The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a challenge filed by an Arizona resident who had sought to prove claims of election fraud during the Nov. 3 election in her state.

The nine justices, without comment, dismissed (pdf) a request by Pinal County resident Staci Burk to find evidence of election fraud. Burk had sought access to ballots to prove that some were invalid or fraudulent.

Earlier this year, the Arizona Supreme Court issued a ruling that agreed with a trial court judge in Pinal County that Burk lacked the right to contest the election. The reason given was that she wasn't a registered voter at the time she filed her lawsuit, as required in state election contests. Both courts also agreed that she made her legal challenge too late, after the five-day period for filing such an action had passed.

I once thought the internet would have the same effect on corporate media gatekeepers as the AK-47 had on colonial empires in Africa. That was before Big Tech turned that promise of freedom into the second coming of feudalism.

Wednesday's decision by Facebook's "oversight board" - a transparent attempt to outsource responsibility for censorship to an international committee - to extend the ban on 45th US President Donald Trump is just the latest example, but by no means the most egregious. Earlier this week, the banhammer descended on RT's digital project Redfish over posts criticizing... Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini and the Holocaust, of all things.

How did it come to this? Years ago, in an argument over media censorship, I had brought up the internet as the modern version of the AK-47. While the European colonial armies were able to conquer Africa in the 19th century, using machine guns and repeating rifles, they became unable to hold it once the Kalashnikov automatic rifle put the peasants in places like Congo, Angola and Vietnam on equal footing with Western armies seeking to keep them down.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered police to arrest anyone not wearing a mask properly, including below the nose, as the country battles to contain surging COVID-19 infections.

Duterte issued the directive after a meeting with his COVID-19 task force - where everyone except him was seen wearing the mandatory face covering - an official video released late Wednesday showed.

Thousands of people have been punished for violating COVID-19 rules since the end of March, when restrictions were tightened in the capital and surrounding provinces after a spike in cases.

The justice secretary and police chief have urged officers to fine offenders or make them do community service instead of arresting them, following the death of a man forced to do a hundred squats as punishment for breaking curfew.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sounded committed to the idea of a vaccine passport for incoming travelers, but added that implementing the idea would require cooperation from like-minded countries.

"We're still very much in a third wave, we still need to get more and more people vaccinated across this country and get those numbers down. However, we also know that as people start to travel again — perhaps this summer if everything goes well — it would make sense for us to align with partners around the world on some sort of proof of vaccination or vaccine certification," said Trudeau.

The president of Ukraine met with the presidents of NATO members Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland in the latter's capital, Warsaw, on May 3 to solidify cooperation against their common adversaries: Russia and Belarus. The five heads of state signed a joint declaration pledging multifaceted cooperation, including on security concerns.

Ukraine's four partners in the meeting are to the north of it, are on the Baltic Sea and border Russia, its external territory of Kaliningrad and Belarus, Russia's Union State partner. In fact two of them surround Kaliningrad on the land side, two border Russia proper and three border Belarus. All four nations host NATO Battlegroups and U.S. armed forces assigned to the Pentagon's Operation Atlantic Resolve.

An analysis by Mehmet Kanci appeared on the website of Turkey's Anadolu Agency recently, an excerpt from which is worth quoting in extenso:

"In September 2016, General John Abizaid, who had retired as the commander of the US Central Forces (CENTCOM) in 2007, was appointed by then-US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter to advise then-Ukraine Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak. Until Abizaid was appointed as Ambassador to Riyadh in November 2018, he worked systematically to bring the Ukrainian army up to NATO standards. During this time, the US provided the Ukrainian army with communication systems, Javelin anti-tank missiles, and armored vehicles. Although Ukraine is not officially a NATO country, it has attained NATO standards in the last five years thanks to support from Turkey, the US, the UK, and Poland. Ukraine enacted a strategy document in March to reclaim its occupied territories after realizing it had completed its military preparations."

One of the hallmarks of totalitarian systems is the criminalization of dissent. Not just the stigmatization of dissent or the demonization of dissent, but the formal criminalization of dissent, and any other type of opposition to the official ideology of the totalitarian system. Global capitalism has been inching its way toward this step for quite some time, and now, apparently, it is ready to take it.

Germany has been leading the way. For over a year, anyone questioning or protesting the "Covid emergency measures" or the official Covid-19 narrative has been demonized by the government and the media, and, sadly, but not completely unexpectedly, the majority of the German public. And now such dissent is officially "extremism."

