Tag: protests

Jan. 6 Committee Tapes Have Disappeared, Says House Republican

The disappearance of videotapes of witness interviews conducted by the Democratic-led House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack has alarmed the chairman of the House panel that replaced it.

Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), who chairs the House Administration Oversight Subcommittee that is currently investigating security lapses connected to the Capitol riot and potential ramifications for upcoming criminal trials, is questioning the disappearance of the video evidence.

“All of the videotapes of all depositions are gone,” Mr. Loudermilk told the “Just the News, No Noise” television show Thursday night.

“We found out about this early in the investigation when I received a call from someone who was looking for some information off one of the videotapes, and we started searching, and we had none,” Mr. Loudermilk explained.

“I wrote a letter to Bennie Thompson asking for them. And he confirmed that they did not preserve those types. He didn’t feel that they had to.”

According to Mr. Loudermilk, the videotapes met the requirements for congressional evidence under House rules because some of the segments were shown at hearings, and the now-defunct J6 committee, led by Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss), ought to have kept all of the recordings.

“According to House rules, you have to preserve any data and information and documents that are used in an official proceeding, which they did. They (J6 Democrats) actually aired portions of these tapes on their televised hearings, which means they had to keep those,” Mr. Loudermilk said.

“Yet he chose not to.”

The lawmaker explained why he believes this is an important piece of evidence to maintain, citing that some witnesses, such as former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, have changed their testimony over time, and even transcripts might not be sufficient to obtain a full understanding of the testimony.

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Irish politician says those who protested after children were stabbed in Dublin should be ‘shot in the head’

During a meeting of Limerick City and County Council on Monday, members took turns voicing their opinions about the fiery, but mostly peaceful, protests that broke out in Dublin four days earlier in response to reports that the man who stabbed a woman and three children in the Irish capital was an Algerian migrant.

While most of the council members condemned the actions of those who took part, one went further than the rest. Azad Talukder, who serves as Cathaoirleach of the LCCC’s Metropolitan District, suggested the protestors should be “shot in the head.”

“I strongly believe that this is not the face of Ireland,” Talukder said, according to the Limerick Post. “This is just some criminals looting the shops. I don’t think they follow any ideological purpose. They come to the streets and just rob. They should get punishment.”

“Not even an animal does these kind of thing,” he added. “It is very shameful and they should get public punishment.”

Talukder went on to state, in no uncertain terms, that he’d “like to see them shot in the head or bring the public in and beat them until they die.”

His comments were quickly withdrawn after being objected to by Labour Party councillor Conor Sheehan, who reminded him that “you can’t call for people to be shot in the council chamber.”

Talukder apologized, saying his emotions had gotten the better of him.

As the Immigrant Council reports, Talukder is originally from Bangladesh, and moved to Ireland in 2000 to start a family. Nearly 20 years later, he was elected as the first Muslim councillor in the nation’s history.

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January 6 Was A ‘Mostly Peaceful’ Protest

It has been nearly three years since the January 6 Capitol protest. For just as long, Americans have been force-fed a story about the fateful events of that day: even before the smoke cleared, and in many ways, it never did, the shambolic episode was labeled a deadly “insurrection.” The incoming administration was handed an invaluable support: they could now label anyone who doubted the legitimacy of their weak and doddering incumbent a suspect American, an “election denier” and a threat to “our democracy.” The narrative spread like a virus through the state-affiliated mass media, and became, arguably, the defining theme of Biden’s presidency.

In the name of defending democracy, Biden’s Justice Department launched the most ambitious law enforcement crackdown in the nation’s history – one targeting, exclusively, opponents of the party in power. It eventually came to target Donald Trump, the top threat to “our democracy” and, incidentally, or not, Joe Biden’s main political opponent. Prosecutor Jack Smith’s indictment of Trump is almost a work of plagiarism: it uses the same bombastic language as the January 6 committee, tells the same worn narrative, and takes the same creative leaps in logic, although Smith is less candid with his charges; he is curiously reluctant to use the word “insurrection.” To spare the trouble of proving his audacious case, Smith opts for the imprecise and verbose “events at the Capitol,” a phrase that appears no less than 15 times in a recent filing.

