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Cult

Backlash in the ranks? US Navy quietly removes LGBTQ+ Pride Month posts on social media

Elizabeth Allen
The Fedralist Papers
Fri, 02 Jun 2023 15:32 UTC
U.S. Navy and Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ships
© U.S. Navy / ReutersFILE: U.S. Navy and Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ships.
The U.S. Navy has inexplicably taken down posts celebrating LGBTQ+ Pride month on social media, including rainbow banners that read, "Pride."

Pride posts made on the Navy's Instagram and Twitter accounts on Thursday, June 1, are no longer there as of Friday, June 2.

The posts showed outlines of Navy vessels and aircraft with streaming rainbow trails and the word "Pride" stylized in different colors. They were removed without explanation.

A meme account on Twitter called "End Wokeness" called attention to how the Navy also took down an LGBTQ+ Pride banner on its account. Some users left comments suggesting the posts were taken down in response to backlash over military support for Pride.

Comment: MIcrosoft's XBox is feeling the heat too:
Xbox was among the brands to debut its new colorful design after announcing its long-term partnership with GLAAD to grow the number of queer characters in upcoming first-party Xbox titles.

"Representation is a vast and multifaceted topic: it can mean more LGBTQIA+ characters, more story moments featuring LGBTQIA+ themes, or even creating worlds LGBTQIA+ players can feel at home in," Pav Bhardwaj Chief of Staff of Xbox Marketing, said in a press release.

"For us, it includes empowering our LGBTQIA+ team members to create the kinds of change they're hoping to see in our games and in the industry at large."

He added that the company would be making changes so that queer visibility is a driving factor moving forward.
xbox pride logo
© Facebook/Xbox
And along with this proclamation, the new logo was debuted, only to be removed four days into Pride Month.

It was subsequently replaced by Diablo IV artwork.

However, the company reverting to its old logo did not go unnoticed.

One user penned on Twitter: "Wbk [We been knew] these corporations giving 'support' to Pride Month is only for monetary benefits. Look what happens when they think showing support is no longer profitable."

Another said: "We got a whole three days!!! Happy Pride, everyone. I'm so glad I'm on steam now. These corporations really are just like the gays aren't making as much money... next."

A third commented: "It being fire themed is taking me outtttt like they're really saying we're gonna burn in hell."

While another shared: "Not even a week, oh we down bad this year."

However, some were seemingly unbothered, as one wrote: "It's okay; they are promoting a game that has a song by two gay people."

Another defended: "Can't believe some people are actually making a big fuss out of this. It'll probably go back to the Pride Month profile picture later on anyway."

Xbox also uploaded a Facebook cover photo to celebrate the month, however that has also been replaced for a Diablo IV image.

UNILAD has approached Xbox for comment.

It comes after the Navy removed its rainbow flag after it came under fire from alt-right users.

Forbes reported that the Navy had also included LGBTQIA+ posts on its social media, which had been removed after less than 12 hours due to the significant backlash.

Many have also threatened to boycott companies such as NASCAR and MLB after they tweeted in celebration of Pride Month.


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Binoculars

The plan: Next pandemic will reinstate lockdowns

Jayanta Bhattacharya
Brownstone Institute
Mon, 05 Jun 2023 00:00 UTC
lockdown
What if the coronavirus pandemic was not a once-in-a-century event but the beginning of a new era of regular deadly respiratory viral pandemics? The Biden administration is already planning for this future. Last year, it unveiled a national strategy to develop pharmaceutical firms' capacity to create vaccines within 130 days of a pandemic emergency declaration.

The Biden plan enshrines former president Donald Trump's Operation Warp Speed as the model response for the next century of pandemics. Left unsaid is that, for the new pandemic plan to work as envisioned, it will require us to conduct dangerous gain-of-function research. It will also require cutting corners in the evaluation of the safety and efficacy of novel vaccines. And while the studies are underway, politicians will face tremendous pressure to impose draconian lockdowns to keep the population "safe."