Yes, that's right, in "New Normal" Germany, if you dissent from the official state ideology, you are now officially a dangerous "extremist." The German Intelligence agency (the "BfV") has even invented a new category of "extremists" in order to allow themselves to legally monitor anyone suspected of being "anti-democratic and/or delegitimizing the state in a way that endangers security," like ... you know, non-violently protesting, or speaking out against, or criticizing, or satirizing, the so-called "New Normal."

Naturally, I'm a little worried, as I have engaged in most of these "extremist" activities. My thoughtcrimes are just sitting there on the Internet waiting to be scrutinized by the BfV. They're probably Google-translating this column right now, compiling a list of all the people reading it, and their Facebook friends and Twitter followers, and professional associates, and family members, and anyone any of the aforementioned people have potentially met with, or casually mentioned, who might have engaged in similar thoughtcrimes.

A "new" proposal by the Biden administration to create a health-focused federal agency modeled after DARPA is not what it appears to be. Promoted as a way to "end cancer," this resuscitated "health DARPA" conceals a dangerous agenda.

Last Wednesday, President Biden was widely praised in mainstream and health-care-focused media for his call to create a "new biomedical research agency" modeled after the US military's "high-risk, high-reward" Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA. As touted by the president, the agency would seek to develop "innovative" and "breakthrough" treatments for cancer, Alzheimer's disease, and diabetes, with a call to "end cancer as we know it."

Far from "ending cancer" in the way most Americans might envision it, the proposed agency would merge "national security" with "health security" in such as way as to use both physical and mental health "warning signs" to prevent outbreaks of disease or violence before they occur. Such a system is a recipe for a technocratic "pre-crime" organization with the potential to criminalize both mental and physical illness as well as "wrongthink."

The Biden administration has asked Congress for $6.5 billion to fund the agency, which would be largely guided by Biden's recently confirmed top science adviser, Eric Lander. Lander, formerly the head of the Silicon Valley-dominated Broad Institute, has been controversial for his ties to eugenicist and child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and his relatively recent praise for James Watson, an overtly racist eugenicist. Despite that, Lander is set to be confirmed by the Senate and Congress and is reportedly significantly enthusiastic about the proposed new "health DARPA."

A "global reset" is needed to fight future pandemics, Germany's Health Minister Jens Spahn told a World Health Organization (WHO) briefing on Wednesday as the UN agency announced the creation of a new research hub in Berlin.

Spahn highlighted the findings of a review into the global response to the Covid-19 pandemic, which will be officially announced at the WHO's World Health Assembly later this month.

The authors of the report will call for "nothing less than a global reset in pandemic preparedness" and say that the world needs to focus on the "next crisis," Spahn said.

Iranian and Western delegations returned to their capitals after the third Vienna round, with optimism emanating from the statements of the gathered officials. Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi issued positive information about the US lifting sanctions on energy, economic sectors, shipping, freedom of transportation, banks, and on many Iranian personalities. The negotiations have reached a stage where the elaboration of complex texts is on the table. Also, there were talks about the US releasing more than 90 billion dollars withheld from Iranian funds and another 20 billion frozen in Iraq, Korea and China from oil revenues. No details have been discussed so far about the interest on these funds held for many years due to US sanctions.

There was also talk about the possibility of exchanging Iranian prisoners held in America, who number 18, including 7 in critical health condition, and others of Iranian - Western double nationality holders (American and British) detained in Iran on charges of espionage. This is an old Iranian demand that Iran insists on ending everything in one single exchange.

Facebook's Oversight Board ruled on Wednesday morning to uphold the suspension of former President Trump, after banning him from the platform in the wake of the January 6 riot at the Capitol.

However, the Board also called on Facebook to "reexamine" the indefinite nature of the ban, ordering the company to decide on an "appropriate penalty" within six months. The ruling leaves open the possibility that Facebook will restore Trump's account at some point in the future.

"If Facebook determines that Mr. Trump's accounts should be restored, Facebook should apply its rules to that decision," the ruling states.

The Board upheld Facebook's decision to temporarily ban Trump after the riots, saying two of the president's posts on January 6 violated company guidelines.

"The Board found that, in maintaining an unfounded narrative of electoral fraud and persistent calls to action, Mr. Trump created an environment where a serious risk of violence was possible. At the time of Mr. Trump's posts, there was a clear, immediate risk of harm and his words of support for those involved in the riots legitimized their violent actions."