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Oops! Deleted Tweet By Israel’s Former PM Disclosed Nuke Arsenal

In a major faux pax in US-Israeli relations, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak acknowledged the existence of the country’s nuclear weapon arsenal via Twitter — then deleted the tweet, presumably after realizing he’d violated the long-standing US-Israeli practice of pretending that arsenal doesn’t exist. 

Barak’s Tuesday tweet addressed growing worries about the growing presence of ultra-nationalist and ultra-religious factions in Israel’s government. Finance minister Bezalel Smotrich and his Religious Zionism party, for example, openly aspire to turn Israel into a theocracy. 

Barak wrote: 

“In conversations between Israelis and Western diplomatic officials, there are deep concerns raised of the possibility that if the coup in Israel succeeds, a messianic dictatorship — that possesses nuclear weapons and fanatically wishes for a confrontation with Islam centered on the Temple Mount — will be established in the heart of the Middle East.”  

Thanks in part to a former nuclear technician’s 1986 revelations, Israel is widely known to have a nuclear arsenal, with one estimate sizing it at 90 warheads. However, it’s never joined the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). It’s just one of only five countries in the world that haven’t done so, along with North Korea, India, Pakistan and South Sudan. 

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New Medical Codes for COVID-19 Vaccination Status Used to Track People, CDC Confirms

Medical codes introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic to show when people are unvaccinated or undervaccinated for COVID-19 are being used to track people, the top U.S. public health agency has confirmed.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) made the confirmation in emails that The Epoch Times obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The CDC had said in documents and public statements that the goal of the new codes, in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) system, was “to track people who are not immunized or only partially immunized.”

The CDC now says it does not have access to the data, but that health care systems do.

“The ICD codes were implemented in April 2022, however the CDC does not have any data on the codes and does not track this information,” CDC officials said in the emails.

“The codes were created to enable healthcare providers to track within their practices,” the officials added.

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Biden’s IRS Overhaul Aims for Tenfold Increase in Audits

The IRS released its plan on Thursday for spending the $80 billion in new funding provided by the Democratic Inflation Reduction Act, emphasizing that it won’t be used to drive up audits on the middle class.

The 150-page Internal Revenue Service plan was released with the blessing of new Commissioner Danny Werfel. The report seeks to respond to Republican accusations that the agency will become supercharged and use its power to target non-rich families. It also highlighted the agency’s plans to streamline customer service and help people properly file their taxes and avoid the auditing process.

The IRS plans to bolster its workforce quickly. The agency indicated that it intends to hire more than 7,000 new employees by the end of next year working in just enforcement alone, in addition to about 6,500 new workers in taxpayer services. The Treasury Department has previously projected that such a large infusion of capital could lead to 87,000 new IRS employees over the next decade, although the new plan doesn’t project out that far.

Republicans argue that 87,000 more IRS workers is far too high a number, although Democrats have countered the GOP by noting that the tens of thousands of new employees will not all be auditors and will include thousands of workers in other roles. A large number of current IRS workers are also expected to retire in the coming years, partially offsetting the number of those being hired.

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Fauci Promises That “There Will Absolutely Be An Outbreak Of Another Pandemic”

Anthony Fauci has promised that there is going to be another pandemic soon.

During an appearance at a townhall discussion at James Madison University with Jim Acosta earlier this week, Fauci stated that “there will absolutely be an outbreak of another pandemic.” 

He added that it could be “next year”.

Well, he would know, given that he directly funded the last one.

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Former Hawaii Lawmaker Gets 2 Years in Corruption Case That Led to Release of Sewage Into State Waters

A former Hawaii lawmaker was sentenced Thursday to two years in prison in a federal corruption case that’s drawn attention to a perennial problem in the islands: the tens of thousands of cesspools that release 50 million gallons of raw sewage into the state’s pristine waters every day.