In the case of COVID-19 vaccines, it took about a year for governments to deploy the jab at scale after scientists sequenced the virus. Scientists identified a vaccine target — fragments of the spike protein that the virus uses to access cells — by early January 2020, even before the WHO declared a worldwide pandemic.
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NPC

Biden appointee calls upon the UN to act to secure reparations and end the "continuation of slavery" in the US

Jonathan Turley
jonathanturley.org
Sun, 04 Jun 2023 00:00 UTC
Howard Law Professor Justin Hansford
Howard Law Professor Justin Hansford addressed the United Nations Permanent Forum on People of African Descent last week and called for the establishment of a United Nations Reparations Tribunal that could order the payment of reparations to African Americans.

Professor Hansford objected that white lawyers and politicians have been allowed to control this debate in the United States for too long:
But so far we have left it to the scholars of the past, the lawyers of the past, the white scholars, white lawyers, to determine the bounds of our legal imagination, to determine the narrow structures that we will use to determine what justice looks like for our own people.

So I come to you today with a novel proposal, that we begin to think our own thoughts, propose our own vision of justice, and implement that justice, as part of the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent.
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Eye 1

Bank for International Settlements to use AI to monitor global bank transactions for "money laundering"


Zerohedge
Sat, 03 Jun 2023 08:45 UTC
bank of international settlements
While the IMF is currently gearing up to introduce its new global CBDC system called the UMU (also known as the Unicoin), The Bank for International Settlements has been busy with multiple projects designed to centralize all international banks and central banks into a single umbrella network that allows for quick cross-border transactions using digital currencies. In other words, a cashless society.

One such concept, called Project Icebreaker, dealt specifically with creating a SWIFT-like bottleneck system which would allow global banks to regulate and eventually homogenize all currencies into a single one world exchange model that would give them the power to cut out any nation or company that does not meet their ideological approval.

The latest idea from the BIS is Project Aurora, which may be even more disturbing than Icebreaker in its implications. Aurora is designed to use "machine learning" (AI) as a tool to monitor vast flows of financial transactions from all over the world in order to identify specifically flagged patterns. The BIS says that this is meant to discover criminal money laundering structures protected by "money mules." However, in order for the AI to sift through global transactions in real time, corporate banks and governments would have to create extensive streamlined access to accounts then open the doors wide for the AI to operate with impunity.
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X

The EU is desperate to clamp down on Elon Musk's free speech as 'disinformation'

Rachel Marsden
RT
Sun, 04 Jun 2023 19:37 UTC
musk macron
© Ludovic Marin/ Pool Photo via APElon Musk.
If Brussels' tech disinfo code is voluntary, then why did officials freak out when Musk yanked Twitter from it?

European Union officials are having a meltdown, all because Twitter CEO Elon Musk has withdrawn the platform from a "voluntary" EU code of conduct for tech firms to combat so-called "disinformation." And they have yet to cite a single actual example of it.

EU Internal Markets Commissioner Thierry Breton tweeted, "You can run, but you can't hide," citing a legal obligation to prevent disinformation from August. He's basically treating Musk, a guy who builds rockets and cars in America, like an unruly schoolchild, with Brussels in the role of the principal. French Digital Minister Jean-Noel Barrot even threatened to ban Twitter from the EU in a recent interview, citing the "grave" threat of disinformation.

Comment: See also:

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Cow Skull

Zelensky aide: Ukraine lacks weapons to launch counteroffensive


RT
Mon, 05 Jun 2023 01:25 UTC
Igor Zhovkva
© NBCZelensky aide Igor Zhovkva in a 'Meet the Press' interview April 24, 2022
Igor Zhovkva urges EU countries to do more to help Kiev in the fight against Moscow

Ukraine needs more weapons and ammunition to be able to carry out a successful counteroffensive against the Russian forces, the deputy head of President Vladimir Zelensky's office has said.

