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How Much Did the US Government Pressure Twitter to Ban Alex Berenson?

Nearly a year ago, former New York Times Journalist Alex Berenson was permanently banned from Twitter for writing the following lines about the Covid shot: “It doesn’t stop infection. Or transmission. Don’t think of it as a vaccine. Think of it—at best—as a therapeutic with a limited window of efficacy and terrible side effect profile that must be dosed IN ADVANCE OF ILLNESS. And we want to mandate it? Insanity.”

From the beginning of the Covid hysteria, we followed and cited Berenson many times on the Ron Paul Liberty Report. Berenson took government and mainstream media rhetoric about the pandemic the way journalists used to take it: with a heavy dose of skepticism. And not long after he was banned for saying so, even the CDC Director admitted what he wrote is true.

But at the time, he was a danger to the government narrative on Covid, and the “private” social media company Twitter silenced him. They did not only silence one reporter who was a thorn in their side, however. They preemptively silenced anyone else who might might question the narrative. The message was clear to all the would-be Alex Berensons out there: do you want to follow him to the digital gulag?

So not only was Berenson’s free speech under attack—free speech itself was under attack.

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Innocent Family’s Home Burned, 15yo Boy Dead After SWAT Set Their Home on Fire with Flash Bangs

An innocent family is homeless and a 15-year-old boy is dead after a SWAT team engaged in a standoff to arrest a suspect for a parole violation. Police are now conducting damage control to avoid taking the blame.

SWAT team raids house for a robbery suspect. Flashbangs ignite the house, which is then engulfed in flames. After the fire, police find the body of a 14-year-old boy. He was not the suspect. Nor was the family who live in the house.

(via @DrRJKavanagh)https://t.co/Sog4jszHzR

— Radley Balko (@radleybalko) July 10, 2022

Last week, police said they were pursuing a suspect, Qiaunt Kelley, for a federal felony warrant for robbery. They later changed their story to say that Kelley was wanted for violation of parole. While on the run, Kelley ran into the home of an innocent family and barricaded himself inside the home, according to police.

A standoff ensued for hours as police demanded Kelley exit the home. As Kelley held up in the home, a 15-year-old boy, identified as Brett Rosenau, also entered the home and police knew he was inside. He was not a suspect and was not wanted but it is unclear as to why he did not exit the home.

The teenager somehow “followed Kelley into the home,” the Albuquerque department said.

At some point during the standoff, smoke began emerging from the windows as half the house became engulfed in flames. As fire-fighters arrived on the scene, Kelley escaped the fire and was taken into custody before being transported to a local hospital to be treated for burn injuries. He is currently in jail.

The boy who was holed up in the home with Kelley was not so lucky. After the fire-fighters extinguished the fire, they found the boy’s body. Officials have yet released the cause of the boy’s death.

After news of the boy’s death was reported, Albuquerque police quickly took to Twitter to dispel rumors that they shot him. However, they admitted that their actions could have ignited the fire.

“There is false information being spread on social media about the overnight SWAT incident. No officers fired their weapons. Arson investigators are trying to determine the cause of the fire. Both individuals were given opportunities to safely exit the house,” the department tweeted.

Adding that “We disclosed the devices used to get the occupants to exit the home. We have used them hundreds of times w/out incident. We acknowledge the possibility that one of these devices may have contributed to the fire. AFR’s arson investigation will determine the cause of the fire.”

We disclosed the devices used to get the occupants to exit the home. We have used them hundreds of times w/out incident. We acknowledge the possibility that one of these devices may have contributed to the fire. AFR’s arson investigation will determine the cause of the fire.

— APD Public Information Officer (@APD_PIO) July 10, 2022

Residents of the home told KOB4 that the flashbangs were the cause of the fire.

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NATO: The Most Dangerous Military Alliance on the Planet

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the arms industry that depends on it for billions in profits, has become the most aggressive and dangerous military alliance on the planet. Created in 1949 to thwart Soviet expansion into Eastern and Central Europe, it has evolved into a global war machine in Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, Africa and Asia. 