Cesspools — in-ground pits that collect sewage from houses and buildings not connected to city services for gradual release into the environment — are at the center of the criminal case against former Democratic state Rep. Ty Cullen. He has admitted to taking bribes of cash and gambling chips in exchange for influencing legislation to reduce Hawaii’s widespread use of cesspools.

U.S. District Court Judge Susan Oki Mollway said she gave Cullen a sentence at the shortest end of the term recommended by prosecutors because he had cooperated extensively with investigators. Yet she didn’t go as low as the 15 months requested by his defense attorney because of the serious nature of his crimes.

“This was a grievous breach of public trust on your part. It appears to have been motivated by greed, and it stretched out over a number of years,” Mollway told Cullen. “I am very concerned that this was not a momentary lapse of judgement.”

Cullen told the judge he took full responsibility for and was ashamed of his actions.

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MATT GAETZ’S LEGISLATIVE AIDE IS A CONVICTED WAR CRIMINAL

DERRICK MILLER, a former U.S. Army National Guard sergeant who spent eight years in prison for murdering an Afghan civilian in 2010, now serves as a legislative assistant covering military policy for Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz.

While on a combat mission in Afghanistan’s Laghman province on September 26, 2010, Miller shot 27-year-old Atta Mohammed in the head during an interrogation. Miller has maintained that he was acting in self-defense, alleging that Mohammed, who had walked through a defensive perimeter established by Miller’s unit, could be a threat to his unit and that he had tried to grab Miller’s weapon during the interrogation. But another National Guard member testified he heard Miller threaten to kill Mohammed if he did not tell the truth; and then sat on top of him — Mohammed was lying prone — before shooting him in the head, killing him. According to the prosecutor, Miller then said, “I shot him. He was a liar.”

Mohammed’s body was left in a latrine, in violation of military standards.

Miller covers armed forces and national security, international affairs, and veterans affairs for Gaetz, according to the Congress-tracking website LegiStorm. Gaetz serves on the House Armed Services Committee.

“We proudly stand with our Military Legislative Assistant Derrick Miller,” Joel Valdez, a spokesperson for Gaetz, told The Intercept. “He was wrongfully convicted and served our country with honor.”

Miller did not respond to a request for comment.

“Over the course of nearly a decade, members of Congress, multiple advocacy groups, and over 16,000 individuals on a petition have all signaled their support for clearing his name and recognizing him as innocent of charges imposed by a weaponized military injustice system under President Obama,” the spokesperson continued. “Mr. Miller advises our office on many matters, including ways to make the military justice system consistent with our constitutional principles and values.”

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Legacy Media in Shock as Award-Winning Progressive Blogger Found to Have Never Existed

Germany’s legacy media are in shock after it was found that an award-winning progressive blogger they heaped repeated praise on never actually existed.

Julia “Jule Stinkesocke” Gothe — a paraplegic pediatrician in Hamburg — is a famous blogger in Germany who has repeatedly received awards for her writings on progressive issues ranging from green politics to disability activism.

Operating since 2009, her work has earned her many accolades, with German state-owned broadcaster Deutsche Welle awarding her for running the best German-language blog in 2012.

However, it now appears that the famous blogger never existed in the first place.

According to a report by Bild, numerous inconsistencies with Gothe’s life story have been creeping up over the last number of years, prompting some netizens to question the reality behind the allegedly disabled blogger’s online presence.

Alarm bells however really started to go off after one teacher in the country found that all of the pictures allegedly depicting “Gothe” were actually of Kylie Harris, who is described as being a relatively unknown pornstar from Australia.

From there, it was soon revealed that out of the many progressive causes, Gothe had gotten involved with, nobody claimed to have actually met her in person.

Even when she would win awards, the blogger would reportedly never attend the event in person, and would often only communicate with various activists through a third party.

None of these groups or publications appear to have made an attempt to try and independently verify Gothe’s identity before this point.

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New Mexico Cops Fatally Shoot Homeowner After Showing Up at the Wrong House

Police in Farmington, New Mexico, fatally shot a man while responding to a domestic disturbance call at the wrong house. The man killed lived across the street from the house police had been called to.

