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Donald Trump is launching a new social network called Truth Social

Steven Musil, Queenie Wong
CNET
Thu, 21 Oct 2021 11:06 UTC
Trump and cellphone app
© Trump Media and Technology Group
Former President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he's launching a new social network called Truth Social, whose goal is to push back against Big Tech, according to a press release purported to come from one of his companies. The Trump Media and Technology Group, which made the announcement, said the social network will begin a limited beta launch in November, with a wider rollout expected in the first quarter of 2022.

Trump said in the press release sent to the media:
"I created Truth Social and TMGT to stand up to the tyranny of Big Tech. We live in a world where the Taliban has a presence on Twitter, yet your favorite American president has been silenced."
There's a site for Truth Social where people can join a waiting list for the social network, as well as a link to preorder the iOS app. Screenshots of the app suggest Truth will have profile pages with a Twitter-like timeline of posts.

Plans to launch a new social network underscore how Trump is trying to rejoin the online public conversation after Twitter, Facebook and Google-owned YouTube booted him from their platforms following the deadly US Capitol Hill riot in January.
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Tornado1

US 'intelligence community' and Fed issue separate reports concluding the same thing: 'Climate change' is major national security threat


AFP
Thu, 21 Oct 2021 06:30 UTC
hurricane space
US intelligence services said Thursday for the first time that climate change poses wide-ranging threats to the United States' national security and stability around the world.

More extreme weather "will increasingly exacerbate a number of risks to US national security interests, from physical impacts that could cascade into security challenges, to how countries respond to the climate challenge," the White House said in a summary of the intelligence reports.

The prediction was made in the first official assessment by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, or ODNI, which oversees the sprawling US intelligence apparatus.

The document "represents the consensus view of all 18" elements in the intelligence community, the White House said.

According to the agencies, climate change is driving "increased geopolitical tension as countries argue over who should be doing more," cross-border "flashpoints" as countries respond to climate change impact by trying to secure their own interests, and fallout from climate on national stability in some countries.
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Bullseye

Feeding the Liberal flock: The real reasons for the congressional 1/6 committee

Glenn Greenwald
greenwald.substack.com
Thu, 21 Oct 2021 00:00 UTC
Schiff Raskin Cheney Kinzinger
© Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) arrive July 27, 2021 for the House Select Committee hearing investigating the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The Biden DOJ has not charged one 1/6 defendant with insurrection, sedition or plotting to kidnap or kill. Democrats need Adam Schiff and Liz Cheney to satiate liberal anger.

What follows is the last section of my article earlier this week, documenting why Congress's Select Committee to Investigate 1/6 is both unconstitutional and an assault on civil liberties.

Underlying so much of the anger and resentment surrounding 1/6 is the complete dissonance between the narrative fed to the citizenry by Democrats and their media allies on the one hand, and the legal realities on the other. It must be infuriating and baffling to a large sector of the population to have been convinced that what happened on January 6 was an unprecedentedly dangerous insurrection perpetrated by an organized group of seditious traitors who had plotted to kidnap and murder elected officials, only for the Biden DOJ to have charged exactly nobody with any criminal charges remotely suggesting any of those melodramatic claims.

This was the same frustration and confusion that beset a large portion of liberal America when they were led to believe for years that Robert Mueller was coming to arrest all of their political enemies for treason and criminal conspiracy with Russia, only for the FBI Superman to close his investigation without charging a single American with criminal conspiracy with Russia and then issuing a report admitting that he could not find evidence to establish any such crime. How to keep the flock loyal when the doomsday prophecies continue to be unfulfilled, as the World-Ending Date comes and goes without so much as a bang, let alone an explosion?
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Cross

Leaked audio reveals DOJ official questioning sincerity of Americans' religious exemptions to COVID vaccine

Libby Emmons
The Post Millennial
Tue, 19 Oct 2021 06:13 UTC
Protester
© AP/Seth Wenig
White House officials don't care about religious exemptions from vaccine mandates, and they don't think people who bring religious exemptions from vaccine mandates are "sincere" in their beliefs.

Human Events senior editor Jack Posobiec broke the news on Human Events Daily, exposing the Biden administration's complete disregard for Americans' religious liberty rights. DOJ attorney Marty Lederman can be heard on a phone call from September advising the administration as to how to combat employees religious exemption demands from the vaccine mandate.


Comment: Americans, in turn, are questioning the sincerity of the government to its citizens. They are coming up empty.

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Attention

Poland will be punished for challenging EU law primacy, European leader warns, as Warsaw claims Brussels is devoid of democracy


RT
Tue, 19 Oct 2021 10:16 UTC
Morawiecki
© Ronald Wittek/Pool Reuters
Polish PM Mateusz Morawiecki speaking on Poland's challenge to the supremacy of EU laws
European Parliament, Strasbourg, France • October 19, 2021
The European Commission president has warned that Poland will face penalties for its move to make EU law subordinate to national law, after a Warsaw court backed the government's defiance of Brussels' supremacy.