Which “events” are those, exactly? The truth is more banal than the narrative the American people have been told. If January 6 was an insurrection, it was among the most orderly, and uneventful in modern history. The newly released surveillance videos from Speaker Mike Johnson show hundreds of Trump supporters aimlessly meandering through the halls of the Capitol. Many have their smartphones out, taking videos of themselves or their surroundings. Many are dressed casually and move in a lackadaisical fashion, much like tourists. As they are calmly escorted out of the building, there is no sign that these people have any notion that they have been part of an insurrection. They have no idea what is coming – that they are about to become the targets of a nationwide witch hunt.

January 6 committee ringleaders Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger have accused the right of attempting to sanitize a “coup” with “cherrypicked” video. Neither Cheney nor Kinzinger allege the new videos are fake. The evidence simply does not conform with their maximalist interpretation of what happened, which is represented by a handful of dramatic clips played on an infinite loop on CNN. The suppressed surveillance tape of the famous “Qanon Shaman” comically ambling through the halls leaves a markedly different impression.

It is laughable to see the charge of historical revisionism levied over an event so recent in time, one so shrouded in political animosities and interests that are still active today. It can be no coincidence that those who have pieced together and promoted the prevailing narrative are hostile to new information coming to light.

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How The Democratic Party Faked An American Insurrection

Last week, more than 40,000 hours of Jan. 6 Capitol Police security footage was released in the public domain that once and for all blew a hole in the pro-Trump ‘violent insurrection’ narrative so dear to the Democrats.

The one question on countless Americans’ minds following the release of the damning videos was: will all those men and women recently locked away as political prisoners for dozens of decades get another day in court?

Indeed, January 6 may have been a lot of things to many people, but another Boston Tea Party it most definitely was not.

Social media was alight over the weekend showing one benign scene after another of the ‘insurrectionists’ casually strolling through the Capitol Building premises, exchanging pleasantries with the on-duty police officers, even giving each other fist-bumps.

The revelations of the true nature of the event came to light as newly appointed House Speaker Mike Johnson released the security footage, which came as a political manna from heaven for former president Donald Trump and other members of the Republican Party.

“Truth and transparency are critical,” Johnson said in a prepared statement.

“This decision will provide millions of Americans, criminal defendants, public interest organizations, and the media an ability to see for themselves what happened that day, rather than having to rely upon the interpretation of a small group of government officials.”

Democrats, however, who have milked the ‘insurrectionist’ narrative for everything it is worth, predictably chafed at the release, calling it a ‘risk to national security.’

“It is unconscionable that one of Speaker Johnson’s first official acts as steward of the institution is to endanger his colleagues, staff, visitors, and our country by allowing virtually unfettered access to sensitive Capitol security footage,” said New York Democrat Rep. Joseph Morelle, who sits on the Committee on House Administration.

“That he is doing so over the strenuous objections of the security professionals within the Capitol Police is outrageous. This is not transparency; this is dangerous and irresponsible.”

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Air Marshals National Council Director STUNS Fox News Host When She Reveals Marshalls Are Quietly Following Every Person Who Flew to DC Around January 6, 2021

Sonya Labosco, Director of the Air Marshalls National Council said Air Marshalls are quietly following Americans who flew into the DC area around January 6, 2021.

Labosco said Air Marshalls are no longer going after terrorists or the bad guys because they are now stalking and following every single person who flew into the DC area around January 2021 even if they did not go to the US Capitol.

“We’re not flying right now. The only missions that we are doing are ‘Quiet Skies’ missions and those are missions that are following the January 2021 people,” Labosco said. “So we’re either on the border for illegal immigrants or we’re following folks from January 2021. We’re not doing our regular missions where we’re out there looking for the bad guys so for now most flights you’re not gonna have Air Marshalls.”

The Fox News host was stunned: “What do you mean that you’re following January 2021 people? What does that mean?

Labosco said their primary mission is to stalk every single person who flew into the DC area even if they never went to the Capitol and were never charged with any crimes.