In an interview with British newspaper The Times on Saturday, Igor Zhovkva was asked why the much-anticipated operation by Ukraine, aimed at retaking land lost to Russia, still hasn't been launched.

"If you want to start a successful counteroffensive you need everything at your disposal, including artillery, armored vehicles and tanks, so probably we don't have enough," he replied.

Comment: Ukraine is delaying the counteroffensive it is being pressured into by the West for as long as it can. Zelensky et al., know it's doomed.

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Binoculars

Russian governor says he will accept Kiev-backed militants' demand for meeting, to free POWs


RT
Mon, 05 Jun 2023 01:46 UTC
Gladkov
© Sputnik / Taisiya LiskovetsRussian Belgorod region governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov
Belgorod Region Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Sunday that he was ready to meet the leader of the Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK), a neo-Nazi group of Russian nationals fighting for Kiev, if the militants return two of Moscow's soldiers that were shown as captives in a recent video.

"If [the Russian soldiers] are alive, [I'll be at] the automobile border-crossing point Shebekino between 17:00 and 18:00," Gladkov said in a video address published on his Telegram channel. He was referring to a border crossing separating Russia's Belgorod Region from Ukraine's territory.

The governor was responding to a video published by the RDK and the 'Freedom of Russia Legion' - two neo-Nazi groups that previously claimed responsibility for several incursions into Russia this spring. Footage published by the militants shows them standing next to two Russian POWs, with one of them apparently injured.

Denis Nikitin, the RDK leader, claimed on the video that his fighters had entered the town of Novaya Tavolzhanka in Belgorod Region and offered to meet Gladkov in a local church "for a talk" in exchange for the POWs' release.

Gladkov said the fate of "our boys that are at the hands" of the militants was the only thing that prevented him from outright dismissing the militants' offer. He branded the RDK and the 'Freedom of Russia Legion' militants as "scoundrels, bastards, murderers and fascists," blaming them for civilian deaths.

Comment: The group includes Polish mercenaries, who released a statement today claiming involvement in the latest raid.
The announcement, accompanied by alleged photo and video evidence, was shared on social media accounts of the so-called "Polish Volunteer Corps."

The statement appears to refer to an incursion by saboteurs into the Grayvoron District of Belgorod Region, which took place on May 22.

The "Polish Volunteer Corps" said it unequivocally confirmed its role in the operation, stating that the group collaborated with the Russian Volunteer Corps, a neo-Nazi unit of Russian nationals fighting on behalf of Ukraine under the authority of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry.

In a bid to prove its role in the May 22 raid, fighters from the Polish Volunteer Corps shared videos, in which they can be seen with Ukrainian T-72B tanks, American HMMWV armored vehicles, and Mi-8 helicopters of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

The governor of Belgorod Region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, also mentioned the presence of Polish citizens among the saboteurs. On his Telegram channel, he recounted the story of a woman, whose husband - a member of the local self-defense forces - was killed in front of her. According to Gladkov, the woman was held captive by two Ukrainians, and she stated that the other group members were Poles and Americans.

Previously, the Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR) of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry discussed the involvement of the "Russian Volunteer Corps" and members of the "Freedom of Russia" legion in the Belgorod Region operation.

However, the "Russian Volunteer Corps" issued a statement on Sunday denying that members of the "Polish Volunteer Corps" had crossed the Russian border. The group claimed on social media that their Polish fellow combatants were involved in tasks such as prisoner escort, along with military and medical logistics, but strictly within the borders of Ukraine.

Warsaw has insisted it has nothing to do with the Polish militants fighting for Kiev. "The activities of Polish volunteers supporting Ukraine in the fight against Russia should not be identified with the authorities of the Republic of Poland", said Stanislaw Zaryn, spokesman for the coordinating minister of the country's special services.


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Question

What and why is 'woke?'

Paul Frijters, Gigi Foster and Michael Baker
Brownstone Institute
Mon, 05 Jun 2023 01:30 UTC
woke american flag graphic
© subsri13/freepik
The modern phenomenon of 'woke' is hard to pin down. Is it a movement, a religion, an attitude, or a lifestyle? Here we offer our own definition that places woke in the broader historical and political story of the West.