Speaking to the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Tuesday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said there were three options available to the EU after Poland challenged the primacy of the bloc's laws over its national law.
"This ruling calls into question the foundations of the European Union. It is a direct challenge to the unity of the European legal order."
She added that they were carefully considering their response after Poland's Constitutional Tribunal ruled that parts of European law were incompatible with the Polish constitution.

Von der Leyen said the first option is so-called infringements, where a legal challenge brought by the EC could lead to fines. Secondly, Brussels could withhold access to EU funds from Poland. Thirdly, the EU could suspend certain rights of Poland in the bloc, including the right to vote, under Article 7 of the Treaty on European Union.

Comment: The real message: Assimilate or be forsaken.
Poland's prime minister has announced that his government will dissolve the disciplinary chamber of the country's Supreme Court after the EU condemned the chamber for threatening the "unity of the European legal order."

Speaking to EU officials at the European Parliament, Polish leader Mateusz Morawiecki accepted that the chamber
"did not meet our expectations," agreeing to dissolve the "mechanisms that were introduced. There was a question about the disciplinary chamber of the Supreme Court. Yes. We intend to dissolve it."
The announcement by Poland's prime minister marks the conclusion of a row between Warsaw and Brussels over concerns that its disciplinary chamber made EU law subordinate to national law, sparking a reprimand from European officials.

To prevent future disagreements between member states descending into the row that's broken out between Poland and the EU, Morawiecki called on the EU Court of Justice to establish a chamber that can act as an arbiter for disputes within the bloc.

Poland's leader had pushed back on the EU's threats, by warning that it risked making the bloc a "centrally managed organism," rather than a partnership of member states. He warned:
"Unfortunately, today we are dealing with a very dangerous phenomenon whereby various European Union institutions usurp powers they do not have under the Treaties and impose their will on Member States."
See also:

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Jet4

Russia scrambles fighter jets to head off US warplanes near country's airspace, days after warship intercepted near borders


RT
Wed, 20 Oct 2021 12:39 UTC
US jets
© Russian Defense Ministry
US Airforce KC-135 Stratotanker refuels a B-1B Lancer in flight over the Black Sea, Oct. 19, 2021 recorded by Russian crew member aboard a Sukhoi Su-20 fighter jet.
The Russian Air Force has escorted two US bombers over the Black Sea, after radar operators identified the planes flying close to the border, just days after an American warship was tailed as it moved toward the country's waters.

On Wednesday, Moscow's Ministry of Defense said that a pair of the country's Su-30 fighter planes took off and followed two US B-1B strategic bombers over southeastern Europe, after the foreign aircraft were detected in the region. The ministry said in a statement:
"Russian fighter crews identified the aerial targets as two US Air Force supersonic strategic B-1B bombers, accompanied by two KC-135 refueling planes, and escorted them over the waters of the Black Sea. After the foreign warplanes had been turned away from Russia's state border, the Russian fighters safely returned to their home air base."

Comment: Provocations to distract or drill procedure...location, location, location!
The encounter, which appears to have occurred without incident, happened amid NATO's annual deterrence exercise Steadfast Noon, taking place this week all across southern Europe.

Aircraft from 14 NATO countries, including the U.S., are taking part in the drill. The U.S. B-1B Lancers operating in the Black Sea are from Dyess Air Force Base in Texas and have been carrying out missions across Europe as part of a bomber task force rotation. The U.S. military regularly flies in international airspace over the Black Sea, and encounters with Russian aircraft have become commonplace. While most intercepts occur without incident, the U.S. has cited instances in recent years of Russian planes flying too close to American aircraft or buzzing Navy ships on patrol.

The Black Sea has been a focal point this week for the Pentagon. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is touring the region, making stops in Georgia, Ukraine and Romania.

On Thursday, Austin will attend a NATO defense ministers meeting at alliance headquarters in Brussels.


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Arrow Up

US police hungry for discarded military gear now use climate change as pretext to get priority delivery


RT
Thu, 21 Oct 2021 13:07 UTC
Seattle police vehicle
© Reuters/Lindsey Wasson
Seattle police during a BLM protest.
The DoD program that arms police departments with surplus military equipment is prioritizing requests citing 'climate disaster' preparation - but the mine-resistant vehicles aren't necessarily being used for rescue operations.

The bureaucratic shift in how sheriff's offices and precincts justify their requests for military-grade vehicles under the Pentagon's controversial 1033 Program was reported on Wednesday by the Huffington Post. The report is based on the outlet's continued analysis of a trove of documents from the hand-me-down scheme that came into its possession earlier this year.