NATO expanded its footprint, violating promises to Moscow, once the Cold War ended, to incorporate 14 countries in Eastern and Central Europe into the alliance. It will soon add Finland and Sweden. It bombed Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo. It launched wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya, resulting in close to a million deaths and some 38 million people driven from their homes. It is building a military footprint in Africa and Asia. It invited Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea, the so-called “Asia Pacific Four,” to its recent summit in Madrid at the end of June. It has expanded its reach into the Southern Hemisphere, signing a military training partnership agreement with Colombia, in December 2021. It has backed Turkey, with NATO’s second largest military, which has illegally invaded and occupied parts of Syria as well as Iraq. Turkish-backed militias are engaged in the ethnic cleansing of Syrian Kurds and other inhabitants of north and east Syria. The Turkish military has been accused of war crimes – including multiple airstrikes against a refugee camp and chemical weapons use – in northern Iraq. In exchange for President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s permission for Finland and Sweden to join the alliance, the two Nordic countries have agreed to expand their domestic terror laws making it easier to crack down on Kurdish and other activists, lift their restrictions on selling arms to Turkey and deny support to the Kurdish-led movement for democratic autonomy in Syria.

It is quite a record for a military alliance that with the collapse of the Soviet Union was rendered obsolete and should have been dismantled. NATO and the militarists had no intention of embracing the “peace dividend,” fostering a world based on diplomacy, a respect of spheres of influence and mutual cooperation. It was determined to stay in business. Its business is war. That meant expanding its war machine far beyond the border of Europe and engaging in ceaseless antagonism toward China and Russia. 

NATO sees the future, as detailed in its “NATO 2030: Unified for a New Era,” as a battle for hegemony with rival states, especially China, and calls for the preparation of prolonged global conflict.

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AP Fact Checks Meme Joking About Shinzo Abe Having Information That Could Lead to the Arrest of Hillary Clinton

The Associated Press ran a “fact check” on a meme joking about Shinzo Abe having information that could lead to the arrest of Hillary Clinton.

The meme has been around for ages due to the amount of mysterious and arguably convenient deaths surrounding the Clintons.

Following the tragic assassination of Shinzo Abe, comedian and podcast host Michael Malice tweeted a fake screenshot of the former Japanese prime minister saying “I have information that will lead to the arrest of Hillary Clinton.”

The tweet was “liked” by over 12,000 people who understand jokes.

The Associated Press was apparently very concerned that some people might not understand that it was a meme.

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The untouchable ally: US government lets Israel off the hook in the case of Palestinian-American journalist’s death

The US State Department’s press release on Washington’s investigation into the killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh has sparked outrage and triggered accusations of a whitewash.

Almost two months after the murder of the veteran Al-Jazeera reporter, Washington announced that an investigation by the US Security Coordinator (USSC) had concluded that Israeli gunfire was “likely responsible.” However, the statement asserted that the evidence was inconclusive and it could not say that Israeli forces were to blame, contradicting various other reports which had concluded the opposite. The US government also claimed that there is “no reason to believe” that the killing was intentional and instead was likely “the result of tragic circumstances,” to which Israel’s top human rights group B’Tselem responded by calling the investigation a “whitewash.”

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Utah Ritualized Sexual Abuse Investigation: The Mormon Church And Child Sexual Abuse

An investigation into ritualized child sexual abuse was first announced by the Utah County Sheriff’s Office on May 31st. The USCO released a statement detailing how “multiple county and federal agencies are investigating reports of ritualistic child sexual abuse from as far back as 1990”. I have been following the investigation since the initial announcement and reporting on various angles of the story. I encourage readers to spend time with the previous four parts of this series, particularly the third report on the history of similar allegations in the state of Utah.

For this report I will be looking at the historical record, including lawsuits, church records, and previous reporting from other outlets to document the history of allegations involving members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, otherwise known as the Mormon Church. I have spoken with current and former members of the Church who hold varying views regarding allegations of ritualized child sexual abuse.

Some former members of the Church of Mormon believe the church itself is corrupted at its root which allows for these types of activities to happen in the first place. I have also spoken with members of the Church of Mormon who acknowledge that the church has a pedophile problem, but do not believe the core structures of the church are infected by pedophiles.

I want to make it clear that this investigation is not intended to be an attack on anyone’s religious beliefs, or individual Mormons. Nor is this piece intended to paint the picture that the entire Church of Mormon is aware of the reports of child sexual abuse. Although some former members of the church have gone so far as accusing the Church of Mormon of being a front for Masonic and/or Satanic activity, I am not ready to make such a judgement. However, I do believe these controversial claims warrant further investigation.

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Here’s where Florida stands on states with most UFO sightings list

UFO sightings date back to biblical times.

