Homeland Security officially terminates agency’s Disinformation Governance Board

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has terminated the agency’s Disinformation Governance Board and rescinded its charter.

Mayorkas officially ended the Department Homeland Security board Wednesday after the DHS advisory committee issued an interim recommendation last month that “there is no need” for the board.

The latest advisory report released Wednesday stated: “There is no need for a separate Disinformation Governance Board. But it is our assessment that the underlying work of Department components on this issue is critical.”

Homeland Security does not ” have the authority to silence or sanction anyone’s speech,” but should instead focus on determining whether “publicly disseminated disinformation impedes missions assigned to the agency” and “disseminating correct information,” the advisory council stated.

“With the HSAC recommendations as a guide, the Department will continue to address threat streams that undermine the security of our country consistent with the law, while upholding the privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties of the American people and promoting transparency in our work,” Homeland Security stated.

Keep reading

More whistleblowers come forward against ‘out of control’ FBI

Another slew of whistleblowers have come forward with misconduct claims against the FBI following the Bureau’s raid on former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate.

FBI field offices in Miami, Salt Lake City, Buffalo and Newark face accusations that their upper management coerced agents to sign false affidavits, inflated terrorism caseloads to improve their apparent performance, engaged in illicit sexual activities, or concealed those of others, according to the Washington Times.

“The FBI is completely out of control and its culture and structure needs to change. Not only is the political bias completely out of control and disgustingly obvious, the FBI knows they will not be held accountable for their illegal behavior and misconduct,” said one Whistleblower in a letter to Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-Tx) of the House Judiciary Committee. This whistleblower alleged that FBI Director Christopher Wray ignored her allegations of sexual misconduct.

Prior to the FBI’s raid on Trump’s estate, a string of whistleblowers had come forward with accusations of political bias against senior FBI officials. The Washington Field Office, which sent the agents to Florida to raid Trump’s estate, was facing its own set of allegations.

Keep reading

The New Thought Police: How the Illiberal Left Use Critical Theory to Usher in Authoritarianism

When Dave Chappelle’s sold-out comedy show was recently canceled by First Avenue theater, we saw some strange rhetoric from the online mob that orchestrated the cancellation. The petition by these 128 activists stated that Chappelle has “a record of being dangerous to trans people” and his “actions uphold a violent heteronormative culture.”

This curious newspeak is borrowed from the language of Critical Theory, a supposed scholarly field that has matured over the past decade. While you may be familiar with Critical Race Theory, another main category is Queer Theory. This is where the First Avenue activists got their inspiration and rationalization for their actions.

Critical Theory, rooted in postmodernism, has produced a radical political sect that can be called the Illiberal Left. Highly visible on some college campuses (famously at Evergreen College in 2017), they seek to stamp out speech that counters their idea of absolute truth. They are modern-day thought police with the power of social media.

A profound examination of Critical Theory is found in the book Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity―and Why This Harms Everybody. It dismantles the flimsy assumptions of Theory and separates the noble idea of social justice from the quasi-religious zealotry of Social Justice.

Wokeness is a more familiar term alluding to the new speech police and victimization movement. To resist this ideology, it helps to understand the Critical Theory underpinnings which explicitly reject reason and science to push the idea that truth comes from identity or “lived experience.”

Indeed, the Illiberal Left denies classic liberal tenets such as individuality and universal truth developed by Enlightenment thought. Ironically, our modern systems of reason and science stemming from Enlightenment rationalism give them the equal rights enshrined in law which permit their vociferousness.

Keep reading

Google triggers criminal probe after dad takes photos of his toddler, naked, for doctor

Google triggered a criminal investigation and locked a man out of his accounts after flagging photos he sent to his son’s pediatrician as potential child pornography, according to the New York Times.

The tech company initially flagged the images when they were automatically uploaded to Google servers from the father’s phone, according to the NYT. After a nearly year-long investigation of everything in his Google account, including search history, location history, messages and photos, police determined he hadn’t committed a crime.

The father, referred to only as Mark by the NYT, had taken photos of his young son, naked, at the request of a doctor over concerns about his infected penis, according to the NYT. Google quickly locked him out of his account after scanning the photos, and he lost emails, contacts and personal photos and had to get a new phone number after losing access to his Google Fi account.

Keep reading

British Columbian Government Forces Unvaccinated Mothers to Repay $50,000 Maternity Leave Benefits

The government of British Columbia, Canada plans to make mothers who work in the public sector who refuse vaccinations responsible for paying back their maternity leave.

According to the BC government, birth mothers who work for the British Columbia Public Service are entitled to 17 weeks of paid leave and may also qualify for the federal government’s Employment Insurance (EI) maternity benefit and the province’s own maternity leave allowance.

But now, those working in the BC Public Service who are pregnant and have not been completely vaccinated against COVID-19 will have to pay back their whole maternity leave top-up benefit and may also lose their jobs.

A statement from the provincial government told My PG Now: “The vaccination policy stipulates that BC Public Service employees who do not receive two doses of vaccination against COVID-19, or refuse to disclose their vaccination status, and do not have an approved exemption request, are to be placed on a leave without pay for a period of at least three months, after which they may be terminated.”

Keep reading

New Laws Could Force Cyclists to Get Licence Plates and Follow Speed Limits

Under newly proposed regulations, cyclists in the UK may soon be forced to comply with speed limits and required to have license plates or some other way to identify themselves at all times.

The transport secretary told the Daily Mail that we should not “turn a blind eye” to cyclists who break road laws, speed and “bust red lights” and “get away with it” https://t.co/DJm8iCmMgA

— Sky News (@SkyNews) August 17, 2022

According to media reports, the government is planning to conduct a review of the legislation governing bike riding in the country. Some people believe that cyclists should be subject to the same laws as automobiles.

The review will also examine whether or not bicycles should be required to have insurance in order to utilize public roadways.

With the rules that are now in place for automobiles, drivers are responsible for any bumps on the road they have and required to carry full insurance in order to drive on public roads.

Cyclists, on the other hand, are not subject to this responsibility.

Conservative MP Grant Shapps, who is also Secretary of State for Transport, has said that he backs changes to the laws to make cyclists more accountable.

“Somewhere where cyclists are actually not breaking the law is when they speed, and that cannot be right, so I absolutely propose extending speed limit restrictions to cyclists,” Shapps said.

“I don’t want to stop people from getting on their bike, it’s a fantastic way to travel, and we’ve seen a big explosion of cycling during Covid and since,” he continued.

“But I see no reason why cyclists should break the road laws and be able to get away with it.”

Keep reading