Tag: corruption

DOD defies order to clean up ‘forever chemicals’ in Arizona

In Dr. Strangelove, the fictitious base commander Jack D. Ripper orders a first-strike nuclear attack on the Soviet Union to enact revenge for contaminating American water to “impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.” The satirical film poked fun at rampant Cold War conspiracy theories about fluoridating our water supply. But as it turns out, America’s water was being contaminated — not by the Russians, but by the Pentagon.

Not long after American audiences packed into theaters to watch the bleak Cold War comedy, the Department of Defense ramped up its use of a fire suppressant called AFFF, knowingly contaminating the drinking water of millions of Americans.

Now, the Department of Defense is refusing to take accountability.

This week, the Air Force claimed it has no legal obligation to comply with an order from the Environmental Protection Agency in May to abate the threat of “forever chemicals” to the drinking water of Tucson, Arizona. The EPA order required the Air Force to create a system designed to treat high levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — synthetic chemicals known as PFAS that are linked to weakened immunity and other health risks — in drinking water, estimated to cost $25 million.

Testing at the Tucson International Airport Area Superfund Site has revealed PFAS levels of up to 5,300 times beyond the drinkable limit, which is “likely to enter into the Tucson public water system,” according to the EPA. These chemicals likely originated from the use of AFFF at airports and military sites, such as nearby Davis-Monthan Air Force Base and Morris Air National Guard Base.

The EPA also identified other chemicals that migrated into the groundwater from a weapons manufacturing facility just south of Tucson operated by RTX (formerly known as Raytheon).

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The TRUTH About the UK’s “Two Tier Justice System”

The recent public outcry about authoritarianism in Britain, ignited by the authorities’ response to the Southport and mass immigration protests, has raised significant questions about two-tier policing and sentencing.

These concerns strike at the heart of the justice system, where police enforcement and the judiciary are supposed to defend the citizenry by dispensing justice fairly and without prejudice. Yet, the public’s apparent increasing loss of faith in these institutions suggests that this is dissipating, and quickly.

Here’s a look at some specific examples to help shed light on whether these claims of two-tier justice hold any merit.

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Kamala campaign BUSTED for taking out Google ads with FAKE headlines to deceive voters into believing positive coverage

Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign has been making fake news headlines for Google search ads for readers to believe more positive coverage of the Democrat nominee. According to a report from Axios, the Harris campaign has been buying Google search ads with fake headlines to make it appear as though news outlets are giving glowing coverage for Harris. The Trump-Vance campaign is not running these types of ads.  

The deceptive advertisements can be seen on the Harris for President Google Ads Center that look like news reports, but with fake headlines. One example from the UK Independent states, “VP Harris Protects Democracy – Trump Defends Jan 6 Comments.” 

The ad has the sponsorship label, and is paid for by the Harris for President campaign. Other news outlets whose brands were being used in this way included NPR, the AP, The Guardian, USA Today, PBS, CNN, CBS News, Time and others. 

Axios reported, “An ad featuring a link to an NPR story reads, ‘Harris Will Lower Health Costs,’ with supporting text that says, ‘Kamala Harris will lower the cost of high-quality affordable health care.'”

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Smartmatic President Surrenders To US Authorities In Miami To Face Election-Related Bribery, Corruption Charges

Smartmatic co-founder and president Roger Piñate surrendered to federal authorities in Miami, Florida on Monday, where he faces charges related to foreign corruption, bribery, and money laundering to secure elections contracts in the Philippines.

Piñate, 49, was charged along with Jorge Miguel Vasquez, 62, the company’s former VP of hardware development – who also surrendered on Monday.

Piñate posted an $8.5 million dollar bond and was later released, however he did not enter a plea because his defense attorney, Curt Miner, has yet to become his permanent lawyer. Vasquez was released on a $1 million bond. His defense attorney, Frank Rubino, told the Miami Herald “It’s so early in the case, “But we have been aware of this investigation since 2019.“

Oh…

According to the indictment, the alleged co-conspirators financed the bribes by over-invoicing the cost per voting machine used in the elections. To hide their crime, prosecutors say they used coded language to refer to a slush fund used to make the illicit payments – causing the creation of fraudulent contracts and fake loan agreements to make the transfers appear legitimate.

The defendants then allegedly laundered the funds related to the bribery scheme via a constellation of international bank accounts in Asia, Europe and the United States – including in the Southern District of Florida.