In the Bible’s Book of Ezekiel, a mysterious ship is described as appearing from the sky in Chaldea (modern-day Kuwait). Strange sightings were recorded around Rome in 218 B.C. A wave of mysterious apparitions showed up in fourth-century China when a “moon boat” was documented floating overhead once every 12 years. A smattering of other, unfamiliar objects in the sky were noted in Germany in 1561, Hull, England, in 1801, and multiple times during World War II when Allied pilots used the term “foo fighters” to describe the odd circles of light pilots noticed flanking their planes during combat.

The term “UFO,” short for “unidentified flying object,” was coined in 1953 by the United States Air Force as a bucket term for unexplained sightings like these. Stateside sightings were hardly restricted to military flyover zones, however. The first recorded UFO sighting dates to 1639 when, long before the era of planes and satellites, John Winthrop wrote in his diary about a large, strange light in the sky that shot back and forth. By the time he and the other men on his boat got their wits about them, their vessel was a mile from where it had been when they first spotted the light.

Since its founding in 1974, the National UFO Reporting Center has documented around 90,000 UFO sightings, with almost 95% of those sightings supposedly easily explained away as military tests, weather balloons, or other terrestrial activity. Stacker compiled a ranking of the states with the most reported UFO sightings by analyzing data from NUFORC’s 24/7 hotline, which has been around since 1974. NUFORC’s dataset includes reports dating back to 1400.

For each state, we’ve also included details of famous UFO sightings in that state. Of note is that the vast majority of all UFO sighting reports in the United States occur between 4 p.m. and midnight, and peak between 9 and 10 p.m. Food for thought next time you’re out scoping for alien life.

The first documented image of a UFO was captured in 1870 on the summit of Mount Washington in New Hampshire. More sightings were reported at Mount Rainier in Washington in 1947, and of course several in Roswell, New Mexico. Since then, countless numbers of unusual shapes in the sky—and their supposed inhabitants—have been exhaustively reported without sufficient explanations beyond the possible existence of extraterrestrial life.

A surge in eyewitness accounts begot even more sightings along with attempts to protect against invasions and abductions. More than 40,000 Americans bought into alien protection insurance, which offers customers monetary relief should a loved one get carted away by little green men. One Roper Poll in 1991 suggests that around 4 million Americans believe they’ve been abducted by aliens.

The longstanding, official position of the U.S. government has been that claims of alien life stem from hoaxes or mistaking other objects like weather balloons for UFOs or alien life. A highly anticipated U.S. intelligence report on UFOs officially ruled that no evidence of alien life has been found—but conveniently can’t be ruled out. Meanwhile, the U.S. military’s UFO database contains around 400 reports.

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UK lawmaker John Penrose proposes dystopian idea to give citizens a truth score on social media

British Conservative Party lawmaker John Penrose, has proposed an addition to the UK’s controversial internet censorship bill, dubbed “The Online Safety Bill,” which continues to get even more Orwellian with each new proposed amendment.

Like something out of dystopian fiction, Penrose, the MP for Weston-super-Mare, has proposed that the government forces online platforms to maintain a score of how truthful a person is, determined by their past statements.

“The purpose of this section is to reduce the risk of harm to users of regulated services caused my (sic) disinformation or misinformation,” the proposal states, with a typo that shows just how much care goes into the wording of legislation that wipes away citizens’ freedoms.

The proposal says that every user that produces online content, including “comments and reviews” and who receives a certain number of online views, which is to be determined by the UK communications regulator, should have their content indexed and assigned a truth score.

The person’s speech is then to be “displayed in a way which allows any user easily to reach an informed view of the likely factual accuracy of the content at the same time as they encounter it.”

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US spending to counter Russian war effort exceeds first 5 years of war costs in Afghanistan

The Biden administration and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have pledged to counter Russia’s war in Ukraine and the threat it poses to European security, and the funds so far committed to Kyiv already exceed U.S. costs for the first five years in Afghanistan. 

The Biden administration on Friday announced another $400 million military drawdown package to Ukraine as it attempts to fend off Russian advances.

The latest package was reportedly tailored in coordination with Ukrainian officials for what they specifically need on the front lines and comes just days after Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed victory over the eastern Luhansk region. 

Heavy artillery like howitzers and High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) are among the big-ticket items that Ukraine has said it needs to target Russian command and control hotspots that sit behind the front lines. 

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