy theories, are the ones who have been promoted and enriched most within corporate journalism,” he further urged.

“The difference is, the way to advance in journalism is to tell lies and spread conspiracy theories on behalf of the CIA, and that advance the interests of the U.S. government. That is not only permitted. That is required to be promoted,” Greenwald emphasised.

He continued, “What you can’t do, the thing that [Seymour] Hersh did that got him expelled from journalism, is he spread what are called conspiracy theories that are against the narrative of the U.S. security state, that undermined U.S. foreign policy. That is the only thing that is prohibited. That’s what gets you kicked out of journalism.”

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DRUG WAR TACTICS WON’T STOP XYLAZINE DEATHS

Over the past six months, national and local media have flooded the news cycle with stories about the “horrors” of xylazine, a non-opioid animal tranquilizer increasingly found mixed with fentanyl, sometimes to deadly effect. Outlets including the New York Times and CNN have trafficked in graphic portrayals of xylazine use, even calling it “the zombie drug,” a term advocates say fuels stigma and punitive measures against people who use drugs.

Indeed, amid this wave of sensationalized coverage and broader concerns that xylazine is driving up overdose rates nationwide, lawmakers have responded by rushing to criminalize possession of the drug. But critics fear the current push against xylazine is repeating the cycle that led to its rise.

Four states, Florida, West Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, have already added xylazine to their lists of controlled substances. Proposed legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate would criminalize some xylazine possession at the federal level and increase funding for law enforcement to “crack down on its spread,” in the words of one of the bill’s sponsors.

This official response to xylazine mirrors tactics that have been used for decades in campaigns against emerging “drugs of concern.”

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Parents Of Christian Glass Getting $19 Million Settlement

The family of a man from Colorado who was shot and killed by a deputy last year will be awarded a $19 million settlement, marking the largest payout of its kind in the state’s history.

The incident occurred in Silver Plume on June 11 when 22-year-old Christian Glass, a resident of Boulder, contacted 911 for assistance after his SUV became stuck in a rock pile.

Based on body camera footage and an autopsy report provided by the family’s legal representatives, it was observed that Glass appeared to be holding a knife at the time of the shooting. Despite nearly 70 minutes of negotiations and requests, Glass refused to exit his Honda Pilot, resulting in him being shot five times.

On Tuesday, his parents, Sally and Simon Glass, reached a multi-million dollar settlement with Clear Creek County, the state of Colorado, the city of Georgetown, and the town of Idaho Springs.

This settlement represents the largest amount awarded for a police-related killing in the history of Colorado. As part of the agreement, Clear Creek County has committed to establishing a public park in memory of Glass. Additionally, they will establish a dedicated crisis response team by January 1 of the following year. The state of Colorado will also implement changes in training for law enforcement agencies, which will include the development of a virtual reality scenario focused on de-escalation, designed to reflect the circumstances surrounding Christian Glass’s tragic death.

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The Republican Primary Consensus for Sending the Military Into Mexico

When Sen. Tim Scott (R–S.C.), a comparatively affable chap in the context of contemporary GOP politics, announced his 2024 presidential bid on Monday, the speech was predictably full of the upbeat, anecdotal, ain’t-America-grand stuff that Scott, like generations of Republicans before him, has made central to his political career.

Then things suddenly turned dark.

“When I am president, the drug cartels using Chinese labs and Mexican factories to kill Americans will cease to exist,” Scott vowed. “I will freeze their assets, I will build the wall, and I will allow the world’s greatest military to fight these terrorists. Because that’s exactly what they are.”

Scott’s bellicosity was no mere bolt from the blue. As Reason has been documenting for six years now, Republicans, even while otherwise souring on U.S interventionism abroad, have increasingly concluded that the alarming spike in domestic fentanyl overdoses would best be treated by sending the military into Mexico.

Donald Trump first floated the idea, while he was president, of designating drug cartels as terrorist organizations—thereby allowing for extraterritorial prosecutions, enhanced investigative powers, and increased penalties for domestic drug-related crimes—in March 2019, but held off after the government of Mexico repeatedly objected on grounds of sovereignty while making uncooperative noises about transnational migration policy.

But the appetite for corralling cartels into the otherwise-unpopular war on terror was only beginning to rumble in the conservative belly. Trump himself in the summer of 2020 twice asked then–Defense Secretary Mark Esper whether “we could just shoot some Patriot missiles and take out the labs, quietly,” according to Esper’s 2022 memoir. Notable MAGA politicians Sen. J.D. Vance (R–Ohio) and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R–Ga.) have both suggested violent interdiction south of the border, as have a bevy of more traditional hawks. There are a handful of escalatory bills bouncing around Congress.

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The War in Ukraine Was Provoked—and Why That Matters to Achieve Peace

George Orwell wrote in 1984 that “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.” Governments work relentlessly to distort public perceptions of the past. Regarding the Ukraine War, the Biden administration has repeatedly and falsely claimed that the Ukraine War started with an unprovoked attack by Russia on Ukraine on February 24, 2022. In fact, the war was provoked by the U.S. in ways that leading U.S. diplomats anticipated for decades in the lead-up to the war, meaning that the war could have been avoided and should now be stopped through negotiations.

Recognizing that the war was provoked helps us to understand how to stop it. It doesn’t justify Russia’s invasion. A far better approach for Russia might have been to step up diplomacy with Europe and with the non-Western world to explain and oppose U.S. militarism and unilateralism. In fact, the relentless U.S. push to expand NATO is widely opposed throughout the world, so Russian diplomacy rather than war would likely have been effective.

The Biden team uses the word “unprovoked” incessantly, most recently in Biden’s major speech on the first-year anniversary of the war, in a recent NATO statement, and in the most recent G7 statement. Mainstream media friendly to Biden simply parrot the White House. The New York Times is the lead culprit, describing the invasion as “unprovoked” no fewer than 26 times, in five editorials, 14 opinion columns by NYT writers, and seven guest op-eds!

There were in fact two main U.S. provocations. The first was the U.S. intention to expand NATO to Ukraine and Georgia in order to surround Russia in the Black Sea region by NATO countries (Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Georgia, in counterclockwise order). The second was the U.S. role in installing a Russophobic regime in Ukraine by the violent overthrow of Ukraine’s pro-Russian President, Viktor Yanukovych, in February 2014. The shooting war in Ukraine began with Yanukovych’s overthrow nine years ago, not in February 2022 as the U.S. government, NATO, and the G7 leaders would have us believe.

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BLOOD ON HIS HANDS

TA SOUS, CAMBODIA — At the end of a dusty path snaking through rice paddies lives a woman who survived multiple U.S. airstrikes as a child.

Round-faced and just over 5 feet tall in plastic sandals, Meas Lorn lost an older brother to a helicopter gunship attack and an uncle and cousins to artillery fire. For decades, one question haunted her: “I still wonder why those aircraft always attacked in this area. Why did they drop bombs here?”

The U.S. carpet bombing of Cambodia between 1969 and 1973 has been well documented, but its architect, former national security adviser and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who will turn 100 on Saturday, bears responsibility for more violence than has been previously reported. An investigation by The Intercept provides evidence of previously unreported attacks that killed or wounded hundreds of Cambodian civilians during Kissinger’s tenure in the White House. When questioned about his culpability for these deaths, Kissinger responded with sarcasm and refused to provide answers.

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