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How the Gay-Rights Movement Lost Its Way

When Sarah Kate Ellis was named president of GLAAD more than a decade ago, the LGBTQ advocacy organization was in dire financial straits. “I was given a scary mandate,” she told The New York Times in 2019: “Fix it or shut it down.”

She should have done the latter.

Founded in 1985 as the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, the nonprofit originally had the mission of promoting more empathetic media coverage of people with AIDS. Over the years, its remit expanded to countering negative portrayals of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people in advertising and entertainment. Today, the proliferation of LGBTQ characters on our screens, largely sympathetic coverage in mainstream media, and the ubiquity of same-sex couples in advertisements and commercials all suggest that GLAAD achieved its mission. The group should have long ago taken the win and dissolved—just as the organization Freedom to Marry announced it would do shortly after the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in the summer of 2015.

Accepting victory, however, can be difficult for people who devote their lives to a cause, and not only for emotional reasons. The impulse among activists, once successful, to keep raising money necessitates that they find things to spend it on. Recently, the Times published a devastating exposé revealing how GLAAD succumbed to this temptation, enabling Ellis to live luxuriously at the expense of the group’s donors.

The trouble at GLAAD, however, is more than just a story of individual or organizational corruption. It’s also a story about how—in the years since LGBTQ people earned the right to serve openly in the U.S. military, get married, and not be discriminated against in housing and employment—an entire movement has gone tragically adrift.

According to documents obtained by the Times reporter Emily Steel, Ellis signed a contract two years ago enabling her to earn up to $1.3 million a year, far higher than the salaries of CEOs at charitable organizations of comparable size. She racked up nights at a Waldorf Astoria and other posh hotels and took 30 first-class flights in 18 months. A trip with a colleague to the Cannes Lions advertising festival, the purpose of which, according to GLAAD’s spokesman, was to “speak directly to companies about not turning their backs on the LGBTQ community,” cost $60,000. GLAAD also gave Ellis an annual $25,000 allowance to rent a summer house in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and $20,000 to remodel her home office.

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Secret Service Agent Partly Responsible for Security Planning at Butler Rally Under Internal Investigation for Leaking ‘Videos and Photos from Her Protective Assignments’ to Social Media: Report

A Secret Service special agent, who was partially responsible for planning security at the Butler, Pennsylvania rally where President Trump was nearly assassinated, is under internal investigation for allegedly leaking sensitive videos and photos from her protective assignments to social media.

According to RealClearPolitics (RCP) correspondent Susan Crabtree, the female agent served as the official site agent for the July 13 event in Butler, Pennsylvania, where a rallygoer, Corey Comperatore, was tragically murdered in front of his family.

An analysis of the agent’s Facebook account revealed a photo seemingly taken from Mar-a-Lago, captioned with a cheery message: “A sunset to be grateful for …” accompanied by heart and sunset emojis and hashtags like “#nofilter #southflorida #thankful #workmode.”

“Sources familiar with the videos said most appeared on the agent’s Instagram account, which is marked private,” Crabtree wrote on X.

More from RealClearPolitics:

Sources within the Secret Service say the site agent was inexperienced for such a critical security role but noted that the position is rotated throughout the Trump detail, not routinely assigned based on merit or experience.

There is now concern within the agency that the site agent for the Butler rally will take the fall for the event’s egregious layers of security failures – that Rowe will fire her over her social media posts, but not for any security failures at the July 13 event.

In contrast, the lead agent had decades of experience within the Secret Service but did not have experience on a protective detail, the innermost ring of security for presidents, first ladies, former presidents, and their families, according to sources in the Secret Service community familiar with her background.

While the months of rancor and recriminations leading up to the assassination attempt against Trump undoubtedly distracted the Trump detail from its ultimate mission, the Butler rally served as a wake -up call and a reset, according to sources close to Curran.

“Sone agents have referred to it as their 9/11 moment where people are opting back onto the detail,” remarked a source in the Secret Service community. “Morale is high, people are motivated. These agents [protecting Trump] are stiff-jawed with steel in their spine.”

This incident is not an isolated case but rather part of a broader pattern of dysfunction within the Secret Service detail assigned to Trump, according to Crabtree.

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Above the law: Secret Service agents get caught picking the lock of a local business to use the facilities and snack on the candy

What does a “progressive” government think of private property rights? Well, they’re just temporary privileges granted by the all-powerful state which can be tread on and revoked at discretion.