“On April 5, 2023, at around 11:30 p.m., the Farmington Police Department received a call for a domestic violence incident occurring at 5308 Valley View Avenue,” according to the New Mexico State Police Investigations Bureau, which is now investigating the incident. “Once on scene, officers mistakenly approached 5305 Valley View Avenue instead of 5308 Valley View Avenue.” Police knocked on the (wrong) door, no one answered, and “officers asked their dispatch to call the reporting party back and have them come to the front door.”

As they started to leave, 52-year-old homeowner Robert Dotson opened his front door holding a handgun—not an entirely unreasonable thing for someone to do when they get a strange knock on their door late at night.

No one alleges that Dotson pointed the gun at the police officers or threatened them.

Nonetheless, “at this point in the encounter, officer(s) fired at least one round from their duty weapon(s) striking Mr. Dotson,” the state police report. The Farmington officers did not even tell the man who answered the door to drop his weapon nor give him time to comply with their order before firing upon him, according to the statement from state police.

This would be an insane overreaction even if the police had been at the right house. That police weren’t even at the right house of course makes the shooting all the more senseless.

Dotson was pronounced dead at the scene.

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LIE DETECTOR FIRM LOBBIES CIA, DOD ON AUTOMATED EYE-SCANNING TECH

April 7 2023, 10:20 a.m.

A UTAH-BASED OUTFIT overseen by a former CIA consultant has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying intelligence and defense agencies, including the CIA and DHS, to adopt its automated lie detection technology, public lobbying disclosures reviewed by The Intercept show. Converus, Inc., boasts on its website that its technology has already been used for job screenings at American law enforcement agencies, corporate compliance and loss prevention in Latin America, and document verification in Ukraine. The company’s management team includes chief scientist John Kircher, a former consultant for the CIA and Department of Defense; Todd Mickelson, former director of product management at Ancestry.com; and Russ Warner, former CEO of the content moderation firm ContentWatch.

Warner told The Intercept that lobbying efforts have focused on changing federal regulations to allow the use of technologies other than the polygraph for lie detection. “The Department of Defense National Center of Credibility Assessment (NCCA) is in charge of oversight of validation and pilot projects throughout the U.S. government of new deception detection technologies,” Warner wrote in an email. “DoD Directive 5210.91 and ODNI Security Agent Directive 2 currently prohibit the use of any credibility assessment solution other than polygraph. For this reason, we have contacted government agencies to consider the use of EyeDetect and other new technologies.”

After finding success in corporate applications and sheriff’s offices, Converus has set its sights on large federal agencies that could apply its EyeDetect technology to a host of uses, including employee clearance screenings and border security. Unlike a polygraph, a device which relies on an operator asking questions and measuring physiological responses like heart rate and perspiration, Converus’s technology measures “cognitive load” with an algorithm that processes eye movement.

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NBA Takes Steps to Ease Cannabis Restrictions: This Week in Cannabis Investing

The NBA took a major step forward this week by allowing players to invest in and promote cannabis brands. 

Michele Roberts, a former executive director of the NBA Players Association and now a member of the board of directors at Cresco Labs (CRLBF(opens in new tab)), previously predicted that NBA would consider changing its policies around cannabis. 

As of the terms listed in the leagues’ new collective bargaining agreement, cannabis will also be removed from the banned substances list for players. This is a welcome change for a cannabis industry seeking additional sources of capital while it continues to erode the old-world stigmas created by previous generations. 

We’ve seen a number of professional athletes getting involved in the cannabis industry after their sports careers. They are a group that is keen on the benefits cannabis provides for pain and inflammatory management, and many are also passionate about making a difference. Former NBA veteran Al Harrington’s Viola Brands(opens in new tab) immediately comes to mind as a trailblazer here. We’re excited to welcome more athletes, especially those as passionate about building their brands and business ventures as they are about their active profession.

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