We start with a list of attitudinal elements that most people would agree should count as part of woke. In this we are spoiled for choice, with a whole smorgasbord of examples from the personal, political and corporate spheres from which to discern the core elements. Here are our top five:
  1. Identity theft. This is best exemplified in gender appropriation, whereby anyone who says or believes they are a woman is indeed a woman and must be treated as such by others, at pain of social disapprobation and even legal punishment. The woke lack respect for previous identities.
  2. Illiberalness. The woke perspective in many areas features a suspension of belief in public debate and the value of diverse viewpoints, to the point of being willing to invade and sabotage public spaces in which such debates and viewpoints are aired.
  3. Cancel culture. We see the cancellation imperative of woke in the destruction of symbols and rituals of the previously dominant Western culture: felling monuments, defacing art, negating traditional days of celebration, using disruption and chaos to draw attention to causes, and targeting the careers of those who defend the pre-existing culture.
  4. Victimhood. Woke places primacy in the public sphere on helplessness and victimhood, preferably victimhood resulting from perceived injustices at the hands of traditional Western culture.
  5. Alarmism. Woke promotes the idea of the collapse of civilisation due to human-induced threats (like climate, viruses, or the Chinese government) and adopts ever new totems allegedly to ward off that collapse.
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Star of David

Joe Biden launches his war on antisemitism

Philip Giraldi
The Unz Review
Tue, 30 May 2023 00:00 UTC
Biden/yahu
© Baz Ratner/Politico/PoolUS President Joe Biden • Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu
Massive politically motivated effort will impact on free speech and association...

As promised, the White House hosted a virtual event followed by the issuance of a fact sheet and detailed strategic report last Thursday that described in some detail a sweeping plan that will be implemented to confront what it describes as surging antisemitism. I reported last week how the US Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, who participated in the ceremony, has articulated the Biden Administration's somewhat hyperbolic view that "Antisemitism is not a niche issue...it is an existential threat to democracy." She had also regretted that "America has never done something like a national plan to fight antisemitism." It should be noted that Lipstadt's brief as ambassador is to confront what she perceives to be antisemitism all around the world, though it is likely that her role will expand to include domestic authorities under whatever new arrangements emerge as the Biden plan is implemented.

The plan that was unveiled was developed by an interagency task force created by Joe Biden last December, which was headed by "Second Gentleman" Doug Emhoff, who is both Jewish and has the misfortune to be married to Kamala Harris. It reportedly incorporates contributions and insights from claimed discussions with no less than "more than 1,000 community leaders" including various Jewish religious denominations and also representing both Jewish and non-Jewish civic organizations in the United States. Prior to the virtual event and press release, President Biden promised that the plan would "include more than 200 measures that government agencies, social media platforms and elected officials can adopt to counter rising antisemitism." The measures will reportedly include at least 100 "provisions" that will require congressional action.
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Target

Authoritarianism keeps surging in Western 'free democracies'

Caitlin Johnstone
caitlinjohnstone.com
Wed, 31 May 2023 00:00 UTC
2 guys
© UnknownStrike down naked truth
Today in tyranny we've got three stories on the rapidly increasing authoritarian abuses in western "free democracies".

Let's dig in.

1. Grayzone reporter detained by British counter-terrorism police for doing journalism.

The Grayzone's Kit Klarenberg was detained by "six anonymous plainclothes counter-terror officers" who "grilled him for over five hours about his reporting" upon returning to Britain on the 17th of May, according to a new report by Grayzone editor Max Blumenthal.

Blumenthal reports that Klarenberg was asked many questions about The Grayzone and his work with the independent outlet, saying police "seized the journalist's electronic devices and SD cards, fingerprinted him, took DNA swabs, and photographed him intensively," threatening him with arrest if he didn't comply.
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