“That means our primary mission is a little group called ‘quiet skies’ – it’s a mission called quiet skies that we’re following people that flew into the national capital region in January 2021 and they did not have to go to the Capitol or the rally and you’ve been put on a specific list that TSA has now assigned Air Marshalls to follow these people who have not had any type of criminal investigation – they haven’t committed a crime, but yet three years later we are following the same individuals day in and day out,” Labosco said.

The Fox News host asked Labosco, “So you’re saying the [Air Marshalls] aren’t…tracking terrorists at all?”

“Well, they didn’t even have to be at the Capitol…they could have just flown into the capital region so anyone who was there for a job interview or to visit family. We even have a gentleman who was there for a funeral. They’ve been put on this domestic terrorist list just because of their geographic location to Washington DC,” Labosco said.

The Fox News host was in shock as Labosco said Air Marshalls have been following the same innocent people for three years even though they have never committed a crime.

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Speaker Johnson says he’ll make 44,000 hours of Jan. 6 footage available to the general public

House Speaker Mike Johnson said Friday he plans to publicly release thousands of hours of footage from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, making good on a promise he made to far-right members of his party when he was campaigning for the job.

“This decision will provide millions of Americans, criminal defendants, public interest organizations, and the media an ability to see for themselves what happened that day, rather than having to rely upon the interpretation of a small group of government officials,” Johnson said in a statement.

The newly elected speaker said the first tranche of security footage, around 90 hours, will be released on a public committee website Friday, with the rest of the more than 40,000 hours expected to be posted over the next several months. In the meantime, a public viewing room will also be set up in the Capitol for viewing the footage.

For the last several months, the GOP-led House Administration Committee has made the video available by appointment only to members of the media, criminal defendants and a limited number of other people. The video shows some of the fighting up close and gives a bird’s eye view of the Capitol complex — one that visitors rarely see — as hundreds of President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the building, violently attacking police officers and breaking in through windows and doors.

By expanding this access to the general public, Johnson is fulfilling one of the pledges he made last month to the most conservative members of his party, including Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who orchestrated the ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

The move will grant the general public a stunning level of access to sensitive and explicit Jan. 6 security footage, which many critics have warned could be endangered if it gets into the wrong hands. The hours of footage detail not only the shocking assault rioters made on U.S. Capitol Police as they breached the building but also how the rioters accessed the building and the routes lawmakers used to flee to safety.

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The FBI Halted Probe Of Pedophile To Focus On January 6. Now He’s Accused Of Abusing A 10-Year-Old Boy.

On January 6, 2021, the FBI explicitly chose to abandon a sting on a child pornographer in Virginia who was messaging with an undercover agent about having sex with a nine-year-old boy, opting instead to focus on prosecuting Donald Trump’s supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol. Less than three years later, the FBI discovered the same man living in Alaska where he appears to have been performing sex acts on a 10-year-old boy, according to court documents.

On December 2, 2020, an internet user with the screen name “gayboy69freak” messaged an undercover agent with the FBI’s Washington Field Office, who was posing as a father pimping out his 9-year-old son, and told him that he wanted to travel to D.C. to have sex with the boy. The man also sent the agent a video of “a prepubescent minor male being anally penetrated by an adult male’s erect penis.” His IP address led the FBI to Brogan Welsh of Glenn Allen, Virginia.

What appears to be a slam-dunk case against a child predator was abruptly abandoned just one month later.

“On January 6, 2021, FBI, Washington Field Office, [decided] this investigation was halted due to events that occurred at the United States Capitol Building that day,” court documents say.

The man was only arrested, and the court documents only filed, because Welsh moved to Alaska and crossed the Anchorage FBI’s radar in an unrelated perversion investigation. On October 24, 2023, after coming across troubling chats from Welsh on a phone they seized from a different alleged pervert, Alaska FBI agents went into his house and “located items including sex toys that are very small in size and apparently consistent with the body size of an approximate 10-year-old boy,” as well as children’s underwear.

“The investigation has revealed that a 10-year-old boy was, in fact, residing at the residence belonging to Welsh,” the agents wrote.

In other words, because the FBI called off the dogs even after Welsh sent child porn to an FBI agent, he appears to have gone on to molest a 10-year-old.