Local jurisdictions are increasingly citing extreme weather and other natural calamities in their applications, since Congress tweaked the program in its annual defense spending bill. Lawmakers instructed the DoD to give priority to "applications that request vehicles used for disaster-related emergency preparedness, such as high-water rescue vehicles" - a move that HuffPo describes as having "supercharged the incentives" to link climate concerns to military hardware.

On the Pentagon's cue, local police and sheriffs suddenly started "to make a big deal out of their role in disaster response," the report said.

Comment: What better means to address the populace than to treat them like terrorists. It certainly has nothing to do with climate change.


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Attention

Capitalism has run out of steam? Putin warns that world's existing economic model is causing huge growth in inequality globally

Jonny Tickle
RT
Thu, 21 Oct 2021 15:51 UTC
Protest sign
© Alexander Pohl/NurPhoto via Getty Images
The current model of capitalism, the economic system in most of the world, is causing growing inequality, both within countries but also between them on the global stage, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday.

Speaking to gathered experts and journalists at the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi, the Russian president said that many people around the world are suffering from disappointed expectations and a lack of prospects, which leads to "uncontrolled migration" as some seek better life opportunities elsewhere.
"Everyone says that the existing model of capitalism, which is now the basis of the social order in the vast majority of countries, has run out of steam. There is no longer any way out of the tangle of more and more confusing contradictions.

"In the richest countries and regions, we see growing inequality of material benefits and of opportunities within society, and at the international level too."
Putin went on to explain that many around the world still suffer from a lack of food, water, and electricity, while others reap the rewards of the system. He called the lack of opportunities for much of the world a great problem.
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Attention

Washington must be going MAD: Nuclear-era logic of Mutually Assured Destruction to make America safe, Chinese media boss jibes


RT
Thu, 21 Oct 2021 15:06 UTC
Rocket launch
© Oscar Sosa/US NAVY/AFP/(inset)Screenshot/Twitter/@HuXijin_GT
Rocket launch
The editor-in-chief of a Chinese state media group subtly mocked the US, suggesting it re-adopt the Cold War doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) after Washington was shocked by Beijing's missile tests.

The Global Times editor-in-chief Hu Xijin mocked Washington in a tweet on Thursday after a week in which the US reiterated its concern and surprise by Chinese hypersonic missile tests in the summer.

Hu was responding to a story published on Thursday from The Financial Times, which stated that China conducted two hypersonic missile tests this summer, and not one as originally reported at the weekend. The state media boss wrote:
"In face of speculation of China's hypersonic weapons, the US needs to keep rationality and returns to the logic of major power game in the nuclear era. MAD [Mutually Assured Destruction] won't make the US unsafe. The US must abandon the crazy idea that it can strike China and Russia, but they can't strike it."
MAD is a doctrine associated with the Cold War era, when both the US and the Soviet Union built up sizeable nuclear arsenals. The doctrine is based on the theory of deterrence, in which neither side will use nuclear weapons against the other on the principle that the other party has the capacity to strike back in equal force.
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MIB

'Mossad espionage network' busted in Turkey: 15 men arrested for spying on Palestinians & foreign students


RT
Thu, 21 Oct 2021 19:20 UTC
turkey arrests mossad spy ring israel
© TRT Haber
Raid by Turkish forces to arrest alleged 'Mossad spy ring'
Turkey's intelligence agency reportedly cracked a Mossad spy ring in an operation earlier this month, exposing five cells and arresting 15 men suspected of conducting covert activities on foreign students and Palestinians.

After tracking the network for over a year, the National Intelligence Organization (MIT) shared the information with counter-terrorism forces. According to the Sabah daily newspaper, a 200-strong team raided the cells in a secret operation across four provinces on October 7.

The Turkish newspaper reported that the arrested men had been instructed to gather information on foreign students, particularly Palestinians, enrolled in Turkish universities - with an eye on those thought to have a future in the defense industry. The spies were also allegedly tasked with looking into a number of other unspecified associations and organizations that hosted Palestinians in Turkey.

Comment: Turkey's intelligence services have been busy. RFE/RL reports:
Turkish authorities have arrested four Russian citizens, one Ukrainian citizen, and one Uzbek national on charges of "military and political espionage" linked to alleged plans to attack Chechen opposition activists residing in Turkey.

The Turkish Prosecutor-General's Office said on October 20 that the men arrested in the cities of Antalya and Istanbul on October 8 are Abdula Abdulayev, Ravshan Akhmedov, Beslan Rasayev, and Aslanbek Abdulmuslimov of Russia; Ihor Yefrim of Ukraine; and Amir Yusupov of Uzbekistan.

The men are also suspected of buying weapons to use against Turkish-based critics of the Kremlin-backed leader of Russia's North Caucasus region of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov.

If convicted, the men face up to 20 years in prison.

Russian officials have yet to comment on the situation.


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