Immediately after Kamala Harris replaced Joe Biden on the Democrat ticket after a successful coup—Biden’s first interview since the switcheroo, which aired yesterday, described being pushed out by colleagues—she held a fundraiser in Massachusetts, during which time Secret Service agents allegedly broke into a nearby business, a small local hair salon, so they could have access to private bathroom facilities. Porta potties are just so below their station, and of course planning ahead with private mobile bathrooms would have required competent preparation, something we all know the Secret Service seriously lacks, from the top tiers of leadership to agents on the ground. 

Agents reportedly kept the door open all day allowing other “haves” to use the business’s restroom, snacked on the candy by the reception desk intended for salon customers, and when they were done, left the doors unlocked and camera lenses covered by tape.

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Google Admits to Changing Search Results for ‘Trump Assassination’ Searches and Much More

Well, this is indeed a shocker: Google admitted this past week that they were indeed censoring searches on GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump and the assassination attempt against him. But it was just an outdated algorithm, honest!

In the latest improbable claim of semi-innocence in the field of election manipulation by a big tech corporation, counsel for Google parent company Alphabet told the House Judiciary Committee that its autocomplete algorithm wouldn’t allow people to search for results about the Trump assassination attempt at a Butler, Pennsylvania, rally on July 13 due to a prohibition against searches for political violence-related topics, National Review reported.

Similar “errors” — and I know, this is the strangest coincidence! — were also responsible for not giving autocomplete suggestions when “President Donald” was typed in or giving users news stories about Trump’s presumed rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, when searching for him.

“The attorney said the bugs were fixed after they were brought to Google’s attention,” National Review reported.

The responses came after a letter from Judiciary Committee Chair Rep. Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican, to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai on Monday laid out the issues in depth.

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Regime-Approved ‘Fact-Checkers’ Rush To Downplay Tim Walz’s Stolen Valor Controversy

It’s another day that ends in “-y,” which means legacy media hucksters are running dishonest interference for the Democrat Party.

The latest example comes in the form of a Friday “fact-check” by The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler. Known for his willingness to lie on behalf of Democrats, the Post’s “democracy dies in darkness” guru decided to offer his “assessment” of the controversy engulfing Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

While lauded by regime-approved media for his National Guard service, Walz’s rollout as Kamala Harris’ 2024 running mate has been marred by reports and resurfaced clips indicating he committed “stolen valor.” As Matt Beebe has detailed at length in these pages, Walz abandoned his unit before it deployed to Iraq to run for Congress and has inflated his military rank throughout his political career.

Rather than present those facts up front for Post readers, Kessler begins his “fact-check” by citing a quote from Harris announcing Walz as her vice-presidential pick and the following paragraph:

Since [Harris’ announcement], Walz’s record has been under attack by Republicans, with claims that he abandoned his troops on the eve of a deployment to Iraq and that, in an instance of “stolen valor,” inflated his credentials and wartime experience.

The implication, of course, is that any and all scrutiny of Walz’s record and prior claims about his military service are solely the product of GOP partisanship — not the actual facts documenting Walz’s dishonesty. By deploying this deceptive tactic, Kessler aims to convince readers his subsequent “fact-checks” are valid, despite their representation as blatant attempts to run interference for Walz.

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Big Pharma Funds COVID Fact Checkers

FactCheck.org, the organization that flags “misleading” COVID-19 content for Facebook, is supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a philanthropic organization funded by pharmaceutical giant and vaccine maker Johnson & Johnson (J&J), YouTube commentator Jimmy Dore reported.

Dore said his own shows have often been slapped with a “misleading” label when he covered issues related to COVID-19 or vaccines.

“These fact check organizations aren’t there to check facts,” Dore said. “They’re there to push a political point of view and an agenda and to discredit people.”

Dore said when the organization “fact-checked” his work in the past, its claims were always “bogus.” He said FactCheck.org never reached out to consult him about his content, it twisted his words and it never even pointed to any erroneous facts.

Instead, he said, “They didn’t like my headlines,” and they would say they were misleading.

Johnson & Johnson’s viral vector COVID-19 vaccine received emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in February 2021. After the shot was linked to dangerous blood clots, its use was suspended a couple of months later and it was eventually completely pulled from the market in May 2023.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation was established in 1952 by Robert Wood Johnson II, who ran J&J with a bequest of shares from the pharmaceutical giant. Today, although the foundation says it has diversified its holdings, it holds nearly $2 billion in J&J stock.

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