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Yes, Anti-Israel Protests Are Free Speech

Last Friday, a group of college students penned a guest essay in The New York Times arguing that the wave of anti-Israel, pro-Palestine activity on many college campuses isn’tA New legitimate free expression—and that universities have a “moral responsibility” to combat it.

“Free speech, open debate and heterodox views lie at the core of academic life,” wrote Gabriel Diamond, Talia Dror, and Jillian Lederman, students at Yale, Cornell, and Brown respectively. “They are fundamental to educating future leaders to think and act morally. The reality on some college campuses today is the opposite: open intimidation of Jewish students. Mob harassment must not be confused with free speech.”

The authors point out several examples of clearly unprotected speech that have unfolded in recent weeks, such as online posts made by a Cornell student who threatened to “shoot up” a kosher dining hall, as well as several instances of physical violence against Jewish students.

However, many of the other examples the authors single out are blatantly First Amendment–protected expression.

“Masked students have chanted slogans such as ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,’ which many view as a call for the destruction of Israel. Others have shouted, ‘There is only one solution, intifada revolution,'” they write. Additionally, Diamond, Dror, and Lederman noted several examples of professors who made offensive statements about the terrorist attack, lamenting that “to the best of our knowledge, none of these professors have received meaningful discipline, much less dismissal.”

Despite their claimed commitments, the authors make a plain-faced call for censorship by invoking university speech codes.

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Sharp Rise in Facial Recognition Use by Scottish Police, UK Protest Footage Scanned

The police in Scotland have tripled the use of retrospective facial recognition over the last five years jumping from just under 1,300 in 2018 to nearly 4,000 in 2022.

The rising trend has continued during 2023 with more than 2,000 searches carried out in the first four months of the year, according to data obtained by a freedom of information request by UK investigative journalism organizations Liberty Investigates and The Ferret.

The trend has been rising in other parts of the country. In 2014, the total number of searches using retrospective facial recognition by all police forces in the UK amounted to just 3,360. By 2022, that number jumped to 85,158, according to UK Home Office data.

The Scottish police ranks fourth in the use of the technology in the UK. The leader is the London Metropolitan Police which accounted for 30 percent or 27,677 searches last year.

The UK police have been using retrospective facial recognition to match faces captured with CCTV cameras with millions of images stored in the Police National Database. The practice has proved controversial as the database still contains many images of people who were released without charge.

Police in Scotland operate a distinct policy from other UK forces, only uploading custody images to the database once an individual has been charged with a crime and removing images of those found innocent after 6 months.

Facial recognition use by the police has been a target of criticism from some lawmakers, non-governmental organizations and policy experts.

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Leak shows ex-Trump ambassador to Israel threatening NYU over Palestine protests

A letter sent to NYU leadership claims the school is “no longer a safe space for Jewish students” while demanding policies that would shatter free speech on campus. The letter was signed by David Friedman, Trump’s rabidly pro-settlement ambassador to Israel, as well as dozens of Jewish American alumni apparently afflicted with a particularly severe version of main character syndrome.

The letter demands that NYU ramp up security for Jewish students and add mandatory coursework on the issue of “in line with universal values, fact-based critical thinking, and civil discourse.”

Read the leaked letter, “A Message from the NYU Jewish community,” here.

Additionally, the letter demands that NYU create a position “dedicated to combating anti-Semitism.” The school already maintains no fewer than 15 positions dedicated to promoting “Global Inclusion, Diversity, and Strategic Innovation.”

The letter goes on to demand that NYU disband clubs that “utilize hate speech to promote violence and endorse terrorism” and pursue the criminal prosecution of students who “deface property and/or use hate speech in the name of terrorism.” It offers no definition of hate speech, however. The assumption seems to be that strong language denouncing Israel’s violent assault on Gaza, or supporting the Palestinian armed struggle, should be treated as equivalent to verbal threats, and even physical violence, against Jews.

While providing no evidence or documentation of open support for terrorism amongst the student body, the letter alludes to Student Bar Association president Ryna Workman, who authored an op-ed in the body’s weekly newsletter blaming the Israeli state policy of apartheid for inspiring the events of October 7. Workman was promptly canceled for her speech, losing not only her position as president of the Student Bar Association, but a job offer that had previously been extended to her. 

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